2026-09-07 11:21:41
Anonymous:
CMB102 r10: run the Game vision's decision test against all eight roles in a new section 0A, unprompted, as PMU008 asks domain designers to do rather than defend features because they are documented. The roster passes the killing-indefinitely half structurally, since an organism sheds once and is then worth nothing. Each role is stated as a player choice, a visible consequence and the part of the vision's experience it serves. Names the Heavy as the role closest to the cut line and does not defend it in the abstract: ten hits is durability only if there is a damage curve to measure it against, and there is none, so it buys time rather than a stat check; its five-unit mote is the charge economy's answer to a district that hands the player two banks. States the condition under which it should be cut - a Heavy the player can walk around at no cost is neither blocking nor paying - proposes a placement rule to keep it honest, and offers the Anchor merge as the alternative if the Lead disagrees. Records which roles would break first if the vision's next pass changes what an expedition is for. No role cut, none added, no quota changed.
hold the flood/enemies.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Enemies and Encounters
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**CMB101 / CMB102 · r9 · 2026-09-07 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**
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r9 removes this page's competing presentation accounting, as [PMR007 §3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR007) asks: the cost is accounted once, on [Campaign §7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign), and §0.6 now points there instead of keeping a second version marked superseded. The cut order stays, as a design judgement rather than a costing. **[EQP102's three approaches are countersigned on [Combat Rules §12](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)**, where two rules their scenes needed — the cutter's tie rule and line 4 generalised — are supplied.
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**CMB101 / CMB102 · r10 · 2026-09-07 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**
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r10 answers the [Game vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision)'s cut test against all eight roles, in a new §0A, as [PMU008](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks) asks domain designers to do rather than wait. The roster passes the *"killing indefinitely"* half structurally — an organism sheds once and is then worth nothing — and each role is stated as a choice, a consequence and the part of the experience it serves. **The Heavy is named as the role closest to the cut line**, with the two things that save it, the condition under which it should be cut, a placement rule proposed to keep it honest, and the merge I would take instead if the Lead disagrees. No role cut, no role added, no quota changed.
## 0A. The roster against the vision's decision test
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The [Game vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision) gives crowd combat a job — *"make reaching, reading and operating machinery a survival decision; let positioning and harvested charge create room to act"* — and a cut condition: **"an enemy adds only durability, or a reward encourages killing indefinitely instead of choosing an intervention."** [PMU008](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks) tells domain designers to answer for their systems on the Visionary's actual changes and *"not defend a feature just because it is already documented"*. Run against the eight, before anyone asks.
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**The second half of the cut condition, the whole roster passes, and it is structural rather than lucky.** Kills give no experience; an organism sheds once and is then worth nothing; and a burst returns nothing from bodies that have already shed. **There is no way to be rewarded for killing indefinitely, because the reward runs out per body.** That rule predates this role and is the design's best.
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**The first half — "adds only durability" — the test each role has to pass individually.**
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| Role | The player's choice | Its visible consequence | The part of the experience it serves |
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| [Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker) | Which branch to light | The mass walks there, and the door you wanted opens on the branch you just filled | The mass that makes machinery a survival decision at all |
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| [Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor) | Drain the channel, route around, or wade it | The water you must cross stays occupied no matter how well you route | *Reaching* the machinery |
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| [Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) | Carry the charge or spend it | Hoarding is what draws them; an empty bank is not a target | *Harvested charge creating room to act* — it prices the resource the vision names |
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| [Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust) | Where to stand while collecting | The discharge you paid for leaves bodies walking in it | *Reading* — the crowd is not uniform and the cue says which |
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| [Spark](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Spark) | What to let into cutter reach | Your own automatic weapon floods the water you are standing in | *Positioning*, made compulsory by a weapon you cannot withhold |
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| [Grounder](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Grounder) | Cross the crowd to it, re-switch, plant a light, or take the long way | A route you prepared expires while you are elsewhere | *Operating* machinery — it is the only role that attacks the plan rather than the player |
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| [Floater](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Floater) | Change the water, or use it | Bodies arrive where the water goes, not where the light is | *Operating* — it makes a lock a routing tool |
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| **[Heavy](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign)** | **Kill it, stun past it, or route around** | **A doorway or rail stays blocked for about five seconds of cutter** | **Reaching — and it is the one that has to argue** |
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### The Heavy is the role closest to the cut line, and it should be said here rather than waited for
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Its distinguishing properties are **ten hits and a five-unit mote**. Read coldly, "ten hits" is durability, and the vision cuts a role that adds only that. Two things save it, and I want them on the record because if they stop being true the role should go:
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1. **It is not durability against a damage curve, because there is no damage curve.** No weapon in the catalogue is "good against heavies"; ten hits is ten hits for everyone, so it never becomes a stat check. It buys **time**, and time in front of a blocked doorway is the decision.
