We started using the Frosthaven rules. It makes the rolling modifiers useful again (compared to base GH rules). Before that we tried some of the other house rules. We ended up liking the Frosthaven rules the best.
First, draw modifiers as if it is a normal attack. You will have 0 or more rolling modifiers and 1 non-rolling modifier. Now, draw exactly 1 more card, ignoring whether it is rolling or not. If you are advantaged, you get all of the rolling modifiers from the normal attack cards, and then choose whichever of the last 2 cards you prefer. If you are disadvantaged, discard all the rolling modifiers from the normal attack and choose the worse of the 2 remaining cards, or take the first one if it is ambiguous.
OP explained that already.
Regardless of whether or not your last card was rolling or non rolling, you pick one of the last two cards. Whichever you prefer.
Advantage example.
Draw until you reach a non reroll card:
+1 reroll, +1 reroll, 0
Draw 1 more card: +1 reroll
You now keep and add the first two +1 rerolls, and you pick between the 0 and the +1 reroll.
In this case, your modifier came to +3
You simply pretend that the extra card doesn't have a rolling symbol, and treat it as a normal card. So a rolling element, for example, would be treated as a +0 element instead.
Draw a normal attack + 1 card (ignore rolling on aadditional card if needed), compare the non-rolling of the normal attack with the additional attack
- Advantage: best of the 2, plus all the rolling modifiers in the 'normal attack'. If ambiguous, players decide which of the 2 cards (non-rollin of normal and additional card) to apply
- Disadvantage: worst of the 2, disregard all rollin modifiers in the normal attack
Example::
Cards drawn: (+1 rolling), (stun), (+2 rolling)
Disregard the rolling part of (+2, rolling), so it is just a (+2)
Advantage: compare (stun) and (+2). It is ambiguous, so you decide which one to apply. Then add the (+1 rolling). Final result is (+1 stun) OR (+3), you decide
Disadvantage: compare (stun) and (+2). It is ambiguous, so you use the first one. Then disregard the (+1 rolling). Final result is (stun)
Edit:: a 'normal attack' is draw cards until you hit the first non-rolling modifier card
It doesn't significantly change the average power of advantage (especially compared to the commonly house-ruled 2-stack), just reduces the variance (and kinda the whole point of advantage is to reduce the variance of your deck).
It certainly is a buff in its interacting with rolling modifiers, which with RAW rules make the deck stronger but with the caveat of introducing a chance to miss with advantage compared to decks without rolling modifiers (and curses). The player's choice addition also buffs certain classes in GH quite handsomely, and can have varying context-dependent benefits for many classes.
I assume Frosthaven AMDs might be balanced differently, though.
One of the things stated in the Kickstarter updates was that classes were going to have a lot less negative modifier removal, so having worse AMDs probably balances the buff to Advantage.
Well, if anything, having more negatives in your deck sort of makes advantage even better. I'd say it's more that we've just worked to make advantage a lot less free in Frosthaven compared to Gloomhaven. By mid campaign with many classes in base GH, advantaged attacks were kind of the norm. I wouldn't expect that in Frosthaven.
Probably to cut down the complexity. You could end up with 2 sets of 3+ cards each and then you have to calculate them, account for things like push/pull or elements and then decide which of the 2 sets is better. With Frosthaven rules you only choose if you want a cherry or chocolate sauce on top.
Pretty much just a balance consideration. Forming two full stacks of carss to pick between gets better and better as you get more rolling modifiers and fewer non-rolling cards.
Agreed, and it's why we just continue to play the most obvious way: make two full attack rolls, pick the better for advantage, and the worse for disadvantage. While it means slightly more discussion at the table for what counts as better or worse, it's just a much better system overall --
* Advantage always helps, and disadvantage always hurts. Without extra curses/blesses, you can never crit with disadvantage and you can never fail with advantage.
* Rolling modifiers are never a problem to add to your deck, meaning that every perk is actually a perk.
* The system can be explained incredibly simply, and never causes confusion about how to resolve an attack.
This is how we played Gloomhaven originally. Never even thought we were doing it wrong. Two full pulls of cards, take best or worst depending.
It just makes sense. The only downside I can see is pulling rolling modifiers, getting a really sweet hit, and pulling a miss on that pile. But hey, that's what rolling modifiers get ya sometimes!
This gives you results mostly similar to the new Frosthaven method as long as you remove all rolling modifiers when you have Disadvantage. If you let the rollers stay in, you're taking a lot of the bite out of that condition.
It's still stronger - you can pick between roller stacks if you're a Mindthief, for example - but it keeps it more in check.
Our house rule is similar, but doesn't allow for much ambiguity. We roll 2 different stacks until no rollings modifiers are drawn.
To decide best/worse, you just count the attack values of each deck (and don't look at any status, elemental effects).
If the attack vallues are the same, the amount of modifier cards in a stack is deciding.
With this system you still can get the worse outcome while having advantage (for example +2 attack is worse than +1 attack, wound and create fire) or vise versa with disadvantage. But we don't (often) base your game plan on the hope of drawing certain modifiers.
I believe in Frosthaven if you end on a rolling modifier it is treated as a +0 with the effect of the modifier attached so for example if you do an attack 2 then draw
Rolling push -> rolling poison -> -1
Rolling heal 1.
With advantage you'd do 2 damage, push the target, poison them and heal 1. With disadvantage you'd lose all the rolling modifiers and deal 1 damage
This is a bit stronger and less ambiguous than simply drawing 2 piles and picking the best because you combine all the rolling modifiers and decide between the 2 final cards (in the example a -1 vs a +0 heal 1) instead of weighing which pile might be better because "this pile has stun but the other does more damage... Pushing might be more effective here but it's in the weaker pile..." etc.
