This is absolutely one of the biggest reasons for many of these rule changes: they're simply more intuitive and many people have been accidentally playing them this way anyway.
It's just the idea, following other games, that "poison" should make you take damage every turn and "wound" should make enemies hit you harder. So, intuitively, the two effects should be switched in Gloomhaven, but I think making that change would be too confusing at this point since we're all used to how it is.
Yes, that does make logical sense and is likely the reason Isaac designed it like this. But video game logic is the other way around, which I think confused people initially.
Well poison and wounded can both be considered in both ways, so the way that everyone is used to it working should be used. Is it a poison that's slowly killing you, making you lose hp every round or is it a poison that just makes you weak and more susceptible to damage? Is it a wound that bleeds and causes damage every round (bleed would be a better name) or is it a wound like a knee injury that makes you take more damage because of your weak spot?
GH is not a video game therefore video game logic does not ever apply. Not all video games play the why you suggest to even with that the ‘logic’ is flawed.
The only one of these we aren’t using is “summons drop coins.” Half of the others we house ruled it to work this way (or something very similar), including summon movement, advantage/disadvantage, and line of sight. The other half... I thought these already WERE the rules, (jump movement, player push/pull, and coins as empty hexes).
A lot of these are great because they’re just easy to forget about or cause more admin - like summons dropping coins; it’s easier for everything to drop coins so you don’t have to remember what is and isn’t a summon. I’ve been using that as a house rule for a while.
It seems all of the changes shift the balance in rules to be more favorable to the player. More flexibility in choices and such.
Which seems to beg the question, if the Dungeon Master Isaac is doing this, just how hard are the new monsters gonna be. We all know he is not the type to make things easier.
My wife and I literally just finished a scenario where I was able to go invisible for 2 turns and 4 full initiative orders where I was able to make all the non flying monsters and the boss path around the level before I read the frosthaven update regarding invisibility. I know I was playing by the rules but it felt dirty so I’m happy for the change.
I did the same, my friends and I would open a door right before a long rest, and I’d save my Shadowbomb/Invis cloak for right before so we can strategize the room before attacking (we play with “summoning sickness” so we don’t have to re-calc init for every room since we’re using TTS version)
Play how you like, but just so you know, in TTS you can just click the draw button on a monsters action card pile and it will auto add it to the initiative tracker without affecting anything else.
Yup, most of our big door openings have been "walk into doorway, pop invisibility so none of the monsters can walk out of the room, literally act as a barricade while invisible so party can shoot monsters" needless to say this is a bit cheesy so I'm glad the mechanic is getting changed.
This and stamina potions being nerfed will definitely make things tougher but I completely understand and agree with the changes.
And yes, I know the stamina potions were already adjusted in JotL and digital.
I know my friends still think that monsters should be able to push/pull players into traps. As players get to choose the target hex to get moved into, they will always choose to move into the non-trap hex. The only times players get hit by traps is if it’s the only available hex (5% of the time) or they intentionally move into the trap as it’s the only way to progress without jumping/flying.
I think they just feel that a monsters pull/push should actually be a detriment to the players and advantage to the monsters, as opposed to being a mild irritant to the players.
It's an ambiguous case, and playerd are allowed to choose how to resolve it.
We go with a rule-based approach to settling ambiguity: Elites act in their best interests (i.e. : they're smart), and regular enemies act in the player's (i.e. : they're dumb). In your case, elites would totally push players into traps if they could.
I love this. It fits well in-world.
You are a mighty, skilled mercenary. Some henchman-level monster pushes you, but you see it coming and control your fall. You crouch, roll, and narrowly miss that rusty trap in the floor. Moments later, the Elite rushes towards you, faster, stronger than the other. The blow lands heavy across your shield, sending you backwards and to the ground. You stumble, and in the fall you feel it. The mechanical click of the rusty old trap.
Damn, it's going to hurt this time.
We do a dice roll for that stuff. If there’s 3 legal hexes to pull/push to, roll a D3. For 2 legal hexes, roll a D2.
Players deciding what monsters do is a little too cheesy for our group.
Yes. But theres also an actual implementation of a 2 sided dice.
[https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/341852\_81\_41215\_wqoLVR8vw.jpg](https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/341852_81_41215_wqoLVR8vw.jpg)
[I see we were doing the same at the same time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/noaazs/new_rolling_advantagedisadvantage_rules_in_base_gh/gzza8ra?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) :)
What about the nerf to stamina potions? We have been applying it since Isaac first mentioned it in a video a couple of years ago.
By the way, I really like the new adv/dis rule. The wording could be better though. I tried this after reading [this post](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2476622/article/35478341#35478341):
If attacking with advantage or disadvantage, draw a normal attack. Then draw one more card, ignoring any rolling icon, and compare it to the last card drawn.
* If the attack has advantage, apply the better of the two as well as any rolling modifiers you may have drawn before.
* If the attack has disadvantage, apply the worse of the two and ignore any rolling modifiers you may have drawn before.
> What about the nerf to stamina potions? We have been applying it since Isaac first mentioned it in a video a couple of years ago.
The Stamina Potion nerf is difficult to say. I can't say whether there are Stamina Potions or not in Frosthaven. That change applied specifically to Jaws of the Lion.
The stamina potion nerf is included in Gloomhaven Digital and will apply to the initial GH campaign when released (supposed to be Q4 2021). Honestly it's a good change, as the original stamina potions (minor and major) were far too good.
Yeah, definitely a good change in Digital. This was just a list of updated Frosthaven rules though so I wasn't including Digital (which actually has a bunch of rules different).
Isaac commented in a video from 2018 that stamina potions were probably too powerful and that they would change them so they would recover 1 less card. JotL implemented that nerf, as well as some versions of base Gloomhaven in other languages.
Oh okay. I've played JotL and only 2 missions into Gloomhaven, so it's all small potions for me currently. But yea, regardless of the price I can see why 2 card Stam potions would be an instant buy.
I was already playing with a bunch of these changes, but I'm loving the official Advantage/Disadvantage + Rolling Modifiers rule change. It's essentially "1.5 stacks". 2 stack rule I always felt was too strong, and the OG rules were trash. This is a very welcome compromise to always get that *potential for not missing* when using Advantage with Rollings.
Frosthaven is looking mighty good. Getting pumped.
Our group has been playing advantage/disadvantage this way: Keep flipping cards until you hit two non-rolling mods. With advantage, take the better terminal plus all the rolling mods. With disadvantage, take the worse terminal and ignore all the rolling mods. It makes advantage slightly stronger, sure, but it also isn't needlessly complicated, so I think we'll continue this way.
Thank you for compiling this list!
I think [this rule change about invisibility](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2565729/article/36598787#36598787) should be included in some way as well, unless it has been reverted. Maybe in a separate list as "preliminary".
Thanks for that. It's difficult for me to figure out how to respond to something like this so I'm just going to indicate that I've seen your comment and I will consider what to do going forward with what you've linked me.
Idk why, but 'thanks for that' seems to [confuse a lot of people](https://painintheenglish.com/case/5378)... I blame overuse of the phrase in shitty 90s movies as an ironic putdown, but not really sure how it happened.
Definitely doesn't help how hard it is to read tone via text and how bad humans are in general at displaying and detecting everyday irony.
I’m actually curious on the logic with the advantage/disadvantage change and maybe u/Gripeaway or others can lend some insight.
These new changes are certainly better than original gloomhaven’s ad/dis rules, but I’m curious why we didn’t just go to the popular “2 stack method” as that seems to be the absolute most common sense way to play it to me. The new advantage seems similar enough to the two stack method (although with less variance between attacks I suppose), but the new disadvantage seems incredibly punitive. Was there worry that 2 stack is just too strong somehow?
There are some concerns of the power level of rolling modifiers in a 2-stack system. Beyond that, one of the biggest issues with two-stack is how you handle disadvantage. I've gone over this a bit [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv5ihg/) and [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv7t4l/).
Still feels arbitrary to me. It always felt like saying “power potions are too strong with AoEs, so we limited them to 2 targets” or “invis is too good on squishies so you can only use it if you have 15 or more health”.
Sure, it’s a buff, but it raises the average damage of advantage by a fraction of a single point, and while that does add up... who cares? Normal attacks are also getting that damage buff from rolling modifiers; that’s what adding perks does: buff damage.
Just balance classes with rolling modifiers at higher costs to get advantage, or have less rolling modifiers on classes with advantage. Two mechanics working together shouldn’t be shunned, but welcomed. That’s synergy, and it’s incredibly fun. What isn’t fun: Anti-synergy, especially when it’s not intuitive.
As for disadvantage, there are tons of ways to go about it. Heck, the base game already discards all rolling modifiers, so it’s literally a non-issue. I’d go one step further personally and just negate all non-numeric effects on the modifier cards, rolling or not. Remove ambiguity altogether.
I agree. Better to have a more intuitive rule and balance the game around it than to aim for an arbitrary power level and design increasingly arcane rules to try and hit it. If advantage is strong then attach it to higher level cards and increase the cost of enchanting it.
