Fenric said:

A really solid solution. Unfortunately, the delay description makes it clear that it ends your turn. So, at the very least it's a new turn (though nowhere does it indicate that you create a mini turn) so keyword limits still don't apply, at the very least.

if it is the case that it is a new turn then delay as it exists will never grant an action, as the wording states that the half action must be used before your next turn or you lose it. by saying that the half action creates a new turn it would therefore be lost.

If the half action granted is not a new turn for the player, then the rules regarding only one action of any type come back into play.

I agree the rules as they are written are wooley at best and coud do with better clarification.the rules state that the turn ends but also conversly do not state that a new turn is begun when the half action is used, it does however say that the half action must be used before the next turn or be lost , by inference the half acion is part of the same turnt it was declared.

Fenric said:

Between the highest initiative acting in a round, and the same again next round, each player gets one 'turn'. That's a fundamental part of the system and anyone arguing it needs to go back to basics. The comments about ending turns and multiple of the same action types are therefore moot.

Kasatka said:

I'm going to (far more calmly) agree with mort guys. The point of delay is to allow a character to react to what he/she thinks is coming. If you make your awareness test and notice an enemy hiding in cover waiting to ambush you, and as a result get a higher initiative you can delay your half action to make your action interrupt your opponents turn. You are effectively saving a half action until later in the round. This allows you to hold an action until they break cover to ambush you and then open fire. Or as our group has done, hold an action and as soon as a guy drew a weapon the psyker unloaded it for him with precision telekinesis.

Delay is meant to help ensure that you can later react to circumstances if you do not need to immediately use that half action to do damage, flee, move, and so on. It does not effect your next turn, because as the rule states, if you do not use it before the end of the round in which you delay, you simply lose that banked half action. How is this confusing?

shadowduke what you say is spot on, what mort has been claiming is that delay would allow you to spend a half action and attack , then use delay action and attack a second time later in the round as an interrupt action. what I am saying is that as it doesnt create a new turn that the single action of any type is in effect still, so while you could move and then delay as per your example to attack as an interrupt, it does not allow shooting, delay- shooting.

the second point that a delay action would allow an unavoidable attack to be made, is due to the rules not covering this situation in enough depth. my interpretation oof the rules regarding this is that an interrupted action that is not covered by any other rule ie counter attack etc, can be evaded if the interrupted turns character has any available actions.

to be fair if any of my players tried this in a game iwas running they would get a book upside the head for their troubles, failing that every opponent would immediatly start using this. whats good for the goose and all that:P

AFAIK the dodge rules would still be able to be applied. I agree that it doesn't create an extra turn inside a turn, but I have also not seen where you all are getting the rule that you cannot make multiple attacks in a round or use multiple psycic powers either. My gaming group has poured over the rules and cannot find these anywhere, please enlighten me.

page 234 top right paragraph.

Fenric said:

So rather than ending your turn, which it says it does, it ends your turn, then restarts the turn you ended inside the turn of the person who's action you interrupt, which it nowhere says it does? It's a completely workable way to use Delay. The only problem is that nowhere in the entire book does delay even vaguely hint that this is how it works. It would be wonderful if it does, but it doesn't. If you claim differently, please quote the sentence(es) you think supports your argument.

Either delays does what it says it does, which is end your turn, or it does what it doesn't say it does, and NOTHING else in the games does, and resumes a turn that has explicitly been ended. Personally, in terms of going by the rulebook, I'd probably go with the option that...is supported by the rule text. It's not the good, well designed option, but it's the option that I could see justified by the rule itself, unlike yours.

As for the unavoidable attack, it is covered. Right under reactions, pg 234. Since the turn of the delayer has ended, and characters only get one per round, when he acts, he does so on the turn of someone else. Because he can do this "At any time". Any time is an all inclusive statement with no limiters.

And of course this is broken. That's the entire point of this thread. Not that it should be allowed, not that it should work this way, but that's how it does. Just because I point out something's wrong doesn't mean I think it's right. It just means it's there and it needs to be fixed.

The only thing that's broken is the theoretical ability to ignore action subtypes and perform the same half action twice per round. And I say theoretical because I'm still pretty sure the intent is for Delay to eat up a half action in exchange for being able to act out of turn.

