2026-09-06 21:26:06
Anonymous:
CMB101 r2: new section 0 re-checks all ten proposals against the Lead's shared-rule contract Power and Attraction r2 69024c and Campaign 34dc09, which landed while r1 was being written. R3's recommendation is revised from one second to one-to-two seconds against the contract's 'the seconds the charge lasts'. One objection to the Campaign page's Heavy is withdrawn with the reason. R9 is shown to pass the contract's own section 7 test. R6 and R7 are checked against the new prod weapon (its push is movement, not a fourth status). R10 is more consequential given the cable reel. Reports that contract section 8 and Campaign section 4 disagree with each other about tint. Base role renamed Drifter to Walker.
hold the flood/mechanics/combat.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Combat Rules
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**CMB101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — first submission of this role.**
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New page. It supersedes nothing. It states the shared combat grammar that [Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) and the six role pages are written against, and proposes ten numbered revisions (R1–R10) to gaps and collisions the roster exposes.
**CMB101 · r2 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — first submission of this role.**
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r2 adds §0: every proposal re-checked against the Lead's shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c) and [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign), which landed while r1 was being written. **R3's recommendation is revised** (one to two seconds, not one) and **one objection to the Campaign page's Heavy is withdrawn**; nothing else changed. The base role is **renamed from Drifter to Walker**. New page otherwise; it supersedes nothing. It states the shared combat grammar that [Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) and the six role pages are written against, and proposes ten numbered revisions (R1–R10) to gaps and collisions the roster exposes.
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Sources read: [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–6, 8, 12–16 and Appendix A; the shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c) and its r1 seed 8afc3c; [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign); [Design Document r15 5f9fbb](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=5f9fbb); [Design Review REV104 r1 80a882](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review?revision=80a882); [Enemies c63228](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies?revision=c63228); [Cutter](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Weapons/Cutter); [Equipment](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment); [World and Mystery r20 7699de](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=7699de); [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief); [Design Index dd01c7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Index?revision=dd01c7); [Tasks eb8c03](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks?revision=eb8c03); [PMR003](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR003); [Design Review REV103 r5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review); [Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief) D013/D016/D019–D021; [Wiki Conventions](/Wiki%20Conventions).
**Nothing on this page has been built, prototyped, simulated or played.** Every number is a proposal. Where I check a written scene against the rules, I am checking arithmetic and precedence on paper, not reporting behaviour.
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## What this page is for
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The Lead owns the spine rule — conduction, power, attraction, charge — on [Design Document §4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) and its seeded destination [Power and Attraction](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction). **That rule is canonical there, not here.** This page does three things the spine rule deliberately does not:
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The Lead owns the spine rule — conduction, power, attraction, charge — and as of [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c) that page is the shared-rule contract, with [Design Document §4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) as its derivation. **That rule is canonical there, not here.** This page does three things the spine rule deliberately does not:
1. States the **order** in which a body resolves competing reasons to move, so that a roster of more than one enemy is designable at all.
2. States the **closed grammar** of targeting, damage, status and charge, so that [Equipment](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) and this page cannot invent two incompatible systems.
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## 0. Checked against the shared-rule contract (added in r2)
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The Lead published the shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c) and [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) while r1 of this page was being written against Design Document r14 and PM's r1 seed. **The contract is now the page to cite for conduction, power, attraction and charge**, and this page cites it below wherever r1 cited GDD §4. The rules did not change; the address of the rules did.