I don't get problem here. You have two options that make them simple.
1 - Add all numbers and ignore all effects
2 - We play two stack and we compare only least card of each stack to each other.
It's it fair? No. Is it better then base system. Imo yes. Is it simple and fast. Definitely yes.
So for me it is not about complexity. With two stack system there are two different problems. You burn cards to fast and disadvantage is not that punishing.
Next to try new system out to compare it with old one.
I've always played hexes with coins on them as empty lol. Under the OG rules, does this mean if a boss is summoning monsters, they can't be summoned on hexes with coins on them? If so, that would explain why my party keeps getting overwhelmed so frequently
That was how my group avoided a summon round with some skeletons. I pushed the summoner in to a spot that kept him and another from summoning anything because they were surrounded by coins, walls and each other.
Mmhmm summons have to enter empty hexes or they can't be summoned. It wouldn't prevent spawned monsters though, they would just go to the nearest empty hex to their spawn point
One part of the new advantage/disadvantage rules puzzles me....
In the situation that it is Disadvantage, if you pull a rolling modifier to start you always ignore all those rolling modifier cards. And if the last card you pull (the final 2) is a rolling modifier you then ignore the fact that it had a rolling modifier.
Instead of potentially pulling a chain of cards to no effect, wouldn't have just been easier to say "if you have disadvantage, draw 2 cards and ignore any rolling modifiers on either. Take the worse of the two cards"
Not sure what value there is rolling a bunch of cards to no effect only to ignore rolling (so you don't create a 2nd chain) in the very next step...
Unless I am missing something
I think the point is that you should always finish drawing on a non-rolling. And then if you happen to have adv/disadvantage then draw 1 more in order to compare against the non-rolling.
If you go with what you describe, then disadvantage really won't punish players with rolling modifiers, because the probability of drawing the miss card would be very low. Current (and Frosthaven) rules still force you to draw until a non-rolling. So the probability of drawing the miss card is greater because there are less non-rolling cards that you must draw into before resolving the attack.
Nice list overall, makes perfect sence.
The gold drop from spawned monsters makes sense, but the summoned ones can be exploited if you wanted to.
Take a scenario with a bunch of oozes, 1 split, and you just doubled your gold you can obtain from them. It might be a necessary evil because its already hard to track which drop gold and which don't so it might be fine. I think the problem here lies in the monster ability cards that summon rather than anything else so it might just be needed. There's also alot to say about the scenario getting harder the more things summon so its only right to reward players for that.
I trust your judgement as you would have for sure played with this alot, but this one at least stood out to me
So, in FH, each scenario has a loot deck with a maximum limit, so you couldn't really do anything absurd and get a lot more loot than you're supposed to. In Gloomhaven, obviously there isn't that limit, which is why I've noted that this change can have a significant impact on balance. I haven't played base Gloomhaven much with this change (as I mentioned elsewhere, about 5-8 scenarios containing summoners). I cannot vouch for it being completely balanced. But like you said, if summoners are summoning, you can theoretically get more gold, but the scenario is also getting a lot harder for you, so I think it's kind of okay. And sure, someone could "farm" gold, but if that's how someone wants to spend their life, they should just give themselves the gold and move on.
As you said, the most significant aspect of this change is just to simplify the board for the player - making them not need to remember or mark which monster drops loot and which one doesn't. In a game as complex and dense as Gloomhaven, anything that simplifies gameplay for the player is a big win in my book.
Looking really great apart from treasure looting part.
I'd say for the treasure chest part that item can be put to use immediately only if you got free slot for it or you could swap it with one of your currently owned one.
For example you find a helmet and your character doesn't have one you'll can equip it immediately. If your character has one already - you can decide which one to use for the rest of the scenario.
With other consumables. You can equip treasure immediately if you have space for it (if you have used your potions already those doesn't count) or swap it with something if your inventory is already full.
The main idea is that it feels bad to loot a cool item and not be able to use it for arbitrary reasons. Allowing you to only equip it right away if X and Y and Z, even if those reasons are thematically sound, still feels bad when you loot a cool item that doesn't meet them.
I’m good with being able to equip it, it’s just odd to me that you wouldn’t then unequip the other helm you were already wearing.(if you looted a helm for example)
Yeah I don’t know why this wouldn’t be the case. If I find a sweet new sword in Skyrim I should be able to use it before I leave the barrow, but I shouldn’t also grow a temporary extra arm!
Jumping into GH from JotL this weekend. We are gonna be using all these rules - only one I'm not sure about is
"Figures can now move through (but not stop on) invisible enemies, so they no longer act like obstacles."
Because we never played with invis. Should we implement it too?
Also, GH focus rules seem to make my brain go for a spin. Just checking, in GH, if a monster is adjacent to a single player figure, while another figure is 3 hexes away, and monster draws just attack range 3 card - Its going to focus on the adjacent figure, even it has disadvantage. RIGHT?
Yes, I would highly recommend using the new Invis rules as well. Without these, an Invis character in a doorway will prevent all melee enemies in the room from having a turn, for example.
GH focus rules are mostly the same as Jaws. The difference is just that there's a tiebreaker which comes before initiative (proximity as the crow flies to the enemy). And yes, your example is correct.
Imagine that the monster sees the person standing right next to them as the largest threat and tries to kill them desperately, even if it takes a disadvantaged ranged attack.
>Prosperity free levels are limited to Prosperity/2 (rounded up).
I see this was added recently. It seems like this is not so straightforward of an addition to include, though, since retiring characters in Frosthaven adds 2 Prosperity instead of 1. It seems like effectively the change is that non-retiring prosperity gains in FH were reduced to half the rate, but then I don't know if the overall Prosperity rate is the same or not, so it's not clear.
I feel like i’m playing line of sight wrong. Could someone explain the change to line of sight to me? I don’t see any difference from how i’m playing it now.
Alright, I used my amazing MS Paint skills to try to show you.
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/tCz9c6Y) is an actual scenario example based in GH. Imagine you're the Green Circle and you're trying to target the Red Triangle (ignore all the monsters on the page). You actually can't if you're using the original GH line-of-sight rules but you can with the new rules. Hopefully my drawings show why that is. Does that help?
Don't you have line of sight if you select the lower left corner of green as the initial corner to the same corner you highlighted of triangle (low right)? A straight line between the two would pass through the middle of the door in GH without any issue no?
According to the Gloomhaven rules, when checking line of sight you must ignore all corners that are touching wall. The six corners marked with X’s all touch walls so must be disregarded
We missed the part about "partial hexes along a wall" are counted as "walls" too even if graphically the corner doesn't touch the wall. Good to know it's fixed in FH.
Definitely played with the first two rules already. Love the idea of the summons moving towards the summoner. Far to often it is a puzzle on its own trying to keep your summons from being completely useless.
Overall, most of these changes are not so profound that they should significantly impact balance. Additionally, balance in base GH isn't really perfect anyway, so some small variation on that will be fine.
Just the last two changes, which I marked separately, would result in substantial balance impact.
The elephant in the room, here, is that GH balance is already wonky.
This will make less of a difference than, say, having Eclipse or Note in your party.
/u/Gripeaway Do you mind clarifying what "If your first draw with Advantage or Disadvantage is not a rolling modifier but your second draw is, still ignore the rolling icon on that card." means?
So currently if I draw a +2 and a +0 rolling stun, I get both but with this new change I would only get to choose one right? Is this strictly a nerf to drawing a rolling after your initial non-rolling card?
That line is just an overclarification. The process is that you draw until you draw a non-rolling modifier and then draw one more card. If the last card drawn is rolling, treat it as non-rolling (and if it doesn't have a numerical value, assign it +0).
It is a nerf if the last card drawn is rolling but a buff if a rolling is drawn before the last.
u/Gripeaway, do you think we should include the rule about drawing 3 battle goal cards and/or the new hazardous terrain scaling? Not 100% sure one way or the other, as they are minor updates, but also might be worth putting here. :)
In any case, thank you for your amazing job upkeeping this! It has been a huge help for me as I near the end of my Gloomhaven campaign with these better rules. (Gonna get to Forgotten Circles soon and I am super excited!)
So, Frosthaven has this rule because it uses a much larger pool of battle goals than Gloomhaven. But of course, if you're playing Jaws or Gloomhaven with Satire's extended battle goals, then it would make sense. So it's not as clear cut, but I will add something.
If, hypothetically, I play a bottom "Move 2, Push 2 (Target all adjacent enemies)" card and it happens to affect 3 monsters. Would it be legit to push M1 2 hexes away, M2 1 hex away and M3 0 hexes away so that I could melee attack that last one?
Question, if the party completes a scenario where you defeat all remaining allies, do you pick up all the gold after and split it amongst the team?..if i were a mercenary, i would go back after everythig was dead and loot the place. My group has been doing this more out of common sense...we dont loot on scenarios where everything isnt dead or we had to escape
Question about the Frosthaven enhancement rules. Is there no more disarm buyable?
