Does "Delay" Delay the Game?

[Easy_Lee]

Most of the tables I've played at allow players to delay their turn. The player says, "I'll delay until after X turn," the DM moves the player's initiative, and the game keeps going.

I've seen the argument that this delays the game. Some people seem to think that holding an action, as per the current hold rules, is fine. But they think that being able to delay your turn leads to slow combats and repetitive strategies.

I don't understand this. How could this be the case? Does anyone have examples from play where delaying a turn delayed the game, but not being able to delay the turn would have resulted in a faster combat?

[Avonar]

If players declare when initiative is first rolled that they wish to lower their initiative, I don't have a problem with that. Not sure how it would slow things down either, unless the players spend minutes debating which order to go in. Never seen that happen.

[Tanarii]

IMO & based on my 3e & 4e experiencess, it often causes confusion about the initiative order. And that is what slows down the game. So does the Ready action. (edit: I mean so does the ready when it changes the init order. Which I'm actually not sure it does in 3e or 4e, so ignore that if I'm recalling that part incorrectly.)

That said, I often do a variant on "Side" initiative for 5e, when there is just one initiative value for a small group of single-type enemies/monsters:
Players all roll individual initiative for their PCs.
PCs with rolls higher than monsters get to act first, any order.
Monsters act, in any order.
All PCs act, in any order.
Repeat monsters in any order, PCs in any order.

It's a little bit screwy sometimes with 'end of your next turn' and 'start of your next turn' effects, so I tend to still keep the init values rolled jotted down. (Although sometimes I forget and just have to figure it out on the fly.)

This doesn't significantly slow down combat. It actually speeds it up, and removes the vast majority of "Delay" needs. If players want to act in response to a Monster, they can still use the Ready action.

In any battle with different types of monsters using individual init rolls, or a large or important battle, I run initiative BtB.

[strangebloke]

Most of the tables I've played at allow players to delay their turn. The player says, "I'll delay until after X turn," the DM moves the player's initiative, and the game keeps going.

I've seen the argument that this delays the game. Some people seem to think that holding an action, as per the current hold rules, is fine. But they think that being able to delay your turn leads to slow combats and repetitive strategies.

I don't understand this. How could this be the case? Does anyone have examples from play where delaying a turn delayed the game, but not being able to delay the turn would have resulted in a faster combat?

I allow it.

There's no reason not to. If you have a initiative tracker (and you should) it's a perfectly simple thing to do.

[Theodoxus]

At that point, why roll initiative? Have the players discuss their general strategy for typical encounters: "Ok, if we get ambushed by goblins, Bob the Wizard will cast Web, then Tim the sorcerer paladin will rush in, granting Harry the rogue a sneak attack buddy. However, if we get attacked by an ogre, Tim will run in first, Bob will cast Hypnotic Pattern and Harry will pepper it with arrows..."

Basically, if the group decides who is going to go first, and everyone else has their preferred place in the initiative order, and you allow delaying them to do such - which is just a houserule anyway for 5E (though a common request at my tables too) - why bother rolling? Side initiative makes as much sense at that point - know in general if the players or the monsters are acting first and just go with that...

It's tantamount to letting the players have a sidebar after they roll initiative, to have a chance to talk out of earshot of the DM who's going to call out which number. So, if you're gonna "cheat" (and I honestly think at this point initiative is highly overrated, much like alignment - for things that should probably just disappear) might as well make it official.

[Tanarii]

On allowing PCs to go in any order:
1) Individual initiative still matters in round 1.
2) You don't have to allow table talk of who goes when to allow them to go in any order at the table. You just ask "who's next?". If they start table talking, just have the monsters act while their characters suddenly huddle up to decide what order they're going to act in.
3) I have no problems with players discussing plans on what to do in certain combats before combat. In fact, I strongly encourage it.

I also have a rule that table talk is overheard (in general terms, not exact wording) by those around the PC of the player doing it, unless it's directed at me as the DM telling me what your character is doing.

But like I said, I run anything more complicated that a straight forward simple combat vs a reasonable number of the same type of enemy by strict initiative order. It's not an issue in those small, quick and simple fights, especially since I'm also running those by TotM anyway. Anything that keeps them fast (and usually sudden) is good. It's all about pacing.

[Alatar]

At that point, why roll initiative?

Initiative is deeply embedded in the game. There are classes and subclasses with bonuses to Initiative. There is the Alert feat.

