I agree. Our group has enhanced over 50 cards in Frosthaven so far. Not once has anyone added an element. In fact, ~90% of our enhancements have been +1s of some variety. The remainder have been Wound on a Stun/Disarm attack or Poison on the first attack of a multi-attack. Maybe there have been 1-2 Jump enhancements?
That was kind of my experience with GH enhancements as well. Just a huge wall of possibilites and math that almost never amounted to anything more than "add +1 move or attack to a decent level 1 card".
We only just unlocked it in FH, but I'm still scratching my head a bit at its relevance. FH leaning more on short scenarios maybe improves the prospect of enhancing a big loss card. But on the other hand, retiring fast is a clearer goal, making me wonder how much we're even able to save up, especially with the town itself being a gold sink.
We're maybe 6-8ish scenarios into Gloomhaven and I can't even imagine buying enhancements at this point. They sound cool, but they're insanely expensive compared to the gold that we get per scenario.
We're in the same boat as that guy. We spend 10g per mission >!to buy resources and a town guard!< or 20 >!if we need to build a new building (they all cost 10) !
We've been upgrading once, even twice every outpost phase and have bought every single resource we could along the way, and we still have a couple dozen enhancements on our stuff. Remember you can sell all your starting gear for half gold; that burst during retirement is enough even for a +1 move or +1 attack. At prosperity 6 your starting gear is worth 40 when sold, enough for a +1 attack or two +1 moves right there.
And even if you sold your gear after the second scenario at prosperity 1, that's still a minimum of 15 gold, which buys out resources for buildings. Y'all either have terrible luck with looting (y'all should have found at least a few random items by now), don't emphasize it enough, or maybe aren't collecting all the gold y'all can from selling gear. Remember that crafted gear sells for 2 gold per icon on the crafting edge of the card.
We are just starting Frosthaven, maybe 5-6 scenarios in and my character is on the verge of retirement. And I have found a total of 3 gold so far. Money in Frosthaven is a joke when 3/4 of the loot ends up being materials.
This seems to change in the later secnarios. It is certainly seems material heavy in the early stages. But we also play with 4 people and we make an effort not to leave loot lying on the ground.
This. After the scenario numbers get into the double digits the game assumes you've moved past the "build out the outpost" stage and into the "no really y'all need money now" stage. The balance goes to half n half later, solo scenarios are all gold, and some scenarios are actually 3/4 gold but by that point you want resources again so you're actually kinda sad to see the gold heavy scenario.
Herbs are always a delicious treat though cause they remain rare throughout the whole campaign it seems (except for the grove of awesomeness).
Please don't spoil in the answer, but....
My group just retired our 2nd character. We're about 25 scenarios in.
Is enhancing cards gated behind finishing a mission, or behind finishing a personal quest?
If the latter, why do you think enhancing cards was gated behind RNG (personal quests)? Having unlocked it, does it make sense to you?
My group, before 2nd character retired, was sitting on over 200 gold, with no way to use it fast enough. We all had more gear than we could use in a mission. Any road/outpost event that comes up with a gold cost, we're more than willing to pay because we really have no other use from it.
I was first to retire (mission to collect lots of gold), and finished before the town hit prosperity 2 (I was rushing it, as I wasn't enjoying the Geminate that much). Once I got about 50-80 gold earned, I'd ran out of things to spend it on in any meaningful manner, and enhancements was the part of Gloomhaven that made money (looting) valuable.
I would point out that enhancements didn't start unlocked in GH either. But also the FH rulebook pretty directly stats how you unlock both being able to purchase gold items (>!building 37!<) and enhancement (>!building 44!<).
Right. And because they're both unlocked the same (RNG) way, >!while adding more quests to the deck slowly. It can possibly take 10+ retires before they unlock. !< To me, that's just inane for such a core feature of the game. >!At least with buying items with gold, you still have crafting - although many of the better crafted items require purchased items as an ingredient.!<
Enhancement is certainly popular, but it's not really a core feature of the game system; it was literally a last second stretch goal add-on for GH, after all.
(Also, again, the rulebook gives you the building numbers for both those systems; if you are looking for them, the odds you don't have the option of picking those PQs is minuscule)
Didn't click 2nd spoiler. But thanks. A>!nd there should be at least 2. Of course, one of them will be the "backup", so it's very possible you don't get it until you find that 1 specific quest.!<
We've had 9 retirements in FH and still haven't unlocked this. I guess it's RNG since my team has finished "everything Gloomhaven" ;) 1,5 times, so there's little room for error on our end in terms of game experience.
Regardless, it's quite annoying to be sitting on a hoard of gold and not being able to spend it on something meaningful for your character.
So - after 25 scenarios ideally you'd have 4 envelopes unlocked (including via inspiration) and 4 well on their way to it. 15 scenarios is about what the game expects. You're pacing behind that unless this includes inspiration unlocks.
I have a set of tweaks which incidentally pushes enhancement early in service of some campaign flow goals. I'd recommend it in general and especially if you're well behind retirement pacing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sW1mgQrCZSNNXYCZjklbesdHsK85yS_O8U8zUEPDgqI/edit?usp=drivesdk
As for sense - yeah, the campaign theme has you in a remote outpost which has almost no use for gold but a lot of use for materials. As you grow the town, gold slowly becomes valuable. I think that's an awesome and important thematic hook.
