Doctrine 01 · Use the worksheet
Plan coverage, not a fictional optimum
The planner asks what a slot is responsible for, not which unverified class, spell, or weapon supposedly wins. Pick the real party size first. Then mark only the responsibilities each active slot expects to carry. A covered capability means someone has agreed to watch that part of the run. An overlap means more than one slot carries it; overlap may be intentional, but the console does not award points for it. A gap is a conversation prompt, not a prediction that the run will fail.
Start with blank slots when the group already knows its approach. Balanced, Stealth, and Environment are optional prompts that distribute attention differently. They are deliberately editable and are not rankings, recommendations for a best build, or promises about class performance. After applying one, change every tag that does not match the group’s actual plan. The strongest use of this tool is a short pre-run conversation: who sustains FAITH, how does the squad recover from FEAR, which verified interactions fit the plan, and who owns B.O.S.S. preparation?
The console reads only active slots. Reducing the party size removes inactive slot details instead of allowing hidden coverage to survive. If the group expands again, the added slots return empty. This makes the visible plan honest at the moment it is shared. Editing remains local, and the tool never calculates DPS, build strength, class rank, or a readiness score.
Doctrine 02 · Capability language
What the eight capability tags mean
- FAITH sustain
- Names how the squad will manage FAITH pressure before relying on repeated spell use.
- FEAR recovery
- Plans evidence-backed FEAR recovery through ally support or alcohol without inventing exact values.
- Stealth
- Plans a quiet approach around the official Silent Step example without assuming an unsupported detection formula.
- Fire + oil
- Looks for the official interaction example in which oil can be ignited.
- Electricity + water
- Looks for the official interaction example in which water can be electrified.
- Polymorph control
- Plans control around the official example of polymorphing a GHOUL into a RAT.
- Physical utility
- Coordinates doors and grabbable, throwable, or hand-used physical items as tactical tools.
- B.O.S.S. readiness
- Assigns ownership for preparation before a B.O.S.S. encounter without claiming a guaranteed counter.
These are editorial strategy tags, not official class categories or hidden attributes. FAITH sustain and FEAR recovery keep the resource relationship explicit. Stealth, fire with oil, electricity with water, and polymorph control map to interaction examples the official store actually describes. Physical utility covers hands, throws, doors, and other movable objects. B.O.S.S. readiness names preparation ownership without implying a score or guaranteed counter. A player can carry several responsibilities, and several players can deliberately share one.
Doctrine 03 · Read the console
Turn warnings into a pre-run briefing
Separate warnings appear when the plan lacks FAITH sustain, FEAR recovery, or B.O.S.S. readiness. They cannot know the group’s items, spell choices, current resources, or encounter state, so treat each warning as a request to name the plan aloud. The readiness tag does not guarantee success or describe a particular encounter. Official material verifies that B.O.S.S. encounters exist, while the checked evidence does not support a complete named roster, exact phases, health values, or guaranteed counters.
Environmental prompts are equally bounded. Official material explicitly gives oil being ignited and water being electrified as interaction examples. It also shows a stealth example and a polymorph example. The planner surfaces those ideas only when related editorial coverage is selected. It does not assign damage, duration, radius, resource cost, or encounter-specific superiority. Recheck what the current build actually presents, especially after an update.
Before moving on, ask three questions. Does everyone know which observation changes the plan? Is there a usable movement call when the original route closes? Is recovery a named action rather than a hope? If the answer is unclear, change a responsibility or add a local note. Notes are intentionally device-only because free text can contain personal details. A copied share link includes only the party size and selected editorial capabilities.
Doctrine 04 · Persistence and sharing
What stays local and what becomes public
The browser stores a defensive version-one record in localStorage so the worksheet can survive a reload. The parser accepts only party sizes from one through four, the eight known capability values, bounded notes, and the expected state version. Corrupted JSON, unknown versions, invalid capabilities, missing slots, or notes beyond the limit are discarded in favor of a safe default. Storage failures are also treated as a normal fallback rather than breaking the planner.
Share links use a separate, smaller contract. Encoding is deterministic: the same public plan produces the same payload. The decoder accepts only bounded base64url, valid JSON, version one, a legal party size, and known capability tags. Unknown outer keys are ignored, but they never enter state. Custom names, identifiers, and tracking fields are not encoded. Planner notes stay local in browser storage. Notes are not encoded in the share payload. When a valid share payload is present, it takes precedence over the saved device plan; a corrupt share falls back to valid local state, then to the default.
Reset returns to one empty active slot. Copy feedback confirms whether the browser clipboard accepted the link. Copying the share link itself makes no server request. Opening a shared ?s= URL sends only the whitelisted version, party size, and capability query through hosting and network infrastructure, where it may appear in standard request logs. A share query does not create a new canonical page: search engines should see the same clean planner canonical regardless of strategy state. This separation keeps the public route stable while letting a squad exchange a bounded strategy prompt without accounts or personal profiles.