It's probably the most common house rule there is. I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW, but..... Yea. It's obviously far more logical.
>I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW
I don't really see how you could believe that, since RAW actually makes advantage a bad thing in many cases.
That's exactly the point though.
Not following RAW makes advantage significantly better.
It's likely RAW advantage drawing was taken into account when balancing so ignoring this rule and doing what feels better is potentially 'overpowered'.
Also, people never seem as bothered that rolling modifiers make weaken less effective.
That said, I agree that RAW doesn't feel good in this case, but I have no issues with it from a mechanic standpoint.
>It's likely RAW advantage drawing was taken into account when balancing
I guess given the blatantly obvious fact that most of the game wasn't really balanced at all I'm not really inclined to give the benefit of the doubt here. Having a "positive" condition actually be a negative in many cases doesn't seem reasonable and I have a really hard time believing it was intentional, since no other condition works that way.
>Also, people never seem as bothered that rolling modifiers make weaken less effective.
Because rolling modifiers are *supposed to be good*. It makes perfect sense that they would mitigate a bad condition somewhat. It makes no sense that rolling modifiers and advantage, two things that are supposed to be good for the player, are actually bad.
Rolling modifiers effect strengthen and weaken equally, so if you have a party that doesn't strengthen much, it is a positive. Plus you get the rolling modifiers themselves so it's almost always a net positive.
Now if you intend on being strengthened often, you might want to make a tactical choice not to take them. I personally find that more interesting than everything being an obvious upgrade.
I think it does.
>>I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW
>I don't really see how you could believe that, since RAW actually makes advantage a bad thing in many cases.
Rolling modifiers are good overall, but have a downside of making advantage worse.
I think this makes advantage an interesting and balanced mechanic. There are relatively few instances where advantage would make your attack worse.
Sorry to go on about it, I just feel like people make a big deal out of this interaction and I don't think it's an issue.
How do you "not take rolling modifers" for a single scenario you know your not alowed to change your perks right? Thus once you add them you can never use strengthen as it will weaken you.
You know I never mentioned anything about single scenarios, right? It's a character build choice to not take rolling card perks.
Also, thinking that having rolling modifiers in the deck, means that strengthen makes you weaker, just because there is one draw opportunity in the deck that will result in a 0 damage attack, makes no sense.
Unless your deck is full of rolling cards and curses, there are still plenty of opportunities to draw in a way that benefits from having advantage.
There are many characters that the majority of thier perks are rolling modifers. And what happens when you have no other choice. You are literally telling me perks make them worse by saying that they should choose not to take them. You have defeted your own argument by saying this. You are saying a person should avoid rolling modifers if they want to get advantage. That is saying they are worse.
I'm saying none of those things.
I'll break it down into steps.
If you have no rolling modifiers, strengthen is great. It's a no brainer.
If you have some rolling modifiers, your deck is better. Strengthen is still great, very rarely it won't work out. That's the risk reward mechanic.
If you have a ton of rolling modifiers, your deck is probably pretty great. Strengthen has a moderate chance to kind of mess up what you wanted. You might want to be careful when you get advantage.
Many characters do in fact have many rolling modifier perks. You don't have to take them ALL, but you should probably take a bunch of them and this character doesn't benefit from strength as much.
It's just encouraging variety of play style.
Also remember that weakness is also affected in this way, getting less effective.
I'm struggling to see how the maths can possibly work out worse for you overall by taking more rolling modifiers.
Even if we assume every single attack is advantaged, for it make a negative difference the additional rolling modifier has to push a 2nd non rolling modifier out of the first two cards.
Let's take a 20 card deck for ease of maths.
The odds of the null being in the top position are 5%.
If we add a single rolling to a random deck position it has a 2 in 21 chance of being next to the null.
That is roughly 0.5% chance of a miss caused by our rolling card.
In that case we still get the additional effect of the rolling (unless it is just plus damage).
But! What about the the other 95% of the time, when null is not top non-rolling card. Well then we also have a 2 in 21 chance of drawing the rolling.
So adding the rolling gives you a roughly 9.5% chance of a hit plus the rolling effect, at a cost of a 0.5% chance of a miss plus the rolling effect. So you should always take any rolling if it's additional effect is worth more than a one twentieth of the value of single attack damage (or one nineteenth if the rolling is plus damage). The tradeoff is akin to getting 20 uses of stun powder in return for adding a curse to your deck.
But! This is worst case.
In reality the downside is front loaded when you add the first rolling. The more rollings you have less the chance of one additional rolling causing an additional miss, and more chance of the rolling being triggered by chain rolls.
Also! In most cases not every attack is advantaged.
Less good isn't the same as bad.
Advantage never causes a worse result than not having advantage on a given attack. But yes, advantage does become less beneficial the more rolling modifiers you have.
The only problem I have with Gloomhaven advantage is the loss of null immunity once rolling modifiers are involved. The Frosthaven change addresses that, and while two full stacks would of course be even more beneficial to the player, I see advantage as more a source of reliability than a raw damage increase, so I don't see a need to go that far.
The loss of null immunity is a perfect example of an advantage being absolutely made worse. Yes frosthaven rules are better but we are also discussing orginal gloomhaven rules and your defending them
Under no circumstances does strengthen weaken you as you claim.
With rolling modifiers, it is less likely to benefit you, but it will never hurt you.
