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Xiahou Dun posted:Fair, but I'm praying that doesn't happen cause I personally hate playing support characters. I played the Tinkerer in our group and I was more of a range DD with just a splash of support and it was a lot of fun. Get the Googles for starters and then a power potion. On the lower levels you will clear groups that way. And having 12 Cards feels so good. I think I didn't get a stamina potion until Level 3 and I never exhausted.
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Jan 29, 2019 08:24
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Xiahou Dun posted:Yeah I read the hell out of the OP, sorry I wasn't clear. The nice thing is everyone gets at least some gloomhaven rules wrong, even people who've been playing for months, so it'll all wash out. Make sure they understand the burn a card to block damage rule, I think that's the main thing. Taking Brute so you can be the "tank" is probably a good idea too.
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Jan 29, 2019 10:14
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Xiahou Dun posted:They are never going to watch that. Ever. I did, but it doesn't help. (Or well it obviously does since I know the rules better but you know what I mean.) It sounds like you may already have done this but it's important when introducing games to people that are not in the board game mentality ( the beardy one of getting to know new mechanics) that you introduce rules a little bit at a time. Try guiding them in in an organic way like start with the intro and maybe do the first city event and explain a little bits have the general idea of the campaign works ( who you are and what your goal is) then run a road event. Then when you set up the first scenario start introducing the concept of playing two cards to do things and explain some basic Concepts like move and attack. You may also include for each player a couple of additional points on their bread and butter like augment for the Mindthief. Make sure not to overload them with information: you don't need to explain what all the different symbols and words mean at first. Give them the player aids but wait for them to ask more clarifications; if they don't it's fine. 90% of Gloomhaven 's complexity is in the action card system and it's all front loaded when you start the first scenario because you have all of them at your disposal and you don't know them. let them take their time discovering what their character can do and yeah they will probably play some optimally at first but that's ok. My wife is probably in a similar State of Mind as in she plays board games but doesn't care for rules too much and the game clicked for her after just a few rounds. And yes we exhausted in scenario 1 but then we have played again with a couple of friends that are also into board games but not into beardy ones and everything went fine. Sorry about the typos and other weird stuff I'm using the vocal keyboard on my mobile! That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 10:28
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If you can't use Gloomhaven Helper there's a few lesser programs and pages, but nothing comes close to its utility.
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Jan 29, 2019 14:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:They are never going to watch that. Ever. I did, but it doesn't help. (Or well it obviously does since I know the rules better but you know what I mean.) So, dude, Gloomhaven actually is really easy. Like people have said, there's just 'a lot of it', but none of it is hard to understand. Like, the rules for how enemies choose their target and move are kinda fiddly, but as long as YOU know how they work, your parents can just grok 'dont be the nearest to an enemy' and that will work out fine. Basically, you can DM it, essentially, and they don't really have to learn anything except how to play their own turn. Which is actually fairly simple. Then, because it's all quite simple, they'll pick it all up pretty quickly and be reminding YOU of stuff you've missed before you know it. The thing for us that was honest to God hardest about starting, was that, we didn't find it very clear, AT ALL, how to actually... Start? The rulebook doesn't really do a very good job of explaining what to do the very first time you play, and so it feels a bit overwhelming. Once you've done that though, and started the first mission, from then on, it's always a lot easier to find what you're looking for. You can think of it as two totally different games, almost. There's the main dungeon / missions stuff that's moving your dudes around and fighting, but you can think of everything else as happening on a different board. Shopping, choosing quests, doing a city event, levelling up, etc. We get out the map board only between missions. Again, all of this stuff, you can learn on your own, and explain it all to them. There's honestly very little. Put any new stickers on the board. Read a city event card, do a shop, level up if you have enough xp, buy a blessing from the church, choose a new mission, do a road event. That's basically it. It's just the rules for any of those individual bits are pretty long, because there are caveats to all of them.