The effectiveness of AOE spells is often significantly impacted by Initiative. If you are a tactically minded player, seizing the Initiative can allow you to greatly influence the complexion of an encounter. It really does matter who goes first and who goes last. Is everyone still clustered together, posing for that fireball, or are they not?

If you chose to dump Dex when you built your character, you are going to be paying that fine for the whole campaign, starting every encounter on your back foot. Certainly, it might have been the right choice, but some choices are expensive, which is what makes building a character interesting.

So messing about with Initiative in a cavalier fashion will have cascading effects on gameplay.

We live without Delay in my group, because it's not a thing in 5e, and some of us do miss it. I don't think houseruling Delay back into the game is a big problem; it doesn't seem too cavalier a thing to do. But doing without Delay, living with the constraints imposed by its absence, can be interesting as well.

[Demonslayer666]

Most of the tables I've played at allow players to delay their turn. The player says, "I'll delay until after X turn," the DM moves the player's initiative, and the game keeps going.

I've seen the argument that this delays the game. Some people seem to think that holding an action, as per the current hold rules, is fine. But they think that being able to delay your turn leads to slow combats and repetitive strategies.

I don't understand this. How could this be the case? Does anyone have examples from play where delaying a turn delayed the game, but not being able to delay the turn would have resulted in a faster combat?

Because players don't use delay to got after X, they use it to go sometime later in the turn. This confuses turn order for other players, and results in flat out forgetting someone was delaying.

Delay is also used as a delay tactic by a player when they don't know what to do. They use it to gain more time to think about what to do instead of making a combat decision.

[Easy_Lee]

Because players don't use delay to got after X, they use it to go sometime later in the turn. This confuses turn order for other players, and results in flat out forgetting someone was delaying.

Delay is also used as a delay tactic by a player when they don't know what to do. They use it to gain more time to think about what to do instead of making a combat decision.

Traditionally, delay changes your initiative position permanently. As the DM is the one keeping track of that, it shouldn't be any more effort for him. And if players want to move their initiative to a later point so they can make a better decision, why is that a problem?

Seems to me that the only argument against Delay is "I've played with some bad players and I wish they would hurry up." There are many other ways to resolve that problem without punishing everyone else.

[Laserlight]

Back in college we played something, may not have been D&D, in which delaying was common; I remember a ruling that you could only delay until the negative of your original initiative. The guy whose initiative was 18 could go before the guy at 12, but if they both wanted to wait for the other guy to do something, the 18 could outwait the 12. It took extra time but that's not the same as "delayed the game"--we were making a tactical choice, not just saying "Um...."

At my table we use side initiative because I want my players to be able to coordinate, with the archer getting a shot before the shieldmaster knocks down the target. I wouldn't have a problem with someone saying "I delay until after Tom"; just cross out "Bob 18" and write it in at "Tom 12, Bob 11".

[Gorgo]

IMO, the problem with delaying actions isn't the changes in the initiative order, it's that, done some ways, it leads to interrupting things and switching back and forth between players multiple times/round. Having Bob say at the start of the combat "I want to go after Sara" is a minor speedbump. Having Bob say in a given round "I want to delay and go at some later point" often leads to Bob deciding that the point where he wants to act is during someone else describing what they want to do on their turn, which interrupts that player, causes a focus shift, etc. In the worst case, Bob now winds up asking questions of the DM during every other player's initiative in order to figure out when he wants to act.

The game does support readying on a specific thing happening as a lower-overhead way of reacting to actions.

[Temperjoke]

I don't think it would slow the game down unless a DM was allowing them to do it every turn, treating it like they were holding their action. Then I could see it causing a problem.

On the other hand, this just sparked an idea for a time-manipulation based class that had the power to change it's initiative position each round as a class or subclass ability.

[mephnick]

I made the original complaint in the other thread, but my views have already been stated by others well enough.

My other con to Delay is my opinion that it actually makes the game less strategic, not more, promoting a repetitive, optimal strategy every combat as opposed to reacting to the situation put in front of you. I find Ready a much better mechanic to promote strategy, though it may be a bit inelegant.

[Theodoxus]

-snip-

Right. Which was basically my point. Allowing people to delay, to reorder the initiative in any fashion they want, destroys everything you preached on.

I had that issue with a swashbuckler that took Alert. Having a +15 Initiative sounded awesome. Nearly every new combat, I'd have to Ready an action to avoid being beaten to death, or do nothing the first turn. Once melee combat started, and I wasn't perceived as a threat, it was great... with a Delay option, it would negate all the massive bonuses to initiative I had purposefully built in.

So, as I said - at that point, you might as well not have initiative.

