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[Gloomhaven] A small, quick party game

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Posts

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Fry wrote: »
    Fairchild wrote: »
    Let him choose a new personal quest ? I deliberately chose quests which seemed close to the character's personality-- the Scoundrel, for example, has the Perfect Poison quest.

    I went the opposite route and took a quest that feels incredibly wrong for my Scoundrel, hopefully it should be fun:

    Spoiler for personal quest
    The one where you have to find some sort of undead bane axe and then use it to murder a bunch of undead. Might be called Instrument of Light? Axe-wielding Scoundrel, LOLOL

    (pls don't spoil me on what the axe actually does or whether this choice was good or bad, I want to be surprised)
    I don't think we've seen that one, does it open the Sun box?

    Yep, it does

  • azith28azith28 Registered User regular
    edited February 2018
    A few things to add to the OP:

    Naming conventions when marking spoilers: Use these descriptions:
    01 - Brute
    02 - Tinkerer
    03 - Spellweaver
    04 - Scoundrel
    05 - Cragheart
    06 - Mindthief
    07 - Sun
    08 - Three Spears
    09 - Concentric Circles
    10 - Moon/Eclipse
    11 - Cthulhu
    12 - Lightning Bolt
    13 - Music Note
    14 - Spiky/Angry Face
    15 - Saw
    16 - Triforce
    17 - Two-Mini Class

    A list of Some Class guides, and action card reviews. These are just the opinion of the player who wrote them, but for someone new to a new class, it can help give you some insight into what the class is good at, and what kinds of builds that might be the way you want to go with.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/6lmxz3/class_guide_repository/

    Also, be aware that they do sell a 'gloomhaven refresh set' that includes all the stickers for you to reapply so you can start from scratch if you want.

    azith28 on
    Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    I figure if I ever get to the point where I've completed the whole thing and want to go for another round, it probably deserves to be bought again. I mean, conservatively, it's going to take us a couple of years to get through this monstrosity. And by then the expansion will be out, soooo.

    As far as quests go, I went thematic as well.
    My Cragheart wants to donate a bunch of money to the sanctuary. Finding faith is a pretty likely thing after getting his chest smashed in for being worthless, and having to rob a bunch of people to fuel that faith is plenty entertaining. Cragheart isn't great for looting, but I picked up a fancy gadget that I immediately sold, so I'm doing fine for cash at the moment

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Yeah the expansion is out, what, next year? That's insane. And it's allegedly stand-alone as well, so I probably won't get around to it until 2020.

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Fry wrote: »
    Fairchild wrote: »
    Let him choose a new personal quest ? I deliberately chose quests which seemed close to the character's personality-- the Scoundrel, for example, has the Perfect Poison quest.

    I went the opposite route and took a quest that feels incredibly wrong for my Scoundrel, hopefully it should be fun:

    Spoiler for personal quest
    The one where you have to find some sort of undead bane axe and then use it to murder a bunch of undead. Might be called Instrument of Light? Axe-wielding Scoundrel, LOLOL

    (pls don't spoil me on what the axe actually does or whether this choice was good or bad, I want to be surprised)
    I don't think we've seen that one, does it open the Sun box?

    Yep, it does

    That makes sense. Pretty sure I've seen the item via a different route to it; won't say more per Fry's request.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Going to do scenario 3 this Saturday

    Fingers crossed we get to do more

  • Wolf of DresdenWolf of Dresden Registered User regular
    We are about ten or so missions in, plus a side quest or two. Running a Brute & Spellweaver as a two character party, with the Brute tanking and the Spellweaver on mob control. We did get in a few games with three and our third player used a Scoundrel who chipped in with single target spike damage. We struggled a bit when the monsters first leveled up but our damage output eventually caught up enough to compensate.


  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    We'll be doing that one next week. Only managing one scenario a session at the moment, but I'm in no rush. At least it's not another bloody crypt.

    Scenario #4:
    You completed a crypt? Have more crypts! At least the last one had demons instead of more distressingly fast skeletons.

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Scenario 2
    We did that one with a four character party and the curse was painful. We hit almost every curse card.

  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    We hit at least 6 of them, which was rough. None of the big attacks, thankfully, but that "ignore scenario effects" perk is looking pretty nice.

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    We hit at least 6 of them, which was rough. None of the big attacks, thankfully, but that "ignore scenario effects" perk is looking pretty nice.

