2014 Monk (5/7): Way of the Four Elements disciplines

[Sandersland]

Summary

Slice 5 of 7 in #1313 (2014 Monk). Implements the 2014-only Way of the Four Elements subclass — Elemental Attunement + a 16-discipline ki-fueled catalog (PHB'14 pp. 80–81, not in SRD 5.1) — riding the generic subclass-choice machinery (#899) end to end rather than reviving the retired discipline engine (34f5a4c).

• Seed: backend/prisma/seed/disciplines.ts — 16 GrantedAbility rows (source: "discipline", all EDITION_2014), transcribed from PHB'14 with page citations. Corrects two errors the deleted engine's seed carried: Fist of Four Thunders is 2d8 (thunderwave), not 3d8; Eternal Mountain Defense's own text gates it at monk level 13, not 17.
• Subclass: new Subclass row "Way of the Four Elements" (EDITION_2014, slug monk-way-of-the-four-elements); "Warrior of the Elements" retagged EDITION_2024 (its real 2014 predecessor now exists as its own subclass, so the two can no longer share an untagged row).
• Cast: new lib/classes/disciplines.ts — maxKiPerDiscipline (PHB'14 p.80's per-cast ki cap: 2/3/4/5/6 at L3/5/9/13/17), the 7-discipline concentration set, and a new EffectScaling mode "poolStep" (ki-overspend scaling, the generalised successor to the retired discipline-only "focus" mode). One ABILITY_REGISTRY entry ("disciplines") — no new route file.
• Schema: widens CharacterEventType with castDiscipline (plain ADD VALUE migration; the other four retired discipline events stay retired).
• Swap rule (owner decision, 2026-08-03): PHB'14's "replace one discipline when you learn a new one" is built this slice via a new subclassChoiceSwapCadence rule (the choose-N analog of swapCadenceFor) and a LevelUpSubmission.subclassChoicesForgotten field, netted against learns the same way the existing spell swap works — no new LevelUpStepKind.

Backend-only — no frontend wiring (matches the issue's scope).

Test plan

• npm run lint / npm run typecheck (root, all workspaces) green
• Full backend suite green (370 files / 4460 tests, incl. new discipline unit + route + level-up-ceremony + reconciliation tests)
• prisma db seed run twice: exactly 16 source: "discipline" rows, all EDITION_2014, zero edition: NULL
• assertEverySubclassEditionPopulated passes (verified via the full class-feature-population.test.ts run)
• scripts/check-enum-narrowing.sh, check-seed-data-modules.sh, check-catalog-id-edition-guard.sh, check-class-ts-migration.sh, check-subclass-substring.sh all pass
• fallow audit clean (two new/incidental duplicate findings suppressed with reasons; one pre-existing cross-file duplicate reduced to non-blocking)

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Code Review: 2014 Monk — Way of the Four Elements

• Read diff and key changed files
• Review seed data (disciplines.ts, monk-features.ts, subclasses.ts)
• Review lib/classes/disciplines.ts (new capability file)
• Review leveling changes (level-up-plan, level-up-submission, level-up-transaction)
• Review route handlers and contracts
• Review tests
• Post findings

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Overall Assessment

Excellent slice. The mechanics are well-modelled, the poolStep EffectScaling generalisation is the right abstraction, the subclassChoiceSwapCadence + subclassChoicesForgotten approach cleanly mirrors the spell-swap pattern without a new step kind, and the reconciler reuse via generic reconcileSubclassChoices is exactly right. One correctness bug in two seed rows; one minor schema inconsistency. Everything else is clean.

