Closes the 'fairly breezy with some death' target the user picked
for Phase 5. Five-piece ship; Phase 1 matrix lands T1 88%, T2 74%,
T4 72%, T5 ~57% in or above band. T3 remains the design hump at
~45% (manor 39, underforge 47) — Wraith promotion to elite was
already done in Phase 4-B, the remaining standard-pool deaths are
the irreducible part of T3.
Pieces:
1. computeMaxHP × 1.5 (phase5BHPMult in dnd.go). Uniform across
class/level so the class-balance harness's in-tier parity
assertion stays green. Bootstrap (bootstrap_phase5b_hp.go)
refreshes hp_max for existing characters at startup;
idempotent via db.JobCompleted. hp_current is bumped by the
same delta so a full-HP character stays at full.
2. applyPhase5BPlayerFloor (dnd_combat.go): +3 AC, +3 AttackBonus,
+3 weapon.MagicBonus (damage). Applied at the END of
applyDnDEquipmentLayer (after computeArmorAC's AC override)
and inside buildHarnessPlayer so live and harness measurement
match.
3. Elite bracket 19 → 23 (resolveCombatInterrupt). Case order
puts Elite (≥23) before Patrol (≥22) so a 23+ total prefers
the single dangerous fight. Elite is now effectively a
high-threat event reachable only via the +1-per-20-threat-
above-40 mod — Phase 4-B's elite-pool monsters still appear,
just less often.
4. dailyThreatDrift base 3 → 1. Slows the threat clock so
players have the days they need before threat tips zones
into the new 23+ elite band.
5. applyDailyBurn default → 50% (phase5BDailyBurnRatePct). Also
applied in the temporal-override branch in
dnd_expedition_cycle.go so tidal / unraveling days scale by
the same 0.5× — otherwise those days would be
disproportionately harsh against the new baseline.
The harness's expedition_balance.go reads phase5BDailyBurnRatePct
as the default-burn fallback when the override knob is zero, so
Phase 1 matrix measurements now reflect what live players
experience.
Test debt: 13 pinned-numbers unit tests across combat_stats_test,
dnd_test, dnd_xp_test, dnd_equipment_profiles_test,
dnd_expedition_supplies_test, dnd_expedition_cycle_test,
dnd_expedition_extract_test, dnd_expedition_region_cmd_test,
dnd_expedition_combat_test, dnd_expedition_threat_test,
dnd_expedition_temporal_test, expedition_balance_test were
pinning pre-Phase-5-B baselines; updated with comments noting
the cause. Class-balance suite stayed green (uniform buff
preserves spread).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Phase 4-B closed the per-zone outliers but T2/T3/T5 sibling pairs sit
below band as a group (T2 7-13% vs 62-82%; T3 3-14% vs 54-74%; T5
25-57% vs 36-56%). The plan doc's three tier-wide candidates (gear-
tier centerline remap, per-tier elite threshold, ship burn=75) needed
disambiguation before pulling any of them.
TestExpeditionBalance_Phase5A_TierWideSensitivity runs the 6 problem
zones through three one-axis sweeps holding the other two levers at
Phase 3-B best (e=23, d=1, burn=50):
Axis L player level {centerline-2, centerline, centerline+2}
Axis E elite threshold {18, 23, 28}
Axis B supply burn pct {40, 50, 60}
200 trials/cell × 6 zones × 9 cells = 10.8k trials; runs in 0.31s.
Reuses the harness's traceFightStruct plumbing for elite-vs-standard
fight share alongside comp/death/starve.
Reading (full numbers in the plan doc):
- Player level is the dominant lever at T2/T3. +2 levels lifts
completion meaningfully; the elite gate and burn are inert.
- Elite threshold is already at its sweet spot at e=23 — e=18
floods elites and collapses every tier; e=28 is flat. Per-tier
threshold candidate is killed.
- burn=75 globally is killed. burn=60 alone produces 36%/61%
starve at T5; the Phase 3-B negative result holds tier-wide.
- T5 dragons_lair is already in-band at the baseline (60.5%);
the T5 gap is really an abyss_portal-only gap.
- The level-bump path has a catch: L7 at T2 (max of design range,
still gearTier=2) only reaches ~27%, well below the 62-82% band.
Closing T2 properly likely needs a cross-gearTier-boundary
centerline (T2 → L9 = gearTier 3) — a design call for Phase 5-B,
not a knob twist.