    We made a big mistake too
    We didn’t realize that the number of curse cards that could affect your characters was limited, so we accidentally threw some monster curse cards into our decks too. We had 16 total! And we still managed to eke out a win.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    We hit at least 6 of them, which was rough. None of the big attacks, thankfully, but that "ignore scenario effects" perk is looking pretty nice.

    We made a big mistake too
    We didn’t realize that the number of curse cards that could affect your characters was limited, so we accidentally threw some monster curse cards into our decks too. We had 16 total! And we still managed to eke out a win.

    I strongly suspect that my group made the same mistake
    but I was not in the room during setup, so I'm not sure. I think someone read the scenario rule as "each player gets three curses" and I think I found out later that there should only exist ten player curses? (not sure how you would have gotten to 16).

    Really weird design decision to have the scenario rule violate the component limit like that. So do you just decide how to divide up the curses then if there aren't enough?

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    We hit at least 6 of them, which was rough. None of the big attacks, thankfully, but that "ignore scenario effects" perk is looking pretty nice.

    We made a big mistake too
    We didn’t realize that the number of curse cards that could affect your characters was limited, so we accidentally threw some monster curse cards into our decks too. We had 16 total! And we still managed to eke out a win.

    I strongly suspect that my group made the same mistake
    but I was not in the room during setup, so I'm not sure. I think someone read the scenario rule as "each player gets three curses" and I think I found out later that there should only exist ten player curses? (not sure how you would have gotten to 16).

    Really weird design decision to have the scenario rule violate the component limit like that. So do you just decide how to divide up the curses then if there aren't enough?

    Oh you’re right it was 3 apiece
    I saw the creator post on BGG that two get 3 and two get 2, as the official explanation, since you can only use as many as you have

  • azith28azith28 Registered User regular
    Humm. I might run some solo scenario's outside campaign mode to unlock my personal quest. I'm enjoying the mindthief but i think we could do with something new.

    Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    So somebody spoil me on the classes just a bit

    Some classes are alignment locked? So is there a chance I just won’t see an entire class?

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    edited February 2018
    Just from things that are present in the rulebook, there are classes that are unlocked by having either a high party reputation or low party reputation. However:
    - rulebook also hints that there could be multiple ways to unlock a particular class (rules for what happens if you unlock a class twice)
    - you could start a separate party and have the second party try to go the other direction on the reputation track
    - maybe over a long enough time line, you can get one party all the way from one end of the reputation track to the other? I haven't played enough to see how alignment changes happen

    Fry on
  • SaurfangSaurfang Registered User regular
    I'll go ahead and spoil ya:
    Both the Sun and Moon classes, which unlock at positive and negative ten reputation, respectively, can be unlocked with personal quests as well -- that's how it happened in my play group.

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Thanks! It would kind of suck to have to do two playthroughs just to see my class options.

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited February 2018
    So somebody spoil me on the classes just a bit

    Some classes are alignment locked? So is there a chance I just won’t see an entire class?

    We got Sun off rep and Moon off PQ.
    If you dig in the scenario book you'll see Scary Face can unlock real late in the game off what I'd call a branch of the main storyline.
    I think it's the only one but I'm not 100% on that.

    I believe it's possible to run out of non-random quests before opening everyone; it certainly seems to be where my group is headed. We'll probably miss Saw and Lightning Bolts altogether.

    Auralynx on
    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • CantideCantide Registered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    We hit at least 6 of them, which was rough. None of the big attacks, thankfully, but that "ignore scenario effects" perk is looking pretty nice.

    We made a big mistake too
    We didn’t realize that the number of curse cards that could affect your characters was limited, so we accidentally threw some monster curse cards into our decks too. We had 16 total! And we still managed to eke out a win.

    I strongly suspect that my group made the same mistake
    but I was not in the room during setup, so I'm not sure. I think someone read the scenario rule as "each player gets three curses" and I think I found out later that there should only exist ten player curses? (not sure how you would have gotten to 16).

    Really weird design decision to have the scenario rule violate the component limit like that. So do you just decide how to divide up the curses then if there aren't enough?

    Oh you’re right it was 3 apiece
    I saw the creator post on BGG that two get 3 and two get 2, as the official explanation, since you can only use as many as you have

    Why that design decision happened:
    Because originally there was no division between player curses and monster curses. There were just 20 curse cards and they went where they went. Breaking them up was an errata made later on, presumably because getting to flood the monster deck with 20 curses can trivialize just about any scenario (and is not difficult to do for certain classes if you build for it). When updating the scenario book for second edition, Isaac Childres either forgot to change the "add 3 curses" special effect, or just didn't want to change the scenario balance.