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Jan 29, 2019 14:03
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Xiahou Dun posted:They are never going to watch that. Ever. I did, but it doesn't help. (Or well it obviously does since I know the rules better but you know what I mean.) Well as long as you watched the video and have a better grasp on the rules you should be fine. You're going to have to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of knowing the rules and moving the enemies, etc. Monster movement is kinda hard to learn but the rule of thumb there is "don't force enemies to be smarter than they actually are". The enemy AI in this game is dumb as a brick and they will not act intelligently. After a scenario or two you should be able to start figuring out how to exploit it to your advantage. Elephant Ambush fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 14:35
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Also, this is a wonderful set of instructions for your first session. https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/5un1p7/reminder_first_game_setup_guide/ And this is a great collection of links/advice. https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/98bext/new_to_gloomhaven_read_first/
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Jan 29, 2019 15:30
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Xiahou Dun posted:Fair, but I'm praying that doesn't happen cause I personally hate playing support characters. Brute/scoundrel/spellweaver/mindthief is a fine party and you shouldn’t need tinkerer for healing. You might wind up carrying around the brutes bottom heal card for most of his life, but that will work just fine. Brute is really fun and you’ll have a lot of opportunities to shine by running in and smashing stuff in that party.
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Jan 29, 2019 16:51
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Xiahou Dun posted:At a guess, my mom's gonna pick tinkerer or mindthief cause she likes buffing/she's already pretty psyched about psychic rat lady, my dad'll do spellweaver cause he's a nerd and it's fiddly and my girlfriend will do scoundrel because she's selfish and likes treasure. I'll probably do brute to round things out and also it looks simple enough that I can help the olds with their turns while still being effective. Does that sound insane? I'm just going based off of knowing people's habits. Brute is a good choice to help enable the Scoundrel's adjacent ally requirements. Your group may want to bring some of their healing cards without a dedicated support/healer though. Eye for an Eye on the Brute, Aid from the Ether on the Spellweaver, and Special Mixture on the Scoundrel in order to heal up between rooms.
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Jan 29, 2019 17:11
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Retired my triforce last session. It was better class than I orginally thought (and read from internet) but party composition seemed to play major role how fun it was to play. In the end I was happy to finally change class because I got really tired of the element meta game and inconsistency of the class. My new guy is Three Spears (lvl4) and I'm really looking forward to play it. Any suggestions to which guide to follow with it? It looks pretty busted no matter what build though...
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Jan 29, 2019 17:23
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psilo posted:My new guy is Three Spears (lvl4) and I'm really looking forward to play it. Any suggestions to which guide to follow with it? It looks pretty busted no matter what build though... Every level up take a card. Make sure you buy items you can equip in scenarios. That's the only guide you need for Three Spears.
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Jan 29, 2019 19:36
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I also just opened three spears. I see the combos but I’m not sure which items to buy to maximize them.
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Jan 29, 2019 19:40
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psilo posted:My new guy is Three Spears (lvl4) and I'm really looking forward to play it. Any suggestions to which guide to follow with it? It looks pretty busted no matter what build though... von Metternich posted:I also just opened three spears. I see the combos but I’m not sure which items to buy to maximize them. (For the "busted pile of exploits" build, see this one.) Regardless, I would strongly consider the following house rule: Make stamina potions non-recoverable. They probably should be anyways, because they are a problem, but especially with this guy. This removes some of the more broken exploits the class can get up to. Like, say, actual infinite XP loops. Don't get me wrong, you'll still be busted as hell, and stuff like recovering Power Potions is still insane. But your party will hate you less, and you may actually need to rest some turn, sometime.
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Jan 29, 2019 20:31
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dwarf74 posted:There are a few guides over on Reddit. This one is important because it's "What if we played this like a real class, rather than a busted pile of exploits?" Our 3 Arrows didn't even realize that anything like this was possible until the last scenario we played. The class is still absurd.
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Jan 29, 2019 22:42
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I ride bikes all day posted:Our 3 Arrows didn't even realize that anything like this was possible until the last scenario we played. The class is still absurd. I only mildly exploited the character's mechanics, and found it a bit boring really. Yeah it's good, but I didn't find it very fun. Made it to level 5 before retiring it to unlock Music Note who seems powerful, but not broken, and way more fun.