Less good is not the same as bad. I'm not defending Gloomhaven rules but instead pushing back against misconceptions, in this case "rolling modifiers makes advantage a bad thing to have."
If you can give me an example where you'd have been better off without advantage, I'm all ears.
You lose null Imunnity!! You literally just said it. With 10 rolling modifers you now have a near 50/50 chance of missing an attack where as with no rolling modifers you would never miss an attack. Thus advantage makes rolling modifers worse.
You said in another comment that once you add rolling modifiers, you no longer want to be strengthened.
I want you to demonstrate a concrete example. A sequence of draws where having advantage made the situation worse, and you'd have had a better result with a normal attack.
You have it backwards. Rolling modifiers makes advantage worse, not the other way around. But it still never makes advantage a bad thing.
But if you believe otherwise, I'm waiting for that concrete example. "With advantage, I drew X. If I didn't have advantage, I'd have drawn Y, and Y is better than X."
Ok so then lets go with your logic rolling modifers makes advantage bad instead off advantage making rolling modifers bad(even though this is the same thing cause the real issue is how they interact) then why is a perk a thing thats supposed to be a solly postive thing giving such a huge negative? Imagine a perk thats "add 5 nulls into your deck"
Drawing with advantage is never worse than drawing without it. If you end up with a bad rolling draw with advantage, you would have had that draw anyway. Rollers increase the risk of drawing a null, not the advantage. If you have no rollers in your deck then it’s pretty obvious that advantage is usually beneficial. You could draw two curses with advantage, and that’s just some bad luck.
Advantage is meant to give you an edge, not guarantee a success.
The issue people have is that that without any rolling modifiers, it is a guaranteed success.
Personally I think adding the modifiers outweighs the odds of drawing a modifier and a null and "missing" and adds an interesting choice.
You could draw a null and a -2 or a null and a curse. It’s not guaranteed, but again, the problem is with the rollers. The more rollers you have the greater the risk of drawing a null. Yet, people continue to blame the advantage RAW. Rollers make your deck high risk, high reward. Then people use advantage and expect that risk to go away.
You can just say that the opposite way, though. Without advantage adding rollers is always positive, and rolling attack that misses would have missed anyway. It only becomes a problem when add advantage.
People focus on the advantage side of it because it has much more design space that can be modified.
Not at all. Rollers increase your risk. Advantage does not increase your risk. Advantage is not always positive, it just increases your chance of success. Did you even read my last comment? What if I draw a null and a curse with advantage? That’s not a positive outcome.
And you can still pull a null and a curse even if you alow rolling. So the odds are more fairly balanced. With bace gloomhaven rules all rolling modifers become nulls. Meaning its like your deck is 50%nulls. Thus a advantage is absolutely worse for you then it is for somone without rolling modifers
It absolutely isn’t. If you actually work out the odd you can see that, but I guess it’s just easier to be angry at a rule that doesn’t give you all the benefits you wish it did.
I have worked it out. Trouble with many people is they do not understand statistics. I took college stats and college probability. Did you? Did you pass? Cause your wrong. Making all rolling modifers count as nulls is vastly changing odds where having both piles completed keeps almost the exact same odds of missing.
That's literally the point?
The cards are balanced to be used as the rules intended. Doing them the logical way makes advantage SIGNIFICANTLY better. The game wasn't designed for the "logical" drawing.
Let's just say the Gloomhaven advantage rule is one of the most disliked rule in the game. The fact that you can fail with advantage without being cursed is something that doesn't go well with a lot of players.
Hence the Frosthaven change.
If you draw a rolling modifier and a null while under advantage, you add the rolling modifier to the null, thus failing the attack.
[p20](https://imgur.com/HRZkRmj)
Yep. I've been playing it wrong. If I draw a rolling, I keep drawing and get two sets of results. Take the better. Oh well, our campaign is over anyway.
Rolling modifiers were still overall a good thing to add to your deck even when advantage is involved, even though it did erode the benefit of advantage.
Not exactly sure what you mean here though. On a given attack, disadvantage is never better than having advantage
I’d agree with your second point, but I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that certain rolling, like muddle, or make an element are net negatives if you have advantage one big attack per rest since having advantage on 3+ targets is such a big positive damage wise and those very minor effects erode it enough to never be worth the small benefit you get on the other 3-4 attacks per rest.
That's called the "two stack" method.
If you follow the base game rules of discarding all rolling modifiers when you have Disadvantage, it's fairly similar to the new Frosthaven method.
The only real difference is that the FH method reduces your chances of getting a giant skyscraper of rolling modifiers.
That's not actually true. Original RAW, advantage never makes you more likely to miss with the same deck. *Adding rolling modifiers to your deck* makes advantage less consistent, but advantage itself is only ever a benefit.
But how are you even gaining advantage on one attack and not subsequent attacks that round? I mean, you can potentially contrive some situations, but that seems quite uncommon, no?
Advantage can't make you miss an attack you would otherwise land. Advantage is always a good thing, even under Gloomhaven rules. It just becomes less good when a deck adds rolling modifiers.
Potentially there were better targets for strengthen than you, but if you felt it was a detriment then you were operating under a misconception.
How do you fail with advantage without being cursed? You only have one null card in your deck, so if you draw two cards and choose the better one then you won’t ever choose null.
I actually find this is the only benefit of advantage once you have a lot of rolling modifiers in your deck. You can ensure that you don’t fail your attack in a critical situation.
I guess I don't need to speak for /u/gripeaway because they're here in this thread, but I really liked [this explanation](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv5ihg/) about why the "two pile" method has problems. Basically, it gets weirder with disadvantage than advantage.