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2. **It is the charge economy's answer to a real problem** — a walking five-unit mote, which is how a district that hands the player two banks pays for the second one.
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**Where it fails the test:** if a district places a Heavy somewhere the player can simply walk around at no cost, then it is neither blocking nor paying, and it is exactly the thing the vision cuts. **Placement is what makes this role legitimate**, which makes it Campaign's to keep honest, not mine — so the constraint belongs in the [composition budget](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat): *a Heavy earns its place only where it blocks something the player wants, and its five-unit mote is the compensation for the time it costs.* I am proposing that as a placement rule rather than defending the role in the abstract.
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**And the honest alternative I would take if the Lead disagrees:** merge the Heavy into the [Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor). Both are a body that will not move out of your way, sited dry and wet. That was already my cut order's second entry, and the vision's test is a better reason for it than the asset budget was.
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**Nothing else in the roster is near the line**, and I am not proposing to cut anything today. **No new role, no quota change** ([PMR008](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR008): no new roster or composition quota). If the Visionary's next pass changes what an expedition is for, the roles that would break first are the two that assume a *lit-branch* routing game at all — Grounder and Carrier — and I will say so then rather than wait to be asked.
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## 0. Reconciliation with DES104, which landed while this was drafted
**What arrived after this role read its sources and before this revision saved:** the Lead's [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) (DES104), the shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c), [Design Document r15 5f9fbb](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=5f9fbb), the critic's [REV104 r1 80a882](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review?revision=80a882), and the Colony designer's [COL101 a1046d](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony?revision=a1046d). r1 of the six role pages and r1 of [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) were written against r14 and the r1 seed. **This section says what that changes.** It changes the name of one role and the page to cite for the rules — but the Campaign page proposes four enemy roles of its own, and two rosters is not a thing this project can afford to have.
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| Rev | What it did |
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| **r10** | Ran the [Game vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision)'s decision test on all eight roles in a new §0A, unprompted, as PMU008 asks. Named the Heavy as the role closest to the cut line and proposed a placement rule to keep it honest rather than defending it in the abstract, with the Anchor merge as the alternative. Recorded which roles would break first if the vision's next pass changes what an expedition is for. |
| **r9** | Removed this page's competing presentation accounting at [PMR007 §3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR007)'s request — §0.6 now points at [Campaign §7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign), the single D025 list, rather than keeping a second version marked superseded. Cut order retained. |
| **r8** | Cited [REF107](/Reference/Content%20Scale) where the roster count is set, answering [X32](/Hold%20the%20Flood/External%20Critique). Recorded the eight-against-seventy gap without redefining the units to soften it, pointed at Equipment as the axis where the comparison bites hardest, and named the readability-versus-variety conflict inside this page's own composition budget. Also retitled §2, which still said "six roles at a glance". |
| **r7** | Carried two rulings this page had not read when r6 saved. **C2 ruled against this page:** a lit branch's channel water is energised while the branch is lit, so Encounter A carries one reading instead of pricing two, and insulation is the entry fee. **The Spark is settled as the power-only death**, this page's own recommendation, after a crossing in which Combat adopted the row the Lead had abandoned six minutes earlier ([REV104-15](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review)). Neither encounter places Sparks, so no beat changed for that. |
