Dune/docs/LEADER_SKILLS_RUNTIME.md

Leader Skills first functional prototype

13 September 2026. This is Prototyped, with Partial rules coverage. Normal mode starts and publication remain gated. The source contract contains all fourteen physical cards; the capture interpretation records the fresh publisher/designer search requested by the user.

Connected boundary

Genuine Basic or Advanced setup supports two through six base factions. Starting Treachery Cards, including Harkonnen's extra card, precede simultaneous private two-card skill offers. Every faction selects one physical skill and an eligible own leader, returns the other card to the shuffled deck, and publicly assigns the selected card before traitor choices. No reduced or duplicate skill deck is substituted. Expansion rosters and other optional modules remain separate work.

Human controls show each permitted card's normal and battle text, select its leader, choose battle posture, and handle an optional own-leader revival draw. An undrawn revival offer shows no preview; drawing obliges a selection. All four AI profiles follow the same private offers and legal actions, prioritizing the five battle disciplines during skill selection and hiding the assigned leader for battle. This simple policy is not calibrated skill strategy.

Warmaster, Master of Assassins, Swordmaster of Ginaz, Killer Medic and Prana-Bindu Adept apply +1 to another selected leader from a face-up native trainer, or +3 to the surviving assigned leader. They use the physical card's actual weapon or defense role, including a legally supplied Portable Snooper. They do not grant +4 or change printed strength, leader bounty or Zoal's source value. Existing traitor, explosion and Stone Burner precedence is preserved. Cheap Hero receives the normal +1 through ordinary leader substitution; this is a general-rule inference, without a separately located explicit skill FAQ.

A face-up assigned disc cannot enter a plan. Concealing it while selecting another leader gives no skill bonus. Later Voice or card use can remove the last alternative: the mandatory remaining skilled disc then moves behind the shield automatically, without replaying battle powers. A surviving assignment returns face up after battle. Death returns its physical card exactly once. An own Ghola revival during unfinished battle preparation retains that stage through the new private draw and public posture choice.

Harkonnen capture keeps the card attached to its original leader and publicly shows the current captor. Only the captive's lower battle effect can apply; neither faction receives its normal effect while captured. A surviving used captive returns with the same card. Execution returns the card to the deck; that unique formerly public card makes this skilled leader's identity inferable. Other captures retain the existing privacy behavior. This narrow publicity interpretation follows the physical component procedure, not an express publisher instruction to announce a name.

Missing and guarded work

The other nine cards have readable inventory entries but missing effects: Bureaucrat, Spice Banker, Diplomat, Mentat, Suk Graduate, Rihani Decipherer, Sandmaster, Smuggler and Planetologist. They are not completed features.

Captured-card replacement entitlement remains unresolved. The prototype rejects own-leader revival while its original skill is captured, before beginning a paid revival or consuming the Ghola/special-Karama action. This is an explicit unsupported boundary, not a ruling that the physical game forbids that revival. Foreign gholas, expansion rosters and combined optional modules remain gated. Before enabling them, add response-driven automatic revival continuation coverage; the current before/after revival observer does not certify deferred Tleilaxu response chains. The other source-contract timing questions also remain open. Planetologist now has bounded movement and battle controls as described below. The other eight skills still need their payments, information, rescues, retreats and other effects connected.

Planetologist follow-up

Planetologist connects the explicit capped range bonus, two-origin movement to one destination, Fremen cancellation/replacement and a surviving skilled leader's +2 green-Special substitution with mandatory discard. The movement panel and weapon selector expose those choices; all four AI profiles can use the same physical action paths. Pending movement receipts survive JSON continuation and revalidate source custody before a response is spent.

Six base factions remain the supported roster. Mixed BG origins are supported where ordinary rules determine the destination stance. Enemy-only mixed arrival still needs a combined flip response. Expansion faction/card/module combinations and full integrated acceptance remain unfinished. Eight other skill effects are still missing; this is partial prototype coverage.

Local prototype entry and evidence

Create a new base-faction local lobby, select its seats and mark them ready. Keep its browser cookie. Use the existing backup and atomic version-check tool:

node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile leader-skills \
  --db PATH_TO_LOCAL_D1_SQLITE --room EIGHT_CHARACTER_CODE \
  --version CURRENT_LOBBY_VERSION --out /private/new-prototype-checkpoint

Only that fresh named lobby is initialized; every other room and all seats stay intact. Refresh to continue through ordinary authenticated actions. No HTTP endpoint dispatches the initializer; do not restart or reset the database.

Focused tests cover physical inventory, setup ordering, private views, all five bonuses, Voice legality, capture and return, death, revival and JSON restoration. SQLite tests use production room actions across restarted stores and concurrent selection: one choice commits, the selected card has one owner, the rejected card returns once, and private offers remain owner-only. The local prototype writer is separately checked for stale/redeal rejection and preserved seats.

Two seeded four-player simulations (20260913 Basic; 20260914 Advanced) completed through genuine setup in 265 and 211 accepted actions with no rejected bot candidates. They used Easy, Medium, Hard and Brutal, checked physical skills and forces, and restored JSON views at fourteen sampled boundaries in total. These were first-batch runs before the later capture and Voice review fixes; their private report fingerprints the exact files exercised. They do not prove all fourteen effects, Harkonnen capture or every interaction was played.

A later Advanced run including Harkonnen (seed 20260915) completed in 360 accepted actions, four turns and ten sampled JSON restores, with no rejected bot candidates. It exercised the current controller/Voice integration. Exact captured-card outcomes are proved by the focused capture scenarios, rather than inferred from this sample game's completion.

Browser room REF6YHN7 was created normally with a human Atreides and Medium Harkonnen, then initialized through the backed-up local tool. The human inspected both effect bands, assigned Master of Assassins to Thufir Hawat, selected a private traitor and reached Storm. Refresh retained that assignment, the AI's Swordmaster on Feyd-Rautha, the same Snooper hand and the pending Storm dial. Visual inspection caught two squeezed columns in the table sidebar; single-column cards restore readable text. This was a focused desktop setup/recovery journey, not a complete human game or mobile acceptance.

The second reported power outage stopped the development server. All 292 rooms were present with a clean SQLite integrity/foreign-key check; the 291 opening rooms matched their hashes. A new online backup preceded the necessary server start. The same browser seat then restored both skills, Snooper, private Thufir traitor, ten spice and its pending Storm decision. No database reset or old game restoration was performed.

Checkpoint-wide check/build/HTTP results and the final source fingerprint are recorded in the commit and private verification report. Full module and combined game acceptance remain unfinished.