Gloomhaven Monster Behavior Guide - Focus & Movement - Are you doing it correctly?

rage badger gaming here and we're going to talk about enemy focus and enemy movement today there's a bit of confusion that I've seen in some of the discussions so I figured we just do a video to clear it up we're could we have some fun images and we're gonna walk through some of these scenarios and we're gonna go through a little bit of a rules clarification just before we could dive into that so before we do get into that I'm just gonna know another reminder if you liked the video like subscribe it really helps us and if you think we missed something important let us know in the comments below so let's get into the rules so number one monsters always will perform actions as if they're performing a melee attack unless they're performing range attack this includes summons heels throwing a blessing their own monster back if that's what they're doing unless they're doing a ranged attack they're gonna pretend like they're performing a melee attack this can make them perform a heal action and then they run right towards you and away from the guy they're supposed to heal that's okay that's part of the rules I know it sounds weird it's just how it is also disarmed monsters that are performing ranged attacks will perform as if will perform the term as if they were doing a melee attack so you can range this on those archers and then there if they have a move action while they're disarmed they'll move toward you with their full move so monsters will only do what's on their card and I think this is one of those that a little bit of the newer folk get wrong more than other so like you'll draw the bandit guard in the first room they say oh yeah she'll don't retaliate and then not only will they give them shielding retaliate but they'll have them do their move and attack action - Wow and that's such a powerful card if that's the case but in the case they draw that they're just not living and they're not swinging which is great so unless the card says move don't move unless the card says attack don't attack monsters who are going to move towards the player that requires the least amount of movement to get to them that's not always about proximity so sometimes you'll have a character that's just two hexes away and one that's four hexes away but that guy - Texas is surrounded by rubble traps and obstacles and turns out it takes five hexes to get to them and it's four to get to the other so they'll skip that close to go to the further away guy it's all about movement it's not about range monsters will only find valid paths initially through the first check by ignoring traps and ignoring hazardous terrain but the first thing they want to check is can I get to something ignoring all traps and ignoring all hazards they're going to go to that person first and the closest one out of all those which may seem weird but that's the first thing and this can prevent them from even attacking on that turn they don't care they're gonna avoid those traps so they maybe eventually get to it pretend that they had infinite movement and figure out where they moving monstrous can choose not to focus now this is only happens if they cannot possibly find a path so the second pass they do is alright I give up can I step for traps or hazardous terrain to find a focus sure then they'll finally do it but what if monsters can't get any path and this usually happens because of obstacles invisible characters standing in a door or some guy backed into a corner and the enemies have already surrounded him and there's no other hexes for them to perform a melee attack if a monster can't find a focus for any of these reasons they do not perform any moves on their card they do not perform any attacks on their card they still do the rest of them so if they're saying hey heal three they will perform the heal action so sadly it doesn't kind of remove everything but if you can prevent enemies from getting a focus they'll skip all the moves and all the attack even if moving will help them out in a further term not getting them closer they can't get a focus they just get confused and stand there monsters that target multiple targets will attempt to optimize their attack so if a you're right adjacent to the living bones that has target - typically a monster will only move the minimum amount of hexxus which can be zero but if it moves one hex and he's able to attack a second target he will do that keep in mind monster is trying to optimize their attack will not voluntarily step into traps or hazards likewise ranged opponents will attempt to back up to try to attack from a space that doesn't give them disadvantage if they start performing a ranged attack with a movement before it where they would have disadvantage from shooting their focus likewise ranged opponents won't step into a hex to optimize a multi ranged attack where they would get disadvantage on their focus last but not least monsters that are stunned don't burn elements they don't suffer really those annoying things so if you stun a news that's about to split they don't suffer the to damage and they don't generate on insider so now of course if you've got you're fighting to flame demons and they're empowering fire and you stun one of them the other one is still in power fire but he just done all of them doesn't happen so just keep in mind the monster is stunned ignore everything on the card this includes shields retaliate seals everything they don't do any of it so let's dig into some of these scenarios if you see here you've got a living bones the living bones is right next to that Craig Hart only one movement it takes to actually get to him however because his little that little trap there in that rubble it'll actually take him five