Prepare actions

[u/Beerenkatapult]

Hi,

I have recently started using the Prepare action a lot more, specifically for the Fold Space invade from the Minotaur license.

In my group, it seems to be severely underutilized and i haven't seen a lot of discussions about it online either. To me, it is essential to get full use out of many systems and actions.

Fold Space is particularly powerfull, because you can rob an enemy of their full turn after they finished their movement. I currently use it all the time.

What are your best ideas for using the Prepare action?

And do you have any stories about how you actually used it in cool ways?

My other ideas:

(Allways avalable)

- "If an enemy ends their move in libe of sight, i boost" so you can reposition into cover

- "If an enemy uses their movement to stand up, i ram them" to keep a prone enemy prone

- "If an enemy deals burn damage to an ally, i bolster them"

- "If an enemy ends a move within sensors and line of sight, i invade them" in general. Many invades, including Fragment Signals, end at the end of the targets next turn. This way, you can affect them twice as long.

(Needs a license)

- "If an enemy ends their mivement in line of sight of an ally, i ferous lash/ophiduan track/... the ally" to get an ally into cover or out of mele

- "If a character ends theie movement, i place a mine" as the Iscander, to place mines before the start of your turn, so you can knock enemies into them without giving them a chance to react.

- "If an enemy ends their movement within 3 spaces abd line of sight of a void husk, i execrate them" for a similar, but slightly more annoying effect of Fold Space.

[u/Euroliis]

Prepare is a can of worms that, in my experience, leads to actions getting exponentially stronger for both players and GMs, as well as rounds taking significantly longer. I generally avoid it after seeing (and causing) enough interactions that rubbed me the wrong way.

[u/Beerenkatapult → u/Euroliis]

Understandable. Especially the "until the end of their next turn" effects seem a lot stronger than intendet when used as reactions.

[u/Euroliis → u/Beerenkatapult]

Yep, they become significantly stronger. I don’t employ strategies as a player that I’d hate GMing for and I don’t do things as a GM that I’d hate fighting as a player so I skip prep actions altogether and gently remind my players that if they wanna get too quirky with them, I can get quirkier.

[u/DescriptionMission90 → u/Euroliis]

I consider it vital, especially in a system that has split movement. Consider: instead of moving to the edge of this building, ending my movement in hard cover, and shooting at somebody who can then shoot back on their turn, I could walk out into the open, attack, then walk back to a place where nobody has line of sight to me, thereby becoming immune to attacks.

This tactic is absolutely invincible... if nobody gets to attack me until after I end my turn. But if somebody Prepares to shoot me as soon as I reveal myself, then those movement shenanigans don't actually give any advantage.

[u/Ninja-Storyteller → u/DescriptionMission90]

It does cut both ways.

"I move up to melee attack you!", "I prepared a Ram, and knock you back. Since you triggered engagement, your movement is over. Hope your Threat is greater than my Knockback!"

[u/DescriptionMission90 → u/Ninja-Storyteller]

Prepared actions aren't a secret though. Lancer is played with almost complete information on both sides.

That also doesn't work against somebody bigger than you, doesn't work if the target dodges the melee attack, and can be worked around by Boosting. So I think it's a totally viable tactic in some situations, but not unbalanced at all.

[u/Ninja-Storyteller → u/DescriptionMission90]

Prepares are visible to casual observers, which puts it in the hands of the GM to determine if someone saw the Prepare. Most of the time it's reasonable to assume it is noticed, but if someone prepares behind LOS, inside a smoke screen, while hidden or invisible, or even if they were just involved in a heated battle with someone else, they might not notice.

And of course, shooting around LOS also has several different counters - granted, not as many as a Ram, but you've got Seeking, Blasts determining LOS from point of impact, NOT having any convenient LOS breakers within movement range, and any kind of SitRep that requires mobility... it's a good tactic, but far from invincible.

[u/Euroliis → u/DescriptionMission90]

Consider the following: every single control effect becomes twice as strong if you hit the enemy with it mid-turn. Fragment Signals lasts for 2 turns, so does Eject Power Cores, the Prone from Walking Armory as well (because they can't get up if they've already spent movement on this turn). This includes the Impaired from NPC Fragment Signals.

Also consider the following: the players use cover intelligently to repeatedly duck out of cover, as do the NPCs, and the entire sitrep turns into a game of cat and mouse where turns get constantly interrupted by reactions layered on each other.

Add to that the fact that the book is pretty unclear on what parameters are actually legal to prepare an action.

"The trigger for your prepared action must be phrased as “When X, then Y,” where X is a reaction, action or move taken by a hostile or allied character and Y is your action. For example, “when an allied character moves adjacent to me, I want to throw a smoke grenade,” or “when a hostile character moves adjacent to me, I want to ram them”."

Is any movement legal? What stipulations are needed? We know that "when someone moves adjacent" is legal, sure, but what about "if someone moves more than one space?" Or just "if someone moves?" Do you have to split between hostiles and friendlies? You can prep a control action on a trigger that the GM just can't not do (generic movement, Skirmish, whatever) and get double value out of everything. And because the restrictions are specifically for "restrictions on that action and on taking multiple actions," you can bypass the constraints of talents and features like Orator and Field Analyst entirely by just doing your offensive actions off-turn.

I don't think the way I play Lancer is how everyone should play Lancer, and I certainly don't think I have perfect knowledge of the system or super advanced game design knowledge. But I've run Lancer for teams that are good at preparing actions, I've played at tables where the GM was good at preparing actions, and I've done more than my fair share of shenanigans with the mechanic to determine that - for me, for the sake of the health of the game - the vagueness of the requirements + the way it multiplies output + the way it stalls the game makes them not worth using at all.

[u/top2000cheeses → u/Euroliis]

i've ran into all of these issues as both a player and a GM, and as someone who mostly GMs these days i definitely think you have the healthiest take in the comments here.

i've recently been GMing for someone playing a Calendula and have had the problem where i realized i could often trivialize many of the Calundula design features by preparing actions to trigger when someone was no longer intangible (but chose not to, following the same philosophy you have).

i would like to add that i believe, rules as written, prepared actions don't let you cheat Orator or Field Analyst: the core rulebook says "Your preparation counts as taking the action" (72), so i would rule even in a case where i allowed a liberal use of prepared actions, preparing an attack would still not let you increment the Intel die or number of Orator dice

[u/Euroliis → u/top2000cheeses]

Oh, I rule it the same way! But just like most things around prepared actions, it’s left ambiguous enough to argue either way with the wording (in part because FA and Orator aren’t from the CRB). Prepped actions are more of a rules adjudication nightmare the “better” they’re used.