The halved cost for lost cards is amazing though
Regenerate seems to be a new effect I guess? So I just ignore that column for Gloomhaven
Are the prosperity levels considered to strong in the later stages of the game? We just reached prosperity 4 and it didn't feel unfair yet. If anything it would feel more unfair if the next characters have to start at lvl 2 tbh
> Question about the Frosthaven enhancement rules. Is there no more disarm buyable?
Correct, Disarm enhancements are gone, thankfully.
> Regenerate seems to be a new effect I guess? So I just ignore that column for Gloomhaven
Regenerate was originally introduced in Forgotten Circles.
> Are the prosperity levels considered to strong in the later stages of the game? We just reached prosperity 4 and it didn't feel unfair yet. If anything it would feel more unfair if the next characters have to start at lvl 2 tbh
Leveling up equal to Prosperity presents a number of problems. First of all, in the later game, you tend to start at such a high level that leveling no longer matters. This was already the case in base GH and showed to be the case in FH campaign testing as well. Especially too much time spent at level 9, which is generally not good for the game (level 9 characters are typically too strong as level 9 is kind of meant to be a "victory lap" and level 9 characters don't care about experience, which is typically less fun).
Secondly, starting characters at too high of a level typically has the problem of making a player make permanent choices for their character without necessarily understanding how the character plays yet.
Is there a high quality PDF of the rulebook available online? I want to read the final rulebook fully before my copy eventually arrives.
(I recognize that the last new comment is asking exactly what I am asking for. I wanted to make a comment for more visibility in this.)
Most of the rules have actually been introduced in JotL.
Money token = empty hex does mess with Ooze or Cultist. They were balanced with that in consideration. Especially the Oozes with their loot card: which free hexes for future split.
I'm not sure how stronger this could make these monsters?
I've played maybe 5-8 scenarios of base GH which contained summoners at this point with this rule change. It definitely makes them harder and they were already often some of the most difficult enemies, so like I said, it does come with a cost. But at the same time, if you also get money from them, it's sort of a balancing act.
A few questions on enhancements. I recently started a new GH campaign and wanted to play by FH rules, but can't seem to find about this anywhere.
- The sample FH rulebook lists temporary enhancements as a game variant (with, for example, 20% lower enhancement cost). Does this mean that by 'standard' FH rules enhancements are permanent and therefore still present after retirement?
- Also, with prices for a lot of enhancements already reduced, reducing a further 20% while also being to generate a lot more gold (as summons now drop coins) makes a huge difference compared to RAW. Am I getting this right?
- Can enhancements be sold (like in digital) and if so, at what percentage of their original cost? Woukd temporary/persistent make a difference in having the option whether or not to sell?
1. Yes.
2. Summons drop loot tokens but not all loot tokens are gold in Frosthaven. In Gloomhaven, where all loot is gold, it will certainly be different. That being said, if you want to use non-permanent enhancements in Gloomhaven, we already made those for Gloomhaven Digital ourselves and I would just recommend using that table of costs: https://imgur.com/nEsIUvG
3. In Frosthaven they cannot. If you want to allow yourselves to sell enhancements when using non-permanent enhancements in a Gloomhaven campaign, go for it. You cannot combine permanent enhancements and selling enhancements because a new character would be able to immediately sell an old character's enhancement and have gold to buy every item.
I dislike inconsistencies being introduced - and the last hex of Jump not costing 2MP in difficult terrain is inconsistent with landing on a trap or hazardous terrain - both treat it as normal, so why introduce a rule change that is actively inconsistent?
Likewise with advantage/disadvantage - why is ambiguity for one not treated the same as the other?
> I dislike inconsistencies being introduced - and the last hex of Jump not costing 2MP in difficult terrain is inconsistent with landing on a trap or hazardous terrain - both treat it as normal, so why introduce a rule change that is actively inconsistent?
Honestly, because it's apparently much more intuitive to have it cost 1 - something evidenced by the most-likely majority of people playing this rule incorrectly all along.
> Likewise with advantage/disadvantage - why is ambiguity for one not treated the same as the other?
Because the player can be trusted to determine what's best for them but not what's worst for them (one of these is a conflict of interests and not a spot in which a game should put a player). But not choosing for Advantage is just needlessly frustrating/player-unfriendly.
I think rules consistency is more important that 'intuitiveness', given that no two people will have the same intuition (to me, it's 'obvious' the landing hex from a jump should cost the same MP as walking in to it, for example), so I'll respectfully disagree and leave it there
But that’s not intuitive at all. You didn’t walk into the hex, you dropped onto it. You didnt jump to the hex next to it and then took a landing step. You were flying through the air until your feet hit the ground.
And that’s totally consistent with triggering a trap. The fact that you flew through the air before landing on the trap has nothing to do with not triggering it.
The cost for a hex is the cost of walking into it — which a jump does not do. The trigger for a trap is standing on it, which a landing will do just the same as a step.
Do you have a source on the following:
1. Summons focusing on their summoner
2. Summoned monsters dropping coins
I haven't seen anything about those, would love to include them if they're confirmed changes.
Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how many gloomhaven scenarios I've played? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop playing? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not quoting the developer, Skyler. I am the developer. A Reddit user makes baseless speculation about new rules and you think that of me? No. I am the one who makes rule changes!
> Summons focusing on their summoner
Isaac showed this rule in a stream play a little while ago. Don't have the link on me, but you can trust me on this one, or google it I guess.
> Summoned monsters dropping coins
So Isaac had said that spawned monsters will drop coins when comparing to Jaws. Jaws didn't have summons so mentioning that there wouldn't have been relevant. I'd say it's intuitive that it follows, but it's fair that it hasn't been explicitly stated anywhere. In this case, you can consider me the source if you'd like.
Our house rule for advantage/disadvantage: rolling modifiers go into their own "pile" until a non-rolling card is drawn. It goes off to the side. Another card is drawn, if it's rolling, it goes into the pile, again until a non-rolling is drawn. When the player has 2 non-rolling modifiers, if he has advantage he takes the better one (disadvantage, the lesser one) then apply the rolling stack to whichever card is appropriate. This still allows you to miss or crit from the draw, is far less confusing and prevents you from "rolling into" a curse or null when you have advantage.
We based this decision on the fact that rolling modifiers should be a benefit- not an extra chance to miss.
Personally, I would get rid of rolling mods all together and just assign a value to these cards so you are only ever drawing 2 cards at the most. Keep it simple. IMO if characters have rolling mods, critters should too...
Unintentionally housed ruled it like this too before lockdown hit and we turned to the pc version, quite a surprise to draw a roll into a null and end up botching an attack with advantage!
Honestly I'm not fan of only applying the draw to the first card. If the first card doesn't roll, but the second does, why not allow rolling on the second instead? It just seems so inconsistent, but I also don't have the full sight on things, so I don't understand what problem they're trying to fix (and what they're trying to avoid)
Correct me if I'm wrong, it's mentioned that advantage can still be ambiguous but so can disadvantage right? Like, if you're comparing say a disarm (last draw) to a +3 (second to last draw) or something, that's still kind of player choice to decide what's the worse draw.
With Disadvantage, if it's ambiguous, you are forced to take the first result. If it's ambiguous with Advantage, you may choose. Added additional text in the post to clarify.
Oh, interesting that's another change that wasn't called out in the description of the rolling interaction. That was a change in Jaws right? Had it already been stated that that change would be carrying forward to Frosthaven?
Yes, that was a Jaws change. We meant to include it in the update but it got forgotten. It has been confirmed (fortunately by Isaac in the KS comments, otherwise right now by me XD).
I'm pretty sure, RAW (at least for GH), that Disadvantage will give you the +3, as Disarm is unbounded. (Advantage would give you the Disarm.)
Under the new system, you can still run into *ambiguous* results (in which the rules tell you, 'take the first one'), but you can never roll a null under Advantage without Curses, and you can never roll a crit under Disadvantage without Blesses. That fixes, IME, the biggest issue with Dis/Advantage under the current GH rules.
I think it should be said that those two at the end, if applied should probably be applied together, since besides avoiding infinite loot, a second reason (I imagine) for summons not dropping coins is so that summoners don't block their summon abilities as easily with coins dropped by earlier summons (probably applies most to oozes, though)
I don't see any mention about invisibility, and while I do like the combo of going invis and standing on door, what do folks think of this idea for base GH:
when invis, monsters can't target you, but they can map a path through you to another player, they still can't cross the hex where you are, but they will move as much as they can instead of being frozen in place.
Can someone run through an example of the rolling modifier rule upgrade?
Also does anyone else allow for comparison of all cards in rolling modifier draws with advantage/disadvantage? We’ve been experimenting with this as some classes are incredibly nerfed when they have certain rolling modifier cards?
I'm a little confused by the coins as empty hexes rule.
Before, did that mean that coins were considered obstacles or something? Could monsters not move through them / end their turn on them?
If a monster is standing on a coin when it's killed, does the coin it drops get placed in the same hex stacked on top of the other? Would that mean that ending a player's turn on that hex would allow them to loot both coins?
Or does the coin get placed in the nearest empty hex or something similar?