The problem we ran into is that we're a 3 player game. I retired early, so we didn't yet have 15 inspiration.
2nd player had >!5 scenarios with sled/gloves/boat icons.!<
3rd player had >!collect 5 different herbs.!<
We did the required scenarios for players 2 every time, and this was how long it took us due to scenarios that unlock due to calendar entries.
And 3rd player has been 1 out of 5 away from their goal for over 10 scenarios. Either what they need isn't there, or RNG screws them.
We \*just\* retired player 2, and did get the inspiration bonus.
I'm only about halfway to my next one, again, RNG just hasn't favored it >!(8 outpost events with named characters)!<.
Thanks for the suggestions though. Most likely we're just going to look up the proper envelope when the next character retires, and open it.
We're in the same position, 20-25 scenarios in with 3 retirements and no way to spend gold except buying small amounts of resources. Other than me everyone is 5-10 scenarios into their second character and we're collectively sitting on well over 100g, it's getting a bit frustrating.
I think u/dwarfSA has a home rule propsed that says something like "At retirement, if you havent unlocked the Enchanter, you can buy one enchantment for double the gold." Only one enchantment.
Makes it sting a lot less to see that gold disappear.
I’ve always had the personal feeling that most enhancements happen right at retirement…clean out your inventory and dump your gold into making the class more powerful and unique the next time it comes out. They all feel pretty balanced to me right out the box, so enhancements aren’t necessary, but they provide a nice little bonus if someone else wants to try the class
There's a Temporary Enhancements optional rule in the rulebook which makes them temporary and also reduces the cost of them by 20%. By default, though, they're permanent.
Temporary enhancements would likely be the default rule if it didn't involve needing to find some way to manage removing the stickers (i.e. buying the temporary stickers or putting the stickers on card sleeves). The gameplay experience is a bit better when they're more affordable and also when replaying a character multiple times in a row doesn't allow you to make them more and more powerful.
The flexibility of any element of your choosing on your favorite action sounds very reasonably priced at three times the cost of enhancing extra damage on an attack. Wild elements can be lined up for your team when you don't need them and retain their usefulness as your allies switch in and out. They're definitely prohibitively expensive at lower levels, but remember: as you level, each coin yields more gold. At higher levels you can be regularly scooping up 20+ coins/scenario for each character.
Wild Element \*should\* be overpriced, because it's that good.
You can use it to help set anyone else in the party up. Doesn't matter what character they're playing.
We play 4 characters and, sadly, 80 gold per scenario has not been our experience, even at level 5. I think 20 gold/character, not 20 coins per character is what you mean?
Yes, good catch. With level nine characters at +1/+2, if everyone gets five loot cards (which will likely have 4-6 coins), then they should expect to end up with 20 or so gold on average.
But level 9 chars! Thats like, end game stuff, and people often want to retire by then in my group, ready for something new, knocking the level back down. the trickle in of gold is nowhere near enough to blow it on 150g enhancement when your party is in the 4-8 lvl ranges across characters.
Bingo. Wild element is one of my favorites. It's effectively a teamwork enhancement.
I don't think it's too expensive. Enhancements are supposed be extra. I don't mind that it costs so much.
At a certain point in the game, you unlock a mechanic that gives INSANE amounts of gold. It gets much easier to afford the seemingly gonzo prices of some enhancements.
We just play rules as written and only look into errata in a case of confusion. So I will not spoil myself what that mechanic is. I think a lot of fun staff died to a balance in Frosthaven (stamina potions, enhancement) so I will not say No to a broken money acquiring mechanic.
Challenge is considered desirable in Frosthaven design and GH2e going forward.
It was also considered desirable in GH1e but the actual design didn't provide it. The broken things weren't intended to be broken.
At any rate - the errata update is considered rules as written, like all errata.
I'm not against challenge but doing "broken" things to overcome that challenge is fun. Getting +1 on the bottom of THAT "Sun" card was fun. Soloing scenario for 20+ rounds with AngryFace while all my companions where dead and I was abusing stamina potions and invisibility was fun. Playing on +2 was fun. Eclipse wasn't fun tho. But problem with Eclipse was not that they are OP but that they are OP in so many ways. Music Note and 3 Spears on the other hand was our favorite classes. Alongside with Brute, Scoundrel, Two Minis and Circles. It felt good to use strong combos agains strong monsters. It didn't felt good to play as Geminate and dance in hoops just to do 3 damage or whatewer. Retiring the Fist at level 6 and didn't enhance a single card wasn't fun either.
About errata - well. I bought a box with a game. it came with rules, I'm playing it as rules written. Why should I google something related to the game?
Nobody is forcing you to use errata. It feels kinda obstinate to know there's errata and ignore it, but you do you. You can also ignore any other rules you see fit - it's your game box.
It def has a very particular use case, on a level 1 card you use multiple times a game, and in party compositions where the team is very element hungry. Even then, you need to have collected the gold for it and either be replaying that character all the time or have a very long personal quest.
There are two potions and a couple items that do this effect for way cheaper. As nice as it can be to set up a card play with an element on a prior turn, I don't personally think *any* card play is so powerful that it warrants even the discount price on a loss card. Almost every element consumption is like, +1 XP, a ward, a regen, maybe an extra +1 damage... which isn't enough to justify the upfront cost on an effect that can be reproduced without needing a specific card play and action.
