Gloomhaven (Second Edition) rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are a party of mercenaries working through a campaign of scenarios, and you win a scenario by achieving the goal printed in the scenario entry before your whole party is exhausted. You do that by playing two ability cards each round, managing a shrinking hand of cards as your real health bar.

Setup reminders first. Resolve a road event unless one of the exceptions applies, such as replaying a lost scenario or moving straight to a linked scenario. You can lay out all the map tiles for the whole scenario at once, but only set up the first room. Insert each monster stat card into its sleeve at the scenario level, and shuffle each monster ability deck. Monster placements on the map show three bars: top for two characters, middle for three, bottom for four. Black means no monster, white a normal, yellow an elite, and standee numbers are randomized as you place them. Each character deals three battle goals and secretly keeps one. Put all six element tokens on the inert column. Choose items and choose ability cards equal to your hand size, set the red dial to your maximum hit points and the blue dial to zero, then place your figures in the starting hexes, one figure per hex. Recommended scenario level is the average character level divided by two, rounded up, and that level drives monster stats, trap damage, gold conversion and bonus experience.

Each scenario runs in rounds of four steps. First, card selection: everyone secretly picks two ability cards, designating one as their initiative card, or declares a long rest if they have at least two cards in their discard pile. Second, ordering of initiative: reveal the cards, draw one ability card for each monster set with at least one figure on the map, and arrange everything from lowest initiative to highest. A long rest is initiative ninety-nine. Third, everyone takes turns in that order. A character performs the top action of one played card and the bottom action of the other, in either order. A monster performs the single action on its set's ability card. Fourth, the end of round, where round bonuses expire, short rests happen, and elements wane.

During card selection you may discuss plans in general terms, but you may not show your cards or state a specific numeric value or a card title. On ties, a character goes before a tied monster set; between tied characters, compare their second cards, and if still tied the party decides.

On your turn, remember that which card you chose for initiative no longer matters. Any card can instead be used for a basic attack two as a top action or a basic move two as a bottom action, which just discards it with nothing else applied. Otherwise, after performing an action the card goes to your discard pile, your lost pile, or your active area, depending on its icons. Anything in a box with an exclamation mark is mandatory, including experience, infusions, and lost icons. At the end of your turn you must loot any money token or treasure tile in your hex.

Attacks draw a separate attack modifier card for each individual target. The order of modification is all bonuses and penalties, then the modifier card, then the target's shield, then ward. Advantage draws two and you may use either; disadvantage draws two and uses the worse. A ranged attack against an adjacent enemy always has disadvantage, and having both advantage and disadvantage means neither. When a modifier with a shuffle icon is drawn, shuffle that discard pile back in at the end of the round. Shield only reduces damage from attacks, never other sources.

Elements infuse at the end of the turn of the figure who performed the action, moving to strong. They wane one column each end of round. To consume an element it must already be strong or waning at the start of the turn, and consuming moves it to inert.

Monsters act automatically. At the start of its turn a monster finds a focus, and its first priority is a path that triggers the fewest negative hexes, meaning traps and hazardous terrain; only then does it prefer the attack it can reach using the fewest movement points. Ties go to the enemy closest by range, then the one earliest in initiative. A monster only does what is listed on the drawn card, so no move listed means no movement. Within a set, elites act first in ascending standee number, then normals. When a monster dies it drops a money token in its hex, unless it was a scenario ally.

Resting is how you get cards back. A short rest happens in the end of round step: lose one random card from your discard, take the rest back, and if you hate the loss you may suffer one damage to lose a different random card instead, once per short rest. A long rest is your whole turn on initiative ninety-nine: lose one card of your choice from your discard, take the rest back, optionally heal two on yourself, and optionally recover all spent items.

You can negate all damage from one source by losing a card of your choice from your hand or two from your discard pile. You become exhausted if your hit points reach zero, or if at the start of a round you have neither two cards in hand to play nor two in your discard pile to rest with. An exhausted character is removed and can no longer participate at all.

The scenario ends only at the end of a round. It is completed if the goal is achieved, and lost if every character is exhausted or a loss condition triggers. If it would be both in the same round, it counts as lost. Either way, everyone recovers all discarded and lost cards, recovers spent and lost items, resets hit points, removes conditions, and pulls all bless, curse, and added cards out of the modifier decks. You keep the experience on your blue dial, and convert your money tokens to gold at the rate for the scenario level. If you completed the scenario, you also gain bonus experience for the scenario level, gain checkmarks for a fulfilled battle goal, with every three checkmarks giving a perk mark, gain perk marks for new masteries, read the conclusion, take the scenario rewards, which can only be earned once per campaign, and gain inspiration equal to four minus the number of characters. If you lost, the party chooses between returning to Gloomhaven for a City Phase or replaying the scenario immediately with no City Phase and no road event. The City Phase is a city event followed by downtime, where characters level up, retire, create new characters, buy enhancements, donate to the Great Oak, and buy and sell items.

A turn, played out

It is round 4. You hold 6 cards and have 3 in your discard pile. Next to you stands a normal monster with shield 1 and 2 hit points left. Two hexes away lies a money token from a monster killed last round. You secretly pick two cards and mark the one showing 23 as your initiative card. You tell the party you plan to finish that monster, but you cannot say any numbers. Cards are revealed. The monster set draws a 41, so you act first. The top action of your other card is a ranged attack 3. The target is adjacent, so you attack with disadvantage. You draw two modifiers, a plus 1 and a 0, and must take the 0. Attack 3, plus 0, then minus 1 for its shield, makes 2 damage. The monster dies and drops a money token in its hex. That action has a boxed exclamation mark granting 1 experience, so your blue dial clicks from 6 to 7. Now the bottom half. Your initiative card's real bottom action is no help here, and which card set your initiative no longer matters. You play it as a basic move 2 instead, so it simply goes to your discard with nothing else applied. You step 2 hexes onto the older money token, and at the end of your turn you must loot it. Both cards go to your discard, which now holds 5, leaving 4 in hand. A rest is coming soon.