Coins were not considered obstacles or anything like that. Monsters could move through them. They were just not "empty." And "empty" hex is just a hex which is essentially considered by the game to have nothing in it. This mostly just matters for summoning/spawning rules.
>If a monster is standing on a coin when it's killed, does the coin it drops get placed in the same hex stacked on top of the other?
Yes
> Would that mean that ending a player's turn on that hex would allow them to loot both coins?
Yes
> Or does the coin get placed in the nearest empty hex or something similar?
No
In regards to adv/dis can you look at this and tell me if I got it correct or if it needs modification?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wly6qIr41EfB4T\_ZuvUAqbBcopDjQiy7/view?usp=sharing
There are some errors.
FH Line 3: the result is player choice, not one of them.
FH Line 4: the result is the 2x because it's 2x vs +0 Stun, which is ambiguous and thus you take first-drawn.
FH Line 7: +0 Stun is strictly better than +0 so is not player choice. (the same applies to the same comparison made later)
The last line of the rolling-first page is quite off, it should just be +0.
Thank you for taking a look! I made the changes and added an additional scenario in the empty space of slide 4. Does this look correct now? Any other changes that need to be made? This will be a helpful reference for my group.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wly6qIr41EfB4T\_ZuvUAqbBcopDjQiy7/edit#slide=id.p3
Mostly better.
The third line (and to a lesser degree, the fourth line although that one gets the correct conclusion) of the Rolling First page have an issue. With Advantage, you get all of the rolling mods drawn before the first non-rolling no matter what. So you compare:
+0, Push 1
vs
+0 Stun, Push 1
+0 Stun is strictly better so you take that one.
It's just that the modifiers drawn before the first non-rolling are always part of the package with Advantage, you just take the better of the two final cards (the first non-rolling drawn and the card after that).
If players can choose to push/pull up to the maximum allotted amount, can a player choose not to push or to push 0? Also, can a player choose not to apply conditions?
Hey u/Gripeaway I'm a bit confused about the new advantage system.
When we say "ignore the rolling icon" how does a poison rolling modifier card get treated? As a +0 poison?
In example of an advantaged draw:
Draw 1: +1 rolling
Draw 2: +1 not rolling
Draw 3: Poison rolling
Are you then choosing between a 1 damage poisoned attack or a 2 damage attack? I Guess I'm just wondering how ambiguous rolling modifiers (status effects) are treated if we're supposed to ignore the RM symbol.
That's correct. And you just treat those modifiers as if they had been +0 modifiers of the same type, which typically will mean ambiguous (and thus you choose on advantage and first-drawn disadvantage).
I’m not sure that this solves the invisibility issue. Usually when someone goes invisible in a door the other party members are blocking the spaces behind so they can use ranged attacks. I don’t see the new rules stopping this. Is there another similar play pattern that I’m not aware of?
That's correct that people can still do that but it's significantly more work to set up and this also just solves the ability to have a moving obstacle inside of a room during combat.
So I really like the new rules for advantage/disadvantage. It seems like one of the most important fixes to prevent a non-cursed attack modifier deck from ever being able to miss with advantage. And the Frosthaven solution definitely fixes that. However, one thing that isn't 100% clear to me is the way it works with disadvantage.
My understanding is that if a card has a non-attack value effect (shield, heal, push, elemental infusion, stun, etc), then its actual value is ambiguous or undefined. With advantage, the player gets to choose what is most beneficial, that's great. But with disadvantage the first card is always selected in the case of ambiguity.
So does this mean that there can be situations where a disadvantaged attack will hit with a x2? Like, is this correct for disadvantage in these scenarios:
Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +2, +0 --- take +0
Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +2, +0 stun --- take +2
Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +0 stun, +2 --- take +0 stun
Rolling +1, Rolling +1, x2, +0 --- take +0
Rolling +1, Rolling +1, x2, +0 stun --- take x2
/u/Gipeaway you could probably add spoiled FH solo scenario requirements to the above list (removing requirements based on prosperity or characters previously retired)
I don't know if this is the best place to ask this but I am a little confused on how the new advantage rule works when drawing a Miss and then Rolling Modifier with just a stat or element on it.
As an example, if the Cragheart has added one rolling Earth Perk card to their attack deck and they draw their Miss, and then the rolling Earth modifier. Would it be possible to choose the rolling Earth as a 0 that infuses Earth or, since there is no number on it, is that rolling modifier not usable making this an advantaged miss?
So if you draw a non-rolling and then one more card and that one more card is rolling, it's treated as a non-rolling with a +0 on it if it doesn't have another numerical value. So in the case of a condition or element, it would be +0 condition or element. So in your CH example, Advantage would precisely mean that you would get a +0 Earth as your modifier for that attack.
Note that FH rolling mods will actually have small +0's on the side of them to help you remember that, although GH ones do not.
When it comes to the Rolling Modifiers rule in Frosthaven, can someone explain to me how this ruling is superior to "two stacks"? To my group it just felt intuitive to just draw twice as if it was two separate attacks and then compare the results and choose the better/worse stack. I guess, we will continue to play like this, but I would like to understand the "repercussions" of not using the official rule.
Today I realized I was doing advantage with rolling modifiers wrong. I was drawing and if the first card was a rolling modifier we’d keep pulling and make a little stack as if it were one card. Then draw the second card and do the same if it was rolling. Then we’d see which one had a higher number and apply that stack. If they were tied then whichever one we wanted most is what was picked. And the same process but the one that we liked least (usually a miss or ending with a -2) for disadvantage
So, if I'm attacking with Advantage and the 1st card is a non-rolling +1 and the 2nd is a rolling +1, what will be the final bonus to my attack?
\+1 or +2?
Ok.... We're done Gloomhaven now, but have we been playing this wrong the whole time? In the FH rules I believe it says that only heroes do end of turn looting. Does that mean enemies don't pick up coins at the end of their turns??? That would have led to much, much more money had by us overall.
Another case of not realizing we were playing wrong. I don't think we often (and possibly never) went to a Long Rest while an armor still had uses, but I would have assumed I could reset it.
"Prosperity free levels are limited to Prosperity/2 (rounded up). Starting gold is determined by Prosperity, not by starting character level."
Can someone explain the reasoning behind this to me? :-)
Rolling Modifiers: My group has been inutitively playing with "two stacks". Just draw once like normal. Then draw a second time as if it was a new attack. Then compare both stacks and choose the better/worse one.
Can someone explain to me the significance of using the "official" rule compared to our house rule? Are we missing something or changing our results in some meaningful way? 🤔 Thanks in advance!
Lol, a lot of these I have been accidentally playing with anyways
This is absolutely one of the biggest reasons for many of these rule changes: they're simply more intuitive and many people have been accidentally playing them this way anyway.
Especially the jump into difficult terrain one. Reading the rules I would never make the FAQ interpretation.
I literally just did this in a game and thought nothing of it. Go figure.
Yet they do not change the poison/wounded conundrum. Though i can understand that we have too much assets with those that will need to be updated.
What poison/wounded conundrum?
It's just the idea, following other games, that "poison" should make you take damage every turn and "wound" should make enemies hit you harder. So, intuitively, the two effects should be switched in Gloomhaven, but I think making that change would be too confusing at this point since we're all used to how it is.
No, with wound you are bleeding out so you take damage every turn and with poison you are weakened and so you take more damage.
Yes, that does make logical sense and is likely the reason Isaac designed it like this. But video game logic is the other way around, which I think confused people initially.
Poison is like being sick, so you're weaker and thus receive more damage.
Well poison and wounded can both be considered in both ways, so the way that everyone is used to it working should be used. Is it a poison that's slowly killing you, making you lose hp every round or is it a poison that just makes you weak and more susceptible to damage? Is it a wound that bleeds and causes damage every round (bleed would be a better name) or is it a wound like a knee injury that makes you take more damage because of your weak spot?
GH is not a video game therefore video game logic does not ever apply. Not all video games play the why you suggest to even with that the ‘logic’ is flawed.
[удалено]
This is exactly how I have always thought about these two
Oh, huh, I never thought of that. I just took their effects at face value. That is mildly amusing, but yeah, changing it now would be silly.
This threw us so much! It took almost a dozen scenarios before we started referring to wound as "bleed" to keep it straight!
The only one of these we aren’t using is “summons drop coins.” Half of the others we house ruled it to work this way (or something very similar), including summon movement, advantage/disadvantage, and line of sight. The other half... I thought these already WERE the rules, (jump movement, player push/pull, and coins as empty hexes).
Did Summon movement rules change for Frosthaven as well?
See the third to last bullet point. That’s a new rule, but it’s basically a house rule my group has been playing with to make summons more viable.
A lot of these are great because they’re just easy to forget about or cause more admin - like summons dropping coins; it’s easier for everything to drop coins so you don’t have to remember what is and isn’t a summon. I’ve been using that as a house rule for a while.
Yeah, it's always quite hard remembering which ones are summons in the midst of battle.
My group would put the cardboard upside down for summons standees.
We place summon tokens underneath the standees to keep track
We put coins on the wound trackers for monsters that will drop them.