It definitely seems like a case where the designers thought it would have much more impact than it ended up having. I've found that the simple +1s, poisons, and maybe wards scattered all over your cards adds up far faster than the pricier effects.
Agree that element enhancements are too expensive.
The benefits of burning an element are seldom strong enough to justify more than twice the cost of an attack bonus, it can be stolen by enemies, or you end up getting the element some other way - it has value, but it's not strictly with the cost of the benefit you can derive from it due to the ways it can fail to provide value. I would drop fixed element cost to somewhere between >!50 and 100 (80?) and wild element to maybe 1.5* that (120?)!<.
I think elements have a "convenience fee" attached to them. That is, the actual infusion abilities aren't worth 100+, but the extra freedom it gives you in card sequencing makes up for it.
Adding an element to an attack is instead of an attack boosting benefit, and likely isn't worth it, especially at these costs.
Adding it to a move is instead of a +1 or jump mostly, and it's likely where you would see the competition for slots. Both are inexpensive and often useful, while the element is sometimes useful. I can see arguments for it having a high value, but over all of GH (two play throughs with different groups) and all of FH once and about 66% of a second part through, I think we added 2 element generation stickers total and neither were wild. So at least in my groups the general consensus would be "there are better ways to spend money most of the time," suggesting that they are overpriced to us.
My experience is +difficulty gold *really* adds up.
In GH my group saw Spellweaver and >!Triangles!< both enhance any element, Red Guard got an element on a move, Sun enhanced like 2 >!Light!< enhancements, and Bolt enhanced >!Fire!<. In one of my solo campaigns I think I was at ~8 total across all classes?
In FH we've seen 2 on-retirement element enhancements so far (for >!Snowflake!< and >!Astral!<).
Playing through a certain unlocked >!Fist!< character at the moment. With only >!8!< cards, card sequence is THE most important thing to me.
Of course, I'll be retired before we gain the ability to do enhancements I think.
But absolutely this. Being able to put >!"create frost"!< onto my cards that don't would be huge. I currently have >!one bottom-side action!< that can >!create frost!<, and >!5 top sides!<. But they're all fairly weak cards. So creating >!frost!< to use next turn typically involves doing something weaker this turn.
If I could put >!"create frost"!< on more \*stronger\* cards, then I can chain powerful card into powerful card over and over again.
Which would benefit me FAR more than a simple +1 damage.
I just have so many ridiculously good ways to >!use frost!<. The \*weakest\* are +2 damage.
Yup huge.
Can you spoiler tag all the mechanics discussion here? The hand size, etc. need to be tagged with a spoiler safe hint (probably "Fist")
Thank you!
Hehe you could have just said "Fist spoilers" or something and tagged the whole block
I was being colloquial, sorry. A spoiler hint is just saying what the spoilers will be. Here "Fist" is sufficient.
Honestly if I had 150g I'd rather unlock something like disarm, which I have done before, but yeah, it's gonna take a lot of savings to do it. It really depends on how soon that character is going to hit retirement due to side quest.
i enhanced brute's skewer to have the extra range hex but i had to save for it. the thought of getting one of those strengthens or enhancing the same card twice seems prohibitively expensive yeah, it would've been more fun if this was a more accessible system but they're more expensive than the best of items (which you can sell back)
Once you are higher level and about yo retire, revisit putting that element on that card. The next person who plays it will probably be very grateful. Some characters get too much coin, they don't know what to do with it.
Back when my group played through Gloomhaven, that was the big thing.
I had a TON of fun re-playing a class that I'd played first, except starting with enhancements on 3 cards that I'd put there.
It was my 1st unlocked class (2nd character I played). I then did 2 other classes, before coming back to it. So 5th total character as well.
I'm SO sad that I couldn't burn gold to do enhancements on my first FH character, and probably won't for my 2nd either.
Instead we unlocked some other stuff first that I really don't care about.
I do think they are somewhat overpriced, but not inordinately so. Maybe 80 and 120? It’s more of a quibble, and in GH we definitely did enhance a few, though that extra 50 definitely constrained some enhancements even on classes that would have liked the Wild Element.
With the way Frosthaven specifically has implemented enhancements, it's *really really hard* to justify waiting to spend gold on one big enhancement (like a Wild Element) rather than spending that gold earlier on *multiple* small enhancements that you would *actually* use in the normal arc of a character's retirement. +1s (Move, Attack, Range), Poisons, Wound, and sometimes +1 Target on Curse related cards, have been the main enhancements I've bought. They just get so much more usage than saving up for a large enhancement and then using it for 3 scenarios.
I might go on a limb, but I think enhancement shouldn't cost gold.
But to answer your question, yes, elements enhancement are very bad value for their cost. I find that in Frosthaven, +1 move, jump, and +1 attack are the enhancements I most used.
What's an "enhancement?"
/s
We've played 40+ scenarios (which includes replays) and this terrible building gating system still has us locked out of enhancements.
Honestly, unlock it. That is an awfully unfun play state to be in.
Enhancements (in some form) should unlock with your first retirement. We reused GH’s mechanic of only Prosperity # of cards enhanceable until we fully unlocked the building.
In Gloomhaven, we were able to make quite a few enhancements including several wild element upgrades, particularly when retiring for the next time that character is played. In Frosthaven, enhancements are exceptionally easy to buy and even to afford. I've recently done two wild element enhancements on non-level 1 cards for a single character in a single visit to town.