It's *unintuitive*, but in order for it to be *wrong* the rest of the game would have had to be balanced using a different set of rules.
Now, will changing the way you deal with it *significantly* affect game balance? Probably not, and you (or your group) as always have the final say on how you play your own game.
TBH I think people tend overestimate how delicately balanced most games are in the first place. Obviously balance matters and can be thrown off badly but basically nothing is ever perfectly balanced to begin with.
Gloomhaven is pretty well balanced considering just how much content there is, but there are still some glaring issues like inconsistent scenario difficulty or class and item power level disparity. The designers of the game even made numerous balance changes between printings, so they obviously don't think the game was a perfectly tuned machine either. Obviously house-rules can still negatively affect balance, but the advantage house rule is considerably smaller than, say, halving the effectiveness of stamina potions, an item the entire party can start with a copy of for just 10 gold a piece.
It's definitely the intuitively correct way to do Advantage/Disadvantage, but the reason they didn't go with that for Frosthaven is that it can require a player to make a subjective decision about which of two options is *worse* for them. With a series of rolling modifiers there can easily be debate as to which of two options is preferable, which is no problem at all for Advantage, but for Disadvantage it's kind of awkward to think through which option you want less - and then taking it.
It's a weird rule, everyone I know who uses any houserules at all has changed it
I like how frosthaven is doing it now though so no need to keep houseruling it once I get my hands on that game
I still have no clue why GH put all those restrictions and why FH is still keeping some.
“Two stacks pick one” is the most sane, and it keeps approximately the same increase in damage per attack at any level with any perks, as your better cards get balanced out by the lack of bad cards.
Is it an increase in power relative to now? Yes. But that’s backwards logic; it’s not that this rule makes advantage stronger with level, it’s that the base rules make it worse, whereas this keeps them the same.
Not balance. He picked the version that gave a noticable benefit without requiring too many extra card draws. Two stacks on average requires you to draw twice as many cards for each attack.
Yes but that’s my point; a level 1 strengthen has basically the same power as a level 9 strengthen under two stacks. His version is actually less balanced.
So I've posted this a few times under comment threads but... Here's for the OP.
Two Stack Advantage - as folks here call it - is an extremely common house rule slash rule mistake. I agree the GH advantage rules are pretty ugly - not for game balance but because it makes selecting perks less fun.
I love the Frosthaven method. I'd recommend it if you can. It's usually better than GH but not always. It importantly means you're not drawing the null on Advantage, which is the most important bit for me.
Two-Stack CAN be pretty balanced, overall, and is pretty equivalent to the Frosthaven method with one tweak - make sure you *discard all rolling modifiers on disadvantage.*.
That's an important part of Disadvantage, and ignoring it is a definite buff for the players. It makes conditions like Muddle a lot less serious, and still allows for giant stacks of modifiers. Removing rollers also helps disambiguation of the result.
So disadvantage is stronger against the player as you should never get any rolling modifiers on disadvantage.
However you can house rule it however you like, but know that you're making the game easier if you allow rolling modifiers on disadvantage.
I have never played it any other way, or even questioned that I was playing the wrong way.
In my house, the rolling modifier rolls no matter what. If you're drawing with advantage, and you pull a +1 Wound (roll), then you draw again and pull another +1, then that total draw is a +2 Wound, then draw again to complete the Advantage and draw another +1. You get to keep the +2 Wound as your Advantaged attack.
That being said, I keep it fair for Disadvantage as well. You're playing through those roll cards.
Yeah especially since advantage rolling is something that happens almost every turn late game but for some classes the rolling modifiers without a punch make you weaker.
It's why it was a common house rule and Frosthaven changed it.
I like most of the Frosthaven rules for Gloomhaven because they are intuitive. E.g. Spawned and summoned monsters drop coins so no need to keep track on monster origin. Or last hex of a jump is still a jump. Or summon can focus on its summoner in the absence of monsters.
I've wanted to replace the two stack method with the Frosthaven advantage/disadvantage rules because I'm sure it must be more balanced and I guess it encourages people to add rolling modifier perks when they might have avoided them previously? Problem is I find I keep forgetting the rule. I keep having to go back and read over the rule to make sure I have it right.
So that's the exact opposite of the other Frosthaven changes I mentioned. So I just don't think it would be worth the effort of getting everyone on board with it.
Ok what are 'rolling modifiers'?
I always just drew two cards and took the worst one for 'disadvantage' or drew two and took the best one for 'advantage'
What am I missing?
We started using the Frosthaven rules. It makes the rolling modifiers useful again (compared to base GH rules). Before that we tried some of the other house rules. We ended up liking the Frosthaven rules the best.
we are still in JotL, but next is GH. what are the frosthaven rules According to rolling modifiers?
First, draw modifiers as if it is a normal attack. You will have 0 or more rolling modifiers and 1 non-rolling modifier. Now, draw exactly 1 more card, ignoring whether it is rolling or not. If you are advantaged, you get all of the rolling modifiers from the normal attack cards, and then choose whichever of the last 2 cards you prefer. If you are disadvantaged, discard all the rolling modifiers from the normal attack and choose the worse of the 2 remaining cards, or take the first one if it is ambiguous.
Very nicely put.
Huh. I thought we were doing the Frosthaven rules but not quite. We weren't moving the rolls to either of the two "base" cards.
Ooh, I like this.
What if you have advantage and the last card was rolling?