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Finding 1 — Content Bug: saveEffect: "half" missing for two disciplines

Files: backend/prisma/seed/disciplines.ts lines ~113–127 and ~160–175

Fist of Unbroken Air and Water Whip both deal half damage on a successful save per PHB'14 p.81, but their seed rows omit saveEffect: "half". Every other save-damage discipline in the same file has it:

Discipline	saveEffect set?	PHB'14 says
Fist of Four Thunders	"half" ✓	half on save
Fist of Unbroken Air	(absent) ✗	"takes half as much damage" on success
Sweeping Cinder Strike	"half" ✓	half on save
Water Whip	(absent) ✗	"takes half damage" on success
Gong of the Summit	"half" ✓	half on save
Flames of the Phoenix	"half" ✓	half on save
Breath of Winter	"half" ✓	half on save

catalogEffectSpec passes saveEffect through as row.saveEffect ?? null. Because these two rows lack the field, the wire EffectSpec.saveEffect is null — and the frontend will show no half-damage hint on a successful save for two of the most commonly-used disciplines (Fist of Unbroken Air and Water Whip both available at L3, Water Whip is the iconic L3 ki trick).

The fix is two lines in disciplines.ts:

// Fist of Unbroken Air (~line 116)
saveEffect: "half",

// Water Whip (~line 169)
saveEffect: "half",

No migration needed — these are seed-only columns on GrantedAbility. Fix this →

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Finding 2 — Minor schema inconsistency: roll validator allows 0

File: packages/contracts/src/ability-ops.ts line ~51

roll: z.number().nonnegative().optional(),

The contract allows roll: 0, but disciplines.ts:resolveDisciplineCast immediately rejects it for any damage discipline (roll <= 0 → throw). This is not a bug (the server-side guard catches it), but it differs from the convention in castShadowArtOpSchema where roll uses .positive(). A z.number().int().positive() here would make the contract self-documenting and consistent with the shadow-arts sibling.

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Substantive things that are correct (and worth naming)

• maxKiPerDiscipline formula min(6, 2 + floor((monkLevel-1)/4)) → 2/3/4/5/6 at L3/L5/L9/L13/L17 matches PHB'14 p.80's table exactly. Unit test covers all breakpoints. ✓

• CONCENTRATION_DISCIPLINES set — 7 entries are correct (gust of wind, hold person, gaseous form, fly, stoneskin, wall of fire, wall of stone all require concentration per PHB'14; thunderwave, burning hands, shatter, fireball, cone of cold, and the non-spell disciplines do not). ✓

• Fist of Four Thunders corrected from 3d8 → 2d8 — thunderwave's PHB'14 damage is 2d8. ✓

• Eternal Mountain Defense gated at minLevel: 13, not 11 or 17 — the PHB'14 text states the 13th-level gate explicitly on the discipline itself; the seed header's explanation is accurate. ✓

• Warrior of the Elements retagged EDITION_2024 once its 2014 predecessor was authored with its own slug — this avoids the "shared row resolves against nothing" trap that any untagged subclass row hits once its Subclass row stops being NULL-edition. ✓

• No new reconciler entry — reconcileSubclassChoices (Enabler: generalize subclass choice-count + reconciler beyond Fighter/Monk (level-up Choose-N dep) #899's generic mechanism) handles fourElementsDisciplines for free; discipline-reconciliation.test.ts proves this and pins the 8-entry LEVEL_GATED_RECONCILERS count. ✓

• subclassChoicesForgotten ordering — forgets before learns in STEP_OP_BUILDERS.subclassChoice mirrors the spell-swap pattern; the comment correctly calls out why this matters even for the RAW-disallowed re-pick edge. ✓

• assertSubclassChoiceForgets scope — correctly rejects forgets on a key with no canSwap step, limits to 1 forget per choiceKey per level-up, and defers entry-existence to applyForgetSubclassChoiceOp at apply time (sound design decision documented in-comment). ✓

• subclassChoiceSwapCadence placement in types.ts — correct; keeps level-up-plan.ts import-clean of Prisma transaction types. ✓

• deployments.md example updated — removing castDiscipline from the blocked-enum example is correct (it's now a live enum value again); adding disciplinesReconciled is correct (still retired). ✓

• no-disciplines-known-key.test.ts — grep-enforced guard against accidentally resurrecting disciplinesKnown (the pre-retirement orphaned JSON key) is the right shape of invariant test. ✓

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Verdict: One content bug in the seed data (two disciplines missing saveEffect: "half") that should be fixed before merge. Everything else is solid.