Source
r/Gloomhaven•
BloederFuchs

What (mechanical) mistakes did you and your group make over the first few scenarios (spoiler free)?

As a quite a few people seem to be getting their copies of Gloomhaven as I'm writing this, I thought of compiling a list of common mistakes/misconceptions that we had while playing, and that weren't really obvious or sometimes not even included in the official FAQ/or are easy to overlook even with these ressources. Feel free to add your own experiences to the list:

  • enemys will only perform an action as specificied by their ability card. If the card does not include a +/- move action/attack action they will not perform an action of that type this round

  • shields only reduce incoming damage from attacks; damage from traps and other abilities (that for instance deal 1 damage to all enemies/allies adjacent to the target) are not reduced by shields

  • if an enemy's ability card applies shield and/or retaliate to the enemy, these buffs will only be active once that enemy has taken their turn, i.e. if you get to act before that enemy, your damage will not be reduced by shields (unless the enemy has innate shielding), and you will also not take retaliation damage

  • if you or an enemy gets buffed/debuffed with a status that expires "at the end of next round" it will expire after you or the enemy had a chance to act again, i.e. if you debuffed an enemy that had already acted this turn, the debuff will expire after they act on their following turn. If they, however, get debuffed on a round on which they will still take a turn, the debuff will expire that round after their turn has been resolved.

  • as an extension of that, if you as the player turn yourself invisible, it is still possible to perform your second action that turn without losing that buff (the same applies to strengthen/muddle). The buff will expire after you got to act on your turn next round, which makes "round x - make yourself invisible, round x+1 - take a long rest" a great combo, as the invisibility will only expire after you have rested

  • you still collect experience from an ability that provides experience, so long as you can perform at least one of the actions printed on the card, even if it is just creating an element or equipping an augmentation (as a mindthief for instance); if you do, however, use an ability card as a standard attack 2/move 2 action, you will not collect any experience (you will, however, also not lose the card as you would if you were to use it for its printed ability if that would require you to lose said card)

  • you can always choose not to apply an action printed on a card such as a move action, an attack action or a push/pull/debuff action. You are, however, obligated to resolve any action that has a harmful effect on yourself or your allies, such as getting debuffed or causing you/your allies to take damage

  • when you attack multiple target with an attack, you will have to draw an attack modifier card for each individual enemy

  • creating a certain element will happen at the end of a player's/an enemy's turn; as such you can only use elements on your turn that were strong/waning at the beginning of your turn (the wording on this rule is very ambiguous in the rule book - you can absolutely use a strong/waning earth element for instance if it was in that column at the beginning of your turn, even if one of your abilities used this turn will create another earth element. Just put the element into the strong column once you've finished your turn, allowing your allies (and enemies) to use it)

  • if you draw a "null" or "curse" card from your attack modifier deck, your attack DOES NOT MISS, all damage you would have caused is just multiplied by 0; effects such as debuffs or push/pull are still applied if you so choose (same goes for monsters attacking you)

  • if you or an enemy are both muddled and strengthened at the same time, the effects cancel out each other, i.e. you only draw a single attack modifier card as you would normally if there were no buffs/debuffs applied

  • if you have ongoing effects from abilites or items, e.g. increasing your damage on the next X attacks, giving you shields/retaliate etc., YOU HAVE TO USE THEM if possible. That means that if you have an armor equipped and get attacked, the ability will trigger, regardless of whether you want to or whether the attack would deal any damage to begin with

  • if you place an ability in your active area that gives you a persistent bonus (tracked by putting a token on the first circle printed on the card), you only get to collect the experience printed on one of these circles, once your token moves off that space

  • enemys will only enter hazardous terrain (such as thorns) or traps if that is the only path available to them to get to their focussed target; the same applies to (your) summons - also, in regards to summons, they will not move at all if there are no revealed targets

  • if an enemy's ability card would cause an enemy to summon another enemy, it will spawn that type of enemy unless all hexes adjacent to said enemy are occupied or blocked, or if there are no more standees of the summoned enemy type available; if the rules of a scenario instruct you to summon an enemy at a certain location, however, it will always spawn an enemy so long as there are standees available, even if the specified hex and all adjacent hexes are currently occupied. In case of spawns caused by the rules of a certain scenario, choose the hex that is both unoccupied and closest to the specified spawn hex

