Gloomhaven Classic Jobs Part V

[freshfeeling]

This update is a lengthy one. Among other reasons, I had said last time that I was compiling notes to write about several scenarios at once. I did my 15th through 20th this time, and I think I'll generally do five at a time moving forward.

The gameplay herein is from several play sessions between April 19th and April 27th.
 

15) Scenario #21: Infernal Throne

Heroes love killing demons.

Given some of the tight squeezes we've had, fighting a Prime Demon might be a bit of a stretch. Oh well, we'll see.

 

The battle goals I was presented all seemed fairly achieveable, at least if victory was possible. The biggest stretch, I guess, is Black Mage having Protector... but I am going to be optimistic.

 

Two turns in, the team was feeling strong. I had Thief stand in the doorway, invisible, which wasn't planned but drew the Wind Demons and Night Demons closer. They happened to clump up and become sitting ducks for White Mage Jr's Flamethrower and Black Mage's Icy Blast.

 

I had picked up the Staff of Xorn for Black Mage at some point, figuring the Poison and Muddle bonus on a big AoE move like Icy Blast would be helpful. This battle though seems to be more about small numbers of beefy enemies (well... hopefully? So far?) so I ended up putting a ton of debuffs on one Night Demon all at once. He was not having a good day.

 

Just a couple of turns in, I was already able to swat at the Prime Demon's altar. Dark elemental was in play, and Thief was all set up to use Sinister Opportunity to deal some fairly heavy damage to the altar, assisted by the Ring of Skulls. Then, Knight took a shot at it, using one of his really strong burner attacks - and he happened to draw an Add Target mod to clobber an Ice Demon, too! It was an awesome turn.
 

 

Unfortunately, the altar was going to move again, so this wasn't going to be easy.

Oh. Wait. The altar moved directly in front of Black Mage. Hm. Well, I got a few more shots at it.

 

Things were going great, but next the altar was moved again, and that revealed the rest of the enemies. They were quite close to where my more fragile mages were standing.

 

On round 9, the altar had almost completed a full loop. It was down to 6 HP, especially since Thief intercepted it toward the top of the map. Then I did a move where Black Mage took damage and I burned Flame Strike to avoid it, not realizing Black Mage only had two non-burned cards, so she was effectively doomed in a turn or two. But I was fairly sure we could seal the deal soon, anyway.

Oh wait. One of the two cards Black Mage had left was Reviving Ether. I can't believe I hadn't used that yet. This really was going well. As long as she could pull that off, everything was rosy.

 

I had damaged a few Earth Demons considerably, but now they had been healing for three turns in a row.

Thief was about to straight-up win it - maybe - but the Flame Demons actually got initiative 3 and beat out Thief's 4 on Flanking Strike. The Flame Demon near Thief's position drew a null. Amazing.

 

Okay, Thief didn't seal the deal. But it was really close!

Round 12 started and the only thing that could undermine us, really, was some particularly low initiative from the enemies. And even then we'd win, but Black Mage might lose the bonus for Protector.

Well, that didn't happen! We got all four battle goals.

 

This also happened to (finally) bring Gloomhaven up to wealth level 2.

 

There was a lot of benefit going on for everyone at this point.

• Knight sold the Weighted Net he got earlier, and gained the Outburst (+3) perk.
• Thief still had a Minor Healing Potion and we had gained a couple of Major Healing Potions so we sold that. They were at 59/60 experience. Since we had an extra enchantment available, we added +1 attack to Sinister Opportunity.
• White Mage Jr went from level 2 to 3. They gained Disorienting Flash but they won't be using it. They also gained a Consistency perk, and they added a Bless enchantment to Stamina Booster's heal.
• Black Mage gained a Scorn (+1 and Curse) perk.

 

In a city event, a child offered us a challenge. Naturally, we said yes. That opened up the Harrower Hive as a location.

 

16) Scenario #20: Necromancer's Sanctum

Okay, let's get back on track. We had a heroic quest to kill Jekserah the terrible necromancer and we may as well get that done. Also, having beaten the Prime Demon, we're pretty close to finishing Thief's Goliath Toppler personal quest, which involves beating four bosses.

 

On the way, we met some sick people. We have a fair bit of money and I thought it was better to just help them.

 

On turn 1, the enemies set Black Mage up for a heckuvan AoE Icy Blast.

Things were stable but it sure seemed like I needed a lot of cards to beat these enemies considering there was still a boss ahead.

On turn 3 or 4 the game froze. Huh. That's never happened to me before. Generally this game auto-saves every turn, I think, so that's not that big a deal. I restarted that round. This pause also let me re-think some things, and I decided I would have Thief open the next door on this turn and then run away. This was, as I expected, Jekserah's room.