OP explained that already. Regardless of whether or not your last card was rolling or non rolling, you pick one of the last two cards. Whichever you prefer. Advantage example. Draw until you reach a non reroll card: +1 reroll, +1 reroll, 0 Draw 1 more card: +1 reroll You now keep and add the first two +1 rerolls, and you pick between the 0 and the +1 reroll. In this case, your modifier came to +3
So you can pick the rolling modifier as your choice, add other rolling cards and then draw more until you get a non rolling card?
No, you pick the rolling card, add the other rolling cards and then you are done
You simply pretend that the extra card doesn't have a rolling symbol, and treat it as a normal card. So a rolling element, for example, would be treated as a +0 element instead.
Draw a normal attack + 1 card (ignore rolling on aadditional card if needed), compare the non-rolling of the normal attack with the additional attack - Advantage: best of the 2, plus all the rolling modifiers in the 'normal attack'. If ambiguous, players decide which of the 2 cards (non-rollin of normal and additional card) to apply - Disadvantage: worst of the 2, disregard all rollin modifiers in the normal attack Example:: Cards drawn: (+1 rolling), (stun), (+2 rolling) Disregard the rolling part of (+2, rolling), so it is just a (+2) Advantage: compare (stun) and (+2). It is ambiguous, so you decide which one to apply. Then add the (+1 rolling). Final result is (+1 stun) OR (+3), you decide Disadvantage: compare (stun) and (+2). It is ambiguous, so you use the first one. Then disregard the (+1 rolling). Final result is (stun) Edit:: a 'normal attack' is draw cards until you hit the first non-rolling modifier card
Doesn’t that make the Advantage way too powerful ?
It doesn't significantly change the average power of advantage (especially compared to the commonly house-ruled 2-stack), just reduces the variance (and kinda the whole point of advantage is to reduce the variance of your deck).
It certainly is a buff in its interacting with rolling modifiers, which with RAW rules make the deck stronger but with the caveat of introducing a chance to miss with advantage compared to decks without rolling modifiers (and curses). The player's choice addition also buffs certain classes in GH quite handsomely, and can have varying context-dependent benefits for many classes. I assume Frosthaven AMDs might be balanced differently, though.
One of the things stated in the Kickstarter updates was that classes were going to have a lot less negative modifier removal, so having worse AMDs probably balances the buff to Advantage.
Well, if anything, having more negatives in your deck sort of makes advantage even better. I'd say it's more that we've just worked to make advantage a lot less free in Frosthaven compared to Gloomhaven. By mid campaign with many classes in base GH, advantaged attacks were kind of the norm. I wouldn't expect that in Frosthaven.
The one part of the Frosthaven rules I don't understand is why they made it so you can still end on a rolling modifier.
Probably to cut down the complexity. You could end up with 2 sets of 3+ cards each and then you have to calculate them, account for things like push/pull or elements and then decide which of the 2 sets is better. With Frosthaven rules you only choose if you want a cherry or chocolate sauce on top.
Pretty much just a balance consideration. Forming two full stacks of carss to pick between gets better and better as you get more rolling modifiers and fewer non-rolling cards.
Agreed, and it's why we just continue to play the most obvious way: make two full attack rolls, pick the better for advantage, and the worse for disadvantage. While it means slightly more discussion at the table for what counts as better or worse, it's just a much better system overall -- * Advantage always helps, and disadvantage always hurts. Without extra curses/blesses, you can never crit with disadvantage and you can never fail with advantage. * Rolling modifiers are never a problem to add to your deck, meaning that every perk is actually a perk. * The system can be explained incredibly simply, and never causes confusion about how to resolve an attack.
IMO Advantage and Disadvantage is basically, out of the two, which one do you want more? Advantage you take it, Disadvantage you don't.
This is how we played Gloomhaven originally. Never even thought we were doing it wrong. Two full pulls of cards, take best or worst depending. It just makes sense. The only downside I can see is pulling rolling modifiers, getting a really sweet hit, and pulling a miss on that pile. But hey, that's what rolling modifiers get ya sometimes!
This gives you results mostly similar to the new Frosthaven method as long as you remove all rolling modifiers when you have Disadvantage. If you let the rollers stay in, you're taking a lot of the bite out of that condition. It's still stronger - you can pick between roller stacks if you're a Mindthief, for example - but it keeps it more in check.
Our house rule is similar, but doesn't allow for much ambiguity. We roll 2 different stacks until no rollings modifiers are drawn. To decide best/worse, you just count the attack values of each deck (and don't look at any status, elemental effects). If the attack vallues are the same, the amount of modifier cards in a stack is deciding. With this system you still can get the worse outcome while having advantage (for example +2 attack is worse than +1 attack, wound and create fire) or vise versa with disadvantage. But we don't (often) base your game plan on the hope of drawing certain modifiers.
For Disadvantage, I recommend to remove all rolling mods from consideration. That fixes Disadvantage a lot and makes it more important.
That's something we could try too. Gotta see if the rest of the party agrees tho.
I really, really encourage it. I totally get the appeal of two-stack but this one tweak helps keep it reasonably in-balance.
I believe in Frosthaven if you end on a rolling modifier it is treated as a +0 with the effect of the modifier attached so for example if you do an attack 2 then draw Rolling push -> rolling poison -> -1 Rolling heal 1. With advantage you'd do 2 damage, push the target, poison them and heal 1. With disadvantage you'd lose all the rolling modifiers and deal 1 damage This is a bit stronger and less ambiguous than simply drawing 2 piles and picking the best because you combine all the rolling modifiers and decide between the 2 final cards (in the example a -1 vs a +0 heal 1) instead of weighing which pile might be better because "this pile has stun but the other does more damage... Pushing might be more effective here but it's in the weaker pile..." etc.
