[Rendar]

It creates a big disconnect, but it's miserable. I say this as having had a Ruler in my party. And also having BEEN the ruler in a party.

If the map is small, or the event mobs are Rush Down mobs. There is zero time for me to ever put down galren Stone Dragon > Despot Drill to max out geomaterial. And then summon > buff next turn. And even then, my mobs are still weak as all get out and going to likely die in 2-3 hits depending on the fight in general. Solblader gets around this in some regards by being able to do other things (Such as casting non-mercalan spells / critting giving solcharge)...

Monks are awful as well. Because you will always see a turn 0 Power Up (and then likely Turn 1 self-buffs). It's the penalty that every class has to deal with if they have buffs that they require to function. Dodgies get this to a lesser extent, but it's still something that has to occur vs Tanks/non set up classes being able to turn 0 blast you to death.

I'm all for this, or even having it be an option that EMs can set on Event Encounters of "Able To Prepare" for the fight or "Ambushed" (Not actual Ambushed. But just not able to get their pre-fight buffs off).

...Course. Just having buffs that we could apply outside of combat/before a fight starts might fundamentally change things. But it's nice.