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Talkin' about havin' gloom: let's all play Gloomhaven!

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I think we can hold off on worrying over rolling cards too much until characters start leveling up and gaining them, but yeah, good rules to note. The short of it is:

-Whenever you attack, you draw a modifier card (the starding deck has -2, -1, +0, +1, +2, zero and 2x in various quantities) that you apply to your base attack value (whatever's on the card you're activating to attack).
-If you are adjacent to an enemy and doing a ranged attack, have the Muddle condition, or there's some other effect in play, then you are disadvantaged, which means you draw TWO cards and choose the worst
-If you have the Strengthened condition, or some other effect that grants advantage, you draw two cards and choose the best
-If you have both advantage and disadvantage on an attack (e.g., attacking an adjacent enemy with a ranged attack while Strengthened), then you draw one card as normal.
-When you factor in rolling cards, which prompt you to draw another card after, the decision of what's better or worse starts getting a little subjective weird

In my experience, advantage is MOST advantageous when you're doing an AOE attack or otherwise drawing for lots of attacks in a row. You are at the very least guaranteed to not miss completely (only one miss per deck), so it can be worth it for that alone.

Rolling cards don't come into play until you start leveling up and getting perks, which allow you to customize the basic modifier deck—remove +0 cards, add +2 cards, add a card that Stuns an enemy, etc. Even then, I personally think removing dud cards to improve your damage consistency is a better choice for low levels than throwing in rolling modifiers and such.

Elements also won't factor in heavily in the first game, for the most part, but certain actions generate one of six elements, which are usable starting AFTER your turn. They fade after the following round. If there's an active element and you have a card that can consume it (which usually increases its strength or adds an effect of some kind), you can choose to do so. Enemies ALWAYS consume an active element if it's on their action for a round, so you need to watch what they're planning too.

Early on it's kind of a happy bonus, not bread and butter for combat. But there's one later class that relies heavily on having elements infused at all times.
 
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liquid

King of Games
(He/Him)
Elements also won't factor in heavily in the first game, for the most part, but certain actions generate one of six elements, which are usable starting AFTER your turn. They fade after the following round. If there's an active element and you have a card that can consume it (which usually increases its strength or adds an effect of some kid), you can choose to do so. Enemies ALWAYS consume an active element if it's on their action for a round, so you need to watch what they're planning too.

Early on it's kind of a happy bonus, not bread and butter for combat. But there's one later class that relies heavily on having elements infused at all times.
Yeah, it's mostly a thing the Spellweaver and Cragheart will need to take into account.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I think we can hold off on worrying over rolling cards too much until characters start leveling up and gaining them, but yeah, good rules to note.
I just know that my first class was Tinkerer, and I built my character around rolling cards and advantage, and then discovered to my dismay later that those two things interact very poorly.

(The following is directed at Sarc. Newer players should disregard; I don't want to scare anyone away by getting into the weeds.)
-disadvantaged, which means you draw TWO cards and choose the worst
-advantage, you draw two cards and choose the best
When you factor in rolling cards, which prompt you to draw another card after, the decision of what's better or worse starts getting a little subjective
The problem is that it's not at all subjective. The rules are very clear. If you have advantage *or* disadvantage, and draw a rolling card, you keep rolling until you hit a single result. Then you keep that result, and either apply all the rollers if it was at advantage, or toss them all away if it was at disadvantage. What that means is that you are *not* guaranteed to not miss completely, because you could draw rolling cards and then a miss on an advantage attack.

Similarly, if you draw two cards and it's ambiguous which is better (all "do something" cards with no number attached are considered to a positive but undefined number), you just have to take the first one, even if you'd rather take the second. This is true whether you attacked at advantage or disadvantage, making it the case I referred to where the two conditions are literally identical.

Neither of these rules are intuitive, which is why my group misplayed them for a long time and thought that advantage was better than it actually is. We used to allow players to pick the card they wanted at advantage in ambiguous cases, and used to draw two sets of cards for rolling attacks and spool them all together and then take the better one. Both of those methods are more intuitive, but neither is correct per RAW.

Early on it's kind of a happy bonus, not bread and butter for combat. But there's one later class that relies heavily on having elements infused at all times.
There sure is. I'm presently playing a [REDACTED] in a party with no one else who generates elements, AMA. :-/
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I don't envy you that. I've only played that class in the early-access app version and even with perfect control over all your party it's a nightmare to make it effective! It hits like a truck or like a feather, no in between.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
It's actually been going better lately, now that I've had time to build and purchase with that problem in mind. Perks and gear go a long way. I still only get a trickle of XP compared to everyone else, though.
 
Oh, and since this just occurred to me, I thought it was worth a mention, before I forget: I have... reason to believe that certain persons playing next Thursday might be inclined to rename player tokens, and FYI, this can and will break the very complicated scripts that this mod uses to automate several functions. So probably don't do that! Learn from my mistakes!
I would never.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I only saw this now (including on the old boards), but is it too late to jump in? (If so, that's cool, but I'm interested in a haven that is gloomy)

The thing about GH is that sometimes it just kicks your ass and you need to try again. But when you try again, you know what's coming your way and you can strategize a little better. So go into it with that mindset and you'll have more fun.

so you might say

Gloomhaven is the Dark Souls of board games???
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it were influenced by Souls.

We're topped up for the starting group (literally out of characters you could play as), but once someone retires and/or we unlock a new class you're welcome to join in! And always welcome to spectate in the meantime.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
We're aiming for an introductory game on Thursday (we've got our four for that, and anyone else can spectate), but if you want to set up a pickup game, feel free!
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Ah, gotcha! Yeah, I still need time to figure out TTS a little better and how to import that JotL characters.

The good news is, once that's done, anyone who joins the game should download all those assets automatically.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
All right! I've figured out how to get the JotL characters into Gloomhaven. The scripting for them isn't quite the same so those of us using them will have to do some stuff manually it looks like. But not too much! I've taken the liberty of preparing the components for the starting lineup for Thursday's game, and we can figure things out from there. Looks pretty easy to work with; just pick and drag cards, move tokens and standees around like objects, etc. The enemies have little buttons to allow you to track HP and stuff.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
All right, two days to go. I will post the session name and password here around start time. Let's say start gathering at 8:15 or so, aim to start playing by 8:30 (PST). Does that work for everyone?
 

Purple

(She/Her)
I will... try to remember to loom over things watching as soon as my usual thursday night activity wraps.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Keep an eye on this thread around 8 p.m. PST. I'll post the game session and PW here, and if there are any technical difficulties or anything, this is where I'll update y'all.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Thanks everyone for muddling through with me on our first TTS game!

We got about 1/3 of the way through the first scenario and I think a fun time was had by all. Will try to pick up and complete it soon!

Also, am I right that I was the only west coaster playing? Seemed like it was pretty late for all of you. I'll keep that in mind while scheduling the next one.

ALSO: Does anyone know a good method for posting the save file so anyone can use it for pickup games? I was thinking Dropbox or something else that allows people who aren't owners of the account to upload and download the file at will. That way, we can keep the campaign persistent no matter who's actually playing.
 
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jpfriction

(He, Him)
I’m in central so wasn’t too bad, but yeah probably only had another hour left in me at most. Pretty fun stuff, looking forward to the next one.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I'll confer with jbear and figure out how to get all the scripting working before next time. We're early enough that it won't be hard to get everyone's stuff set up again.
 
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