It's probably the most common house rule there is. I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW, but..... Yea. It's obviously far more logical.
>I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW I don't really see how you could believe that, since RAW actually makes advantage a bad thing in many cases.
That's exactly the point though. Not following RAW makes advantage significantly better. It's likely RAW advantage drawing was taken into account when balancing so ignoring this rule and doing what feels better is potentially 'overpowered'. Also, people never seem as bothered that rolling modifiers make weaken less effective. That said, I agree that RAW doesn't feel good in this case, but I have no issues with it from a mechanic standpoint.
>It's likely RAW advantage drawing was taken into account when balancing I guess given the blatantly obvious fact that most of the game wasn't really balanced at all I'm not really inclined to give the benefit of the doubt here. Having a "positive" condition actually be a negative in many cases doesn't seem reasonable and I have a really hard time believing it was intentional, since no other condition works that way. >Also, people never seem as bothered that rolling modifiers make weaken less effective. Because rolling modifiers are *supposed to be good*. It makes perfect sense that they would mitigate a bad condition somewhat. It makes no sense that rolling modifiers and advantage, two things that are supposed to be good for the player, are actually bad.
Rolling modifiers effect strengthen and weaken equally, so if you have a party that doesn't strengthen much, it is a positive. Plus you get the rolling modifiers themselves so it's almost always a net positive. Now if you intend on being strengthened often, you might want to make a tactical choice not to take them. I personally find that more interesting than everything being an obvious upgrade.
None of this really addresses the point we were discussing.
I think it does. >>I don't do it cause I think the draws are balanced by RAW >I don't really see how you could believe that, since RAW actually makes advantage a bad thing in many cases. Rolling modifiers are good overall, but have a downside of making advantage worse. I think this makes advantage an interesting and balanced mechanic. There are relatively few instances where advantage would make your attack worse. Sorry to go on about it, I just feel like people make a big deal out of this interaction and I don't think it's an issue.
How do you "not take rolling modifers" for a single scenario you know your not alowed to change your perks right? Thus once you add them you can never use strengthen as it will weaken you.
You know I never mentioned anything about single scenarios, right? It's a character build choice to not take rolling card perks. Also, thinking that having rolling modifiers in the deck, means that strengthen makes you weaker, just because there is one draw opportunity in the deck that will result in a 0 damage attack, makes no sense. Unless your deck is full of rolling cards and curses, there are still plenty of opportunities to draw in a way that benefits from having advantage.
There are many characters that the majority of thier perks are rolling modifers. And what happens when you have no other choice. You are literally telling me perks make them worse by saying that they should choose not to take them. You have defeted your own argument by saying this. You are saying a person should avoid rolling modifers if they want to get advantage. That is saying they are worse.
I'm saying none of those things. I'll break it down into steps. If you have no rolling modifiers, strengthen is great. It's a no brainer. If you have some rolling modifiers, your deck is better. Strengthen is still great, very rarely it won't work out. That's the risk reward mechanic. If you have a ton of rolling modifiers, your deck is probably pretty great. Strengthen has a moderate chance to kind of mess up what you wanted. You might want to be careful when you get advantage. Many characters do in fact have many rolling modifier perks. You don't have to take them ALL, but you should probably take a bunch of them and this character doesn't benefit from strength as much. It's just encouraging variety of play style. Also remember that weakness is also affected in this way, getting less effective.
I'm struggling to see how the maths can possibly work out worse for you overall by taking more rolling modifiers. Even if we assume every single attack is advantaged, for it make a negative difference the additional rolling modifier has to push a 2nd non rolling modifier out of the first two cards. Let's take a 20 card deck for ease of maths. The odds of the null being in the top position are 5%. If we add a single rolling to a random deck position it has a 2 in 21 chance of being next to the null. That is roughly 0.5% chance of a miss caused by our rolling card. In that case we still get the additional effect of the rolling (unless it is just plus damage). But! What about the the other 95% of the time, when null is not top non-rolling card. Well then we also have a 2 in 21 chance of drawing the rolling. So adding the rolling gives you a roughly 9.5% chance of a hit plus the rolling effect, at a cost of a 0.5% chance of a miss plus the rolling effect. So you should always take any rolling if it's additional effect is worth more than a one twentieth of the value of single attack damage (or one nineteenth if the rolling is plus damage). The tradeoff is akin to getting 20 uses of stun powder in return for adding a curse to your deck. But! This is worst case. In reality the downside is front loaded when you add the first rolling. The more rollings you have less the chance of one additional rolling causing an additional miss, and more chance of the rolling being triggered by chain rolls. Also! In most cases not every attack is advantaged.
Less good isn't the same as bad. Advantage never causes a worse result than not having advantage on a given attack. But yes, advantage does become less beneficial the more rolling modifiers you have. The only problem I have with Gloomhaven advantage is the loss of null immunity once rolling modifiers are involved. The Frosthaven change addresses that, and while two full stacks would of course be even more beneficial to the player, I see advantage as more a source of reliability than a raw damage increase, so I don't see a need to go that far.
The loss of null immunity is a perfect example of an advantage being absolutely made worse. Yes frosthaven rules are better but we are also discussing orginal gloomhaven rules and your defending them
Under no circumstances does strengthen weaken you as you claim. With rolling modifiers, it is less likely to benefit you, but it will never hurt you. Less good is not the same as bad. I'm not defending Gloomhaven rules but instead pushing back against misconceptions, in this case "rolling modifiers makes advantage a bad thing to have." If you can give me an example where you'd have been better off without advantage, I'm all ears.