 

While the situation was a bit of a gambit, I realized that if Thief used the Ring of Skulls to summon a skeleton friend it would block the spot where the Cultist was going to summon another enemy. Genius?

On the next turn, she would ditch her skeleton buddy to grab the Skullbane Axe.

 

Well, this worked out. Spike damage tends to be one of our strengths, at least as long as we've got the turns to spare on a few burner attacks. Thief and Knight really focused on Jekserah and it paid off.
 
This gave us plenty of rewards: some money, experience, and a prosperity boost for the city. It also opens up multiple new quests/scenarios.

 

Well, Thief had a heck of a run, but now she is ready to retire. If you're not super clear on Gloomhaven rules, you ought to know that retirement is not optional once you've earned it.
 

 

I'm going to have to come up with a new naming scheme eventually - maybe naming the characters after noteworthy knights, thieves, white mages and black mages - but for now Thief Jr is joining the team, with the personal quest of Elemental Samples. She's just level 2 to start, so our cards are obviously a little bit different. It is mostly a downgrade, but since enemy levels are based around ours, it will be fine. Plus, certain things like enchantments are staying on, since I'm in Campaign mode.

 

As well, Black Mage actually managed to attain level 6! She learns Living Torch and finally loses Freezing Nova. She also gets a Lacerate (+1 and Wound) perk, and we can afford adding a targetting hex to Cold Fire, which is cool.
 

 

Finally before the next quest, we did an encounter in the city. A Quatryl is offering us food; if anime has taught me anything, the heroic thing to do is eat, right? This turned out to be a pretty good choice, I think.

With this blessing, a trip to the Temple of the Great Oak for Knight, and White Mage Jr's blessings we have a lot of crit chances in play.

 

17) Scenario #18: Abandoned Sewers

There aren't a lot of quests inside the city right now, and Thief Jr needs to collect samples from different areas. I decided to get Abandoned Sewers done.

Thief Jr's first battle goal choice ended up being between the unflattering Weakling and Masochist cards. I guess it's a weird form of optimism that made me pick Masochist.

 

Low enemy movement meant that Knight had an opportunity to Trample that made sense. He ended up opening the first door on turn 1, revealing a ton of relatively weak enemies.

 

There ended up being a few points where I had (brilliantly) managed the threat of tons of enemies by either immobilizing melee targets or inflicting other effects... but then had opportunities to wipe them out that were just too perfect. It feels weird working against myself sometimes. It was early in the scenario but it seemed like it was going really, really well. I guess the Ooze situation hadn't gotten out of control yet.
 

 

Things did seem good, but I was sloppy with the final door and Thief Jr was attacked by five enemies. She didn't make it into turn 11.

Although the last room was a bit rougher, I was very pleased for Knight to get a Tremor Blade design! Finally, a sword!

Knights love swords, or so I hear. He exhausted on the next turn. Whoops.

 

This got desperate at the end, and then the Elite Oozes formed a perfect Cold Fire formation.

Funny that Thief Jr didn't get the perk for "Your health at the end of the scenario is equal to 2 or less". I was sure that happened.

 

Doing this quest opens up some locations, including one that is only available if you've opened up a campaign-level ability to breathe underwater. This is roughly as deep into a campaign as I've ever gone, honestly: I don't remember ever actually unlocking the ability go to underwater.

 

We got some stuff!

I made sure to buy the Tremor Blade for Knight, even though it's fairly rare that I'll be able to make use of it. Knight attained level 6, learning Skirmishing Maneuver and unreadying Juggernaut. He also took the Stab perk.

 

White Mage Jr went from level 3 to 4, gaining Micro Bots and unreadying Enhancement Field. They gained the Intensify perk.

 

We did a city encounter where we attended a wedding! I can't really picture my crew doing that. Oh well. We brought an expensive gift, losing 20 gold with no apparent benefit.

 

Scenario #76: Harrower Hive

A sidequest seems like a fun diversion, and it'll allow Thief Jr to get more elemental samples. We got a road event featuring red berries. Hm. I have the vaguest memories of seeing this before, but I forget whether these are a blessing or a Ralph Wiggum situation. I'm pretty sure they were a blessing. Maybe there are two versions of the same event? Whatever, I'm going for it.

 

It tastes like... burning.

D'oh.

 

Ah, I kind of forgot that sometimes you have to smash walls instead of opening doors. I really shouldn't have chosen that Explorer battle goal for Knight.

Oh, it turns out it counts. Cool. I mismanaged Reviving Ether and needed to start the scenario over pretty early.

 

This scenario straight-up sucks, really. Due to bad plays, I'll admit I rewound rounds twice (after the one total false start), and was still coming up pretty short. Playing with the class-based characters is interesting in a way, and they embody the roles and that's fun, but they're super unoptimized and this scenario wasn't feeling super possible as I went through, without even having all rooms revealed yet (I'd later learn there were two rooms remaining when I was calling quits in my mind). Each time a bunch of skeletons healed back to full HP I thought luck could be working against me, but I can't blame luck alone.
 