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Every proposal on this page re-checked against the contract, honestly:
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| | Status after the contract | |
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| --- | --- | --- |
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| **R1** precedence stack | **Still needed, and needed harder.** Contract §3 states the retarget-or-spread precedence and states that "pursuit is local and short, and a crowd's outward pressure (the press) is separate from it" — but it still does not order pursuit against attraction, and the Campaign page now proposes three further roles (Floater, Heavy, Static) that each need line 2 to exist. R1 is now the stack that the Lead's own roster requires, not only mine |
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| **R2** press bounded by crowd size, drawn as a ring | **Still open.** The contract names the press and separates it from pursuit; it gives it no rate and no stop |
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| **R3** the energised window | **Position revised.** Contract §2 says a coil discharge "energises the water the surveyor is touching **for the seconds the charge lasts**" — plural, where r1 of this page proposed one second. **Revised recommendation: one to two seconds, and in all cases shorter than the eight-second stun**, so that collection inside the water stays possible without insulation being compulsory. If the Lead prefers a window as long as the stun, insulation becomes mandatory equipment for the coil and Encounter A's collection beat changes; that is a defensible design and it should be chosen rather than left as "seconds" |
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| **R4** glow carries one bit; roles ride on silhouette | **Partly agreed, and it exposes a disagreement between the Lead's two pages.** Contract §8 says "enemy variants by size and tint"; Campaign §4 says of the same roster "readable by size, silhouette or spark, **not by tint alone**" and "health and tint are not roles". Campaign §4 is right. R4 goes one step further and is reported, not imposed |
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| **R5** Carriers take uncollected motes | Unaffected. Now part of the Static/Carrier merge in [Enemies §0.3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) |
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| **R6** unwithholdable cutter, visible target line | **Unaffected and newly load-bearing.** Campaign §4 adds a second weapon, the **prod**, which "pushes and never kills". Under R6 it must publish its targeting rule: what it selects, whether it can be withheld, and what its line looks like |
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| **R7** three statuses, closed | **Holds, with one ruling made here rather than routed:** the prod's push is *movement*, not a status. It has no duration and nothing reads it off a body. The list stays at three |
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| **R8** no damage numbers | **Narrowed, and one objection withdrawn.** Campaign §4's Heavy takes ten hits — a hit count, which R8 permits, not a health pool with modifiers, which it does not. The Lead's economic argument for heavies persuaded me and is recorded in [Enemies §0.2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies). The one clause I still ask for is that the resistance be stated as "cannot be cleared by the cutter in useful time" rather than as a published hit-count ladder, because a ladder is what Equipment will price weapons against |
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| **R9** a role may darken a beacon | **Passes the Lead's own published test.** Contract §7 lists what a district may not add: "anything that makes a lamp draw, a coil select intake, an organism shed twice, or a device work without current." The [Grounder](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Grounder) does none of the four; it makes a device *stop* working for want of current. Still needs the explicit ruling (C5) |
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| **R10** an arc chain travels through energised water | **Still open, and more consequential.** Campaign §4 adds the **cable reel**, which "lays a conductor between two wet points across dry ground" — so a player can now decide how far energised water reaches, which is exactly what R10 turns into reach for the burst. This is a reason to rule on R10 explicitly rather than let it be inferred from clause 1 |
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**The composition budget in §7 now covers eight roles, not six.** The merged roster and its asset cost are in [Enemies §0.6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies); the per-district and per-surge caps here are unchanged, so no expedition asks a player to read more than four kinds of body at once.
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**Naming.** The base role is **Walker**, the Lead's name, published first. This page's r1 called it Drifter; [the role page is at Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker) and [Enemies/Drifter](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Drifter) is a pointer.
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## 1. The central risk, answered first
The strongest thing about this design is that one rule answers four questions, and every reviewer on this wiki has said so. **A roster of enemies is the most likely way to wreck it.** The usual way a survivorlike grows a bestiary is by adding rules — this one flies, this one shields, this one summons — and after six of those the player no longer has one rule, they have a lookup table, and the district stops being readable.
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- **Glow carries exactly one bit: has charge to shed, or does not.** An unshed body glows; a shed body does not. That is all a player needs from brightness, because the only decision brightness informs is *is there anything to take here*.
- **Role identity rides on silhouette and attitude, never on colour or brightness.** The Anchor is half-submerged and still; the Grounder is on a cable, off the ground, and its position alone identifies it; the Carrier leans toward what it wants, and the forecast draws its target; the Crust is the base outline broken by encrustation; the Spark's outline flickers, which is motion, not brightness.
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- A player who confuses a spent Drifter with a Crust loses nothing — both mean "no charge here". A player who confuses a Crust with an *unspent* Drifter is punished, and the crusted outline is what prevents it. The one confusion that costs is carried by the strongest cue.