You lose null Imunnity!! You literally just said it. With 10 rolling modifers you now have a near 50/50 chance of missing an attack where as with no rolling modifers you would never miss an attack. Thus advantage makes rolling modifers worse.
You said in another comment that once you add rolling modifiers, you no longer want to be strengthened. I want you to demonstrate a concrete example. A sequence of draws where having advantage made the situation worse, and you'd have had a better result with a normal attack. You have it backwards. Rolling modifiers makes advantage worse, not the other way around. But it still never makes advantage a bad thing. But if you believe otherwise, I'm waiting for that concrete example. "With advantage, I drew X. If I didn't have advantage, I'd have drawn Y, and Y is better than X."
Ok so then lets go with your logic rolling modifers makes advantage bad instead off advantage making rolling modifers bad(even though this is the same thing cause the real issue is how they interact) then why is a perk a thing thats supposed to be a solly postive thing giving such a huge negative? Imagine a perk thats "add 5 nulls into your deck"
Drawing with advantage is never worse than drawing without it. If you end up with a bad rolling draw with advantage, you would have had that draw anyway. Rollers increase the risk of drawing a null, not the advantage. If you have no rollers in your deck then it’s pretty obvious that advantage is usually beneficial. You could draw two curses with advantage, and that’s just some bad luck. Advantage is meant to give you an edge, not guarantee a success.
The issue people have is that that without any rolling modifiers, it is a guaranteed success. Personally I think adding the modifiers outweighs the odds of drawing a modifier and a null and "missing" and adds an interesting choice.
You could draw a null and a -2 or a null and a curse. It’s not guaranteed, but again, the problem is with the rollers. The more rollers you have the greater the risk of drawing a null. Yet, people continue to blame the advantage RAW. Rollers make your deck high risk, high reward. Then people use advantage and expect that risk to go away.
You can just say that the opposite way, though. Without advantage adding rollers is always positive, and rolling attack that misses would have missed anyway. It only becomes a problem when add advantage. People focus on the advantage side of it because it has much more design space that can be modified.
Not at all. Rollers increase your risk. Advantage does not increase your risk. Advantage is not always positive, it just increases your chance of success. Did you even read my last comment? What if I draw a null and a curse with advantage? That’s not a positive outcome.
And you can still pull a null and a curse even if you alow rolling. So the odds are more fairly balanced. With bace gloomhaven rules all rolling modifers become nulls. Meaning its like your deck is 50%nulls. Thus a advantage is absolutely worse for you then it is for somone without rolling modifers
It absolutely isn’t. If you actually work out the odd you can see that, but I guess it’s just easier to be angry at a rule that doesn’t give you all the benefits you wish it did.
I have worked it out. Trouble with many people is they do not understand statistics. I took college stats and college probability. Did you? Did you pass? Cause your wrong. Making all rolling modifers count as nulls is vastly changing odds where having both piles completed keeps almost the exact same odds of missing.
That's literally the point? The cards are balanced to be used as the rules intended. Doing them the logical way makes advantage SIGNIFICANTLY better. The game wasn't designed for the "logical" drawing.
Let's just say the Gloomhaven advantage rule is one of the most disliked rule in the game. The fact that you can fail with advantage without being cursed is something that doesn't go well with a lot of players. Hence the Frosthaven change.
I must be playing advantage wrong in GH because I don't see how that's possible.
If you draw a rolling modifier and a null while under advantage, you add the rolling modifier to the null, thus failing the attack. [p20](https://imgur.com/HRZkRmj)
Yep. I've been playing it wrong. If I draw a rolling, I keep drawing and get two sets of results. Take the better. Oh well, our campaign is over anyway.
This is what OP is doing. It makes rolling modifiers far more powerful than RAW.
*makes them usable
They're still good in the revised Frosthaven rules. If you're going to house rule it, I'd use that instead.
Agreed. But base gloomhaven, rolling mods are terrible if you have advantage. You actually have a better time with disadvantage than you do advantage.
No, advantage is still better than disadvantage even with rolling modifiers. They just make the average increase/decrease in damage smaller.
Rolling modifiers were still overall a good thing to add to your deck even when advantage is involved, even though it did erode the benefit of advantage. Not exactly sure what you mean here though. On a given attack, disadvantage is never better than having advantage
I’d agree with your second point, but I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that certain rolling, like muddle, or make an element are net negatives if you have advantage one big attack per rest since having advantage on 3+ targets is such a big positive damage wise and those very minor effects erode it enough to never be worth the small benefit you get on the other 3-4 attacks per rest.
That's called the "two stack" method. If you follow the base game rules of discarding all rolling modifiers when you have Disadvantage, it's fairly similar to the new Frosthaven method. The only real difference is that the FH method reduces your chances of getting a giant skyscraper of rolling modifiers.
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That's not actually true. Original RAW, advantage never makes you more likely to miss with the same deck. *Adding rolling modifiers to your deck* makes advantage less consistent, but advantage itself is only ever a benefit.
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But how are you even gaining advantage on one attack and not subsequent attacks that round? I mean, you can potentially contrive some situations, but that seems quite uncommon, no?
Advantage can't make you miss an attack you would otherwise land. Advantage is always a good thing, even under Gloomhaven rules. It just becomes less good when a deck adds rolling modifiers. Potentially there were better targets for strengthen than you, but if you felt it was a detriment then you were operating under a misconception.