  • you can always retire a character, so long as you are in Gloomhaven - you do not need to have your personal quest fulfilled. If you retire a character without fulfilling their personal quest, just follow the rules as per normal retirement rules without unlocking the rewards for said personal quest, and shuffle the quest back into the personal quest deck (this section has been argued to be incorrect)

Posted Nov 13, 2017, 2:42 PM UTC · edited

3557
Gripeaway•

you can always retire a character, so long as you are in Gloomhaven - you do not need to have your personal quest fulfilled. If you retire a character without fulfilling their personal quest, just follow the rules as per normal retirement rules without unlocking the rewards for said personal quest, and shuffle the quest back into the personal quest deck

Um... got a source for this one? Because the rule book would seem to contradict you.

18
zeCrazyEye•

Yeah if this were true you could just retire 14 times in a row and unlock every perk for every character you make.

9
Gripeaway•

Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of, which was why I went and checked the FAQ and rule book quickly to make sure I hadn't somehow missed it.

5
zeCrazyEye•

I think they're just confusing the fact that you can set aside a character and start a new one at any time, but that's not the same as retiring it.

10
Gripeaway•

Yeah, you're probably right.

2
BloederFuchsOP•

Because the rule book would seem to contradict you.

How so? I've read over that passage many a time, and nothing in fact contradicts what I said.

I stand corrected.

5
zeCrazyEye•

It says that you must retire a character after finishing their personal quest, it never says anything about retiring a character at any other time.

You can only do things that are described by the rules, and since it only describes a way to retire by finishing the personal quest that must be the only way to retire.

Also it says 'A character without a personal quest can never retire' which is the exception that proves the rule that finishing the personal quest is the only way to retire.

6
KaraPuppers•

exception that proves the rule

Thanks for using that phrase right. I just learned what it really meant like a week ago.

1
Gripeaway•

So first of all, I asked for a source that said you can always retire a character. Because there's nothing in the rule book that says you can and the only framework for retiring a character established in the rule book is when you fulfill your personal quest.

And to answer your question, the rule book says:

A character without a personal quest can never retire

That is right after the section where it explains that fulfilling a personal quest is what triggers retirement. If it's impossible to retire without having a personal quest, that would be because completing a personal quest is the requirement for retiring. If you were simply able to retire anytime you wanted, then you would be able to retire without having a personal quest.

5
masterzora•

Which passage? It's a long rulebook, after all. Nothing under the "Announcing Retirement" section seems to support what you said.

2
sdwoodchuck•

I think he's meaning "retire" in the sense of abandoning a character and not unlocking anything (I assume returning their personal quest to the deck), as a distinct thing from completing their quest to unlock something. That said, it does seem like a weird point to make.

2
onwork•

I think the biggest one was using the modifier deck contained in your box instead of the basic modifier deck of which there are 4 of. A lot of people did this, as far as I can tell. Made for a very exciting first game, my Scoundrel was going invisible all over the place and demolishing every enemy.

15
deedeethecat•

Yep, we made this mistake too. Now that I'm at level eight and have lots of perks I get the whole glorious great modifications. Feels like the first time we played!

4
Day_Bow_Bow•

I know I'm late to this thread, but this made me laugh due to how it's similar a lot of video game intros.

You control a billy badass character for a level so you can have a taste of things to come. Then they strip away all the cool abilities and you have to work to unlock them again.

3
OutlierJoe•

We also made this mistake. Chaining so many status effects as a Mindthief felt super weird. It was fun, but it didn't feel right.

1
mnamilt•

Scenario level is: (average party level)/2, rounded up. Misreading average party level for total party level makes for an intense first game experience haha.

Other rule that you could add is if you are allowed to execute moves such as pull and push on a target if the attack that comes with the move kills the target, aka if the dead body is shoved/pushed or not.

10
roarmalf•

Lol, I knew this, but I just realized that last game we played at +3 difficulty because I spaced out while doing setup. I guess that explains why it was so hard.

3
Tre2•

I know this is late, but according to the FAQ, you cannot.