 

Also, how come my characters run out of stamina but the enemies never do?

I think I have to abandon this one... but I may as well try to get the chest at least, I thought.
 

Not even close. If this weren't a "defeat all enemies" scenario, this would be a possibility, but I don't think it can swing by enough for me.

 

Hm, one more try? The new approach will be more carefully finishing each room fully before opening another. In a lot of scenarios, this isn't necessary or even useful; some are sort of speed-based, after all. But the thing that really seemed to be working against me was the amount of healing that most of these enemies do, so we'll try to counteract that.

 

Black Mage used Staff of Xorn on an attack that hit the first two Harrowers, which was really nice when they drew a Heal 5 on the next turn. Well, that's one minor problem solved.

Honestly, this try went so much better through the first three rooms. Then I mismanaged Reviving Ether yet again on turn 8. Dammit.

 

Okay. One more try.

This one is better than the first, but worse than the last one so far... other than the one really bad part of the last one. It could be viable. I wonder why this wall is being targetted..?
 

Oh my goodness. I did it again. I left Black Mage exhaust at the end of turn 10. The scenario effect of discarding cards at the beginning is ruining me.

Let's just... get out of here. I've been playing this map for probably over 2 hours. Maybe we'll come back another time.

 

18) Scenario #19: Forgotten Crypt

Keeping Hail alive sounds like a relatively easy task for our team, especially since we've got an actual healer even though that's widely considered suboptimal.

 

On the road, we encountered what appeared to be a man pooping. I really have no idea how this could go wrong, but surely it can. I'll just be lawful good again and see what happens...

Ah. Nothing at all. That makes sense.

Another crash happened here. I had left the game running while I left for dinner so it had been on for quite a while, for what that's worth.

 

Now maybe it's because of the interruptions but... I didn't feel myself making mistakes in this scenario. Despite that, I'm not winning.

Hail actually never moved from her starting position, which I believe to be actually correct but bothersome AI: if an NPC wants to move, they need to identify a path to their target, which is the altar. If any enemy is standing in a doorway, Hail holds still. This didn't work for me on this occasion.

 

Something I've been observing with crashes and resets is that every so often my enhancements disappear from my cards - never on the first run at a scenario. Like, Cold Fire, for example, loses its extra hex. It didn't seem to have its extra hex in practice, either.

Okay. We've sucked bigtime at two scenarios. Disappointing. Let's regroup.

 

I went back to Gloomhaven and checked my status. Thief Jr and Black Mage both levelled at the very least.

Like her predecessor, Thief Jr unreadied Thief's Knack and gained Duelist's Advance, and got a Consistency perk. I used some of the money she'd picked up for a Ring of Skulls, too, which is useful when you want an adjacent ally out of nowhere.

Black Mage went from 6 to 7. I don't believe I've literally ever had a character exceed level 6 before. She gains Stone Fists, but won't actually be using it. She also gained a Blind perk that adds Stun.

 

Since we were back in the city again, we did another city encounter. There was a thing where Lurkers from the depths approached the docks. Even though JRPG heroes tend to just kill everything they encounter (except in some cases where it has a bright or elaborate hairstyle), it seemed wrong for my heroic party to attack, so we tried to parley. This was a substantial reputation boost.

It happened to push us over 10 reputation, in fact, opening up the sun class.

 

Anyway... what was going to help us out of our rut? I really didn't want to flip to easier difficulty modes as I had done near the beginning. I figured I'd donate some money to the Great Oak.

 

Not completing these scenarios at all was not sitting well with me, so in addition to the bit of extra preparation, I did reduce the difficulty by one (to Easy) and returned to Forgotten Crypt. This meant there was another road encounter, but it was nothing important. I am going to be very careful to manage enemies in doorways this time.

This was going well... although I mismanaged Reviving Ether yet again here.

Later, having gone on a dog walk for a break mid-scenario, I realized the mistake I keep making: I think I have one more turn to play cards when I can recover the burners, but when I plan that out I can't burn the cards, since I need one to discard. Hopefully I can be more mindful of this going forward. I do, in fact, know the rules of the game, more-or-less... I am just really forgetful and absentminded.

 

On turn 17, Thief Jr used Venom Shiv on a Living Bones, poisoning it. She drew a null modifier, which sucked... but I was grateful for the poison anyway since the Living Boneses were healing that turn. White Mage Jr also put a Harmless Contraption in the way of the pursuing Living Bones that helped more than that ability generally does.

 

Well, we won. Eventually. It wasn't the best performance ever in terms of battle goals.
 

This unlocked Ruinous Rift, and also put Knight a partial step into completing his personal quest, and that opened the Fading Lookout.