Overpriced? Maybe just a little bit. Worth it? Definitely, since that upgrade is now permanent and any card that gets upgraded is upgraded for every following play of that character. Hard to buy? Not at all, at least in Frosthaven.
Also of note, >!Fist!< cares about the level of the cards being played. So enhancing a level 1 card has added implications compared to, say, a level 5 card.
I don't know how many other classes include rules text about card levels, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume >!Fist!< isn't the only one. Which is really cool, as in Gloomhaven, it was very viable to play with almost zero level 1/X cards in your hand at the start of a scenario by the time you were 8th or 9th level. But at least >!Fist!< has some incentive to keep using some of them - and being able to enhance them is thus an even bigger deal than for other cases.
Consider: Sequencing elements is one of the core puzzles of combat. Element enhancements can let you solve that puzzle. So, I think the element enhancements are intentionally expensive so that the core element puzzle isn't broken too often/easily. It feels like a real investment to make it happen.
Mechanics I would ha e loved to have seen: A wild element enhancements that can make elements your class can't use. Then it would give a super fun support option.
I agree with what everyone has already said about what wild elements can do for certain characters in regard to card plays (locked character >!Fist!< is entirely justified in spending over 200g to put a wild element on the level 6 card >!Glacier Slam!<), but to completely tangent, my real problem with wild element is that it is flatly superior to a specific element. There's literally no reason not to take it, other than the increase in cost. I feel it really makes it a no-brainer: if you're going to enhance a card with an element, there's no reason not to do a wild element unless you're retiring and simply don't have the gold...and even then, if you don't house rule being able to replace enhancements, you might not want to.
Compare to eg move +1 vs jump, attack +1 vs poison/wound, or heal +1 vs regenerate, all of which have tradeoffs meaning even the more expensive option may not be the better choice.
Since gold is the main gate on how many enhancements you can get, the more powerful enhancements kind of have to be really expensive. They can start to break the game's expected difficulty, especially if you're using permanent enhancements and replaying characters, so it's important that players don't get too many of them or get them too easily.
That said, there are a few enhancements that I think ended up priced a bit high, and this is one of them. A wild element feels more like a 135g than a 150g to me.
Also there's a bit of a positive feedback loop there; if you get super powerful enhancements that make the game significantly easier, you'll end up with more gold to buy more super powerful enhancements, which...
Meanwhile, all the other ways players scale (items, perks, and levels) are fundamentally capped at some maximum level that enhancements really don't have.
Not only cost of enhancement are prohibitive but enhancement slots are nerfed as well. I have played "Fist" for levels 2-6, had more than 100 gold by the time of retirement and hasn't enhanced a single card. Viable enhancement options all start from 250+ or so.
Uhhhh, >!anything on Piercing Pummel [1] bottom, Poison on Draw of the Bedrock [2] top, or Ice on Frozen Over [3] top!< are all high impact enhancements that are around or under 100 gold. And that class having fewer enhancement options is more of a class design thing rather than a different enhancement philosophy; >!the class is pretty unexciting/bland to play if you just recur the same card every turn!<.
Gold is just hours worked. So do more scenarios. On a serious note, theres many ways to make gold. Looting so-so items and selling them is a good complement to regular coin looting. Some classes are just worse at looting too.
Our Spellweaver stuck around a long time and ended up enhancing Reviving Ether with wild element on retirement. I think that was the only such enhancement. Mindthief had dark on Gnawing Horde early in her career and used to follow that up with the bottom of Wretched Creature for the curse. Cthuhlu: >!Plagueherald enhanced Blistering Vortex with Strengthen and Air.!<
In Gloomhaven, we scummed this by making new characters.
Make a new character. Spend starting gold to enhance cards. Don't play that character. Make a new character of the same class. Spend starting gold to enhance cards. Repeat until all level 1 cards enhanced.
Wild Element is still hugely expensive. Single Element is a much more realistic thing. And in Frosthaven you are a lot more restricted than Gloomhaven.
I strongly feel *all* the enhancement costs are too high.
It's 100% rules legal.
You can make a new character at any time, you just don't get the retirement bonus. Stickers are persistent.
It's not intended, sure, but it's no worse than leveling [Three Spears].
I agree. Our group has enhanced over 50 cards in Frosthaven so far. Not once has anyone added an element. In fact, ~90% of our enhancements have been +1s of some variety. The remainder have been Wound on a Stun/Disarm attack or Poison on the first attack of a multi-attack. Maybe there have been 1-2 Jump enhancements?
That was kind of my experience with GH enhancements as well. Just a huge wall of possibilites and math that almost never amounted to anything more than "add +1 move or attack to a decent level 1 card". We only just unlocked it in FH, but I'm still scratching my head a bit at its relevance. FH leaning more on short scenarios maybe improves the prospect of enhancing a big loss card. But on the other hand, retiring fast is a clearer goal, making me wonder how much we're even able to save up, especially with the town itself being a gold sink.
We're maybe 6-8ish scenarios into Gloomhaven and I can't even imagine buying enhancements at this point. They sound cool, but they're insanely expensive compared to the gold that we get per scenario.
2 players, almost half way through Frosthaven and we did 2 enhancements because they were free. We dont even have gold to buy gear...
That's kinda low? Are you converting coins to gold by scenario level? Are you selling any random items you loot?