Diagnostic-only — no gates. -short skips. Plan doc updated with
numbers and three Phase 5-B candidate moves (cross-bracket centerline
bump recommended; player combat-math retune is the bigger option;
lowering the band target is the fallback).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Folds the 4-A diagnostic + 4-B roster pass into the plan doc with
before/after numbers, and notes the partial Phase 4 exit (per-zone
outliers fixed, tier-wide gap remains for T2/T3/T5). Adds the Phase
5 jumping-off list (per-tier elite threshold, gear-tier mapping
review, or shipping burn=75 as the live global).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wired SurpriseNickFloorOverride and SupplyBurnRatePctOverride into the
harness day-loop via two new parameterized helpers (surpriseRoundNickF,
applyDailyBurnP). Live callers go through the existing constants;
sweep test sits on top of the Phase 3-A best cell (e=23, d=1).
TestExpeditionBalance_Phase3B_NickSupplySweep walks 3×3 (floor ∈ {0, 1,
tier=live}) × (burn% ∈ {50, 75, 100=live}) × 10 zones × 200 trials.
Strong partial T5 positive; nick-floor lever inert.
- Supply burn is the T5 unlock: dragons_lair 0% → ~55% at burn=50.
Fighter survives elites; burn=75 isn't enough margin.
- T4 peaks at burn=75 (~12% underdark/feywild); burn=50 dips T4
slightly (more elites survived into).
- Nick-floor inert across tiers (≤3pp swing); wounded-clamp already
eats the chip-damage budget. Recommend dropping from live-tuning
candidates.
- T2-T3 wall persists: forest_shadows, manor_blackspire,
abyss_portal stuck at ~0% across every combo — outliers, not
addressable by global levers.
Global levers wrung out. Plan-doc Phase 3-B section + memory pointers
updated; next is Phase 4 (per-zone outlier pass). -short shows the
same two pre-existing failures (TestAdv2Scenario_ZoneRunGoblinWarrens,
TestMageSpellbookLineInRender).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wired two harness lever overrides — EliteInterruptThresholdOverride
(live=19) and ThreatDriftBaseOverride (live=3) — into the day-loop in
expedition_balance.go. Live runHarvestInterrupt / dailyThreatDrift are
untouched; the harness re-buckets Standard↔Elite after the live call.
TestExpeditionBalance_Phase3_GlobalLeverSweep walks a 3×3 grid
(elite ∈ {17,19,23} × drift ∈ {1,3,5}) over the Phase 1 matrix at
200 trials/cell. -short skips.
Elite-bracket threshold is the dominant lever for T1–T3. At
e=23/d=1: T1 mean 24.0% (goblin_warrens 40.5%), T2 7.2%
(sunken_temple 14.5%), T3 1.8%. Still well below target bands
(T1 70-90%, T2 62-82%) — the lever moves the needle in the right
direction but cannot land any tier on-band alone.
T4/T5 fingerprint changed but didn't lift. At e=23 dragons_lair
death drops 60% → 24% but starvation climbs to 75% — the fighter
now survives elites long enough to run out of supplies. T4 cells
shift the same way. Indicates a second lever is needed for the
higher tiers (standard-fight survivability or supply margin), to
be swept in Phase 3-B.
Plan doc updated. Renumbered the trailing "per-zone outlier pass"
to Phase 4 and "MAD / second-order" to Phase 5 so the test names
align with phase numbers going forward.
-short suite: same 2 pre-existing failures
(TestAdv2Scenario_ZoneRunGoblinWarrens, TestMageSpellbookLineInRender).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Each zone's elite pool was a single SpawnWeight=1 over-tier boss, so
InterruptElite bracket rolls auto-picked that boss 100% of the time.
The post-2b tier-lethality trace named these one-shots (Warchief, Hag,
Roper, Young Red Dragon) as the dominant remaining death source.
Promotes one mid-tier alt per zone to IsElite (underforge gets two
since fire_elemental was itself a non-elite killer). Boss SW=1 stays;
alt SW 3-4 gives the boss ~17-25% elite-roll share. pickZoneEnemy also
excludes IsElite from the standard pool, so promotion softens standard
encounters by one mid-difficulty entry — each zone still has 3-4
standard entries left. Crypt-Valdris already dual-elite, untouched.
Promotions: worg, owlbear, aboleth_thrall, vampire_spawn,
salamander+fire_elemental, drow_elite_warrior, night_hag,
dragonborn_cultist, hezrou.
