RingBRP/tools/powers.mjs

/**
 * What a creature's POWER actually does in a fight.
 *
 * Every statblock in content.mjs carries its tactics as prose, and 41 of them contain a
 * POWER. R-274 found that none of them reach `simulate.mjs`: the harness reads
 * characteristics and weapons and has no idea a redcap ignores the thing that makes every
 * other defender worse. So the redcap has been measured — in check-lethality, in
 * check-focus, in every figure this project has published about it — as a creature that
 * tires, which its own entry says it does not.
 *
 * This is the classification, not a second copy of the prose. content.mjs remains the
 * text; this says which of those powers are fight rules, which of the fight rules the
 * harness can express, and — for the ones it cannot — why, in one line, so the gap is a
 * recorded decision rather than an absence.
 *
 *   wired        the simulator applies it; `effect` says how
 *   outOfCombat  not a fight rule at all — a scene, a social problem, a clock
 *   notSimulable a fight rule the harness cannot express, with the reason
 *
 * check-powers refuses any POWER in content.mjs that is not in one of the three, so a
 * creature added tomorrow cannot quietly arrive unclassified. That is the whole point:
 * the defect was not that the powers were unimplemented, it was that nothing said so.
 *
 * EFFECTS THE SIMULATOR UNDERSTANDS
 *   defenceStacking: "ignores"   the cumulative penalty never applies to its defences
 *   damageFactor: n              damage it takes is multiplied by n, floored
 *   attackFactor: n              its attack rating is multiplied by n, floored
 */
export const POWERS = {
  /* ---- wired: the harness applies these ---- */
  redcap: { name: "NOT TIRED", kind: "wired", effect: { defenceStacking: "ignores" },
    note: "every parry it makes is at full skill" },
  the_courier: { name: "THE CONSIGNMENT", kind: "wired", effect: { attackFactor: 0.5 },
    note: "it will not fight with the carrying limb, so it attacks at half until the consignment is taken" },

  /* ---- notSimulable: fight rules the harness cannot express ---- */
  /* Wired first, and reverted on the measurement. Halving everything the supporter takes
     tripled its wipe rate — 25.1% to 75.2% against the frozen party — because the harness
     has no ground and so applied "while it stands on ground the borough holds"
     unconditionally. That is a 50-point swing resting on an assumption the harness cannot
     state, which is the same reason THE PULL is not wired: a power conditional on a place
     cannot be simulated by something with no places in it. R-275. */
  supporter: { name: "ARGENT AND GULES", kind: "notSimulable",
    why: "half damage only on ground the borough holds, and the harness has no ground — wiring it "
       + "unconditionally moved its wipe rate 25.1% to 75.2%, which is the assumption speaking" },
  the_choir: { name: "ONE VOICE", kind: "notSimulable", why: "costs Coherence, which the harness does not model" },
  hollow_man: { name: "THE FILE IS YOURS NOW", kind: "notSimulable", why: "an opposed POWx5 whose stake is Coherence, which the harness does not model" },
  carrion_file: { name: "AMENDMENT", kind: "notSimulable", why: "removes a trained skill permanently; the harness has no character to amend" },
  the_understudy: { name: "REHEARSED", kind: "notSimulable", why: "acts before the agent it is copying, and the harness has no notion of which agent that is" },
  the_predecessor: { name: "HANDOVER", kind: "notSimulable", why: "takes an agent's action for a task the harness does not model" },
  grindylow: { name: "THE PULL", kind: "notSimulable", why: "only in water, and resolves as a grapple into the ASPHYXIA rules" },
  nuckelavee: { name: "THE BLIGHT", kind: "notSimulable", why: "a CONx5 each round for 1 point; the harness rolls no characteristics" },
  surveyor: { name: "ALREADY SURVEYED", kind: "notSimulable", why: "cover and ambush, neither of which the harness has" },
  spriggan: { name: "WHAT IT REALLY IS", kind: "notSimulable", why: "runs at a smaller statblock until the barrow is disturbed, which is a scene state" },
  long_walker: { name: "DISTANCE MEANS NOTHING", kind: "notSimulable", why: "damage buys movement rather than injury; the harness has no ground" },
  the_stanchion: { name: "DRIVEN", kind: "notSimulable", why: "its armour is already on the statblock; the rest is about a crossing" },
  the_margin: { name: "NOT MENTIONED", kind: "notSimulable", why: "a Spot penalty for looking, and the harness never looks" },
  the_relay: { name: "WHILE QUORATE", kind: "notSimulable", why: "body count holds a crossing open; nothing about the fight itself" },

  /* ---- outOfCombat: not fight rules ---- */
  barghest: { name: "THE SUMMONS", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  kelpie: { name: "ADHESION", kind: "outOfCombat", why: "its own entry says run ASPHYXIA and not a combat" },
  boggart: { name: "THE WRONG NAME", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  churchgrim: { name: "THE GROUND IS MINE", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_tenant: { name: "TENANCY", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  precedent: { name: "COUNTERSIGNED", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  quarantine_unit: { name: "STERILISATION ORDER", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  cuckoo_array: { name: "HOUSE RULES", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  auditor: { name: "THE DISCREPANCY", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  washer_ford: { name: "THE COLLAR", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  lantern_man: { name: "THE SHORTER WAY", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  knockers: { name: "THE KNOCK", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  hedley_kow: { name: "THE SWAP", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  apple_man: { name: "THE RECKONING", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_committee: { name: "RESOLVED", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  night_registry: { name: "CORRECTLY FILED", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_locum: { name: "OF COURSE", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  lost_property: { name: "UNCLAIMED", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_minutes: { name: "AS AGREED", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  waiting_room: { name: "SHORTLY", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  switchboard: { name: "PUTTING YOU THROUGH", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_census: { name: "ENUMERATED", kind: "outOfCombat", why: "its own entry says the threat is not a combat one" },
  the_yield: { name: "THE COUNT", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_overwriter: { name: "THE CORRECTION", kind: "outOfCombat" },
  the_arrears: { name: "THE PRINCIPAL", kind: "outOfCombat" }
};

export const EFFECT_KINDS = ["defenceStacking", "damageFactor", "attackFactor"];

/** The fight effect for a creature, or null. Only `wired` powers have one. */
export function combatPowerFor(key) {
  const p = POWERS[key];
  return p && p.kind === "wired" ? p.effect : null;
}