Good day! We've got a big update written by Drew Penn on everything that has changed in Gloomhaven: Second Edition, but first we'll do a little review. We didn't do any streaming yesterday, but we do have some upcoming streams!

Pixel Circus is back today to play good old game of Frosthaven at 11am PST. Like the games with Good Time Society and Penny Arcade, this was a custom scenario that will be available after the episode airs. Unlike the others, which were a bit on the easy side, this scenario is pretty brutal. It's a real nail-biter!

And the Tabletop Minions will be back at 5pm PST to paint some more miniatures!

The only other thing I have to tell you is that it is Monday, so check out the Cragheart puzzle (created by Mike Clinton) at the bottom of the main page. This one should be a little more challenging than previous puzzles.

And before we get into this mega set of info below, I also want to let you know we'll be off tomorrow for the holiday, so I'll catch you Wednesday!

                                 

The question of how much has actually changed in the second edition of Gloomhaven has been asked a lot during this campaign, and many people may still not have an accurate idea. We’ve provided individual examples (and will continue to do so) but wanted to take the time to break it down by the numbers, looking at many of the components in the game.

Classes
While most of this article is quantifying the number of changed game components, classes are simply too difficult to classify in terms of the degree changed - “how much a class has changed” is too subjective. So rather than try to break that down here, we invite you to take a look at the individual class previews below. As a general note: all classes received three new non-AMD perks, standees for their summons, and an initiative token. And there are now 18 classes in the box instead of 17.

Scenarios
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 101 scenarios (up from 95). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from scenarios in the first edition mechanically. We will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. General note: all scenarios have received some degree of narrative updates, from small tweaks to fit the new campaign flow to entirely new stories (you can find out more about that here). 

First of all, the scenario effect was removed, although this is simply because the scenario is now in the first three in the game and it doesn’t make sense to have scenario effects before many people may not have a single perk.

In the first room, we moved the Hounds further from the starting position. This scenario could start off really brutally depending on what the Hounds did on round 1, and giving the party more space will make this a bit less punishing. 

Most of the difficulty in this scenario came in the first and third rooms and with the changes to make the first room a bit easier and more forgiving, we slightly increased the amount of enemies in the second room to provide slightly more even difficulty throughout. 

As above, this scenario being in the first three, it no longer has a scenario effect. 

More attention has been paid this time to making the first few scenarios for new groups more forgiving and with this being the second scenario, we’ve added an additional starting room to give groups some breathing room against the aggressive Night Demons (while still helping to teach the tactic of approaching enemies late in the round after their turns).

This scenario is also the first introduction to Cultists and monster summoning in general, so we’ve provided a very low number of Cultists and set up exactly what they’ll be doing each round so that players can learn how to play around it.

This scenario previously featured Flame Demons, a tricky enemy for new Gloomhaven players to face as they require very specific tools to deal with. As players are just learning the game at this point, we didn’t want them to face the unique difficulty of Flame Demons this early on and thus replaced them with a much simpler enemy in Earth Demons.

The old version of Ritual Chamber threw the party in a room with a bunch of Cultists and told them essentially to hope the Cultists didn’t summon too soon or too often and essentially wipe the scenario with limited player control of the outcome.

The new Ritual Chamber presents a similar scenario but with different mechanics to introduce the Cultists gradually such that their ability card flips for a given round are not so significant in the success or failure of the scenario.

And alongside all of the changed scenarios, you’ll find 14 completely original scenarios like this one. 

Items
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 152 different items (up from 132). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from items in the first edition. I will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means.

Modified

The old Minor Stamina Potion was simply too powerful and also scaled far too well. The new Stamina Potion had both its power and scaling reduced, making it still a strong item for gaining an extra turn or repeating a good level 1 action, but without all of the extra unnecessary power that made it one of the strongest items in the game. And it has been made unrecoverable to avoid potentially degenerate combos that gain too many extra turns or repeat the same actions ad nauseam.

We wanted to keep the existing theme of moving a long distance to gain experience, but incorporated it into something much more regularly usable so you wouldn’t have to give up a valuable item slot for the pleasure. And what makes someone happier than looting?

Prosperity 1 items were largely dominant in the first edition as many of them were far too cost effective. This time around, we aimed to make Prosperity 1 items that provide smaller bonuses to allow for more room to improve as you progress through the campaign. Scouting Lens is still useful, especially for any class that struggles a bit with shielded enemies, but it’s never going to be so cost effective you hesitate to replace it as you unlock additional head slot items down the road.