Phase 1 matrix delta (200 trials/cell, Fighter, centerline):
goblin_warrens: 0% → 3.0% completion (first non-zero T1 reading)
sunken_temple: 0% → 0.5%
dragons_lair: death 100% → 60% (40% starve — different failure)
underdark: death 100% → 90% (10% starve)
feywild: death 100% → 92% (8% starve)
T3 cells still 100% death — next pass is global supply/threat levers.
Tier-lethality trace shows Drow Elite Warrior + Dragonborn Cultist
spawning and being winnable, with arcs stretching to 7-10 encounters
instead of fresh-entry one-shots.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Sweep the two knobs surfaced by Phases 2a/2b — retreatThreatBump
and clampSurpriseNick's wounded-entrant divisor — across a full
3×4 grid (bump ∈ {2, 5, 10} × divisor ∈ {3, 5, 8, 12}) at 200
trials/cell across every matrix zone.
Wiring is harness-only: clampSurpriseNick keeps its live shape and
delegates to a new clampSurpriseNickD(divisor) variant; the harness
profile gains RetreatThreatBumpOverride/SurpriseNickDivisorOverride
fields threaded onto expeditionHarness; resolvedRetreatBump and
resolvedNickDivisor pick override-or-live. Zero on either field
falls back to the shipped value so live runHarvestInterrupt is
untouched.
Sweep test: TestExpeditionBalance_Phase2_LeverSweep, -short skipped,
mirrors Phase2_CadenceCalibration's per-tier digest shape.
Outcome: across 24,000 trial-cells (12 lever combos × 10 zones
× 200 trials), every cell reports 0.0% completion / ~100% death.
The knobs are inert on the headline metric — even (b=2, d=12)
can't lift any tier off the floor. Confirms the post-2b
tier-lethality trace: remaining deaths are fresh-entry elite
one-shots (Warchief, Hag, Roper, Young Red Dragon), not chained-
interrupt cascades. Justifies Phase 2c (roster dilution) rather
than further tuning of these two levers.
Plan doc updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The post-2a tier-lethality trace showed the remaining 0% completion
was driven by chained surprise-round nicks on already-wounded fighters,
not by the elites themselves. Pattern from the trace:
fight day=5 Hobgoblin Warchief: hp_pre=24 → hp_post=14 WON
fight day=5 Goblin Archer: nick=6, hp_pre=8 → hp_post=0 LOST
The Warchief left the fighter at HP 14; the Goblin Archer's surprise
nick (6 HP) dropped them to 8 before combat resolved — and a standard
goblin then finished a fighter who should have survived. Same shape at
T2 (Dire Wolf nick 4 on hp=3), T3 (Fire Elemental nick 4 on hp=5),
T4-T5. The nick was acting as a hidden cascade multiplier, pre-empting
the combat engine on wounded entries.
clampSurpriseNick caps the nick at max(1, hpCurrent/5) when the
fighter enters wounded (HPCurrent < HPMax); at full HP the raw nick
stands. The existing 'nick < HPCurrent' KO-guard is preserved as a
backstop. /5 is the wounded-fighter lethality knob; tighter (/10) is
gentler, looser (/3) re-opens the cascade.
Live caller (runHarvestInterrupt) and harness (runHarnessFight) both
route through the new helper so the sim measures the same lever the
live caller applies.
Matrix delta is mild (encs +0.1-0.2 per cell, completion% still 0%)
but the tier-lethality trace stretches substantively: T1 trial 0 ran
5→8 encs / 5→7 days, T3 trial 1 saw a fighter survive multiple
chained interrupts at low HP that pre-2b would have ended on nick
alone. The remaining deaths are now legible as elite-one-shot fights
on fresh entries (Warchief, Green Hag, Roper, Young Red Dragon) —
that's the Phase 2c roster-gate signal.
Push-back on the original lever-order: the Phase 2a recap put roster
gate first, but the trace fingerprint named the wounded-entry nick
as the dominant cause-of-death in 4 of 5 tier traces. Doing nick-cap
first keeps Phase 2c's diagnostic clean and avoids re-tuning rosters
after another lever changes the shape under us.
Pre-existing failures unrelated to this change:
- TestAdv2Scenario_ZoneRunGoblinWarrens (advance regression, prior)
- TestMageSpellbookLineInRender (render assertion, prior)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
