Ah, I see! Yeah, there is some ambiguity since non-numbered effect count as non-valued positives. The FAQ has a section with some explanations.
Also, in your example you would not roll into a miss at all. You would use the two cards you drew.
My understanding of the rules is that a rolling indicator means you use both. So in your example you would have both -1 and muddle effect. The only way that the situation in your second sentence could happen would be if you had drawn 2 rolling cards.
Let me explain better.
I have disadvantage.
I draw a -1. Normally, that’d be the end of my turn, but because I have disadvantage I draw again.
I get a rolling muddle. The way I would play it, is I would then draw again, and get, let’s say, a miss.
Now I have two paths. One path, I have a total of -1 and in the other path, I have a muddle and a miss.
That’s what I was saying with that example.
You don’t have any path there RAW. With disadvantage you disregard the Muddle rolling effect and get -1.
and if you have advantage you would have -1 and muddle.
Right, but I think it’s not as good doing that because you don’t actually have all the facts. What if a -1 is actually better, because any damage will kill the target, and a muddle rolling into a miss would really fuck with me by not killing an enemy that on his turn is going to curse everyone in the room, or something horrible?
But, let’s do it the other way. Let’s say I have disadvantage.
First draw, muddle (rolling). Second draw, -1.
But now I do have to draw again, because that was just the first attack “path”.
Third draw, +2
So in this case, I would have to decide which one is the “worst” one because the rules can’t possibly cover every possible outcome, and I can only really pick the correct/most accurate “spirit of the rules” choice if I have all the facts.
It also changes how good Advantage is and how awful Disadvantage is, like Isaac pointed out, but I feel like the change is worth it for transparency and an easier way to clarify the rules.
This is the crux of my issue with the way the rules are written. If Hery is correct here, it means having advantage or not having advantage yields the exact same result, and that’s bullshit.
Wait, are you talking RAW or not? I thought you asked about RAW where there is no concept of paths, just two cards.
I am speaking to how RAW is broken. If you play cards in different ways with it or without it you get two different outcomes, and I feel like not going RAW you get a more accurate result and an easier time picking the worst/best outcome. Yeah, Isaac is right in that the RAW make advantage/disadvantage less good at the boon of simplifying things, but I feel like flipping a few extra cards doesn’t really make the system clunkier and in fact, I disagree in that it’s easier to pick the right path when you do it the way I and others have accidentally been doing it.
Yeah, I remember reading that now, and it’s kind of lame. It really only benefits the monsters, because they don’t have rolling modifier cards.
So the RAW are probably more balanced for the game though, I suppose, but it makes Advantage suck for the players and better for the monsters, while making Disadvantage harder for the players and not as big a deal for the enemies.
I think if you were to house rule it to play like I have been, it would make the game a tad easier but only if you are playing with a deck that has several perks in it with the rolling modifier in it. I personally think my way is also more exciting, but I’ll ask the others what they want to do next session.
Interesting discussion, especially when some of you decide to simply ignore the rules. That’s certainly you’re prerogative, but the rules are clearly made so that you’re never safe from a miss, even with Advantage. That’s a fundamental part of the combat model. Ignoring that is like ignoring rules in which a 1 on a d10 always misses and a 10 always hits. Except that you’re selectively ignoring the “1 always misses” part, but keeping the “10 always hits” part. If you find it makes the game too hard, why not adjust the difficulty down rather than change the rules?
-Tom
It will probably be a few weeks before we play again in my group, and I only just learned we were doing this wrong. In all likelihood everyone will agree to play it the way the rules are written, we almost never house rule stuff (certainly not in the first 6 months of playing).
E: I meant to add that the more I thought about it on my drive home after work, the more I realized it’s probably too big an advantage for players to play it the way we had been (which honestly only came up a few times anyway).
Because the actual rules are unintuitive and fiddly and make another piece of the design notably worse in a way that’s not obvious. And I really don’t think it makes a major difference to difficulty. That said, we would probably have played with the correct rule if we had realized we were doing it wrong on mission 1 or 2 instead of 40-odd very enjoyable and challenging missions in.
I don’t really care what the rules say in most cases, unless I can clearly see how something is a problem. If we’re playing something wrong and the game works, I’d much rather continue to play it wrong then fix it. I realize not everyone’s like this, and I think I’m just as annoyed by some of friends insistence on checking the rules on the most silly minor issues as they are by my insistence that we just come to a table decision and play and figure it out later if we were wrong.
I think the rules feel pretty stupid in this case. They present a pretty big disadvantage to gaining rolling modifiers (note advantage does guarantee safety from a miss if you have none of them). But we already play correctly so I’m not likely to change anything.
And? Tell me something I don’t know. :)
-Tom
That seems like an extreme way to put it. Doesn’t the advantage of rolling modifiers more than offset the rare times a miss bites you in the ass? The rules as written just add a new level of risk to an otherwise significant advantage. Unintuitive, certainly, but seems to me it’s an intentional part of the difficulty level.
I can even justify it thematically (the weakest of all justifications when it comes to game rules!). Advanced characters doing fancy powerful moves are going to sometimes whiff those moves when a less experienced character doing something basic would otherwise succeed. For instance, if Ralph Macchio just did a normal karate chop, he would have definitely connected. But his Flying Crane move introduced a new level of risk.
Granted, I haven’t seen a Karate Kid movie in decades, so my analogy might be a bit off.
-Tom
The only real issue I have with the rule as it’s written is it punishes higher level players with lots of rolling modifiers in their deck. I already feel like the best perks to take remove negatives from your deck vs. adding rolling modifiers, and this just reinforces that all the more, which I feel like removes an “Interesting Choice” from the game.
I think the RAW version is actually more advantageous in some contexts - if you draw a +4 and a +1 rolling, RAW you’re getting a +5. Two-stacking it, you probably aren’t. So maybe doing a two stack approach ends up being slightly more advantageous overall - I haven’t done the math, that’s for sure - but I don’t think it’s gamebreaking. Sure, you (mostly - curses are a thing) eliminate the possibility of a miss on advantage, but you definitely don’t on disadvantage, which is when it should be most at issue. And I don’t see misses and crits as a fundamental part of the design or there wouldn’t be an official variant rule in the actual manual removing them.
But again, my primary reason for continuing with that approach is just that it makes advantage and disadvantage function in a way that’s consistent and easy to remember.
Ah, that makes sense, Scott. I didn’t think of it that way. The mechanics inadvertently weigh the cards you add, don’t they?
But let it be noted that I have never accused Gloomhaven of being a good design. Have any of you guys played Forge War, the designer’s previous game? I think it’s flat-out awful. To be honest, I’m surprised Gloomhaven is as solid as it is (my issues with exhaustion notwithstanding).
-Tom
[…50 posts on Advantage and Disadvantage later…]
Any other advice for noobs? :)