"Dexterity Penalty And Bonus Considerations: The Dexterity Attacking Adjustment is for missile firing considerations when initiative is considered. It adjusts the initiative die roll for the concerned individual only. Thus, it may well allow the concerned individual to discharge a missile prior to the opponent‘s attack even though the opponent has gained the initiative otherwise or vice versa. More important, this factor also gives the individual a “to hit” penalty or bonus when discharging a missile at an opponent."
This refers to the adjustment for Dexterity found in Dexterity Table I. in the Players Handbook. "Reaction/Attacking Adjustment is the penalty or bonus for both surprise (q.v.) situations and missile combat attacks."
I did not know the following "... for missile firing considerations when initiative is considered. It adjusts the initiative die roll for the concerned individual only."
I take that to mean that this initiative adjustment applies only to those attacking with missiles on an individual basis. So if the party rolls a 3 for initiative and missile combatants in the party have a Dexterity of 5 and 17 respectively, then for the first his initiative will be a 2 and for the second a 5. And this, only if they are firing missiles of some sort.
In other words this adjustment would not apply if these same combatants chose to enter melee combat, say with mace and sword.
As an aside, also remember that this adjustment also applies individually for mitigating surprise. So the previously mentioned player with a Dexterity of 17 will mitigate up to two segments of surprise, if the player is surprised. This adjustment does not create surprise in any case.