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Jan 29, 2019 23:46
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Fashionable Jorts posted:I only mildly exploited the character's mechanics, and found it a bit boring really. Yeah it's good, but I didn't find it very fun. Made it to level 5 before retiring it to unlock Music Note who seems powerful, but not broken, and way more fun. I think you'll find Music Note is also absurd as you go along, it's just a tad less obvious about it. You're going to discover very quickly that you can go entire scenarios with no one even coming close to losing a card to damage. There will be times when you're going over the post game and you realize that between disarms, stuns, and absurd numbers of curses that the enemies just aren't landing hits anymore. Occasionally at all.
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Jan 29, 2019 23:56
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Does anyone else house rule missed treasure chests for unique rewards as just 'we pick it up on the way out'? Like, I understand the point of the rules as written, creating some interesting choices of going for the monsters or going for the treasure. And I wouldn't do it for gold drops, or chests with gold rewards or just items you can get elsewhere. But considering that the rules as written are also extremely exploitable, in that you could rerun the scenario, make a beeline for the chest, and then just quit, it seems kind of pointless. There's no way we're going to set up the same scenario again and go through playing cards mindlessly just to rush a chest. Maybe if we had infinite play time, but in the real world where we have to pretend to be adults who can only get a few sessions in a month, there's no way.
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Jan 30, 2019 00:18
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BobTheJanitor posted:Does anyone else house rule missed treasure chests for unique rewards as just 'we pick it up on the way out'? Like, I understand the point of the rules as written, creating some interesting choices of going for the monsters or going for the treasure. And I wouldn't do it for gold drops, or chests with gold rewards or just items you can get elsewhere. But considering that the rules as written are also extremely exploitable, in that you could rerun the scenario, make a beeline for the chest, and then just quit, it seems kind of pointless. There's no way we're going to set up the same scenario again and go through playing cards mindlessly just to rush a chest. Maybe if we had infinite play time, but in the real world where we have to pretend to be adults who can only get a few sessions in a month, there's no way. That seems completely fair and reasonable. You're just cutting out grinding the dungeon a second time to get the loot, so you can keep exploring new content.
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Jan 30, 2019 00:23
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Fashionable Jorts posted:That seems completely fair and reasonable. You're just cutting out grinding the dungeon a second time to get the loot, so you can keep exploring new content. This also makes the house rule "You can totally use an item you just found in a scenario immediately" feel right. Get the unique treasure? You can use it *right now* (by unequipping a non-removed/exhausted item if possible/needed). Didn't? Well you still get it because replaying the scenario just for unique treasure is a real bummer, just can't use it that scenario. Although that doesn't really help satisfy what you do if the treasure's a trap hi scenario 4.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:05
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Pander posted:Although that doesn't really help satisfy what you do if the treasure's a trap hi scenario 4. Yeah things break down a bit here because you will never trigger traps, you automatically get some intentionally harder to reach treasures, you don't have to race with other party members (and I guess you just decide who gets the treasure if its something that would go to an individual), etc. I don't think it's the end of the world if you don't get a treasure in a scenario, but then again, play how you want obviously.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:10
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I dunno, I like the default treasure rules. I like hard choices.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:15
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We made note of any treasure chests we missed and reran the scenarios later. Since we didn't care about the goal it was fun since it turned into a race. Handsaw is really good at it.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:20
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We get chests the first time we do a scenario, and if we end up replaying the scenario then so be it. But I completely understand a house rule based on limited opportunities to play.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:36
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Pander posted:Although that doesn't really help satisfy what you do if the treasure's a trap hi scenario 4. It actually originally came up because of that scenario. We ended up looting the trapped chest, but missing the other one. This was also how we learned that we should be checking the loot at the time we pick it up, and not at the end of the scenario. But it didn't really matter because a full HP tinker picked up the poison trap chest and could have just healed it away regardless. But we missed the other one which is a (presumably) unique item design. And we basically collectively decided that we're just going to unlock the item and drat the rules. There's still a reason to go for chests during the scenario, since you never know if it's gold or something else that's useful to you personally. But if we miss one, we'll peek afterwards and see if it's something unique, in which case we'll happily break the rules and grab it 'on the way out'.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:46
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Seems pretty reasonable to just put these unique ones in the shop instead of giving it to someone. Your reward for getting it during the mission is you don't have to buy it.