Personal Quests
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 22 personal quests (down from 24, as envelope X has been integrated into the Town Records book). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from personal quests in the first edition. We will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. As a general note: all personal quests now end with a scenario or a section book entry, even those that did not change mechanically.

Modified

Finding the Cure is actually an amalgamation of two first edition personal quests: Finding the Cure and Elemental Samples. We removed any personal quests that required finding specific monster types because these had such high variability and many times led to parties feeling stuck between no foreseeable retirement or being forced to replay a scenario. With 101 scenarios in the game, we never want people to feel like they need to replay a scenario to advance their character’s personal quest. So that meant cutting the old Finding the Cure. Meanwhile, we had something else to do in place of Elemental Samples, so we could easily move the mechanic from that personal quest to this card and fit the narrative accordingly.

The old Fall of Man personal quest was infamous for players who started the campaign with it (like myself!) and took forever before they could retire. This one was reworked as part of our goal to change any personal quests where players were often stuck. Instead, we were able to make this mechanically follow the theme even more so than before.

In addition to fixing up old personal quests, we also made some new ones that avoided the existing issues and let characters explore and interact with the world in unique ways (such as becoming a politician).

Monsters
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 36 different monster types (up from 34). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from the monster types in the first edition. I will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. 

The biggest change for City Guards was in their ability card deck: previously both of the 15 initiative non-move actions were the reshuffles, which could lead to Guards in general spending a lot of time sitting around potentially doing nothing (and also meant a big difference between the difficulty of facing them as a melee or ranged character). Now one of the two reshuffles is on their 55 initiative action which self-strengthens. Beyond that, they’ve had the same level 6 and 7 stat increases that all monsters have been given to help increase the difficulty of late campaign for groups who choose to increase the difficulty level.

Most of the threat of Cultists in the first edition was their ability to summon Living Bones. This is certainly still their most threatening action, but we’ve taken steps to reduce the randomness and swinginess overall. Now, when they summon, they take less damage than before but also stun themselves, meaning they won’t typically be able to summon multiple rounds in a row, which could previously be a scenario-ender. Their heal abilities now apply Safeguard (the new condition that blocks a negative condition and then goes away), which can actually prevent the self-stun, giving your party a big incentive to try to get any negative condition on a Safeguarded Cultist as soon as possible. And as we made their summoning weaker, we wanted to keep their average threat level similar by increasing the strength of their non-summoning turns through slightly stronger actions and better stats.

We introduced two new monsters to Gloomhaven: Second Edition, Chaos Demons and Crystal Rot. Chaos Demons you’ll already recognize if you’ve played Jaws of the Lion or Frosthaven - these popular enemy types fit in very easily in the base game as well. Crystal Rot, on the other hand, are entirely new enemies. One of the most common scenario types in Gloomhaven is facing off against mostly undead enemies. We wanted to add a new, mechanically different undead monster to add more variety to these types of scenarios. Crystal Rot are powerful support casters that bolster their undead allies, making them high priority targets in combat without the swinginess of summoning.

Bosses
In addition to the monster changes, most bosses and their scenarios have been substantially reworked. There is also one brand new boss.

Events
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 180 events (up from 160). Of those, 17 are from the first edition. 15 of those had edits ranging from rewrites to match the existing theme down to minor mechanical tweaks. Two cards had no edits at all — they're the only ones that made it through unscathed. The other 163 are all-new.

And More…
While we’ve primarily focused on quantifiable component changes in this article, there’s plenty more that’s new in Gloomhaven: Second Edition. To learn more, check the pledge page here.

Good day! Did you notice that yesterday was so packed, I was in two places at once? We aired our marvelous Frosthaven game with the folks over at Penny Arcade yesterday morning, which I think was very entertaining. I created a custom Frosthaven scenario fittingly titled "Lost Arcade". It had a fun little arcade mechanic in it where characters could activate arcade games for different effects while fighting monsters, and the best news is that you can play it too! Here's a link to the PDF, and you can watch the video below.



After the game, Penny Arcade also went into a painting stream that featured a lot of the newer sculpts you probably haven't seen up close before.



But then while that was still going on, I also hopped over to Gaming Rules! to be interviewed by Paul Grogan about RPGs, miniatures, Euro games, favorite movies, Spacehaven, and the best ever year for board gaming. It was a lot of fun, and you should watch it!