Ignoring Reactions through Delay/Overwatch? It's pretty much the whole point of both those actions, and quite necessary when the fight gets hot.

using the rules as you describe is reaching and trying to justify something that although is RAW is pretty obviously against the RAI, same as theoretically Blademaster would allow you once per turn to reroll an attack that has been parried or dodged.

Fenric said:

Trust me, I tried running the game with Reactions usable across the board, and with them unusable on your own action, and the latter produces a much more interesting combat experience.

I don't see how it's "clearly" against the RAI - if they intended Reactions to work all the time rather than just outside of your action, it was pretty easy to actually write that into the rules.

Fenric said:

Ugh, so much anger on both sides. Let's see if I can dissect the rule to get a clear understanding.

Delay:

When a Character chooses Delay, his turn ends, but he reserves a delayed half action for later use.

What I get from this is this, when you delay, your turn "ends" for the sole purpose of continuing combat. You have banked a half action for later use in the round. Because you have simply saved a half action, all other restrictions stand because the half action banked is still part of the combat round in which it was banked.

Any time before the start of his next turn, the character can perform a delayed half action of his choice. If the delayed half action is not used before the start of the character's next turn, it is lost.

This reinforces what I just stated. It clearly states that a character with a delayed action has held an action for that combat round. If they do not use it before it is their turn again, they lose the action banked from the previous round.

While I can see how people may interpret it to mean you begin a new turn, I believe they are simply reading only the second section I quoted without fully reading the first section. The intent is very clear, and by RAW I would even argue against allowing a reset of useable actions. If I may offer a simple way of explaining this as best I can.

Delay:

When a character chooses delay, combat moves to the next initiative step and the character retains a half action for use. This half action may be activated at any time before the start of his next turn, but if unused before his next turn, it is lost.

That is the way I read it, as that does not conflict with any other rules.

As far as reactions and evasions go, it clearly states that reactions do not occur in the characters normal turn, and are taken when it is not their turn.

[EDIT] WTF? why wont quote blocks work?

To quote something, you must actually quote someone's post, then copy the number assigned to the quote tag in each and every instance. Then, you can post, edit, and change the labels on quotes to actually represent whom you are quoting.

Yes, it's more confusing than the rule we're discussing.

Two things. First: Where does it say that you can interrupt another action so they wouldn't be able to react? Under Overwatch it is quite specific, but there is no mention in Delay so I'm assuming that since 'any half action' is slower than pulling a trigger when you have a weapon aimed somewhere, you can't actualy interrupt with it.

Second: the first four words "Instead of acting immediately" says to me you don't act, then delay, then act again. You delay, giving up your regular turn, to take a single half action later. Like waiting with your powerful single shot weapon for the enemy to use his reactions dodging the other guy's attack so he can't dodge it with a simple success. or waiting to unleash your psychic power until your 'friend' has gotten out of the way.

Two things. First: Where does it say that you can interrupt another action so they wouldn't be able to react? Under Overwatch it is quite specific, but there is no mention in Delay so I'm assuming that since 'any half action' is slower than pulling a trigger when you have a weapon aimed somewhere, you can't actualy interrupt with it.

"Any time before the start of his next Turn..." Pg 235. Any time is not followed by an exception, so it means just that. At any time includes the turn of anyone acting after you. And since you can't use reactions on your own turn, screw 'em and their defensive moves.

And considering "pulling the trigger with an aimed weapon" is a fully viable half-action to delay, why shouldn't the guy who delayed (and thus has faster reaction times) be allowed to, well, shoot first? He went first, after all.

Second: the first four words "Instead of acting immediately" says to me you don't act, then delay, then act again. You delay, giving up your regular turn, to take a single half action later. Like waiting with your powerful single shot weapon for the enemy to use his reactions dodging the other guy's attack so he can't dodge it with a simple success. or waiting to unleash your psychic power until your 'friend' has gotten out of the way.

Except you don't act immediately. You take the half action it costs to activate to do something later. You delay that action, thus not acting immediately. Otherwise, we come back to the problem that, if delay doesn't allow you to use a half action prior to it's use, why is it a half action without any text to the effect of "Can not be used after another half action"?

Reverend mort said:

He should, if he chose to. But he didn't. He chose to wait and see what happens.

That's all good, but you can't very well wait to see what happens, and then decide to do something before it happened. It gets even more interesting if the other guy has quickdraw.

