Ready and Delay

Discussion of initiative tool.

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Blakey
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Ready and Delay

Post by Blakey »

A question about how Ready and Delay should work.

I thought that when a character delayed it was effectively taken totally out of the initiative until such time as it choses to come back in - when it takes its action immediately after the current creatures turn. Which is to say it doesn't stay in its place in the Init sequence and thus each round the DM should not be asking that player if they want to continue to delay. They are effectively out of the combat until they choose to re-enter.

Ready works differently - each round if the readied condition has not been activated you automatically come out of ready on your go and have your go as normal. You are of course allowed to ready once more. So when readied you stay in the init sequence. But delay doesn't work that way.

Am I correct in my understanding? Or is my understanding of how the rules work incorrect?

If that is the case then Init Tool has a very minor flaw in that it does give a delayed person a go each round. And equally it should automatically drop a readied person out of that state when their go comes around again but it doesn't.


(In terms of when a readied or delayed person gets their go, Init Tool so far seems to have it absolutely spot on. Good stuff!)

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Post by Steel Rat »

Sounds correct, except that if the Ready is triggered then the char's init becomes that init, so they would move in the init sequence as if they had delayed to that point.
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Post by giliath »

While you are technically correct, I am hesitant to remove anyone from the list so that large complex combats don't end up losing people. We could maybe make it an option to automatically skip Delayed characters so that it leaves them in the list but moves on to the creatures after them if it gets to that creature.
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Post by Steel Rat »

They wouldn't be removed, only change sequence.
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Post by jay »

IMO removing combatants from the initiative is a bad idea. It would be way to easy to forget that they are there if not shown in the list. This is especially true for the DM who has to keep track of multiple combatants. So they are left in the initiative order at their current initiative. In our games the DM usually asks a player if they are still delaying when their original turn shows up in the initiative. So I made the default give them initiative again on their next turn. You can turn this off on the Wait States tab of the Tools->Game Settings dialog. Select the Delay wait state and then make sure the Skip check box is checked. This will leave the delayed players in the initiative so that you don't forget them (all wait states do this), but cause Init Tool to automatically skip over them to the next item in initiative order.

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Post by Blakey »

jay wrote:IMO removing combatants from the initiative is a bad idea. It would be way to easy to forget that they are there if not shown in the list. This is especially true for the DM who has to keep track of multiple combatants. So they are left in the initiative order at their current initiative. In our games the DM usually asks a player if they are still delaying when their original turn shows up in the initiative. So I made the default give them initiative again on their next turn. You can turn this off on the Wait States tab of the Tools->Game Settings dialog. Select the Delay wait state and then make sure the Skip check box is checked. This will leave the delayed players in the initiative so that you don't forget them (all wait states do this), but cause Init Tool to automatically skip over them to the next item in initiative order.
That's perfect Jay - just the behaviour I was after. Sorry, I didn't mean for the delayed person to be totally removed from the list (okay, I mnight have said it) I did mean that they shouldn't come up in the Init order when it would otherwise be their go. So that's 100% solved. Thanks.



What about Ready? A readied character should auto drop out of Ready state when their turn comes around again...
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Post by jay »

IT can't do that yet. I'll add a tracker.

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Post by Blakey »

jay wrote:IT can't do that yet. I'll add a tracker.
Actually it might be nice if this was a preference as I suspect many times a player will stay readied when they are readied in the same way that they stay delayed - so rather than the DM having to re-click them into the ready state you might have a preference that they stay readied when its their turn again by default and the DM has to get them out of ready state when they take their go.

Preferences are good. :D
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Post by dorpond »

I currently do this:

"OK, Jack, you were delaying that whole last round. It has come back around to you, do you wish to continue delaying?"

and

"Chris, you were readying but it was never triggered. It is your turn now again." and I hit the 'Remove wait state' button.

I really see no issues with the way it is currently. Plus with readys and delays, I sometimes want them before and sometimes after the currently selected player and that is because some ready's just don't make sense to occur before the player. This is a good example:

Player1: I ready to shoot an arrow at the mage if he becomes visible.
Player2: I will cast fairy Fire over here.
*Monster becomes visible*
Now how on earth would that readied player1 be able to go before Player2? He wouldn't have seen him. So I play more logical than by the book when I use readys and delays.

Actually I wonder if we could have a couple more buttons:
Currently we have the 'Exit the current wait state and go now' button but I personally would rather have two more options: Insert After Current Player (and) Insert Before Current Player. This way when the ready/delay is activated, I can place that character before or after the currently selected character.

When I currently screw up and insert him in the wrong place, I just drag him into the proper order so it isn't a big deal really.

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Post by jay »

Blakey wrote:Preferences are good. :D
I pretty much make everything in Init Tool a preference. I'll add it to the Wait States so the GM can make as many of these type of states as they need.

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Post by jay »

dorpond wrote:Actually I wonder if we could have a couple more buttons:
Currently we have the 'Exit the current wait state and go now' button but I personally would rather have two more options: Insert After Current Player (and) Insert Before Current Player. This way when the ready/delay is activated, I can place that character before or after the currently selected character.

When I currently screw up and insert him in the wrong place, I just drag him into the proper order so it isn't a big deal really.
I'll add a tracker for this.

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Post by jay »

Blakey wrote:What about Ready? A readied character should auto drop out of Ready state when their turn comes around again...
This will be available in the next release of Init Tool 1.1

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