[guachi]

I find "Delay" delays the game. I'm always pushing my players to declare and execute their Actions in combat faster. The faster declaration and execution happen the faster combat is over and the more we can do in a session.

I guess I'd be fine with a player, after initiative is rolled, being able to adjust his initiative by, say, -5 as long as he declared he was doing so before the first person took an action.

You get one quick chance to adjust your initiative and then we go.

[Tanarii]

Traditionally, delay changes your initiative position permanently. As the DM is the one keeping track of that, it shouldn't be any more effort for him. And if players want to move their initiative to a later point so they can make a better decision, why is that a problem?If you insist on keeping track of initiative strictly and personally ... players still get confused. Delay results in a lot of "wait, shouldn't it be Fred's turn before the Minotaur?" Even if you use a white board that lists init. Screwing with the initiative order permanently is the primary reason Delay was a problem.

[Easy_Lee]

If you insist on keeping track of initiative strictly and personally ... players still get confused. Delay results in a lot of "wait, shouldn't it be Fred's turn before the Minotaur?" Even if you use a white board that lists init. Screwing with the initiative order permanently is the primary reason Delay was a problem.

Never seen that happen except in cases where the DM legitimately did skip someone's turn. But maybe my experience differs from yours.

[Tanarii]

Never seen that happen except in cases where the DM legitimately did skip someone's turn. But maybe my experience differs from yours.Differing experiences happen. :smallwink:

How many players did you used to play with in 3e? Big groups or small ones? Lots of different enemy types/initiatives or only a few, as a general rule? How often was Delay used as a tactic?

Thinking about my own questions now that I've typed them, my experience was both smaller & bigger groups, but Delay wasn't often used. Something disrupting the flow in a group that doesn't often have disruptions to the flow is probably the thing I noticed. I can't recall if I saw it as a problem when it did happen in bigger groups rather than smaller, but I think that's likely. Those are the groups I noticed anything that caused a slowdown to the flow of combat more, since they're usually slower, or at least seem slower due to smaller ratio of turn time per individual player.

[BB944]

I think that it is worth mentioning that it is considered 'cheating' ...

IIRC the DMG stated that delaying your action can result in extended effects like "until the start of your next turn"

It is 100% outlawed at my table. The only way that a player at my table can go 'after' someone later in their initiative order is by using the "ready action".

But I always allow players to choose who 'wins' a tie if it is between two players.

just my two cents

[BB944]

As an update... it was NOT the DMG

It was from Sage Advice: Rules Answered 2015
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/rules-answers-august-2015


Can you delay your turn and take it later in the round? Nope. When it’s your turn, either you do something or you don’t. If you don’t want to do anything, consider taking the Dodge action so that you’ll, at least, have some extra protection. If you want to wait to act in response to something, take the Ready action, which lets you take part of your turn later.

For a variety of reasons, we didn’t include the option to delay your turn:

Your turn involves several decisions, including where to move and what action to take. If you could delay your turn, your decision-making would possibly become slower, since you would have to consider whether you wanted to take your turn at all. Multiply that extra analysis by the number of characters and monsters in a combat, and you have the potential for many slowdowns in play.
The ability to delay your turn can make initiative meaningless, as characters and monsters bounce around in the initiative order. If combatants can change their place in the initiative order at will, why use initiative at all? On top of that, changing initiative can easily turn into an unwelcome chore, especially for the DM, who might have to change the initiative list over and over during a fight.
Being able to delay your turn can let you wreak havoc on the durations of spells and other effects, particularly any of them that last until your next turn. Simply by changing when your turn happens, you could change the length of certain spells. The way to guard against such abuse would be to create a set of additional rules that would limit your ability to change durations. The net effect? More complexity would be added to the game, and with more complexity, there is greater potential for slower play.

Two of our goals for combat were for it to be speedy and for initiative to matter. We didn’t want to start every combat by rolling initiative and then undermine turn order with a delay option. Moreover, we felt that toying with initiative wasn’t where the focus should be in battle. Instead, the dramatic actions of the combatants should be the focus, with turns that could happen as quickly as possible. Plus, the faster your turn ends, the sooner you get to take your next turn.

[Zalabim]

Most of the tables I've played at allow players to delay their turn. The player says, "I'll delay until after X turn," the DM moves the player's initiative, and the game keeps going.

I've seen the argument that this delays the game. Some people seem to think that holding an action, as per the current hold rules, is fine. But they think that being able to delay your turn leads to slow combats and repetitive strategies.