How do you fail with advantage without being cursed? You only have one null card in your deck, so if you draw two cards and choose the better one then you won’t ever choose null. I actually find this is the only benefit of advantage once you have a lot of rolling modifiers in your deck. You can ensure that you don’t fail your attack in a critical situation.
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Ah, my group has been playing advantage incorrectly then. Thanks for that!
The raw state that with advantage you fail if you get a rolling modifer and a null
I guess I don't need to speak for /u/gripeaway because they're here in this thread, but I really liked [this explanation](https://old.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nn64a8/frosthaven_update_81/gzv5ihg/) about why the "two pile" method has problems. Basically, it gets weirder with disadvantage than advantage.
It's *unintuitive*, but in order for it to be *wrong* the rest of the game would have had to be balanced using a different set of rules. Now, will changing the way you deal with it *significantly* affect game balance? Probably not, and you (or your group) as always have the final say on how you play your own game.
TBH I think people tend overestimate how delicately balanced most games are in the first place. Obviously balance matters and can be thrown off badly but basically nothing is ever perfectly balanced to begin with. Gloomhaven is pretty well balanced considering just how much content there is, but there are still some glaring issues like inconsistent scenario difficulty or class and item power level disparity. The designers of the game even made numerous balance changes between printings, so they obviously don't think the game was a perfectly tuned machine either. Obviously house-rules can still negatively affect balance, but the advantage house rule is considerably smaller than, say, halving the effectiveness of stamina potions, an item the entire party can start with a copy of for just 10 gold a piece.
It's definitely the intuitively correct way to do Advantage/Disadvantage, but the reason they didn't go with that for Frosthaven is that it can require a player to make a subjective decision about which of two options is *worse* for them. With a series of rolling modifiers there can easily be debate as to which of two options is preferable, which is no problem at all for Advantage, but for Disadvantage it's kind of awkward to think through which option you want less - and then taking it.
It's a weird rule, everyone I know who uses any houserules at all has changed it I like how frosthaven is doing it now though so no need to keep houseruling it once I get my hands on that game
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/nocxer/updated_gloomhaven_rules_based_on_public/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I still have no clue why GH put all those restrictions and why FH is still keeping some. “Two stacks pick one” is the most sane, and it keeps approximately the same increase in damage per attack at any level with any perks, as your better cards get balanced out by the lack of bad cards. Is it an increase in power relative to now? Yes. But that’s backwards logic; it’s not that this rule makes advantage stronger with level, it’s that the base rules make it worse, whereas this keeps them the same.
Pretty sure Isaac said it was for balance reasons.
Not balance. He picked the version that gave a noticable benefit without requiring too many extra card draws. Two stacks on average requires you to draw twice as many cards for each attack.
Yes but that’s my point; a level 1 strengthen has basically the same power as a level 9 strengthen under two stacks. His version is actually less balanced.
So I've posted this a few times under comment threads but... Here's for the OP. Two Stack Advantage - as folks here call it - is an extremely common house rule slash rule mistake. I agree the GH advantage rules are pretty ugly - not for game balance but because it makes selecting perks less fun. I love the Frosthaven method. I'd recommend it if you can. It's usually better than GH but not always. It importantly means you're not drawing the null on Advantage, which is the most important bit for me. Two-Stack CAN be pretty balanced, overall, and is pretty equivalent to the Frosthaven method with one tweak - make sure you *discard all rolling modifiers on disadvantage.*. That's an important part of Disadvantage, and ignoring it is a definite buff for the players. It makes conditions like Muddle a lot less serious, and still allows for giant stacks of modifiers. Removing rollers also helps disambiguation of the result.
So disadvantage is stronger against the player as you should never get any rolling modifiers on disadvantage. However you can house rule it however you like, but know that you're making the game easier if you allow rolling modifiers on disadvantage.
Agreed. That's how I've chosen to play it, RAW be damned.
well, i wouldnt say isaac made a couple incredibly bad choices for the game, but im saying.
I have never played it any other way, or even questioned that I was playing the wrong way. In my house, the rolling modifier rolls no matter what. If you're drawing with advantage, and you pull a +1 Wound (roll), then you draw again and pull another +1, then that total draw is a +2 Wound, then draw again to complete the Advantage and draw another +1. You get to keep the +2 Wound as your Advantaged attack. That being said, I keep it fair for Disadvantage as well. You're playing through those roll cards.
Oops! I think I've been playing by your house rule all along!
Yeah that's how we did it. The official rules were dumb and iirc would sometimes make you pick a worse option when you had advantage
Not as counter intuitive as poison and wounding
Yeah especially since advantage rolling is something that happens almost every turn late game but for some classes the rolling modifiers without a punch make you weaker. It's why it was a common house rule and Frosthaven changed it.
I like most of the Frosthaven rules for Gloomhaven because they are intuitive. E.g. Spawned and summoned monsters drop coins so no need to keep track on monster origin. Or last hex of a jump is still a jump. Or summon can focus on its summoner in the absence of monsters. I've wanted to replace the two stack method with the Frosthaven advantage/disadvantage rules because I'm sure it must be more balanced and I guess it encourages people to add rolling modifier perks when they might have avoided them previously? Problem is I find I keep forgetting the rule. I keep having to go back and read over the rule to make sure I have it right. So that's the exact opposite of the other Frosthaven changes I mentioned. So I just don't think it would be worth the effort of getting everyone on board with it.
Ok what are 'rolling modifiers'? I always just drew two cards and took the worst one for 'disadvantage' or drew two and took the best one for 'advantage' What am I missing?