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Jan 30, 2019 01:53
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Fashionable Jorts posted:That seems completely fair and reasonable. You're just cutting out grinding the dungeon a second time to get the loot, so you can keep exploring new content. It's also fair because you're missing out on all the xp and gold you'd get running the scenario again. IMO
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Jan 30, 2019 02:35
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Just finished the second scenario. Thank god for the rule if you run out of standees you don't spawn in more monsters. The bandit leader jumped from door to door right up front, only attacked once and summoned skeletons twice. Been playing as the Brute in a Brute, Cragheart, Spellweaver, Tinker group and really enjoying it. I love the pick top/pick bottom mechanics and giving interesting choices each turn, when and how to rest, etc and the trade off between looting and fighting. Our spellweaver seems to exhaust very early but the other people playing seem to be getting a good handle on their classes. I've done really well on gold so now I've got hide armor, helmet, shield, boots and healing pot and am now very tanky. It's pretty satisfying standing in front of the group and taking everything the enemy can throw at you on the shields/armor with only minimal health loss. I didn't like the card that gave you 1 shield as a bottom action at first but it's grown on me after using it this time. 5 xp from level 2, so I'm looking forward to getting the perk that lets me ignore equipment negatives.
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Jan 30, 2019 04:13
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Is your Spellweaver using Reviving Ether to get all their lost cards back?
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Jan 30, 2019 04:39
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Some Numbers posted:Is your Spellweaver using Reviving Ether to get all their lost cards back? Yes. I'm pretty sure it's not a spellweaver thing but the player playing waaay too fast and loose with loss cards or them somehow misunderstanding the discard/loss mechanics. I should look into it more next time we play. They were unconscious and I still had 7 of my 10 cards left. (2 long rests and the 1 shield ongoing card).
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Jan 30, 2019 05:54
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hooman posted:Been playing as the Brute in a Brute, Cragheart, Spellweaver, Tinker group and really enjoying it. Hey this was me in my first groups setup! And yeah, Spellweaver can't just be using all their loss attacks even with reviving ether, they should use them a bit more liberally than the average class but still conserve enough to rest a few times before popping ether.
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Jan 30, 2019 06:03
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I'd go the other way on chests. They're available the first time and that's it. Make the hard choice to risk the scenario for treasure or lose out forever. My group would definitely never repeat a scenario for treasure either and losing the tension of knowing it's gone forever would be a bummer. The perverse incentives of battle goals, coins and treasure are really fun imo.
Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 07:17
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'd go the other way on chests. They're available the first time and that's it. Make the hard choice to risk the scenario for treasure or lose out forever. My group would definitely never repeat a scenario for treasure either and losing the tension of knowing it's gone forever would be a bummer. The perverse incentives of battle goals, coins and treasure are really fun imo. But do you play with permadeath?
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Jan 30, 2019 07:35
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hooman posted:Yes. I'm pretty sure it's not a spellweaver thing but the player playing waaay too fast and loose with loss cards or them somehow misunderstanding the discard/loss mechanics. I should look into it more next time we play. The earlier you play a loss card, the shorter your total rounds in a scenario; the effect is bigger than it seems at first, cause every time you go down to the next even number, you effectively lose an entire rest cycle. This means that having 10 cards instead of 11 at your first rest loses you 5 rounds! Spellweaver starts with a very small hand, so she should be very very cautious with loss card during the first 1/2 rest cycles, playing maybe a single loss card pet cycle. Then when her hand is getting super small, she should burn through loss cards and recover them with Ether;then start the cycle anew. That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 07:35
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Fashionable Jorts posted:But do you play with permadeath? Imagine the "see 20 allies exhaust" personal goal with permadeath...oh what an rear end in a top hat you could be.