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Yeesh, that sounds awful. Glad it got changed.

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Finished #3 today
    We did it with 4 people and we weren’t really on the razor’s edge at all since the guards just sort of stood there dumbly with their shields up almost the entire time

    My brute got to the treasure and found a blueprint he will definitely want to purchase

  • FairchildFairchild Rabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?" Registered User regular
    Retired the Brute tonite and unlocked the guy with two boxes.
    Beast Tyrant. Holy Cow, Summoning for days !

  • KyanilisKyanilis Bellevue, WARegistered User regular
    Me and my partner have been playing this. I picked it up after hearing about it because it sounded like totally a game I'd be super into. Good news, it is!

    She's never really played a board game like this so we failed the first scenario a couple of times but now we've got things under control. We're running a brute/mindthief combo and it's working out alright, just finished scenario 3 tonight! I think we've got like 5 places we could go next? I've got the feeling we've got our weekends cut out for us for awhile.

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Fairchild wrote: »
    Retired the Brute tonite and unlocked the guy with two boxes.
    Beast Tyrant. Holy Cow, Summoning for days !

    2-Box Character Stuff
    We've had this guy in our group for some time now. He's really entertaining. If you have any questions I'm all ears.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    5 missions in and really enjoying the game, but setup and teardown are a bitch.

    Brute+Cragheart seem really solid together.

    Minor Potion of Stamina seems insane.

  • FairchildFairchild Rabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?" Registered User regular
    The Scoundrel finished Perfect Poison and retired, unlocking Cthulhu.

    Looking at Cthulhu's cards-- Dang.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    Minor Potion of Stamina seems insane.

    I think that might vary by character and by how much you've upgraded your cards. If you have a good/important non-lost card or two that you want to be using all the time, it's pretty good, but so far I haven't found it to be that useful for my level 1 scoundrel. Most of my cards are pretty samey, so it doesn't do much other than stave off exhaustion for one turn.

  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    Minor Potion of Stamina seems insane.

    I think that might vary by character and by how much you've upgraded your cards. If you have a good/important non-lost card or two that you want to be using all the time, it's pretty good, but so far I haven't found it to be that useful for my level 1 scoundrel. Most of my cards are pretty samey, so it doesn't do much other than stave off exhaustion for one turn.

    I went back and reread it says "recover discarded" instead of "recover lost". Whoops!

    I had been recovering lost cards :(

  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Well, it's a minor potion. I assume there's a major one available eventually; maybe that lets you reclaim lost cards. The minors are still useful, though, letting you use something twice in a row without having to short rest.

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    A short list of rules mistakes I've made so far in Gloomhaven:
    • "Recover discarded" is not "recover lost"
    • Traps are not obstacles, so "destroy an obstacle" doesn't work on traps
    • You get the loot from opening a treasure chest immediately, not at the end of the scenario. Only the person opening the chest gets the reward.
    • Monsters can move through other monsters.
    • Ranged monsters who have a "move, attack" card and start adjacent to character will move one step away to avoid disadvantage

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    I just did #81 solo
    The Helix ring seems very powerful if you enchant cards specifically for it, but mostly for tankier classes

  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    You get loot immediately, but if it's an item you can't actually equip it until the scenario's done, since "choose your gear" happens at the beginning. I'm not sure it ever matters if you wait til after the scenario to find out what you've got, except then you'd have to wait to open your present, which so far we have not managed to do.

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    You get loot immediately, but if it's an item you can't actually equip it until the scenario's done, since "choose your gear" happens at the beginning. I'm not sure it ever matters if you wait til after the scenario to find out what you've got, except then you'd have to wait to open your present, which so far we have not managed to do.

    Without spoiling, it matters.

  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Oh durr, yeah, we've already encountered a situation where it would matter. Nevermind.

    Anyway, session report for this week: spoilers for scenarios #3 and #8, a few events, and the Sanctuary donation unlock.
    The Spellweaver was off meditating somewhere this week, so the other three ventured out to a bandit camp (#3), as taking Jekserah up on her offer was more appealing than the prospect of another bloody crypt. Said camp turned out to be more of a permanent home than expected, and an unfortunate purge was the result. Nobody was very happy about that, especially when Jekserah herself just kind of dismissed both it and us out of hand.