If I kill an enemy with my attack damage, can I still apply the effects of the attack on that enemy (i.e., curse, push, etc.)? No, added attack effects are always applied after the damage. If you kill an enemy with the damage, then it is no longer around to be pushed onto a trap or cursed.

1
WhyIsTheNamesGone•

We've been playing for months using Scenario level = Max party member level. Only just realized our mistake. I think we won't be correcting it, although we'll need to figure out how to handle level 8 and 9 enemies when we get there. Might just go with flat HP/damage buffs or something. /shrug

1
tarrach•

if you have ongoing effects from abilites or items, e.g. increasing your damage on the next X attacks, giving you shields/retaliate etc., YOU HAVE TO USE THEM if possible. That means that if you have an armor equipped and get attacked, the ability will trigger, regardless of whether you want to or whether the attack would deal any damage to begin with

Note that this does not necessarily apply to effects that reduce damage. For example, if you don't take any damage from an attack, you don't need to use a readied effect (armor/card/etc) that reduces damage by 1. This then also means that the order you use effects in sometimes becomes important. Let's say you have one effect that reduces damage by 2, and another effect that reduces damage by 1 and get hit by a 2 damage attack. If you first use the -1 effect, you then also have to use the -2 effect to negate the remaining damage. If you first use the -2 effect, the attack no does not do any damage and you don't need to use the -1 effect.

8
OneBildoNation•

If you kill an enemy that has retaliate active, they do not retaliate... because they are dead.

7
grundalow•

If you are poisoned and you heal, all it does is remove the poison, no health gained. Healing a wounded character removes the wound and gains health. We treated them both like Wound for many scenarios before we re-read the part about Poison.

7
lordbulb•

And I treated them both like poison :-D

3
DerBK•

Holy crap, me too.

3
Squints753•

Not dumping cards to ignore damage, not figuring out AI targeting behavior before taking your turn.

6
Gripeaway•

So as to not potentially lead some people astray, especially newer players, I would appreciate if you could edit out your last bullet point from your post until you can prove that's the case, as at this point multiple people in the comments have pointed it out as being incorrect. If you can prove it's the case, you're more than welcome to add it back, but I'm afraid having that in there at this point is doing more harm than good, which is unfortunate for an otherwise helpful post.

6
BloederFuchsOP•

Did that - maybe someone can reach out to Isaac?

It's weird that I couldn't find anything about this topic via Google. I was looking for it, specifically, as a player in my party was a bit unhappy with the class he picked (Cragheart) and the personal quest that he got. I just told him he couldn't just retire, and we kept it at that so far, but rereading the rules, there isn't anything in there that tells you "You can only retire if...". It just says: "Each time a character retires..." and that character without personal quests cannot retire, while characters with a completed quest must retire. Well, he does have a personal quest, but doesn't see it feasible to complete it which puts him right in the middle of the two cases without the rulebook making it clear what you can or cannot do in a case like that.

I mean, please do me a favor and reread the rules and tell me that it's not ambiguous the way I'm describing it.

1
Gripeaway•

I've reread them a couple times since you made this post. While I understand where you're coming from, the intention of the rules is very clear to me, as well as the other people who replied here. I believe you're attempting to argue that an omission in the rules is a loophole that allows what you're talking about. But as u/zeCrazyEye stated, you can only do what the rules state, not anything the rules don't disallow. As the rules never state anywhere that you may retire a character when you wish, it's safe to assume that you cannot do that, and may only retire a character when the rules say you may, which is upon fulfilling a personal goal.

Finally, as also pointed it, it's very clear that your "loophole" was never intended - retiring a character gives you an additional perk for each new character you start. If you were allowed to retire a character whenever you wish, and the rules do explicitly state you may create a new character whenever you wish when in Gloomhaven, with no timing requirements, you could simply create and retire 14 characters immediately and from then on have all your perks unlocked for every new character. And given that there are multiple core systems in the game for unlocking perks, it's very clear that allowing that sort of thing is absolutely not within the scope of the rules.

If your friend is unhappy with his class and personal quest, he may simply start a new character whenever he wishes and leave his old character on the side, but this is different from retiring.

5
zeCrazyEye•

Also I don't think it's stated in the rules but the spirit of the rules would seem to highly suggest that you can only create one of each character until that character retires or dies. Otherwise you could keep recreating a character and using the starting gold to max out the bless achievement and purchase enhancements, and cycle through the personal quest deck until you get one you want.