I don't understand this. How could this be the case? Does anyone have examples from play where delaying a turn delayed the game, but not being able to delay the turn would have resulted in a faster combat?

I primarily saw (and see, since I play in multiple games) Delay used as "I delay." Nothing more. Then they watch the combat and jump in later, interrupting the DM and someone else's turn. Yes, this gives that player more time to plan their turn, but it gives everyone else less time. It disrupts the game and slows it down every time.

In the form of "i want to go after X", I would just say "you already go after X. You also get to go before X. Everyone takes turns cyclically." Usually this is further explained as "I want to go immediately after X, so I can follow up on what X does or react to what X does before anyone else." To this, I would say (since it hasn't come up in a game), "So does everyone else. Normally initiative is used to resolve that. The Ready action specifically exists for this situation." Is there a color for munchkins asking 'innocent' questions and evil DMs shutting them down or belittling them? Because there's the rules, and the simulated reality, but there's also the real reality of I don't really care.

[Laserlight]

The major problem with ”stick strictly with initiative as rolled” is that in real life, you actually CAN wait for the guy ahead of you to move and do stuff, before you move and do stuff. I would permit Delay because D&D is not a simulation but there's no reason for it to be gratuitously nonsensical either. (At my table, we use side initiative for this reason).

It's annoying that the main factor in initiative is not ”how fast you are” but ”how well you roll”. Sure, the +4 is better than the -1 overall, but a roll of 18 is going to beat a roll of 2. Rather than roll d20, I could stand to see initiative rolled on a d10, or d6.

[Easy_Lee]

In the form of "i want to go after X", I would just say "you already go after X. You also get to go before X. Everyone takes turns cyclically." Usually this is further explained as "I want to go immediately after X, so I can follow up on what X does or react to what X does before anyone else." To this, I would say (since it hasn't come up in a game), "So does everyone else. Normally initiative is used to resolve that. The Ready action specifically exists for this situation." Is there a color for munchkins asking 'innocent' questions and evil DMs shutting them down or belittling them? Because there's the rules, and the simulated reality, but there's also the real reality of I don't really care.

Cheeky. What would you do if your players said, "we want to form a shield wall and move as a unit"? What if one of your players cast darkness on himself, and the players wanted to run as a group under its cover?
Presumably, you would enforce strict initiative and neither strategy would work, in spite of these being reasonable and realistic things to do.

[Corsair14]

I use a form of delay as Holding my action. Say I have a commander character overseeing his minions work and PCs try to rush past all the intervening models to get to him. If it is important to the scenario I will have him hold action and wait for this and when the PCs charge I will have him move away. PCs don't like it but story is more important than rules and this is one that should have been there from the get go.

[Easy_Lee]

Just to be clear, I understand why they don't want players to act on the same turn as enemies. If it were possible, then rogue archers would be frequently impossible to catch due to cunning action: dash. That would require DMs to be more clever with enemies and could result in prolonged waiting games, just like in real life warfare.

That said, players should be able to move on other players' turns at a minimum. There are way too many strategies that rely on positioning which become impossible otherwise. And it wouldn't slow down the game in the slightest to let players move together, even if they acted separately. I think that would be a reasonable compromise.

[strangebloke]

I made the original complaint in the other thread, but my views have already been stated by others well enough.

My other con to Delay is my opinion that it actually makes the game less strategic, not more, promoting a repetitive, optimal strategy every combat as opposed to reacting to the situation put in front of you. I find Ready a much better mechanic to promote strategy, though it may be a bit inelegant.
I just feel bad for rogues.

They're a skirmisher melee class that benefits from having allies in melee. Their typically high dex means that they often go first, and on their first turn... They have nothing useful to do.

Delaying may make things more predictable, but sometimes it will be letting 2 or three groups of enemies move unimpeded. If you're using interesting maps (with chokepoints etc) this can be very very bad. Moreover, it's very reasonable that a character can wait for a teammate before going in. So I allow it.

IMO, the problem with delaying actions isn't the changes in the initiative order, it's that, done some ways, it leads to interrupting things and switching back and forth between players multiple times/round. Having Bob say at the start of the combat "I want to go after Sara" is a minor speedbump. Having Bob say in a given round "I want to delay and go at some later point" often leads to Bob deciding that the point where he wants to act is during someone else describing what they want to do on their turn, which interrupts that player, causes a focus shift, etc. In the worst case, Bob now winds up asking questions of the DM during every other player's initiative in order to figure out when he wants to act.

The game does support readying on a specific thing happening as a lower-overhead way of reacting to actions.