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- A player who confuses a spent Walker with a Crust loses nothing — both mean "no charge here". A player who confuses a Crust with an *unspent* Walker is punished, and the crusted outline is what prevents it. The one confusion that costs is carried by the strongest cue.
**Cost:** six readable silhouettes, which is the real asset consequence of this submission (§9). **Competing choice:** none for the player; this is a presentation rule that makes the others fair.
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| Constraint | Value | Reason |
| --- | --- | --- |
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| Drifters | **at least 85%** of every surge | The mass must obey the spine rule, or the player's knowledge stops paying |
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| Distinct non-Drifter roles live at once | **at most 2** in a surge, **at most 3** in a district | Above three the player is reading a table, not a place |
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| Sparks entering **dry** ground | **0** | A Spark that cannot energise water is a Drifter with a worse silhouette; place it where water is |
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| Walkers | **at least 85%** of every surge | The mass must obey the spine rule, or the player's knowledge stops paying |
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| Distinct non-Walker roles live at once | **at most 2** in a surge, **at most 3** in a district | Above three the player is reading a table, not a place |
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| Sparks entering **dry** ground | **0** | A Spark that cannot energise water is a Walker with a worse silhouette; place it where water is |
| Grounders | placed on **cable runs**, not counted in a surge | Its threat is a location and a timer, not a body count |
| Anchors | **standing before the expedition begins**, not arriving in a surge | It is a feature of the terrain; the player must be able to see it and plan around it on arrival |
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| # | Question | Owner | My position, on which I proceed unless ruled otherwise |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| C1 | How long does a coil discharge keep water energised? (R3) | Lead | 1 second. The stun's 8 s is a separate quantity, and the collection window depends on the water going inert. |
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| C1 | How long does a coil discharge keep water energised? (R3) | Lead | **One to two seconds** — revised in r2 against the contract's "the seconds the charge lasts". In all cases shorter than the eight-second stun, or insulation becomes compulsory for the coil and Encounter A's collection beat changes. |
| C2 | Is press bounded by crowd size (R2), or simulated? | Lead | Bounded, with a drawn ring. Less simulation, and it makes the §15 tuning bound checkable on paper. |
| C3 | Do damage numbers exist? (R8) | Lead + Equipment | No. Decide now; cheap today, expensive after a catalogue. |
| C4 | Is the status list closed at three? (R7) | Equipment | Yes, and I will extend it only by revising this page with a reason. |
| C5 | May a role darken a beacon? (R9) | Lead + World | Yes, under the three limits in §5. It removes a light and can never make one, so the panel's monopoly and W1 both stand. |
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| C6 | Are the role names final? | World | No. Drifter, Anchor, Carrier, Crust, Spark and Grounder are **functional placeholders**, chosen so the mechanic is in the name. World owns the Flood's fiction and identity and should rename freely; I will follow. |
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| C6 | Are the role names final? | World | No. Walker, Anchor, Carrier, Crust, Spark and Grounder are **functional placeholders**, chosen so the mechanic is in the name. World owns the Flood's fiction and identity and should rename freely; I will follow. |
| C7 | Does an arc chain travel through energised water? (R10) | Lead | Yes — clause 1 already says current does, and the arc is current. It is the biggest single power spike I propose, so it needs an explicit ruling rather than an inference. The roster survives a No. |
| C8 | The [Glossary](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Glossary) says the arc drains a battery over "about twenty seconds"; GDD §6 r14 says about ten, and §13's scene is built on ten. | Editor + Lead | Ten. **Reported, not edited** — the Glossary is not mine. Encounter B in [Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) uses ten. |
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## 11. Where the rest of this submission is
- **[Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies)** — the six roles, why each exists, the two mixed encounters checked against the rules above, the elites-and-bosses assessment, and the early/middle/late campaign arc.
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- The six role pages: [Drifter](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Drifter) · [Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor) · [Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) · [Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust) · [Spark](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Spark) · [Grounder](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Grounder)
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- The six role pages: [Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker) · [Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor) · [Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) · [Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust) · [Spark](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Spark) · [Grounder](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Grounder)
