Understanding Initiative

[vengervoldur]

This topic's title is a bit misleading, as I already know what Initiative is. I'm quite familiar with it in the RPG realm. What's bugging me about it, however, is how it is calculated on a new character.
See, I've got about 70 hours logged so far, basically me just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about and getting a feel for the game. I've progressed well enough and learned a lot, and now I'm looking to restart on Tactician mode with a well balanced party. This, of course, means picking good complimenting starting characters. Ideally I want a male Knight and a female Ranger (gender is more for roleplaying reasons, but the classes are definite). My plan is to make my Knight always roll first in combat; this way his Leadership role comes into play and buffs the party just as combat begins. However, I seem to be having a spot of trouble ensuring the Knight rolls first because of Initiative.
Here's my problem: with a male Knight and a female Ranger, the female, regardless class or position (either 1 or 2 on the character creation screen) gets a higher Initiative value. At firsdt glance this makes sense: Rangers need a higher Perception for long distance accuracy, and Perception directly affects Initiative. So I adjusted base stats, removing all assigned Perception and Speed points, which also affects Initiative, down to base (which is 5). I then pumped the Knight's Speed and Perception up to 6 (or 7, I can't remember atm). Basically, my Knight had higher Speed and Perception than the Ranger. However... despite starting a game off fine, with my Knight having a higher Initiative, the first time I leveled up my female character (this time a Wizard, so as to remove any seeming class bias) her Initiative instantly jumped from 5 to 11. According to the trait when I mouse over it, it looks like her Initiative is an accumulative value, where my male character, regardless of his class, is not.

What am I missing here? I want my male character to be a leader/tank and to roll first in combat. I want my female character to be ranged DPS and roll NOT first. Do females get an invisible Initiative boost? I'm going to keep screwing around with combinations of genders and classes and base stats, but this is really annoying me.

Any one have ideas as to why I can;t get my Initiative sorted the way I want?

[chrstnmonks]

The leadership skill does nothing for you personally. It boost only party members intiative and whatever else. Maybe put a point of leadership on your wizard to boost your tank.

[Toha]

You can just delay your ranger's turn every time.

[Qiox]

The solution is put the Leadership skill on the archer so that it is the tank who gets the initiative bonus and the archer does not get it. That will make sure the tank goes first. Although your stated reason for wanting the tank to go first seems a bit confused.

The leadership bonus affects everyone except the person with the skill. The bonus is always active regardless of turns.

[vengervoldur]

Ah, okay, now I get it. Thanks Qiox for the explanation. And Toha, I faceplamed at the simplicity of your solution. :) Thanks guys, I've got it sorted out now.

[Qiox]

I usually go with a mage character having high Leadership because the melee and archer gets the most benefit. Then one of the others gets just enough to give the initiative bonus to the mage.