    Naturally we immediately entered a pie-eating contest after this, because nothing says cheerful like hurling up a bunch of apple and pastry. At least the audience was impressed. The Sanctuary doesn't discriminate when it comes to donations, though, and gold from fruit-stained hobos is as good as any other. (We unlocked the ability to... donate more gold. But a surer path to prosperity is quite nice).

    Didn't take a great deal of thought to agree with the guard telling us that Jekserah is a bit of a dick, and so it was off to her warehouse (#8), which (shock, surprise) was full of the skeletons we've been trying to avoid. Sigh. At least the indoor environment provided plenty of walls and tables for the Cragheart to throw them into. (He might also have stolen a treasure that the Scoundrel stepped into a trap for). He was thoroughly shown up in the final room, at least, when the Brute basically headbutted one of Jekserah's massive bodyguards to death by himself, and a combination of poison and a brutal point-blank flintlock blast mostly dealt with the other. The merchant herself has fled, sadly, but we have plenty of adventure options now between a side quest, the crypts, and the leads she left behind.

    (Despite playing on Hard now and with only three players, we pretty much steamrolled both missions. The guards at the camp seemed to just shield/retaliate 90% of the time, and the shamans did regular move-and-attacks apart from a couple of heals. The undead at the warehouse went down real fast, and the Inox Bodyguards had all of about two rounds of actions; the Brute seriously just crushed one by himself with enormous crits after using his fastest move and boots of striding, followed by that "attack X, where X is how much you moved", plus the helmet that adds one damage for faster movement. Still fun, though.)

    QPPHj1J.jpg
  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    After finishing Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and picking off the latest TIME Stories expansion, tonight was finally time for my group to begin Gloomhaven.

    One of us is actually in two other campaigns, although one is basically in limbo. He has been a Spellweaver and a Scoundrel, so he was game to be anything but those two. He ended up with a Brute. Also in the Faded Legacy party are a Scoundrel, a Cragheart, and a Mindthief (me).

    We began with a brief post-market detour to grab some tasty lunch in the city proper, then had an unfortunate encounter with a bear. Despite that, we finally made our way to the Black Barrow...

    ...where we promptly got our asses kicked.

    We cleared the first room more or less fine (although our attack decks were not being kind), but the second room turned our Cragheart into a pincushion in short order. The Brute went next, and while the Scoundrel did manage to clear the hallway, we knew we were teetering on the brink of exhaustion and did what we could before falling to the final room.

    So, that wasn't great. But we learned what to do and what not to do; I think a key factor was burning powerful cards too early, although with the scenario at level 2 the numbers on the enemies seemed kind of big? We gained some experience and some loot (I scrounged up 18 gold) and a better understanding of our abilities (I will be swapping in two X-cards next time).

    Gonna take a week to regroup and give it another shot.

    nedhf8b6a4rj.jpgsig.gif
    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Wait, why did you start at level 2? The beginning scenario should be done at 0 or 1.

  • HedgethornHedgethorn Associate Professor of Historical Hobby Horses In the Lions' DenRegistered User regular
    Wait, why did you start at level 2? The beginning scenario should be done at 0 or 1.

    Josh is right. Enemy level, according to the rule book, should be (party's average level)/2, rounded up. So you shouldn't be playing against level 2 monsters until your party has an average level of 3.
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    But we learned what to do and what not to do; I think a key factor was burning powerful cards too early.

    Bingo. Exhaustion is the only real danger in the game, which means you need to keep as many cards in your hand/discard as possible. Losing a card early in the scenario is roughly equal to giving up 3-4 turns; you should only burn a card when it seems worth it to give up 3 turns for the card's effect.

  • SaurfangSaurfang Registered User regular
    Opening doors is a bit of an art as well. I like to open doors with someone who can go invisible to hide from the inevitable arrows, swords, or claws, or alternately with someone who has enough movement to duck back into the previous room if necessary.

  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    edited February 2018
    Hedgethorn wrote: »
    Wait, why did you start at level 2? The beginning scenario should be done at 0 or 1.

    Josh is right. Enemy level, according to the rule book, should be (party's average level)/2, rounded up. So you shouldn't be playing against level 2 monsters until your party has an average level of 3.

    We must have mis-read "average" as "total" in the rules.

    Hell in that case I don't feel so bad since we were taking the scenario on in hard mode.

    Vyolynce on
    nedhf8b6a4rj.jpgsig.gif
    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
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