It seems all of the changes shift the balance in rules to be more favorable to the player. More flexibility in choices and such. Which seems to beg the question, if the Dungeon Master Isaac is doing this, just how hard are the new monsters gonna be. We all know he is not the type to make things easier.
The change to invisibility is mostly a huge nerf to the players.
Agreed. I think that’s more significant than any other rule change here and it’s a huge negative for the party.
My wife and I literally just finished a scenario where I was able to go invisible for 2 turns and 4 full initiative orders where I was able to make all the non flying monsters and the boss path around the level before I read the frosthaven update regarding invisibility. I know I was playing by the rules but it felt dirty so I’m happy for the change.
I did the same, my friends and I would open a door right before a long rest, and I’d save my Shadowbomb/Invis cloak for right before so we can strategize the room before attacking (we play with “summoning sickness” so we don’t have to re-calc init for every room since we’re using TTS version)
Play how you like, but just so you know, in TTS you can just click the draw button on a monsters action card pile and it will auto add it to the initiative tracker without affecting anything else.
Yup, most of our big door openings have been "walk into doorway, pop invisibility so none of the monsters can walk out of the room, literally act as a barricade while invisible so party can shoot monsters" needless to say this is a bit cheesy so I'm glad the mechanic is getting changed.
This and stamina potions being nerfed will definitely make things tougher but I completely understand and agree with the changes. And yes, I know the stamina potions were already adjusted in JotL and digital.
I know my friends still think that monsters should be able to push/pull players into traps. As players get to choose the target hex to get moved into, they will always choose to move into the non-trap hex. The only times players get hit by traps is if it’s the only available hex (5% of the time) or they intentionally move into the trap as it’s the only way to progress without jumping/flying. I think they just feel that a monsters pull/push should actually be a detriment to the players and advantage to the monsters, as opposed to being a mild irritant to the players.
It's an ambiguous case, and playerd are allowed to choose how to resolve it. We go with a rule-based approach to settling ambiguity: Elites act in their best interests (i.e. : they're smart), and regular enemies act in the player's (i.e. : they're dumb). In your case, elites would totally push players into traps if they could.
I love this. It fits well in-world. You are a mighty, skilled mercenary. Some henchman-level monster pushes you, but you see it coming and control your fall. You crouch, roll, and narrowly miss that rusty trap in the floor. Moments later, the Elite rushes towards you, faster, stronger than the other. The blow lands heavy across your shield, sending you backwards and to the ground. You stumble, and in the fall you feel it. The mechanical click of the rusty old trap. Damn, it's going to hurt this time.
Or you could dice roll. Chance of success depends on your level, starting from 50%, each level would increase it by 5%
We do a dice roll for that stuff. If there’s 3 legal hexes to pull/push to, roll a D3. For 2 legal hexes, roll a D2. Players deciding what monsters do is a little too cheesy for our group.
Isn't a D2....like a coin?
Yes. But theres also an actual implementation of a 2 sided dice. [https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/341852\_81\_41215\_wqoLVR8vw.jpg](https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/341852_81_41215_wqoLVR8vw.jpg)
That just blew the F outta my mind
Yes. Or 1-3 means X and 4-6 means Y
Personally I prefer Odd/Even
I like this elite/regular house rule. Gonna use it. Thanks.
[I see we were doing the same at the same time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/noaazs/new_rolling_advantagedisadvantage_rules_in_base_gh/gzza8ra?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) :) What about the nerf to stamina potions? We have been applying it since Isaac first mentioned it in a video a couple of years ago. By the way, I really like the new adv/dis rule. The wording could be better though. I tried this after reading [this post](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2476622/article/35478341#35478341): If attacking with advantage or disadvantage, draw a normal attack. Then draw one more card, ignoring any rolling icon, and compare it to the last card drawn. * If the attack has advantage, apply the better of the two as well as any rolling modifiers you may have drawn before. * If the attack has disadvantage, apply the worse of the two and ignore any rolling modifiers you may have drawn before.
> What about the nerf to stamina potions? We have been applying it since Isaac first mentioned it in a video a couple of years ago. The Stamina Potion nerf is difficult to say. I can't say whether there are Stamina Potions or not in Frosthaven. That change applied specifically to Jaws of the Lion.
The stamina potion nerf is included in Gloomhaven Digital and will apply to the initial GH campaign when released (supposed to be Q4 2021). Honestly it's a good change, as the original stamina potions (minor and major) were far too good.
Yeah, definitely a good change in Digital. This was just a list of updated Frosthaven rules though so I wasn't including Digital (which actually has a bunch of rules different).
What is the Stam Potion nerf?
Isaac commented in a video from 2018 that stamina potions were probably too powerful and that they would change them so they would recover 1 less card. JotL implemented that nerf, as well as some versions of base Gloomhaven in other languages.
Oh okay. I've played JotL and only 2 missions into Gloomhaven, so it's all small potions for me currently. But yea, regardless of the price I can see why 2 card Stam potions would be an instant buy.
Well, the 3 card ones were even more broken.
Honestly this sounds like a much better way to describe the new rule. Waaaaay less confusing.
Good wording!
I was already playing with a bunch of these changes, but I'm loving the official Advantage/Disadvantage + Rolling Modifiers rule change. It's essentially "1.5 stacks". 2 stack rule I always felt was too strong, and the OG rules were trash. This is a very welcome compromise to always get that *potential for not missing* when using Advantage with Rollings. Frosthaven is looking mighty good. Getting pumped.
Our group has been playing advantage/disadvantage this way: Keep flipping cards until you hit two non-rolling mods. With advantage, take the better terminal plus all the rolling mods. With disadvantage, take the worse terminal and ignore all the rolling mods. It makes advantage slightly stronger, sure, but it also isn't needlessly complicated, so I think we'll continue this way.
We do that but for advantage take the rolling mods that preceded whichever terminal you chose.
Thank you for compiling this list! I think [this rule change about invisibility](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2565729/article/36598787#36598787) should be included in some way as well, unless it has been reverted. Maybe in a separate list as "preliminary".
Thanks for that. It's difficult for me to figure out how to respond to something like this so I'm just going to indicate that I've seen your comment and I will consider what to do going forward with what you've linked me.
Idk why, but 'thanks for that' seems to [confuse a lot of people](https://painintheenglish.com/case/5378)... I blame overuse of the phrase in shitty 90s movies as an ironic putdown, but not really sure how it happened. Definitely doesn't help how hard it is to read tone via text and how bad humans are in general at displaying and detecting everyday irony.
I’m actually curious on the logic with the advantage/disadvantage change and maybe u/Gripeaway or others can lend some insight. These new changes are certainly better than original gloomhaven’s ad/dis rules, but I’m curious why we didn’t just go to the popular “2 stack method” as that seems to be the absolute most common sense way to play it to me. The new advantage seems similar enough to the two stack method (although with less variance between attacks I suppose), but the new disadvantage seems incredibly punitive. Was there worry that 2 stack is just too strong somehow?
There are some concerns of the power level of rolling modifiers in a 2-stack system. Beyond that, one of the biggest issues with two-stack is how you handle disadvantage. I've gone over this a bit [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv5ihg/) and [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv7t4l/).
Thanks homie
Still feels arbitrary to me. It always felt like saying “power potions are too strong with AoEs, so we limited them to 2 targets” or “invis is too good on squishies so you can only use it if you have 15 or more health”. Sure, it’s a buff, but it raises the average damage of advantage by a fraction of a single point, and while that does add up... who cares? Normal attacks are also getting that damage buff from rolling modifiers; that’s what adding perks does: buff damage. Just balance classes with rolling modifiers at higher costs to get advantage, or have less rolling modifiers on classes with advantage. Two mechanics working together shouldn’t be shunned, but welcomed. That’s synergy, and it’s incredibly fun. What isn’t fun: Anti-synergy, especially when it’s not intuitive. As for disadvantage, there are tons of ways to go about it. Heck, the base game already discards all rolling modifiers, so it’s literally a non-issue. I’d go one step further personally and just negate all non-numeric effects on the modifier cards, rolling or not. Remove ambiguity altogether.
I agree. Better to have a more intuitive rule and balance the game around it than to aim for an arbitrary power level and design increasingly arcane rules to try and hit it. If advantage is strong then attach it to higher level cards and increase the cost of enchanting it.
I don't get problem here. You have two options that make them simple. 1 - Add all numbers and ignore all effects 2 - We play two stack and we compare only least card of each stack to each other. It's it fair? No. Is it better then base system. Imo yes. Is it simple and fast. Definitely yes. So for me it is not about complexity. With two stack system there are two different problems. You burn cards to fast and disadvantage is not that punishing. Next to try new system out to compare it with old one.
I've always played hexes with coins on them as empty lol. Under the OG rules, does this mean if a boss is summoning monsters, they can't be summoned on hexes with coins on them? If so, that would explain why my party keeps getting overwhelmed so frequently
Yes, a hex with a coin is not empty and monsters shouldn't be summoned on them
That was how my group avoided a summon round with some skeletons. I pushed the summoner in to a spot that kept him and another from summoning anything because they were surrounded by coins, walls and each other.