Darth Smeg said:

OK. after looking at the delay action in all the other main rule books there is one thing they didn't do in Black crusade... include an example. the wording is the same in all the others. The example makes it obvious that you are attempting to munchkin this into an easily abused rule we all know how it was intended to be used.

Delay
Type: Half Action Subtype: Miscellaneous
Instead of acting immediately , the character waits for an
opportunity. When a character chooses Delay, his Turn ends,
but he reserves a delayed Half Action for later use. Any time
before the start of his next Turn, the character can perform a
delayed Half Action of his choice. If the delayed Half Action
is not used before the start of the character’s next turn, it
is lost. If two or more characters both attempt to perform
delayed Half Actions at the same time, they must make an
Opposed Agility Test to see who acts first.
Example
It is Castella’s Turn in the Initiative Order, and she wants to shoot the
mutant that is currently Grappling her friend Ramirez. If Castella
shoots now, she will suffer a –20 penalty to her Ballistic Skill Test for
Shooting into Melee Combat. But, she thinks Ramirez has a good chance
of breaking free of the mutant’s Grapple on his Turn, so she chooses to
Delay, which takes a Half Action and ends her Turn. Later in the same
Round, it is Ramirez’s Turn. He breaks free of the Grapple and moves
away from the mutant, which is exactly the opportunity Castella was
hoping for. Castella now performs her Delayed action, which must be a
Half Action since that is all she has remaining , so she chooses Standard
Attack and shoots the mutant.

With the example it becomes obvious. you 'reserve' your other half action for later. after the action you are waiting for happens you take that action. you don't have to declare which half action you are taking until you do it, but it's after someone else acts or other event happens.

NOOOO! I've been sucked back in!

So that above example pretty clearly states that you only have 1 half action left over after you Delay. So the developers should have put an example in BC because not everyone has a secondary book that they can go to to confirm a rule.

I'm going to add some fuel to Morts fire here:

The above example doesn't answer the question as to whether or not you can interrupt the Mutant's action.

In the example, Castella waits until Ramirez breaks free of the grapple, and then she shoots.

What if she, instead, waited a bit longer until the mutant did his turn. And just as the mutant tries to grapple Ramirez again, Castella shoots - interrupting the mutants action. Does the mutant get to dodge? It says you can't dodge on your own turn, so RAW says the Mutant can't dodge.

To me that's the bigger question.

How game breaking is it? Will everyone just perform half actions on their turn so they can interrupt everyone elses turn? If that become the "go to" tactic, then it's probably not how it should be run.

How important is an extra half action? Pretty important if you have to move into melee before you can start attacking. No aim actions for guns, draw weapons etc...

Firing on full-auto seems pretty devastating if your opponent can't dodge - unless dual weilding, it would be worth delaying every time - as long as you don't have to do anything else.
Single FIre weapons are more effective in open combat.

What Lecram said. And, furthermore, different games. To put an example, just because something did something in DnD second edition, does not mean you can presume it works exactly the same way in DnD Third Edition, even if they were lazy with the copy paste but left a clarifying example out.

Furthermore, the example still doesn't say that you use your other half-action. Because let's check the action flow here:

Her turn. Her first half action is to delay. As delay says, turn ends, her remaining actions, if any, go unspent and are discarded.

She decides to act. As per delay, she now gets a half action, which thus limits her available actions.

Nowhere does it say or clarify if she could have acted, delayed, and then acted again.

And for the fifteenth time: If it works like you say, why, oh WHY, is it not a full action?

So yeah, even if it works like you say it works, which it doesn't explicitly say, it's still a really badly written rule.

And because I seem to have to repeat it ALL THE TIME: I don't think it should work this way. I'm merely saying it's broken and the actual writing in the game doesn't support a not broken interpretation. I know reading a 7 page thread is hard, but please do so before you run around accusing people of being munchkins.

Reverend mort said:

I really think you should stop playing devils advocate then.. we all know it's not clearly worded, but we have a majority that seems to have reached a consensus on the RAI. If you personally can't accept that then wait till the errata comes out and clarifies it. Instead you're just fuelling a flame war.

I agree with Kasatka, Rev. Continuing this discussion yields no results, because we're all stuck repeating the same arguments.

The question ticket got filed, right? All we have to do is wait.