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Jan 30, 2019 08:31
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:no lol....too far. Chests are pretty low stakes, it's not like you're gonna really suffer without some gold or a random piece of loot. It's enough to feel it when you don't get one but not enough to feel like you haven't made progress. Permadeath doesn't include exhaustion. If you exhaust due to lack of cards, you stay on the map and keep taking attacks. If you hit 0 HP, then you die.
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Jan 30, 2019 09:02
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Y'all sound like some greedless fuckers. We've missed exactly one treasure chest and that was the one in Scenario 2, because we'd killed the boss before realizing we needed him to open the door to the treasure. The mad incentive of content being lost forever has always been enough for us.
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Jan 30, 2019 09:36
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That Italian Guy posted:The earlier you play a loss card, the shorter your total rounds in a scenario; the effect is bigger than it seems at first, cause every time you go down to the next even number, you effectively lose an entire rest cycle. This means that having 10 cards instead of 11 at your first rest loses you 5 rounds! Spellweaver starts with a very small hand, so she should be very very cautious with loss card during the first 1/2 rest cycles, playing maybe a single loss card pet cycle. Then when her hand is getting super small, she should burn through loss cards and recover them with Ether;then start the cycle anew. Thanks, I'll let our spellweaver know. Hopefully they can keep trucking a little longer next session.
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Jan 30, 2019 09:53
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Pander posted:This also makes the house rule "You can totally use an item you just found in a scenario immediately" feel right. I didn't realize that wasn't the rule! We have been playing it as once you pick it up, its yours to use right away. Not that it's really shaken up the game as usually treasure chests are opened moments before the end of the mission.
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Jan 30, 2019 11:01
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hooman posted:Thanks, I'll let our spellweaver know. Hopefully they can keep trucking a little longer next session. You can actually count the number of rounds you have available to you from the start (and the effect of each loss card) by following this scheme: 8 cards > 4 rounds REST 7 cards > 3 rounds REST 6 cards > 3 rounds REST 5 cards > 2 rounds REST 4 cards > 2 rounds REST 3 cards > 1 round REST 2 cards > 1 round So a Spellweaver with a full hand has only 15 Rounds available to them, before popping Reviving Ether in the last Round. Every time you burn a loss card, you move down a notch in the scheme; so if you burn a loss card before your first rest cycle, you actually have 12 Rounds total only and if you burn 4 cards during the first four rounds, you'll have 6 Rounds total before having to use Ether. If you have not managed to save Ether when you are down to 2 cards, you are going to be exhausted then. This Spellweaver has a 6 rounds lifespan before having to pop Ether. The effect is way less if you burn the same cards at the end, before using Ether. Let's say, as a best case scenario, that you only burn loss cards at the very last moment possible before popping Ether (you have to have 2 cards to play in the last Round and one has to be ether). Let's say the Spellweaver burns 4 loss cards when she has 6 cards left. This Spellweaver has an 11 rounds lifespan before having to pop Ether. In both cases, the Spellweaver has used 4 loss cards, but the effects on using them at the beginning instead of right before using Reviving Ether are massive. Of course, this may not always be optimal, and not using loss cards early on (in a tough first room for example) may lead to the loss of cards due to damage; also taking more rounds to kill your enemies can also be seen as an equivalent to "burn a loss card to end the fight now". But it's still important to consider how many "rounds" you lose at any given time by burning an additional loss card. That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 12:51
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hooman posted:Thanks, I'll let our spellweaver know. Hopefully they can keep trucking a little longer next session. Another important easy to miss rule for spellweavers: When taking a short rest and trashing a random card, you can choose to take a damage and lose a different card. I basically never short rested early on because I was afraid of having to trash that crucial reviving ether -- this rule can make a big difference.
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Jan 30, 2019 14:52
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