Can you do it? Is it somewhere in the rules?

Sometimes in combat, a player wants to see what his opponent is doing before acting, BUT he has higher initiative. Can he intentionally choose to wait, thus lowering his intiative?

Seems logical but I wanted to make sure if it's in the rules.

Roy.

Just to be clear you know that the initiative you rolled at the start of combat only creates an initiative slot. It's doesn't lock that character in from always acting on that segment. Once the initiative slots are determined the players can decide on a round to round basis at which point on the track they want to go, so if you rolled init 3 at the start but someone else rolled init 1 you can choose to go on init 1. But that means another character would go on init 3.

So with that in mind. I can still see a case for lowering your initiative because if everyone went on 3 but the monsters all went on 2 or 1, but you wanted to see what the monsters do. So you are basically trying to hold your action.

There are no specific rules for doing that but I think some common sense and some description can go a long way. So if you go on three and want to see what the monsters are doing I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the GM - what do the monsters look like they are doing. While I don't think the GM should be expected to give out details. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "they look like they are getting ready to charger" or "they are readying their spears" etc... Then you can act on that knowledge still on whatever current initiative you are at.

If that's not enough and you really want to wait until the monsters are charging or the spears are in the air. Personally as a GM I'd say you've missed your chance this round or I'd recommend you use action cards like guarded position or assess the situation. Because effectively that's what you are actually doing, you are preparing for the attack or trying to figure out what they are doing. Maybe some sort of Perform a stunt as well.

Officially there isn't a rule that I remember ever reading to allow it. But a house rule it's probably not a game breaker to simply choose to lower your initiative space on the tracker. But with that in mind that would permanently lower that spot, the same way as if you were acting cautiously and got a delay.

One of the many things I liked a lot about Second Edition was that the Delay action was a Half Action. That meant that if your character wanted to see what he's opponents were going to do, he would ready himself, delaying his action. This readiness was a Half Action on itself, which meant your character wuold be able to respond to what his opponent would do, but not with the same flexibility or fullness as if he was acting normally.

I think we can House Rule something for Third Ed based on this. I would state something like this:

Delaying your action is a Manoeuvre. It would effectively mean to take an Initiative Token and put it on another space lower in the Init Track. A character delaying his action would mean slowing the possibilities of the entire group from then on. Using the Delay action needs the Player to say beforehand when his character will act, so the Token is immediately put on that place on the Init Track. He would then take his turn normally, except that he would already had used his Free Manouvre, so any Manouvre used would generate Fatigue.

Readying and Action is another matter. It is also a Manoeuvre. When Readying an Action, the PC states which Action he will use, responding to which circumstance. For exemple, "I'll use Ranged Shot when the first beastman turns the corner of the wall." It is not possible to chance teh Action Card to be used. If the situation doesn't occur, the character gets to use one free Manoeuvre at the 0 space of the Init Track (plus any other Manouvres gaining Fatigue), but not any Action Card. The Init Tokens remain as they were before the Ready Manoeuvre was taken, this manoeuvre doesn't change any Init Token order.

What do you think?

Personally that seems like an overly complicated way to just allowing someone to lower their initiative. Just doing so is a penalty already that affects the whole group and the only way to bump it back up again would be to waste an action on assessing the situation.

I really don't think so, as I can imagine situations when those manoeuvres can be used strategically, or when my players will want to use them. And Ready wouldn't lower the Initiative Token. Then again, I personally really miss something like Ready.

But thanks for your opinion!

You can't lower initiative, but in the rally step you can reroll the lowest.

There is a card (can't remember the name right now) however that allows a player to put an extra initiative token on the track, giving the group as a whole an extra action in the round. Very powerful effect indeed.

I don't offhand recall seeing that card, anyone have a quote?

Also, does it supersede the 'any player can only act once in the span of a round' rule?

shinma said:

I don't know to be honest. I'm not home, so I can't check the card, but it's there. The strict ruling of the card may be to give the players another initiative space, but not allowing an extra action - just a choice of when to act and what initiative space not to use. It's just my very personal interpretation of the card, because I like how it gives the players more tactical options and one extra action for the whole group won't unbalance anything.

Gallows said:

Its still good, but not AS good as another action...

Sausageman said:

Yeah I know, but like the house ruling that it gives the group another action entirely. They do lose an attack on the round it's used though.

I had a char asking for this. But I told him he couldn't while being in reckless mode.

It hasn't been brought up again, but if someone in conservative wanted to do it. I'd allow them to lower it as much as they were in conservative stance. But would also add 1 extra recharge token for each initiative downgrade when they rolled "Delay".

For now, my current group struggles to learn the ropes of combat

Thanks for the replies interesting discussion.

Spivo said:

I like the idea that in reckless stance this cannot be done. Emphasizes stances a bit more. Didn't get the extra tokens though for Conservative stance.

I'll run it by my players.

Point was, that lowering your initiative is kinda like pausing a bit, and sometimes this will allow you to act at the right moment, but this can also mean the events taking place "runs" from you, and you miss it.

This allready lies in acting "conservative", but here you add 2 tokens only. If you were to act even more conservative (directly pausing), you risk loosing out on even more things.

If all the good guys act before all the bad guys act, and you want to see what the bad guys do and then respond to it, then just act first next round. It doesn't matter in which round it officially is; the timing is the same.