I only allow delaying until after an ally's action.. An arbitrary delay would be comparable to a prepared action... which we already have.

[Zejety]

I just feel bad for rogues.

They're a skirmisher melee class that benefits from having allies in melee. Their typically high dex means that they often go first, and on their first turn... They have nothing useful to do.
Our table plays without delaying and the Rogue routinely uses the Ready action and it worked fine so far.

"I ready an action to fire my bow at the first hostile to get within 5 feet of an ally.", or even the in-character thought process, "I draw my bow and patiently wait for an enemy to expose its weak point."
Melee is slightly more conditional but easy to do when the DM makes the initiative order public (our Rogue almost exclusively melees).

[Tanarii]

The major problem with ”stick strictly with initiative as rolled” is that in real life, you actually CAN wait for the guy ahead of you to move and do stuff, before you move and do stuff.You can already do this with the Ready action.

Same with moving as a Shield Wall or running together under the cover of darkness. (Although this requires the DM to gloss over movement being no-simultaneous within the rules. But at least with Ready that makes more sense, since it's triggered.)

Reasons people primarily want with a Delay action, as opposed to a Ready action, is to be able to take a full action and move. Not 'simulation'.

Ready already gives you an action or a move. That makes it a tactically interesting choice. Delay isn't really an interesting choice.

Edit: you can also get both by literally waiting for the other guy to move and do stuff. Take the dodge action, and after the other guy moves and does stuff, you move and do stuff on your next turn. You're only limited to moving or doing stuff (not both) if you want to do it at a specific point in the turn order other than your own.

[Vaz]

I allow players to exchange their entire turn (movement et al) to modify their initiative order to be one below that of a chosen creature.

It hasn't sufficiently altered game length.

You cannot move with a Ready Action. So you cannot move as a Shiled Wall.

[Easy_Lee]

I allow players to exchange their entire turn (movement et al) to modify their initiative order to be one below that of a chosen creature.

It hasn't sufficiently altered game length.

You cannot move with a Ready Action. So you cannot move as a Shiled Wall.

You can move up to your movement speed with a readied action - basically a dash. But you can't do anything else with your action that turn. So, unless you have bonus actions, you spend your entire action just trying to stay next to someone. By the RAW, players can't even walk alongside each other without spending all of their effort to do so.

[Vaz]

You can Dash, but all that does is increase you speed, it doesn't actually let you move.

[Tanarii]

Generally speaking, there's no big problem considering them moving simultaneously, provided no enemies have turns in between.

But when it's a question of resolution of something, yeah, one is always considered to have moved first.

This is mostly a problem in an advancing shield wall or charging in formation. Mostly I've only seen that in movies, so I take it with a grain of salt. But it's always depicted as taking effort and concentration to do that while moving. Then they stop when stabbing time comes, or break ranks and charge wildly.

That's all doable with the Ready action and a little bit of DM leeway on simultaneity of movement.

Edit: Vaz, RAW the Ready action allows you to Ready movement directly.

[Vaz]

Thanks for confirmation, sorry AFB

[Easy_Lee]

I let players move together if they choose. Since this is already possible if the two are mounted on the same creature or otherwise attached to one another, I don't see it as a problem. If I were to codify it, I might write it like so:

Follow: on your turn, you can choose to follow a friendly creature. If you do, then you spend remaining movement from your turn on that creature's turn when that creature moves. You can choose the route you move, but must end your movement as close to that creature as your movement allows.

[Tanarii]

Makes sense to me at first glance.

But my point was IMO moving together should probably take extra effort. So Follow should be an Action. Or just use the Ready action, and change it to allow the movement to work as Follow if the trigger is an allies movement.

I mean, remember I'm the one that started off by saying in quick and dirty battles I just let players take their turns in any order between enemy turns. So clearly I'm more inclined to be restrictive when evaluating proposed rulings on forums or out of game, and a bit more permissive when I run a game. :smallwink:

[strangebloke]

Our table plays without delaying and the Rogue routinely uses the Ready action and it worked fine so far.

"I ready an action to fire my bow at the first hostile to get within 5 feet of an ally.", or even the in-character thought process, "I draw my bow and patiently wait for an enemy to expose its weak point."
Melee is slightly more conditional but easy to do when the DM makes the initiative order public (our Rogue almost exclusively melees).

This strat denies them the ability to use their reaction, and usually wastes their bonus action as well.

Additionally, on the following round, he'll want to put away his bow and draw a sword, and by RAW he can't, since you only get one item interaction per action. So he'd draw his bow as part of his prepared action, and then he'd have to drop it on the next turn to draw his weapon.