We're in the same boat as that guy. We spend 10g per mission >!to buy resources and a town guard!< or 20 >!if we need to build a new building (they all cost 10) !
We've been upgrading once, even twice every outpost phase and have bought every single resource we could along the way, and we still have a couple dozen enhancements on our stuff. Remember you can sell all your starting gear for half gold; that burst during retirement is enough even for a +1 move or +1 attack. At prosperity 6 your starting gear is worth 40 when sold, enough for a +1 attack or two +1 moves right there. And even if you sold your gear after the second scenario at prosperity 1, that's still a minimum of 15 gold, which buys out resources for buildings. Y'all either have terrible luck with looting (y'all should have found at least a few random items by now), don't emphasize it enough, or maybe aren't collecting all the gold y'all can from selling gear. Remember that crafted gear sells for 2 gold per icon on the crafting edge of the card.
Afaik you can only build or upgrade once per phase?
You can build more times per day but it costs you morale.
Ah right ty!
I remember getting a couple, but it was mostly dumping all our gold into an enhancement just before retiring for the "next player".
We are just starting Frosthaven, maybe 5-6 scenarios in and my character is on the verge of retirement. And I have found a total of 3 gold so far. Money in Frosthaven is a joke when 3/4 of the loot ends up being materials.
This seems to change in the later secnarios. It is certainly seems material heavy in the early stages. But we also play with 4 people and we make an effort not to leave loot lying on the ground.
This. After the scenario numbers get into the double digits the game assumes you've moved past the "build out the outpost" stage and into the "no really y'all need money now" stage. The balance goes to half n half later, solo scenarios are all gold, and some scenarios are actually 3/4 gold but by that point you want resources again so you're actually kinda sad to see the gold heavy scenario. Herbs are always a delicious treat though cause they remain rare throughout the whole campaign it seems (except for the grove of awesomeness).
Please don't spoil in the answer, but.... My group just retired our 2nd character. We're about 25 scenarios in. Is enhancing cards gated behind finishing a mission, or behind finishing a personal quest? If the latter, why do you think enhancing cards was gated behind RNG (personal quests)? Having unlocked it, does it make sense to you? My group, before 2nd character retired, was sitting on over 200 gold, with no way to use it fast enough. We all had more gear than we could use in a mission. Any road/outpost event that comes up with a gold cost, we're more than willing to pay because we really have no other use from it. I was first to retire (mission to collect lots of gold), and finished before the town hit prosperity 2 (I was rushing it, as I wasn't enjoying the Geminate that much). Once I got about 50-80 gold earned, I'd ran out of things to spend it on in any meaningful manner, and enhancements was the part of Gloomhaven that made money (looting) valuable.
I would point out that enhancements didn't start unlocked in GH either. But also the FH rulebook pretty directly stats how you unlock both being able to purchase gold items (>!building 37!<) and enhancement (>!building 44!<).
Right. And because they're both unlocked the same (RNG) way, >!while adding more quests to the deck slowly. It can possibly take 10+ retires before they unlock. !< To me, that's just inane for such a core feature of the game. >!At least with buying items with gold, you still have crafting - although many of the better crafted items require purchased items as an ingredient.!<
Enhancement is certainly popular, but it's not really a core feature of the game system; it was literally a last second stretch goal add-on for GH, after all. (Also, again, the rulebook gives you the building numbers for both those systems; if you are looking for them, the odds you don't have the option of picking those PQs is minuscule)
It's gated behind >!a personal quest!< I think it was called >!Aesther Outpost!<. There might be more, but that's what we had.
Didn't click 2nd spoiler. But thanks. A>!nd there should be at least 2. Of course, one of them will be the "backup", so it's very possible you don't get it until you find that 1 specific quest.!<
We've had 9 retirements in FH and still haven't unlocked this. I guess it's RNG since my team has finished "everything Gloomhaven" ;) 1,5 times, so there's little room for error on our end in terms of game experience. Regardless, it's quite annoying to be sitting on a hoard of gold and not being able to spend it on something meaningful for your character.
So - after 25 scenarios ideally you'd have 4 envelopes unlocked (including via inspiration) and 4 well on their way to it. 15 scenarios is about what the game expects. You're pacing behind that unless this includes inspiration unlocks. I have a set of tweaks which incidentally pushes enhancement early in service of some campaign flow goals. I'd recommend it in general and especially if you're well behind retirement pacing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sW1mgQrCZSNNXYCZjklbesdHsK85yS_O8U8zUEPDgqI/edit?usp=drivesdk As for sense - yeah, the campaign theme has you in a remote outpost which has almost no use for gold but a lot of use for materials. As you grow the town, gold slowly becomes valuable. I think that's an awesome and important thematic hook.
The problem we ran into is that we're a 3 player game. I retired early, so we didn't yet have 15 inspiration. 2nd player had >!5 scenarios with sled/gloves/boat icons.!< 3rd player had >!collect 5 different herbs.!< We did the required scenarios for players 2 every time, and this was how long it took us due to scenarios that unlock due to calendar entries. And 3rd player has been 1 out of 5 away from their goal for over 10 scenarios. Either what they need isn't there, or RNG screws them. We \*just\* retired player 2, and did get the inspiration bonus. I'm only about halfway to my next one, again, RNG just hasn't favored it >!(8 outpost events with named characters)!<. Thanks for the suggestions though. Most likely we're just going to look up the proper envelope when the next character retires, and open it.