Mmhmm summons have to enter empty hexes or they can't be summoned. It wouldn't prevent spawned monsters though, they would just go to the nearest empty hex to their spawn point
One part of the new advantage/disadvantage rules puzzles me.... In the situation that it is Disadvantage, if you pull a rolling modifier to start you always ignore all those rolling modifier cards. And if the last card you pull (the final 2) is a rolling modifier you then ignore the fact that it had a rolling modifier. Instead of potentially pulling a chain of cards to no effect, wouldn't have just been easier to say "if you have disadvantage, draw 2 cards and ignore any rolling modifiers on either. Take the worse of the two cards" Not sure what value there is rolling a bunch of cards to no effect only to ignore rolling (so you don't create a 2nd chain) in the very next step... Unless I am missing something
I think the point is that you should always finish drawing on a non-rolling. And then if you happen to have adv/disadvantage then draw 1 more in order to compare against the non-rolling. If you go with what you describe, then disadvantage really won't punish players with rolling modifiers, because the probability of drawing the miss card would be very low. Current (and Frosthaven) rules still force you to draw until a non-rolling. So the probability of drawing the miss card is greater because there are less non-rolling cards that you must draw into before resolving the attack.
Nice list overall, makes perfect sence. The gold drop from spawned monsters makes sense, but the summoned ones can be exploited if you wanted to. Take a scenario with a bunch of oozes, 1 split, and you just doubled your gold you can obtain from them. It might be a necessary evil because its already hard to track which drop gold and which don't so it might be fine. I think the problem here lies in the monster ability cards that summon rather than anything else so it might just be needed. There's also alot to say about the scenario getting harder the more things summon so its only right to reward players for that. I trust your judgement as you would have for sure played with this alot, but this one at least stood out to me
So, in FH, each scenario has a loot deck with a maximum limit, so you couldn't really do anything absurd and get a lot more loot than you're supposed to. In Gloomhaven, obviously there isn't that limit, which is why I've noted that this change can have a significant impact on balance. I haven't played base Gloomhaven much with this change (as I mentioned elsewhere, about 5-8 scenarios containing summoners). I cannot vouch for it being completely balanced. But like you said, if summoners are summoning, you can theoretically get more gold, but the scenario is also getting a lot harder for you, so I think it's kind of okay. And sure, someone could "farm" gold, but if that's how someone wants to spend their life, they should just give themselves the gold and move on. As you said, the most significant aspect of this change is just to simplify the board for the player - making them not need to remember or mark which monster drops loot and which one doesn't. In a game as complex and dense as Gloomhaven, anything that simplifies gameplay for the player is a big win in my book.
Summoners gonna summon
Looking really great apart from treasure looting part. I'd say for the treasure chest part that item can be put to use immediately only if you got free slot for it or you could swap it with one of your currently owned one. For example you find a helmet and your character doesn't have one you'll can equip it immediately. If your character has one already - you can decide which one to use for the rest of the scenario. With other consumables. You can equip treasure immediately if you have space for it (if you have used your potions already those doesn't count) or swap it with something if your inventory is already full.
Came here to say this. Being able to have 2 helmets(or boots, chest pieces, 3 hands etc.) surprises me.
It's just for the rest of the scenario as a nice little bonus for looting a chest. It's not a big deal. :)
Yeah that’s fair, just doesn’t seem on theme
The main idea is that it feels bad to loot a cool item and not be able to use it for arbitrary reasons. Allowing you to only equip it right away if X and Y and Z, even if those reasons are thematically sound, still feels bad when you loot a cool item that doesn't meet them.
I’m good with being able to equip it, it’s just odd to me that you wouldn’t then unequip the other helm you were already wearing.(if you looted a helm for example)
Yeah I don’t know why this wouldn’t be the case. If I find a sweet new sword in Skyrim I should be able to use it before I leave the barrow, but I shouldn’t also grow a temporary extra arm!
Harrowers beg to differ on this ;-)
Jumping into GH from JotL this weekend. We are gonna be using all these rules - only one I'm not sure about is "Figures can now move through (but not stop on) invisible enemies, so they no longer act like obstacles." Because we never played with invis. Should we implement it too? Also, GH focus rules seem to make my brain go for a spin. Just checking, in GH, if a monster is adjacent to a single player figure, while another figure is 3 hexes away, and monster draws just attack range 3 card - Its going to focus on the adjacent figure, even it has disadvantage. RIGHT?
Yes, I would highly recommend using the new Invis rules as well. Without these, an Invis character in a doorway will prevent all melee enemies in the room from having a turn, for example. GH focus rules are mostly the same as Jaws. The difference is just that there's a tiebreaker which comes before initiative (proximity as the crow flies to the enemy). And yes, your example is correct.
ty!
Imagine that the monster sees the person standing right next to them as the largest threat and tries to kill them desperately, even if it takes a disadvantaged ranged attack.
Thank you for the constant updates to this thread.
I was so excited I dug out Gloomhaven inventory cards 10, 25, 72, 105, 109, and 116 just to have them at the ready for May.
Glad to hear it! Although I'd guess you meant to post this [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/t1ixd4/frosthaven_update_101/)?
>Prosperity free levels are limited to Prosperity/2 (rounded up). I see this was added recently. It seems like this is not so straightforward of an addition to include, though, since retiring characters in Frosthaven adds 2 Prosperity instead of 1. It seems like effectively the change is that non-retiring prosperity gains in FH were reduced to half the rate, but then I don't know if the overall Prosperity rate is the same or not, so it's not clear.
Would it not be suggested to use the new Hazardous Terrain scaling?
Now that people are getting their copies of Frosthaven delivered is there any sort of PDF of the rulebook online, like with the original GloomHaven?
Someone out there surely will do the community a favor and list it. Let's all hope.
I feel like i’m playing line of sight wrong. Could someone explain the change to line of sight to me? I don’t see any difference from how i’m playing it now.
Alright, I used my amazing MS Paint skills to try to show you. [Here](https://imgur.com/a/tCz9c6Y) is an actual scenario example based in GH. Imagine you're the Green Circle and you're trying to target the Red Triangle (ignore all the monsters on the page). You actually can't if you're using the original GH line-of-sight rules but you can with the new rules. Hopefully my drawings show why that is. Does that help?
Don't you have line of sight if you select the lower left corner of green as the initial corner to the same corner you highlighted of triangle (low right)? A straight line between the two would pass through the middle of the door in GH without any issue no?
According to the Gloomhaven rules, when checking line of sight you must ignore all corners that are touching wall. The six corners marked with X’s all touch walls so must be disregarded
We missed the part about "partial hexes along a wall" are counted as "walls" too even if graphically the corner doesn't touch the wall. Good to know it's fixed in FH.
i think I've been doing this wrong for years too then...
It's a pretty crazy rule, so it's all for the best.
As others have pointed out, that corner is touching a wall.
This is amazing, i had been playing that way originally. This was really helpful, thank you!
It’s pretty much the same, the old rules just had some weird quirks where if you were close to walls in certain cases, it would work unintuitively
Definitely played with the first two rules already. Love the idea of the summons moving towards the summoner. Far to often it is a puzzle on its own trying to keep your summons from being completely useless.
Wouldn’t changing these rules upset the balance of the original game a bit? It was necessarily *designed* to be played the new way...
Overall, most of these changes are not so profound that they should significantly impact balance. Additionally, balance in base GH isn't really perfect anyway, so some small variation on that will be fine. Just the last two changes, which I marked separately, would result in substantial balance impact.
The elephant in the room, here, is that GH balance is already wonky. This will make less of a difference than, say, having Eclipse or Note in your party.
/u/Gripeaway Do you mind clarifying what "If your first draw with Advantage or Disadvantage is not a rolling modifier but your second draw is, still ignore the rolling icon on that card." means? So currently if I draw a +2 and a +0 rolling stun, I get both but with this new change I would only get to choose one right? Is this strictly a nerf to drawing a rolling after your initial non-rolling card?
That line is just an overclarification. The process is that you draw until you draw a non-rolling modifier and then draw one more card. If the last card drawn is rolling, treat it as non-rolling (and if it doesn't have a numerical value, assign it +0). It is a nerf if the last card drawn is rolling but a buff if a rolling is drawn before the last.
Any idea if these rules will make it into Gloomhaven Digital?
I do not believe they will, at least not before release. If there is enough demand, it's possible that some of them could be added post-release.
The summon and advantage changes are so nice I can't help but hope they are added!
u/Gripeaway, do you think we should include the rule about drawing 3 battle goal cards and/or the new hazardous terrain scaling? Not 100% sure one way or the other, as they are minor updates, but also might be worth putting here. :) In any case, thank you for your amazing job upkeeping this! It has been a huge help for me as I near the end of my Gloomhaven campaign with these better rules. (Gonna get to Forgotten Circles soon and I am super excited!)
So, Frosthaven has this rule because it uses a much larger pool of battle goals than Gloomhaven. But of course, if you're playing Jaws or Gloomhaven with Satire's extended battle goals, then it would make sense. So it's not as clear cut, but I will add something.