2
Gripeaway•

I agree, obviously, although I did just want to point out one thing: you may only do each town activity once per visit, on a party/player basis, not character basis. So even if you could create infinite characters, you could only donate from one character to the sanctuary before you need to go do another scenario. Still, it would let you donate essentially for free each time you're in town by creating a new character just to donate from so you didn't have to spend your own money.

2
BloederFuchsOP•

But as u/zeCrazyEye stated, you can only do what the rules state, not anything the rules don't disallow.

I see that. However, I wouldn't consider the rules to be comprehensive in that sense, as for instance my bullet point about persistent bonus cannot be found anywhere in the rules, and it's - at least in my opinion - a very unintuitive rule that you always have to use these bonuses. Anywho, I will be redacting the last bullet point, in order to not spread decidedly incorrect information.

I think in order to avoid confusion, the rule book should specifically state that you're allowed to stop playing any character at any point, and just choose a new character if you so wish, which is not to be confused with retiring a character. I also think that the rule book needs a restructuring with "Starting a new campaign" at the very beginning, as this is the intended mode to play the game for the very first time. I mean, who's going to pick up Gloomhaven just to play some random dungeons, foregoing the campaign? How you get started should be the very first thing the rulebook talks about if you ask me.

0
Gripeaway•

I'm not active on BGG but I'm sure someone else who is could ask in the FAQ.

Thank you for editing your post.

2
BloederFuchsOP•

re-edited the comment you're replying to with some follow-up questions

2
masterzora•

Focus and monster movement are entirely based on what they could accomplish on their current turn if they had infinite movement. They never consider future turns at all except if the humans get to choose for them in an ambiguous situation.

3
fengshui•

The interesting one here is that it often means that later-acting melees hang back, rather than rush forward. If the PCs are completely blocking the path through a hallway, for example. In this case, melee monsters will move forward to fill the spaces in the hall that can reach PCs, but once all of those are taken, further melee monsters will stay still. (Note that flying and jumping monsters will probably always move forward, because they can go through the PCs.)

3
Dargalin•

Can't enemies move through enemies like player characters can always move through other player characters? Only enemies block movement.

2
fengshui•

Yes, but a full width line of PCs (and obstacles) is something they can't move through. And they can't end their turn on a space already occupied by another monster, so even with infinite movement, they can't reach a space from which they could attack.

3
masterzora•

Yep, this is one of the big things we were getting wrong. We generally treated spots occupied by friendlies as being spots they could "eventually" reach if there was no open space, so some things advanced that shouldn't have and--occasionally--something didn't advance that should have.

The other interesting effect is on monsters with low movement. Since a monster doesn't consider the future, a monster with low base movement can end up being blocked behind its friends rather than slowly going around them. It essentially sits there thinking "I know I only have Move 1 right now, but if I ever manage to get Move 6 I can just run right through all my friends to that lovely hex up there! I could move over a hex so I can start walking around them, but that hex is still 6 away from any hexes I could attack from. I'll just stay here and wait for Move 6. I'm sure it will happen any day now."

1
fengshui•

To your credit, it took some discussion and eventually some input from Issac to get it fully understood. The 1st edition rulebook was also less clear on it than the 2nd edition book is.

1
fifguy85•

Great idea to post this and good detail on lots of easily missed rules. One suggestion on a wording change for the point quoted below:

if you or an enemy are both muddled and strengthened at the same time, the effects cancel out each other, i.e. you only draw a single attack modifier card as you would normally if there were no buffs/debuffs applied

Maybe change the wording here to be something like "if any character (hero or enemy) is attacking with both advantage and disadvantage (i.e.: making a ranged attack from an adjacent hex while strengthened)..." instead.

The original wording made me think you were referring to both parties of an attack (i.e.: the attacker and defender) being muddled or strengthened, not that a single character was both muddled and strengthened. Additionally, the original wording is also specific to particular cases of gaining advantage/disadvantage as opposed to the general terms.

3
stygger•

Adding Blessing and Curses does not reshuffle the "whole deck" but just the Attack Modifier cards you haven't drawn. So you can have two cards left in the deck and get 3 Blessings which gives you a wacky 4 Crit and 1 Null deck!