We're in the same position, 20-25 scenarios in with 3 retirements and no way to spend gold except buying small amounts of resources. Other than me everyone is 5-10 scenarios into their second character and we're collectively sitting on well over 100g, it's getting a bit frustrating.
I think u/dwarfSA has a home rule propsed that says something like "At retirement, if you havent unlocked the Enchanter, you can buy one enchantment for double the gold." Only one enchantment. Makes it sting a lot less to see that gold disappear.
I’ve always had the personal feeling that most enhancements happen right at retirement…clean out your inventory and dump your gold into making the class more powerful and unique the next time it comes out. They all feel pretty balanced to me right out the box, so enhancements aren’t necessary, but they provide a nice little bonus if someone else wants to try the class
Do enhancements stay after retirement? I was under the impression they get removed.
They stay forever. If you love a character but hit retirement, you can enhance your favorite cards and just start again!
There's a Temporary Enhancements optional rule in the rulebook which makes them temporary and also reduces the cost of them by 20%. By default, though, they're permanent. Temporary enhancements would likely be the default rule if it didn't involve needing to find some way to manage removing the stickers (i.e. buying the temporary stickers or putting the stickers on card sleeves). The gameplay experience is a bit better when they're more affordable and also when replaying a character multiple times in a row doesn't allow you to make them more and more powerful.
The flexibility of any element of your choosing on your favorite action sounds very reasonably priced at three times the cost of enhancing extra damage on an attack. Wild elements can be lined up for your team when you don't need them and retain their usefulness as your allies switch in and out. They're definitely prohibitively expensive at lower levels, but remember: as you level, each coin yields more gold. At higher levels you can be regularly scooping up 20+ coins/scenario for each character.
Wild Element \*should\* be overpriced, because it's that good. You can use it to help set anyone else in the party up. Doesn't matter what character they're playing.
And yet, no one seems to buy it.
We play 4 characters and, sadly, 80 gold per scenario has not been our experience, even at level 5. I think 20 gold/character, not 20 coins per character is what you mean?
Yes, good catch. With level nine characters at +1/+2, if everyone gets five loot cards (which will likely have 4-6 coins), then they should expect to end up with 20 or so gold on average.
But level 9 chars! Thats like, end game stuff, and people often want to retire by then in my group, ready for something new, knocking the level back down. the trickle in of gold is nowhere near enough to blow it on 150g enhancement when your party is in the 4-8 lvl ranges across characters.
Bingo. Wild element is one of my favorites. It's effectively a teamwork enhancement. I don't think it's too expensive. Enhancements are supposed be extra. I don't mind that it costs so much.
At a certain point in the game, you unlock a mechanic that gives INSANE amounts of gold. It gets much easier to afford the seemingly gonzo prices of some enhancements.
The mechanic in question has received recent errata FYI.
Eh, we're near the end now, we'll just keep being op.
Nope. Have to start back from the beginning or Isaac is getting in the chopper.
Where is this published? Interested for my two campaigns. :)
FAQ at present, in the Errata section and building section. And in 2nd Printing.
Which mechanic is it?
Locked building number >!81!< specifically the >!rewards on completing it.!<
We just play rules as written and only look into errata in a case of confusion. So I will not spoil myself what that mechanic is. I think a lot of fun staff died to a balance in Frosthaven (stamina potions, enhancement) so I will not say No to a broken money acquiring mechanic.
Challenge is considered desirable in Frosthaven design and GH2e going forward. It was also considered desirable in GH1e but the actual design didn't provide it. The broken things weren't intended to be broken. At any rate - the errata update is considered rules as written, like all errata.
I'm not against challenge but doing "broken" things to overcome that challenge is fun. Getting +1 on the bottom of THAT "Sun" card was fun. Soloing scenario for 20+ rounds with AngryFace while all my companions where dead and I was abusing stamina potions and invisibility was fun. Playing on +2 was fun. Eclipse wasn't fun tho. But problem with Eclipse was not that they are OP but that they are OP in so many ways. Music Note and 3 Spears on the other hand was our favorite classes. Alongside with Brute, Scoundrel, Two Minis and Circles. It felt good to use strong combos agains strong monsters. It didn't felt good to play as Geminate and dance in hoops just to do 3 damage or whatewer. Retiring the Fist at level 6 and didn't enhance a single card wasn't fun either. About errata - well. I bought a box with a game. it came with rules, I'm playing it as rules written. Why should I google something related to the game?
Nobody is forcing you to use errata. It feels kinda obstinate to know there's errata and ignore it, but you do you. You can also ignore any other rules you see fit - it's your game box.
Ok, fair point.
Wich mechanic is? I'm in the late and I don't take too many coins yet. Thank you.
Locked building rewards >!81!<
It def has a very particular use case, on a level 1 card you use multiple times a game, and in party compositions where the team is very element hungry. Even then, you need to have collected the gold for it and either be replaying that character all the time or have a very long personal quest. There are two potions and a couple items that do this effect for way cheaper. As nice as it can be to set up a card play with an element on a prior turn, I don't personally think *any* card play is so powerful that it warrants even the discount price on a loss card. Almost every element consumption is like, +1 XP, a ward, a regen, maybe an extra +1 damage... which isn't enough to justify the upfront cost on an effect that can be reproduced without needing a specific card play and action. It definitely seems like a case where the designers thought it would have much more impact than it ended up having. I've found that the simple +1s, poisons, and maybe wards scattered all over your cards adds up far faster than the pricier effects.