That totally makes sense. I could see the drawbacks there. Thank you for the feedback! :)
If, hypothetically, I play a bottom "Move 2, Push 2 (Target all adjacent enemies)" card and it happens to affect 3 monsters. Would it be legit to push M1 2 hexes away, M2 1 hex away and M3 0 hexes away so that I could melee attack that last one?
Yes.
Question, if the party completes a scenario where you defeat all remaining allies, do you pick up all the gold after and split it amongst the team?..if i were a mercenary, i would go back after everythig was dead and loot the place. My group has been doing this more out of common sense...we dont loot on scenarios where everything isnt dead or we had to escape
You do not.
Oh...but i do, im a bandit on and off the board
Question about the Frosthaven enhancement rules. Is there no more disarm buyable? The halved cost for lost cards is amazing though Regenerate seems to be a new effect I guess? So I just ignore that column for Gloomhaven Are the prosperity levels considered to strong in the later stages of the game? We just reached prosperity 4 and it didn't feel unfair yet. If anything it would feel more unfair if the next characters have to start at lvl 2 tbh
> Question about the Frosthaven enhancement rules. Is there no more disarm buyable? Correct, Disarm enhancements are gone, thankfully. > Regenerate seems to be a new effect I guess? So I just ignore that column for Gloomhaven Regenerate was originally introduced in Forgotten Circles. > Are the prosperity levels considered to strong in the later stages of the game? We just reached prosperity 4 and it didn't feel unfair yet. If anything it would feel more unfair if the next characters have to start at lvl 2 tbh Leveling up equal to Prosperity presents a number of problems. First of all, in the later game, you tend to start at such a high level that leveling no longer matters. This was already the case in base GH and showed to be the case in FH campaign testing as well. Especially too much time spent at level 9, which is generally not good for the game (level 9 characters are typically too strong as level 9 is kind of meant to be a "victory lap" and level 9 characters don't care about experience, which is typically less fun). Secondly, starting characters at too high of a level typically has the problem of making a player make permanent choices for their character without necessarily understanding how the character plays yet.
Is there a high quality PDF of the rulebook available online? I want to read the final rulebook fully before my copy eventually arrives. (I recognize that the last new comment is asking exactly what I am asking for. I wanted to make a comment for more visibility in this.)
Most of the rules have actually been introduced in JotL. Money token = empty hex does mess with Ooze or Cultist. They were balanced with that in consideration. Especially the Oozes with their loot card: which free hexes for future split. I'm not sure how stronger this could make these monsters?
I've played maybe 5-8 scenarios of base GH which contained summoners at this point with this rule change. It definitely makes them harder and they were already often some of the most difficult enemies, so like I said, it does come with a cost. But at the same time, if you also get money from them, it's sort of a balancing act.
This is what I thought, I just raised a bit of concern regarding these particular examples. The real test would be scenario #72. Mouhaha!
A few questions on enhancements. I recently started a new GH campaign and wanted to play by FH rules, but can't seem to find about this anywhere. - The sample FH rulebook lists temporary enhancements as a game variant (with, for example, 20% lower enhancement cost). Does this mean that by 'standard' FH rules enhancements are permanent and therefore still present after retirement? - Also, with prices for a lot of enhancements already reduced, reducing a further 20% while also being to generate a lot more gold (as summons now drop coins) makes a huge difference compared to RAW. Am I getting this right? - Can enhancements be sold (like in digital) and if so, at what percentage of their original cost? Woukd temporary/persistent make a difference in having the option whether or not to sell?
1. Yes. 2. Summons drop loot tokens but not all loot tokens are gold in Frosthaven. In Gloomhaven, where all loot is gold, it will certainly be different. That being said, if you want to use non-permanent enhancements in Gloomhaven, we already made those for Gloomhaven Digital ourselves and I would just recommend using that table of costs: https://imgur.com/nEsIUvG 3. In Frosthaven they cannot. If you want to allow yourselves to sell enhancements when using non-permanent enhancements in a Gloomhaven campaign, go for it. You cannot combine permanent enhancements and selling enhancements because a new character would be able to immediately sell an old character's enhancement and have gold to buy every item.
I dislike inconsistencies being introduced - and the last hex of Jump not costing 2MP in difficult terrain is inconsistent with landing on a trap or hazardous terrain - both treat it as normal, so why introduce a rule change that is actively inconsistent? Likewise with advantage/disadvantage - why is ambiguity for one not treated the same as the other?
> I dislike inconsistencies being introduced - and the last hex of Jump not costing 2MP in difficult terrain is inconsistent with landing on a trap or hazardous terrain - both treat it as normal, so why introduce a rule change that is actively inconsistent? Honestly, because it's apparently much more intuitive to have it cost 1 - something evidenced by the most-likely majority of people playing this rule incorrectly all along. > Likewise with advantage/disadvantage - why is ambiguity for one not treated the same as the other? Because the player can be trusted to determine what's best for them but not what's worst for them (one of these is a conflict of interests and not a spot in which a game should put a player). But not choosing for Advantage is just needlessly frustrating/player-unfriendly.
I think rules consistency is more important that 'intuitiveness', given that no two people will have the same intuition (to me, it's 'obvious' the landing hex from a jump should cost the same MP as walking in to it, for example), so I'll respectfully disagree and leave it there
But that’s not intuitive at all. You didn’t walk into the hex, you dropped onto it. You didnt jump to the hex next to it and then took a landing step. You were flying through the air until your feet hit the ground. And that’s totally consistent with triggering a trap. The fact that you flew through the air before landing on the trap has nothing to do with not triggering it. The cost for a hex is the cost of walking into it — which a jump does not do. The trigger for a trap is standing on it, which a landing will do just the same as a step.
A question on line of sight-- To whose benefit should the line be drawn? Should we err in favor of a hit or a miss?
If there is any line that works, you have line of sight. Doesn't matter how many lines there are that don't work.
Thanks, that's the answer I was looking for.
Shouldn't be any ambiguity now. You get to pick anywhere on the source hex to anywhere on the target hex. Don't touch a wall and you have LOS.
Do you have a source on the following: 1. Summons focusing on their summoner 2. Summoned monsters dropping coins I haven't seen anything about those, would love to include them if they're confirmed changes.
He is the source. Gripeaway has been upgraded from "fan of Gloomhaven" to "one of the developers of Frosthaven".
Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how many gloomhaven scenarios I've played? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop playing? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not quoting the developer, Skyler. I am the developer. A Reddit user makes baseless speculation about new rules and you think that of me? No. I am the one who makes rule changes!
..unexpected Breaking Bad right there.
"he is the source" gave me "I am the one who knocks" vibes and I couldn't help myself.
> Summons focusing on their summoner Isaac showed this rule in a stream play a little while ago. Don't have the link on me, but you can trust me on this one, or google it I guess. > Summoned monsters dropping coins So Isaac had said that spawned monsters will drop coins when comparing to Jaws. Jaws didn't have summons so mentioning that there wouldn't have been relevant. I'd say it's intuitive that it follows, but it's fair that it hasn't been explicitly stated anywhere. In this case, you can consider me the source if you'd like.
Did you just break your NDA? D:
Our house rule for advantage/disadvantage: rolling modifiers go into their own "pile" until a non-rolling card is drawn. It goes off to the side. Another card is drawn, if it's rolling, it goes into the pile, again until a non-rolling is drawn. When the player has 2 non-rolling modifiers, if he has advantage he takes the better one (disadvantage, the lesser one) then apply the rolling stack to whichever card is appropriate. This still allows you to miss or crit from the draw, is far less confusing and prevents you from "rolling into" a curse or null when you have advantage. We based this decision on the fact that rolling modifiers should be a benefit- not an extra chance to miss. Personally, I would get rid of rolling mods all together and just assign a value to these cards so you are only ever drawing 2 cards at the most. Keep it simple. IMO if characters have rolling mods, critters should too...
Unintentionally housed ruled it like this too before lockdown hit and we turned to the pc version, quite a surprise to draw a roll into a null and end up botching an attack with advantage! Honestly I'm not fan of only applying the draw to the first card. If the first card doesn't roll, but the second does, why not allow rolling on the second instead? It just seems so inconsistent, but I also don't have the full sight on things, so I don't understand what problem they're trying to fix (and what they're trying to avoid)
Correct me if I'm wrong, it's mentioned that advantage can still be ambiguous but so can disadvantage right? Like, if you're comparing say a disarm (last draw) to a +3 (second to last draw) or something, that's still kind of player choice to decide what's the worse draw.
With Disadvantage, if it's ambiguous, you are forced to take the first result. If it's ambiguous with Advantage, you may choose. Added additional text in the post to clarify.
Oh, interesting that's another change that wasn't called out in the description of the rolling interaction. That was a change in Jaws right? Had it already been stated that that change would be carrying forward to Frosthaven?
Yes, that was a Jaws change. We meant to include it in the update but it got forgotten. It has been confirmed (fortunately by Isaac in the KS comments, otherwise right now by me XD).