 

White Mage Jr gained level 5, learning Noxious Vials and unreadying Stun Shot. They also gained a Power perk.

 

While I was in town, I got a few characters to pray at the temple and bought a little bit of gear to fill slots, but nothing I expected to be game-changing. Knight is sitting on 159 coins right now, and I'm leaving it because I'd really like to add another +1 shield to Shield Bash before he retires.

 

Our city encounter gave us the opportunity to either fix the lamps in the pub or use the darkness to steal valuables, so naturally we did the former. This gave us a little Reputation boost.

 

Since I had failed at Harrower Hive, and I've since prepared a little more and scaled the difficulty down (temporarily, I hope!), I thought I'd try it again.

 

19) Scenario #76: Harrower Hive

Along the way back to the Harrower Hive, I heard chanting from a nearby forest. I figured I'd investigate. We gained experience and lost a perk point, which I guess isn't too big of a deal.

 

Thief's battle goal choices were Plunderer and Aggressor. I am pretty sure Aggressor is literally impossible in this scenario because of the first room.

 

In the first turn, an Add Target popping up allowed Knight to destroy two walls. I would've rather compartmentalized my approach to avoid the type of situation I encountered on my first attempt, but it's hard to say no to free damage. This ends up making the battle look very... busy.

 

Things were going generally really well. I opened that room near the back and... were there always TWO of these elite Harrowers in here..?
 

 

I eventually got the chest, which was also Thief Jr's battle goal. 20 gold? In such a challenging sidequest I kind of thought this would be something quite a bit more noteworthy.

 

We won!

I think I've got to slide the difficulty from easy back to normal. It really does make a rather radical difference.

 

Knight gained level 7, earning the Crippling Offensive card. He is finally unreadying Balanced Measure. He gained a Thrust perk, too.

Black Mage gained level 8, earning Cold Front. Based on how things were defined at the beginning, she loses Icy Blast for this. I guess it's a worthy trade.

She also gained a Hobble perk. Some of these perks have a small chance of working against us in niche scenarios, but I guess it'll be beneficial more often than not.

 

Having donated to the Great Oak so much lately, I put more money into that to finally gain devotion level 2. This gives a prosperity point and seemingly nothing else for now.

 

We did a city encounter, which was actually laying foundation for the Sanctuary of the Great Oak. It only makes sense that we would help with this.

This happened to push the city up the wealth level 3, granting us some new items. Given that Knight is saving up and the other characters have been donating so much, it didn't make sense to do any shopping right now.

We also got to hear some Gloomhaven sociology from Dominic.

 

As much as I like the idea of finishing Knight's personal quest, I really want him to get enough money for the extra shield point on Shield Bash. Why? Shield Bash is one of his lowest initative cards, and a shield rating of 3 can allow Knight (or future knights) to sponge up a whole turn of damage. He has 168 gold and we need 175, I believe. Let's do a side quest and make sure he picks up at least 7 coins.

 

20) Scenario #93: Sunken Vessel

The Sunken Vessel from earlier speaks of untold riches!

It feels almost ironic coming to a place full of inherently armor-piercing Lurkers when trying to improve my defenses.

 

I had changed the difficulty back but this scenario seemed far, far easier than some of the other recent ones. I figured, as I worked through room 2 barely taking damage, that it might be a long one where stamina management was the important aspect. Thankfully, White Mage Jr has a good handful of ways to get cards back in play for other characters.

On round 5, Thief Jr dealt a sweet 12 damage to a Frost Demon with a default attack after having applied the bottom buffs from both Single Out (which I barely ever use!) and Duelist's Advance.
 

This really was easy, in the end. I had a couple of minor unfortunate situations that undermined Black Mage's and Thief Jr's battle goals right before the end, which was a drag. As well, Thief Jr needing to burn discarded cards to avoid damage from something that had pretty low odds of ever happening meant we had victory on her last possible turn.

 

The prize ended up being 20 XP instead of any treasure at all... although the Doomed Compass that we looted is pretty awesome.

 

Thief Jr advances from level 3 to 4, (re?)gaining Gruesome Advantage and losing access to Trickster's Reversal - which is almost too bad, I had finally used that card effectively a few times. She gained a second Consistency perk.

White Mage Jr advances from level 5 to 6, gaining Auto Turret and losing our trusty Net Shooter. They also gained the Outburst perk.

Knight finally had the cash on hand to enchant Shield Bash with an additional point of shield. It's potent! I hope I'll be able to use it effectively. Given that Knight might retire soon and I'll end up with a much lower-level knight, I expect I'll be grateful for it.

 

Before wrapping up, I figured I'd do a city encounter. A Vermling offered us trash for 10 gold. I am pretty sure I've been ripped off by this before. I am going to say "no".

What will we do next? Probably Fading Lookout.

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