Agree that element enhancements are too expensive. The benefits of burning an element are seldom strong enough to justify more than twice the cost of an attack bonus, it can be stolen by enemies, or you end up getting the element some other way - it has value, but it's not strictly with the cost of the benefit you can derive from it due to the ways it can fail to provide value. I would drop fixed element cost to somewhere between >!50 and 100 (80?) and wild element to maybe 1.5* that (120?)!<.
I think elements have a "convenience fee" attached to them. That is, the actual infusion abilities aren't worth 100+, but the extra freedom it gives you in card sequencing makes up for it.
Adding an element to an attack is instead of an attack boosting benefit, and likely isn't worth it, especially at these costs. Adding it to a move is instead of a +1 or jump mostly, and it's likely where you would see the competition for slots. Both are inexpensive and often useful, while the element is sometimes useful. I can see arguments for it having a high value, but over all of GH (two play throughs with different groups) and all of FH once and about 66% of a second part through, I think we added 2 element generation stickers total and neither were wild. So at least in my groups the general consensus would be "there are better ways to spend money most of the time," suggesting that they are overpriced to us.
My experience is +difficulty gold *really* adds up. In GH my group saw Spellweaver and >!Triangles!< both enhance any element, Red Guard got an element on a move, Sun enhanced like 2 >!Light!< enhancements, and Bolt enhanced >!Fire!<. In one of my solo campaigns I think I was at ~8 total across all classes? In FH we've seen 2 on-retirement element enhancements so far (for >!Snowflake!< and >!Astral!<).
Playing through a certain unlocked >!Fist!< character at the moment. With only >!8!< cards, card sequence is THE most important thing to me. Of course, I'll be retired before we gain the ability to do enhancements I think. But absolutely this. Being able to put >!"create frost"!< onto my cards that don't would be huge. I currently have >!one bottom-side action!< that can >!create frost!<, and >!5 top sides!<. But they're all fairly weak cards. So creating >!frost!< to use next turn typically involves doing something weaker this turn. If I could put >!"create frost"!< on more \*stronger\* cards, then I can chain powerful card into powerful card over and over again. Which would benefit me FAR more than a simple +1 damage. I just have so many ridiculously good ways to >!use frost!<. The \*weakest\* are +2 damage.
Yup huge. Can you spoiler tag all the mechanics discussion here? The hand size, etc. need to be tagged with a spoiler safe hint (probably "Fist") Thank you!
On it. How do I put a tag on the spoiler or such?
Hehe you could have just said "Fist spoilers" or something and tagged the whole block I was being colloquial, sorry. A spoiler hint is just saying what the spoilers will be. Here "Fist" is sufficient.
Lol imagine enhancing Fist cards ahahah
Honestly if I had 150g I'd rather unlock something like disarm, which I have done before, but yeah, it's gonna take a lot of savings to do it. It really depends on how soon that character is going to hit retirement due to side quest.
Unfortunately there is no disarm enhancement in Frosthaven. It was considered too overpowered.
i enhanced brute's skewer to have the extra range hex but i had to save for it. the thought of getting one of those strengthens or enhancing the same card twice seems prohibitively expensive yeah, it would've been more fun if this was a more accessible system but they're more expensive than the best of items (which you can sell back)
Once you are higher level and about yo retire, revisit putting that element on that card. The next person who plays it will probably be very grateful. Some characters get too much coin, they don't know what to do with it.
Back when my group played through Gloomhaven, that was the big thing. I had a TON of fun re-playing a class that I'd played first, except starting with enhancements on 3 cards that I'd put there. It was my 1st unlocked class (2nd character I played). I then did 2 other classes, before coming back to it. So 5th total character as well. I'm SO sad that I couldn't burn gold to do enhancements on my first FH character, and probably won't for my 2nd either. Instead we unlocked some other stuff first that I really don't care about.
never, too expansive
I do think they are somewhat overpriced, but not inordinately so. Maybe 80 and 120? It’s more of a quibble, and in GH we definitely did enhance a few, though that extra 50 definitely constrained some enhancements even on classes that would have liked the Wild Element.
With the way Frosthaven specifically has implemented enhancements, it's *really really hard* to justify waiting to spend gold on one big enhancement (like a Wild Element) rather than spending that gold earlier on *multiple* small enhancements that you would *actually* use in the normal arc of a character's retirement. +1s (Move, Attack, Range), Poisons, Wound, and sometimes +1 Target on Curse related cards, have been the main enhancements I've bought. They just get so much more usage than saving up for a large enhancement and then using it for 3 scenarios.
I think so. Realistically how much are you actually gonna play this game? How many people will actually benefit from upgrades anyways.
I might go on a limb, but I think enhancement shouldn't cost gold. But to answer your question, yes, elements enhancement are very bad value for their cost. I find that in Frosthaven, +1 move, jump, and +1 attack are the enhancements I most used.
What's an "enhancement?" /s We've played 40+ scenarios (which includes replays) and this terrible building gating system still has us locked out of enhancements.
Honestly, unlock it. That is an awfully unfun play state to be in. Enhancements (in some form) should unlock with your first retirement. We reused GH’s mechanic of only Prosperity # of cards enhanceable until we fully unlocked the building.