Actually, he'd need three item interactions on the following turn if he's duel-wielding, although I've never seen a DM that would enforce that.

It's hell on the Rogues action economy.

[mephnick]

This strat denies them the ability to use their reaction, and usually wastes their bonus action as well..

He can still Dash, Hide or Disengage. Dash somewhere and Ready a shot. Hide somewhere and Ready a shot. Dash into melee and Ready an attack when the Fighter gets there. Disengage, move through enemies and Ready an Action for when a spell effect goes off. Rogues have tons of options with their bonus actions and you pretty much have to try and waste it.

[greenstone]

And if players want to move their initiative to a later point so they can make a better decision, why is that a problem?
Because the game includes mechanics that last "until the start of your next turn."
Delaying could allow two turns worth of benefit from things like shield.

Then again, this is not really a "problem", more just "something to think about and decide on before you decide to allow delaying."

[Vaz]

Because the game includes mechanics that last "until the start of your next turn."
Delaying could allow two turns worth of benefit from things like shield.

Then again, this is not really a "problem", more just "something to think about and decide on before you decide to allow delaying."

So rule that they can change their initiative order immediately after resolving any effects that take place at the start of their turn? Is that so hard?

[Beaureguard]

The only way I see that it delays the game is that it gives indecisive players an acceptable choice when they can't make up their minds. Back in 3e I remember a player who would take forever on his turn and when the DM started a countdown for the first time he'd hold his initiative. It'd result in two instances of him being indecisive in the first round of every combat for that session. It was a resolved, but it was a one time minor issue.

Personally, I think delaying makes sense as long as the delay is permanent. If you act first, you can't delay until the end of the first round and then take two turns in a row. However, if the rogue is quick, alert, and on his toes, there's no reason why, instead of acting, he couldn't wait. It often makes sense in combat for non tactical reasons as well. Let's say the bard and an NPC are having a negotiation. The rogue is watching closely because things are touch and go, but the bard told him going in that he was confident things would be resolved peacefully. He was wrong, and things aren't going well. The NPC yells "I'll have your head for that" and the DM says roll initiative. Now the rogue is ready to act first, but apart from the DM cue, he may not be sure that combat is imminent, after all the bard assured him it wasn't going to happen. That leaves two options right now. Either he misses the first round despite the fact that he was watching for things to go wrong, or he uses a ready action that severely limits his options. Instead it makes much more sense that he'd wait for some other confirmation of combat before he decided to do anything, but he'd be ready to leap the moment he decided that all avenues for negotiation were over. If he delays, he stays delayed, but it just makes sense to me.

[Tanarii]

So rule that they can change their initiative order immediately after resolving any effects that take place at the start of their turn? Is that so hard?
Yeah. 4e had explicit rules for this, since there were lots and lots of effects that went to end of next turn or start of next turn. It means something else to keep track of, which may add time, but it's not some insurmountable issue.

In fact, it's considerably better than my "in any order you want" handling. That makes start / end of turn effects a pain to adjudicate at times. It's not horrible, because what usually matters is relative between PC's and monsters, not among PC's or among monsters. But not always.

[Demonslayer666]

Traditionally, delay changes your initiative position permanently. As the DM is the one keeping track of that, it shouldn't be any more effort for him. And if players want to move their initiative to a later point so they can make a better decision, why is that a problem?

Seems to me that the only argument against Delay is "I've played with some bad players and I wish they would hurry up." There are many other ways to resolve that problem without punishing everyone else.

Yes, that's how we play it too.

It is more effort for the DM. When a player delays, they don't pick an initiative or person to follow. They just delay, and when they want to, they can take their turn. This puts the player in limbo out of the initiative order, and is harder to track. It's confusing to the other players because the turn order changed. They will start their turn and have to backtrack. Additionally, the delayer will sometimes forget they are delaying until the middle of the next turn. If two people delay, it really screws up the entire flow of combat. If everyone delays, it's really silly now.

Conceptually, I don't have a problem with delay. It makes logical sense. But for game play, it is much better to keep turn order.

I like the idea of forcing a player who delays to make a decision right then where they move to in initiative. But I will continue to discourage delaying in my games, and make them ready actions instead if they want to react to something.

[Easy_Lee]

Well, I still stand by what I said. I don't think permanently lowering your initiative is a problem as long as you state exactly where you want to be placed. But, for tables that don't allow it, it should at least be possible for players to move as a unit without spending their actions on Ready.