Is it possible for someone other than the caster to trigger the preparation? As the description describes a non magical word or gesture as the way to set it off the Command trigger I would think so but the wording makes me think not. Anyone else had this brought up by a player yet?

It looks like there are 3 ways to trigger a preparation:

1. Command: "The preparation is triggered by you" - the caster
2. Contact: "The next living being to touch the preparation activates the spell"
3. Time: "Choose an amount of time when picking this trigger" - so caster chooses how long before the preparation activates

Yeah I read it that way but when reading the rules for putting the preparations to gather all of the magic is done prior to the command to set it off. I was pretty sure the writers put the you as the caster command it as a way of avoiding the things being handed out like candy to the unawakened.

Of course number 2 could allow non awakened characters to cast them by the simple action of the caster putting the preparation in one of those plastic Easter eggs that you put candy in and having the non awakened runner buddy open the egg when they need the casting. Cheesy I know but legal by the description.

Just a thought

Yeah, or like a Heal spell being cast on some water in a small flask-like bottle

The mechanism that prevents that is that the preparations start to degrade in power after a while. So there's a limit to how many you can make in advance before the older ones start failing.

Hence the CBE or Cast Before Expiry Date on those easter eggs.

So, the Line Item in Big D's Will, the one about mundanes using [mass produceable] magic, has been collected upon, then?

Lol, probably not as the items are not massed produced and degrade to fast for regular public consumption.

Bet a little blood magic would extend that shelf life considerably....

May be worth seeing what the Azzies are doing with preparations.

Hopefully the magic book gives us a metamagic to extend how long preparation last that doesn't suck ass.

I haven't had the time quite yet, but I've been thinking on figuring out the list of awesome things an alchemest could put together pre-run that would be useful. As far as I can tell, mundanes CAN use preparations, so maybe things like one-hitter spells vs spirits, and a one-shot initiative boost for when you don't want to bother sustaining a spell for a combat. You shoudl be able to command that on for one simple action (no drain) then reckless cast somethig damaging on your first round.

I pictured the dragon breath shotgun from Consintene for some reason. The gun itself was mundane but the ammo was very much a preparation with a trigger.

I was thinking of something like that for grenade launchers. But you gotta scatter with them so the prep wouldn't go off. So shotgun would be better.