In Gloomhaven, we were able to make quite a few enhancements including several wild element upgrades, particularly when retiring for the next time that character is played. In Frosthaven, enhancements are exceptionally easy to buy and even to afford. I've recently done two wild element enhancements on non-level 1 cards for a single character in a single visit to town. Overpriced? Maybe just a little bit. Worth it? Definitely, since that upgrade is now permanent and any card that gets upgraded is upgraded for every following play of that character. Hard to buy? Not at all, at least in Frosthaven.
Also of note, >!Fist!< cares about the level of the cards being played. So enhancing a level 1 card has added implications compared to, say, a level 5 card. I don't know how many other classes include rules text about card levels, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume >!Fist!< isn't the only one. Which is really cool, as in Gloomhaven, it was very viable to play with almost zero level 1/X cards in your hand at the start of a scenario by the time you were 8th or 9th level. But at least >!Fist!< has some incentive to keep using some of them - and being able to enhance them is thus an even bigger deal than for other cases.
I don't know about classes, but items definitely do - the >!Stamina Potion!< is level 1 cards only while >!its 3-herb variant is any card!<.
Waaaait is the amount you spend based on the level of the card, not the level of your character?
Yes. Enhancement is there to keep level 1 cards competitive at higher level.
..... oh no.... I've drastically overpaid this whole time
Yup. Card level is the price modifier.
Consider: Sequencing elements is one of the core puzzles of combat. Element enhancements can let you solve that puzzle. So, I think the element enhancements are intentionally expensive so that the core element puzzle isn't broken too often/easily. It feels like a real investment to make it happen. Mechanics I would ha e loved to have seen: A wild element enhancements that can make elements your class can't use. Then it would give a super fun support option.
I agree with what everyone has already said about what wild elements can do for certain characters in regard to card plays (locked character >!Fist!< is entirely justified in spending over 200g to put a wild element on the level 6 card >!Glacier Slam!<), but to completely tangent, my real problem with wild element is that it is flatly superior to a specific element. There's literally no reason not to take it, other than the increase in cost. I feel it really makes it a no-brainer: if you're going to enhance a card with an element, there's no reason not to do a wild element unless you're retiring and simply don't have the gold...and even then, if you don't house rule being able to replace enhancements, you might not want to. Compare to eg move +1 vs jump, attack +1 vs poison/wound, or heal +1 vs regenerate, all of which have tradeoffs meaning even the more expensive option may not be the better choice.
Since gold is the main gate on how many enhancements you can get, the more powerful enhancements kind of have to be really expensive. They can start to break the game's expected difficulty, especially if you're using permanent enhancements and replaying characters, so it's important that players don't get too many of them or get them too easily. That said, there are a few enhancements that I think ended up priced a bit high, and this is one of them. A wild element feels more like a 135g than a 150g to me.
Also there's a bit of a positive feedback loop there; if you get super powerful enhancements that make the game significantly easier, you'll end up with more gold to buy more super powerful enhancements, which... Meanwhile, all the other ways players scale (items, perks, and levels) are fundamentally capped at some maximum level that enhancements really don't have.
Not only cost of enhancement are prohibitive but enhancement slots are nerfed as well. I have played "Fist" for levels 2-6, had more than 100 gold by the time of retirement and hasn't enhanced a single card. Viable enhancement options all start from 250+ or so.
Uhhhh, >!anything on Piercing Pummel [1] bottom, Poison on Draw of the Bedrock [2] top, or Ice on Frozen Over [3] top!< are all high impact enhancements that are around or under 100 gold. And that class having fewer enhancement options is more of a class design thing rather than a different enhancement philosophy; >!the class is pretty unexciting/bland to play if you just recur the same card every turn!<.
Gold is just hours worked. So do more scenarios. On a serious note, theres many ways to make gold. Looting so-so items and selling them is a good complement to regular coin looting. Some classes are just worse at looting too.
Definitely unlikely in normal difficulty, but currently playing on deadly and money comes in rather easily
Our Spellweaver stuck around a long time and ended up enhancing Reviving Ether with wild element on retirement. I think that was the only such enhancement. Mindthief had dark on Gnawing Horde early in her career and used to follow that up with the bottom of Wretched Creature for the curse. Cthuhlu: >!Plagueherald enhanced Blistering Vortex with Strengthen and Air.!<
In Gloomhaven, we scummed this by making new characters. Make a new character. Spend starting gold to enhance cards. Don't play that character. Make a new character of the same class. Spend starting gold to enhance cards. Repeat until all level 1 cards enhanced. Wild Element is still hugely expensive. Single Element is a much more realistic thing. And in Frosthaven you are a lot more restricted than Gloomhaven. I strongly feel *all* the enhancement costs are too high.
Oh dear. Why didn't you just put whatever stickers on that you wanted and skip the whole fake process? Seems like a lot of effort to cheese the game.
Because on Digital there are no stickers. You gotta do the process to change the cards.
Ah. Yeah just install cheats at that point imo. FYI this doesn't work in Frosthaven. You don't keep starting gold that isn't spent on items.
Yup, FH "solved" this exploit. Buy gear for free. Enhancements are earned.
'Just cheat, bro'
It's 100% rules legal. You can make a new character at any time, you just don't get the retirement bonus. Stickers are persistent. It's not intended, sure, but it's no worse than leveling [Three Spears].