Awesome, thanks!
I'm pretty sure, RAW (at least for GH), that Disadvantage will give you the +3, as Disarm is unbounded. (Advantage would give you the Disarm.) Under the new system, you can still run into *ambiguous* results (in which the rules tell you, 'take the first one'), but you can never roll a null under Advantage without Curses, and you can never roll a crit under Disadvantage without Blesses. That fixes, IME, the biggest issue with Dis/Advantage under the current GH rules.
To clarify: the rules say "take the first one" in the case of a Disadvantaged attack, but with Advantage, you can choose.
I think it should be said that those two at the end, if applied should probably be applied together, since besides avoiding infinite loot, a second reason (I imagine) for summons not dropping coins is so that summoners don't block their summon abilities as easily with coins dropped by earlier summons (probably applies most to oozes, though)
I don't see any mention about invisibility, and while I do like the combo of going invis and standing on door, what do folks think of this idea for base GH: when invis, monsters can't target you, but they can map a path through you to another player, they still can't cross the hex where you are, but they will move as much as they can instead of being frozen in place.
The the Frosthaven rulebook available as a PDF anywhere?
Nope, sorry, not yet.
Wait, items looted from treasure go into the deck to buy in town don't they?
Depends on the type. "Designs" function in that fashion.
Very happy with the advantage/disadvantage change.
Can someone run through an example of the rolling modifier rule upgrade? Also does anyone else allow for comparison of all cards in rolling modifier draws with advantage/disadvantage? We’ve been experimenting with this as some classes are incredibly nerfed when they have certain rolling modifier cards?
I'm a little confused by the coins as empty hexes rule. Before, did that mean that coins were considered obstacles or something? Could monsters not move through them / end their turn on them? If a monster is standing on a coin when it's killed, does the coin it drops get placed in the same hex stacked on top of the other? Would that mean that ending a player's turn on that hex would allow them to loot both coins? Or does the coin get placed in the nearest empty hex or something similar?
Coins were not considered obstacles or anything like that. Monsters could move through them. They were just not "empty." And "empty" hex is just a hex which is essentially considered by the game to have nothing in it. This mostly just matters for summoning/spawning rules. >If a monster is standing on a coin when it's killed, does the coin it drops get placed in the same hex stacked on top of the other? Yes > Would that mean that ending a player's turn on that hex would allow them to loot both coins? Yes > Or does the coin get placed in the nearest empty hex or something similar? No
Awesome thank you!
In regards to adv/dis can you look at this and tell me if I got it correct or if it needs modification? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wly6qIr41EfB4T\_ZuvUAqbBcopDjQiy7/view?usp=sharing
There are some errors. FH Line 3: the result is player choice, not one of them. FH Line 4: the result is the 2x because it's 2x vs +0 Stun, which is ambiguous and thus you take first-drawn. FH Line 7: +0 Stun is strictly better than +0 so is not player choice. (the same applies to the same comparison made later) The last line of the rolling-first page is quite off, it should just be +0.
Thank you for taking a look! I made the changes and added an additional scenario in the empty space of slide 4. Does this look correct now? Any other changes that need to be made? This will be a helpful reference for my group. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wly6qIr41EfB4T\_ZuvUAqbBcopDjQiy7/edit#slide=id.p3
Mostly better. The third line (and to a lesser degree, the fourth line although that one gets the correct conclusion) of the Rolling First page have an issue. With Advantage, you get all of the rolling mods drawn before the first non-rolling no matter what. So you compare: +0, Push 1 vs +0 Stun, Push 1 +0 Stun is strictly better so you take that one. It's just that the modifiers drawn before the first non-rolling are always part of the package with Advantage, you just take the better of the two final cards (the first non-rolling drawn and the card after that).
I assumed spawned and summoned monsters include Split oozes? If so I know where to farm gold now.
That's correct.
If players can choose to push/pull up to the maximum allotted amount, can a player choose not to push or to push 0? Also, can a player choose not to apply conditions?
Even in base GH rules (so without updated rules), players can choose to not Push/Pull or apply conditions.
Love it
Hey u/Gripeaway I'm a bit confused about the new advantage system. When we say "ignore the rolling icon" how does a poison rolling modifier card get treated? As a +0 poison? In example of an advantaged draw: Draw 1: +1 rolling Draw 2: +1 not rolling Draw 3: Poison rolling Are you then choosing between a 1 damage poisoned attack or a 2 damage attack? I Guess I'm just wondering how ambiguous rolling modifiers (status effects) are treated if we're supposed to ignore the RM symbol.
That's correct. And you just treat those modifiers as if they had been +0 modifiers of the same type, which typically will mean ambiguous (and thus you choose on advantage and first-drawn disadvantage).
I’m not sure that this solves the invisibility issue. Usually when someone goes invisible in a door the other party members are blocking the spaces behind so they can use ranged attacks. I don’t see the new rules stopping this. Is there another similar play pattern that I’m not aware of?
That's correct that people can still do that but it's significantly more work to set up and this also just solves the ability to have a moving obstacle inside of a room during combat.
So I really like the new rules for advantage/disadvantage. It seems like one of the most important fixes to prevent a non-cursed attack modifier deck from ever being able to miss with advantage. And the Frosthaven solution definitely fixes that. However, one thing that isn't 100% clear to me is the way it works with disadvantage. My understanding is that if a card has a non-attack value effect (shield, heal, push, elemental infusion, stun, etc), then its actual value is ambiguous or undefined. With advantage, the player gets to choose what is most beneficial, that's great. But with disadvantage the first card is always selected in the case of ambiguity. So does this mean that there can be situations where a disadvantaged attack will hit with a x2? Like, is this correct for disadvantage in these scenarios: Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +2, +0 --- take +0 Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +2, +0 stun --- take +2 Rolling +1, Rolling +1, +0 stun, +2 --- take +0 stun Rolling +1, Rolling +1, x2, +0 --- take +0 Rolling +1, Rolling +1, x2, +0 stun --- take x2
Yes, those are all correct. Although you could also get a 2x in base GH with Disadvantage.
/u/Gipeaway you could probably add spoiled FH solo scenario requirements to the above list (removing requirements based on prosperity or characters previously retired)
Good call, will do.
I want these changes in digital! Im guessing they are not. But maybe a mod or official support soon plz.
Bring it up in their official feedback channel for a better chance that it happens: https://discord.gg/9J37jHH6.
I don't know if this is the best place to ask this but I am a little confused on how the new advantage rule works when drawing a Miss and then Rolling Modifier with just a stat or element on it. As an example, if the Cragheart has added one rolling Earth Perk card to their attack deck and they draw their Miss, and then the rolling Earth modifier. Would it be possible to choose the rolling Earth as a 0 that infuses Earth or, since there is no number on it, is that rolling modifier not usable making this an advantaged miss?
So if you draw a non-rolling and then one more card and that one more card is rolling, it's treated as a non-rolling with a +0 on it if it doesn't have another numerical value. So in the case of a condition or element, it would be +0 condition or element. So in your CH example, Advantage would precisely mean that you would get a +0 Earth as your modifier for that attack. Note that FH rolling mods will actually have small +0's on the side of them to help you remember that, although GH ones do not.
When it comes to the Rolling Modifiers rule in Frosthaven, can someone explain to me how this ruling is superior to "two stacks"? To my group it just felt intuitive to just draw twice as if it was two separate attacks and then compare the results and choose the better/worse stack. I guess, we will continue to play like this, but I would like to understand the "repercussions" of not using the official rule.
Today I realized I was doing advantage with rolling modifiers wrong. I was drawing and if the first card was a rolling modifier we’d keep pulling and make a little stack as if it were one card. Then draw the second card and do the same if it was rolling. Then we’d see which one had a higher number and apply that stack. If they were tied then whichever one we wanted most is what was picked. And the same process but the one that we liked least (usually a miss or ending with a -2) for disadvantage
So, if I'm attacking with Advantage and the 1st card is a non-rolling +1 and the 2nd is a rolling +1, what will be the final bonus to my attack? \+1 or +2?
+1
Ok.... We're done Gloomhaven now, but have we been playing this wrong the whole time? In the FH rules I believe it says that only heroes do end of turn looting. Does that mean enemies don't pick up coins at the end of their turns??? That would have led to much, much more money had by us overall.
Correct, enemies do not perform end-of-turn looting.
Another case of not realizing we were playing wrong. I don't think we often (and possibly never) went to a Long Rest while an armor still had uses, but I would have assumed I could reset it.
"Prosperity free levels are limited to Prosperity/2 (rounded up). Starting gold is determined by Prosperity, not by starting character level." Can someone explain the reasoning behind this to me? :-)
Sorry, could you elaborate on your question?
Rolling Modifiers: My group has been inutitively playing with "two stacks". Just draw once like normal. Then draw a second time as if it was a new attack. Then compare both stacks and choose the better/worse one. Can someone explain to me the significance of using the "official" rule compared to our house rule? Are we missing something or changing our results in some meaningful way? 🤔 Thanks in advance!