freshfeeling | Gloomhaven Classic Jobs Part IV (Reply)

I had played a fair bit of this game in May and June of 2024, and then at the end of June I got distracted by Summer pursuits, like swimming and making a PICO-8 game. I had said when I was starting up my recent Final Fantasy II playthrough that I had considered coming back to this, and recently, I did.

A funny thing with this playthrough though is that I realized even last year that if I wrote a journal update for every occasion I played this game - often just one or two scenarios - it would take a ton of posts on here for the whole playthrough... so I started keeping notes in a file. I would then compile these notes into an entry on this site when I had like three to five scenarios ready to discuss. Thus, the first part of this entry is based on notes I wrote about a year ago. You'll have to forgive any lack of detail.

The campaign is still fairly young! As of our last update, I had completed ten scenarios. This included doing something to locate Jekserah but I hadn't killed her.

Knight and Black Mage proceeded to level 4.

Knight goes to level 4 and learned Unstoppable Charge.

Black Mage goes to level 4 and learns Flashing Burst.

At this point, Black Mage's black mage-iest ability available was, surprisingly, Flashing Burst, and just barely, meaning she'll only be using it until her next level up.

We added an "Add Any Element" to Reviving Ether's movement.

She was also able to afford an "Any Element" enhancement on Reviving Ether's movement, which can be pretty helpful. This is a movement card she uses a lot, and that movement can be used to elementally empower a few of her other cards.

I decided to do Temple of the Seer. I really wanted to chase Jekserah, but that's not why I picked this quest. There are other ways to find Jekserah, but I wanted to do this because it opens up a few other possibilities, and it becomes unavailable once you've followed through with Jekserah. May as well.

We got bit by wolves on the way.

11) Scenario #13: Temple of the Seer

This is a pretty tough one; I recall having a hard time with the back room when I played this on an actual tabletop with friends a few years ago.

The last room full of drakes in the Temple of the Seer.

I don't recall the specifics of why this didn't go well - besides the general difficulty - but it didn't.

I guess I'm burning Unstoppable Charge..?

One thing that is incredibly annoying, actually, is that once you select a card when it asks if you'd like to burn a card, there's no way to escape that screen. Literally no exit at all. You can't change your mind about burning the card, or change your mind about which card to burn. This only added to an already terrible situation. It was inevitable after his big move, but he exhausted at the start of round 5.

There came a point where - largely because of Knight's early departure - I had acknowledged this win wasn't happening on this try. Consequently, I did more looting and experience-yielding loss cards than I normally might. All things considered though, we didn't do too badly. There were only four enemies left at the end.

We are losing and White Mage Jr is the last one standing.

It probably goes without saying that attempt #2 went much better. Much, much better.

Look how much better we're doing on attempt #2!

Check out Thief the Scoundrel's damage!

12) Scenario #17: Lost Island
It went well. We got the chest. All good.

There are bears on this Lost Island. I wonder if they know they're lost.

I am still really bad at letting the Spellweaver accidentally drop Reviving Ether.

It ain't often that everyone makes it through alive.

Black Mage actually beat Thief's damage here!

13) Scenario #68: Toxic Moor

This is where I picked up in April of 2025 after not playing for 10 months or so. Seeing information about a tree with healing properties grabbed my attention, so I stopped paying attention to matters of Jekserah.

Along the way, I saw Human guards from Gloomhaven fighting some Inox. While I didn't want to assume, I recalled that my party generally leans toward lawful good and the society of Gloomhaven vaguely aligns to that, so I went with the Humans. I am not sure whether this was the best choice or not; in my experience, a fair number of event cards have both options being negative.

The flavour text of Toxic Moor mentioned drakes really quickly, and I immediately regretted this quest choice. It turns out these aren't the flying drakes, so maybe that's not that bad... but the majority of these enemies can inflict either wound or poison.

Black Mage picked Agoraphobe, because using items is nice.

I really hate the Agoraphobe battle goal. I simply never remember that it's active. I'm not sure I've ever done it successfully.

Near the start of the Toxic Moor scenario.

It was a fair bit into the scenario when I realized the sacred tree was taking damage every turn! While it was a nice idea to have a white mage for the occasion, White Mage Jr has abysmal movement options. I ended up sending Thief into the room at the end... which wasn't the worst idea ever, but it was a challenge.

As always, my forgetfulness and bad reading comprehension worked against me in this very strategic game. For example, I had entirely forgotten that characters who have poison status take damage whenever they walk in this map's hazardous water tiles. The poison status was pretty ubiquitous, too. Eventually, I sort of gave up on healing and more-or-less went all out. We took the drakes down soon enough and then just had to mop up the other enemies.

This ended up having quite an exciting finale, really. Thief went down first, followed by White Mage Jr. Honestly, I don't really know how or why White Mage Jr suddenly died mid-turn while they still had a card left; it's possible I walked on a water tile or something.

The team isn't doing too hot. Thief and White Mage Jr are down.

I carefully managed cards and Knight and Black Mage took out the final elite Black Imp with literally our second-last possible action. I still looted the chest, too.

It seemed kind of close, but we won!

An additional prize her is some Major Healing Potions. Knight and Black Mage each gained a level, and Thief earned a perk from battle goals. For level 5, Knight gains Devastating Hack and unreadies Leaping Cleave, and then gains an Add Target perk. Black Mage gains Chromatic Explosion and unreadies Flashing Burst, and then gains a Dust perk. Thief added an additional Heighten perk. Level 5 also enables the third small item slot for those characters.

We also did a city event where we bought a map to a Sunken Vessel.

Here is a weird screenshot that happens to show Black Mage's abilities and the newly-available Sunken Ship scenario.

I bought White Mage Jr some Boots of Striding since their movement had been so frustrating.

13) Scenario #10: Plane of Elemental Power

It seemed like we got to pick between exploring the rift to plane of elemental power, or sealing it off. I wasn't honestly sure which option was more heroic and Final Fantasy-ish... but sealing a rift isn't something I recalled from that sort of property. Let's abuse the power instead.

On the way to the Plane of Elemental Power.

But first, a road event! Somehow opting to leave this man alone gave us a curse. Stupid.

The final room of the Plane of Elemental Power.

I ended up putting Knight and White Mage Jr in a few stupid situations. It's weird, because overall I thought I was really smart through most of the scenario. Thief and Black Mage still had tons of stamina (in the form of cards) when the others went down... and there were just three Flame Demons left. Despite the pressure, Thief scooped a Scroll of Healing from the chest.

White Mage Jr gets walloped by Flame Demons.

Just a few elemental demons left against Thief and Black Mage.

Piercing the Shield stat of Flame Demons isn't easy with the cards I have. Frankly, Knight and White Mage are best suited to it, with Trample and Flame Thrower respectively! But it was possible for Thief to set it up with Open Wound... as long as the target was standing beside Black Mage. We went through 3 or 4 turns of setup to get this exact thing to happen when Black Mage took out the final Flame Demon Elite with an arbitrary potshot that rolled well.

Almost done cleaning up the Flame Demons.

Victory at the Elemental Plane of Power!

With that, we opened up Infernal Throne and (or?) Temple of the Elements. White Mage Jr gained level 3, but we can't complete that before returning to town.
I think heroes like us are more likely to want to defeat the elemental lord than do his bidding.

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