3
WhyIsTheNamesGone•

Reading that made me think, it might be fun to get some kind of fate-weaver class in 3rd edition that can rearrange modifier decks.

2
opsec_monkey•

Isn’t that one of the new abilities in the expansion? :)

1
Gripeaway•

Hi, do you have a source for that? I'm not doubting it might be the case, but I'd just be happy to see a source to confirm it.

2
stygger•

There was a thread and people refered to FAQ/Isac. Didn't see it myself. Still it doesn't really matter very often how you do it. The only abuse could be to bless a player when you see that they have most of their good Attack Modifier Cards in the discard.

2
Gripeaway•

I agree that it doesn't matter much how you do it as long as you're consistent, I was just curious to find out what was actually intended because the rule book is ambiguous and I've triple-checked the FAQ and it doesn't specify, so I wondered if Isaac answered the question somewhere which wasn't copied to the FAQ.

2
stygger•

"Shuffle it into the unflipped section. Don't reshuffle the entire deck." Isaac on BGG

3
KnowsTheLaw•

!you can always retire a character, so long as you are in Gloomhaven - you do not need to have your personal quest fulfilled. If you retire a character without fulfilling their personal quest, just follow the rules as per normal retirement rules without unlocking the rewards for said personal quest, and shuffle the quest back into the personal quest deck

  • how did I miss this, shit.

edit: does this not invite abuse, to retire 'bad' quests the character received?

2
zeCrazyEye•

I don't see anything in the rules or FAQ that support optional retirement. I think they're just confusing the fact that you can set aside a character and play another one if you want.

5
KnowsTheLaw•

Thank God.

2
longlivesquare•

I was using the player summon rules for monster summons i.e. they always just did a move +0, attack +0.

2
stygger•

What if I told you that there is such a player summon! ;)

0
longlivesquare•

I know there are player summons. We were using those rules for the monster summons though, instead of drawing an the ability card.

3
defiantketchup•

Invisibility and blocking a doorway. Was playing out how the enemy moved wrong and forgot that it goes away after the following turn.

2
ExtinctNerd•

There are two kind of sleeves for the monster cards: Those with ten spots ans those with only six spots. Pick the according for each monster type. Sometimes this matters as you seem to run out of space for monster damage tokens otherwise.

Go over your cards, the enemies and their movements, and your items every time you plan your turn. The first few scenarios can be quite overwhelming with options, so make sure to include every possibility. Don't be like me and forget your poisoned dagger again and again for three rounds.

Do use your spent items before a long rest. Because why would't you? You get them back immediately.

2
eadred•

Thanks for this, it's great.

2
Kakoo_0404•

Are you sure this is correct?

[if you or an enemy gets buffed/debuffed with a status that expires "at the end of next round" it will expire after you or the enemy had a chance to act again, i.e. if you debuffed an enemy that had already acted this turn, the debuff will expire after they act on their following turn. If they, however, get debuffed on a round on which they will still take a turn, the debuff will expire that round after their turn has been resolved.]

Under your interpretation, the ability should state "at the end of your next turn". Round involves all players and monsters taking their action/turns.

Instead I read it as simply "at the end of your next round" to be removed in the clean up step so the effects stays the round it is applied and the one after.

You also used round and turn interchangeably. Putting myself in the designer's shoes, this seems unnecessarily complicated and difficult to track.

2
Awzdtc•

Agreed. OP appears to have described the rules for "at the end of next turn".

1
roarmalf•

Ranged attacks only have disadvantage out the monster you are attacking is adjacent. An adjacent monster does not affect ranged attacks against other (non-adjacent) monsters.

1
Semley•

We missed the fact that you get bonus experience just from completing a scenario (6 exp for L1 scenarios).

And that the gold isn’t just 1 per enemy, it’s multiplied depending on the scenario (2x for L1 scenarios).

1
tarrach•

Easiest to think of it as monsters dropping generic loot, not gold. Each loot token represents X gold value of loot.

1
ThYr0N•

Not remembering that in Gloomhaven you can give 10g to the "church" !

1
BloederFuchsOP•

Deus vult!

1