Special Initiative Actions

Here are ways to change when you act during combat by altering
your place in the initiative order.
DELAY
By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on
whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you
voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the
combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in
the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new
initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and
act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point.
Delaying is useful if you need to see what your friends or opponents
are going to do before deciding what to do yourself. The price
you pay is lost initiative. You never get back the time you spend
waiting to see what’s going to happen. You can’t, however, interrupt
anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).
Initiative Consequences of Delaying: Your initiative result
becomes the count on which you took the delayed action. If you
come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you
don’t get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again). If
you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn
comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order
of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
READY
The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your
turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is a
standard action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity
(though the action that you ready might do so).
Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move
action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and
the conditions under which you will take it. For example, you might
specify that you will shoot an arrow at anyone coming through a
nearby doorway. Then, any time before your next action, you may
take the readied action in response to that condition. The action
occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is
part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other
character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his
actions once you complete your readied action.
Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your
initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action,
and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action
triggered your readied action.
You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only
if you don’t otherwise move any distance during the round. For
instance, if you move up to an open door and then ready an action to
swing your sword at whatever comes near, you can’t take a 5-foot
step along with the readied action (since you’ve already moved in
this round).
Initiative Consequences of Readying: Your initiative result
becomes the count on which you took the readied action. If you
come to your next action and have not yet performed your readied
action, you don’t get to take the readied action (though you can
ready the same action again). If you take your readied action in the
next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count
rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your
regular action that round.
Distracting Spellcasters: You can ready an attack against a spellcaster
with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell.” If you damage
the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined
by her Concentration check result).
Readying to Counterspell: You may ready a counterspell
against a spellcaster (often with the trigger “if she starts casting a
spell”). In this case, when the spellcaster starts a spell, you get a
chance to identify it with a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). If
you do, and if you can cast that same spell (are able to cast it and
have it prepared, if you prepare spells), you can cast the spell as a
counterspell and automatically ruin the other spellcaster’s spell.
Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other
arcane.
A spellcaster can use dispel magic (page 223) to counterspell
another spellcaster, but it doesn’t always work.
Readying a Weapon against a Charge: You can ready certain
piercing weapons, setting them to receive charges (see Table 7–5:
Weapons, page 116). A readied weapon of this type deals double
damage if you score a hit with it against a charging character.