And the day wasn't even over! After that, I got to play a Gloomhaven: Second Edition scenario with Ella Ampongan, who is one of my favorite people in this industry, and I was so happy to spend time with her, along with Drew and Dennis, on her Dice Tower stream.



And speaking of Drew and Dennis, we are going live at 8am PST (the reason this update is going out a bit early) to play some more Gloomhaven: Second Edition, because you can never have enough of that.

A roundup of BGG threads:
Here is a link of the Angry Face class preview written by Drew and Dennis.
Here is a link the discussion on puzzle #4 with the Mindthief.

                           

After posting the general overview on the RPG yesterday, I now wanted to take some time to further dive into specific mechanisms. On Monday, I talked about character creation, and today I thought it would be illuminating to discuss how the Gloom Master controls monsters in the RPG.

We can start with a look at the bestiary entry for everyone's favorite enemy: the ooze.

Now, obviously the graphic design, writing, and pretty much everything else is not final, but it should still give you a good idea of what you are working with.

The top half of the page is information that should look familiar: stat blocks for normal and elites at all levels and a list of potential actions (with initiatives) that are essentially analogous to the ooze ability card deck. This is so that if you own a copy of Gloomhaven, you can use the monster components from the box instead of the bestiary, if you find that more convenient (the bestiary will represent the stats of monsters in second edition, but no one is going to stop you from using first edition monsters - or Frosthaven monsters for that matter).

Note that levels for monsters are the same as they are in Gloomhaven. It is recommended that GMs run monsters at the appropriate campaign level (half the average character level), but GMs are free to run monsters at higher or lower level (and mix and match in the same combat), with rules on how to adjust point values. And yes, there are point values for monsters (in parentheses after "Normal" and "Elite"), along with general guidelines on how many points' worth of monsters would be challenging at different player counts.

All this is leading up to saying that the main difference between monsters in the board game and monsters in the RPG is that AI controls monsters in the board game, but the monsters are fully controlled by the GM in the RPG. The GM makes the decision of what action to perform each round and also all the details of how that action is performed. It is no longer about mindlessly going for the closest, fastest enemy. Monsters can now think, work together, and go after the biggest threats, so long as they have a reasonable tactics level.

Tactics level? Yeah, so this isn't about the GM just playing each monster as hard as they can to run the players into the ground. It is about setting up thematic encounters that are challenging and fun. Not every monster is going to act like an expert in military tactics, least of all the mindless ooze. Each monster will have a write-up about their tendencies in combat and some suggested actions for a number of situations.

And you may also notice there are some (not final) timing icons to the right of some actions, giving them cooldowns to reinforce to the GM that the monster shouldn't be using these over and over every round.

It is recommended that GMs just have each monster of a type all perform the same action in a round for easier bookkeeping, but if they're up for it, they could have different monsters act at different times with different actions. It is also, of course, recommended to stick to these action lists, but there's not really anything stopping GMs from creating their own action lists for monsters (or their own monsters for that matter) just to keep players on their toes.

And the other important thing to note about combat is that the GM can withhold whatever information they want (for instance, hit point values or initiative values). The characters no longer know what the monsters are doing in a round, which changes the dynamic of combat significantly.

And finally, you'll notice some more thematic text at the bottom of the bestiary, giving players some background and lore on the different monsters they will be facing. I hope all of this shed some light on how GMs use monsters in combat and how it compares to combat in Gloomhaven! Next time we delve into the RPG, I'll talk about more GM tools and some rules and tips for creating challenging, epic adventures.

                           

Lastly today, I wanted to spend a little time highlighting one of our partners, Forteller, and the audio narration products they are offering as part of their campaign. Here is Forteller talking about what they have on offer:

The Forteller team is excited to dive back into Gloomhaven and tackle the Second Edition! The current campaign offering can be found:

Why back now? 15 USD will be the deepest discount offered for backers during this celebration. Gloomhaven: Second Edition will include all 101 scenarios.  Based on the demand, the additional road and city cards may be added to complete the narration with an additional 3 to 4 hours (the road and city cards estimate) of audio content.

On behalf of Forteller, we are all grateful to the support from the community and giving us the ability to produce these amazing audio narrations and fuel our passion. We exist because of you, thank you!

                           

With that, we're going to call it a day. There's just the one early stream today, so I'm kind of looking forward to having a slower day to care of some more work from the backlog. And maybe take a nap? It's doubtful, but a man can dream. Either way, catch you tomorrow!