hexes to get to that hex right there where is that a tinkerer he could get to it in four hexes you can see on his movement card he's got the stern that he has moved plus one an attack minus one so he could move four hexes turn he can make it to either of these two hexes and still attack the tinkerer even though the tinkerer is further away he'll focus the tinker and not the cry card just because that trap is there in this scenario you can see that a living corpse is about to do a moves a move one attack for however the brute and the tinkerer are equidistant from him who's he going to target he's going to target in this case the brute because the Brutes initiative is lower you can see a shield past his leading card allows him to go at initiative 15 whereas the toxic bolt from the tinkerer goes at 18 with the shield bash up he has shield 1 so the living corpse will go to him and hit him with the reduced damage because of the shield match good play brute in this scenario the living corpses are going to do a hasty assault at initiative 47 now going to move to hexes before attacking this turn at this case the late living corpse because elites always go first we'll move on to the trap because it's the only way he's going to get a focus the that clever tinkerer placing their trap on the door means that those monsters will step onto it before they get to them so he's going to move and step on the trap and then attack the brute the other one however cannot take its full movement of two but will eventually be able to end a space next to the tinkerer or the brute so he's going to move into this hex to get just a little bit closer because give an infinite movement he'll eventually find a new ex after the elite living corpses taken its turn in this scenario the night demons are going to go at Initiative 22 and the cultists that initiative 27 you can see the night theme and we'll have this hex and that will be available to attack the brute however once cultists - activates he's going to step into that three damage trap because it's the only way you can get two started however that will kill him in the process that's a sacrifice he's willing to make at that point cultists four will be able to take his turn and attack the brute with no problem he's already adjacent so he will not move at all in this scenario the tinkerer is taking a long rest and the brute is doing a leaping cleave at 54 so the first thing that happens is the frost demons go at 38 however you can see that the tinkerer taking a long rest on the door is invisible they cannot focus the tinker because enemies will not focus an invisible target they can only focus the brute however they can't because given infinite movement and the fact they cannot fly or jump they will never be able to get closer to him they want to do a move at all they will not perform an attack they're not going to try to get closer or crowd around the door to eventually get the brute because given infinite movement they will never make it to the brute that's because the invisible tinker is blocking them so at 38 the frost demons do not move and they do not attack on the other hand the brutes will perform as action at 54 jumping and cleaving both of those frost demons the frost demons have a passive retaliate of one as you can see above their standee so the brute will still take it however after he performs his action the living bones at initiative 64 will then attack the brute he will not optimize to try to attack a second target because he cannot focus an invisible enemy the tinkerer even though he has the movement to attack both the tinkerer and the brute on this term invisibility is quite powerful as a result in this scenario you can see that the Brutes has activated shield bash an eye for an eye this turn he's got a nice powerful retaliate and a shield the cool part is the tinkerer is all the way over there so those enemies first ban that one will go into this hex or this ex as both of them are equidistant it's your choice if you pick him here the other the other enemy bandit 4 will step in simply into the other hex even though bandit 4 is could take the opportunity at this point to go to either the tinker or the brute because they're both equidistant because the Brutes initiative is lower he will go to the brute and that'll stop bandit 6 from attacking the brute at all or the tinkerer which is interesting because again if the manats were smart 4 would go to the tinkerer and one-in-six would team up on the brute but that's not the way it plays out one on 4 will go both go to those two jason hexes highlighted here and attack the brute and six will try to get close to the tinkerer not to the brute since give an infinite movement there's now no longer a way for him to reach the brute however he will fall one hex shy of the tickler and won't make a swing at all and that's enemy movement that helped you out let us know in the comments below give us us a like and be sure to subscribe we have a lot of videos and we have live plays to come out every Tuesday and Thursday and if you really like us check out our patreon we'll have our schedule posted for you to see what's coming up and you can vote on what mercenaries we're going to be covering I'm covering in our deep dive series so I really hope you enjoyed the video thanks for watching

Channel: Rage Badger Gaming

Views: 10,194

Keywords: Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven rules, gloomhaven how to play, gloomhaven mistakes, gloomhaven board game, how to play, board games, board gaming, gloomhaven guide, gloomhaven wrong, gloomhaven gaming rules, gloomhaven before you play, gloomhaven difficult, gloomhaven confusing, playing gloomhaven wrong, how to play gloomhaven, gloomhaven confusion, gloomhaven help, Frosthaven, enemy ai, monster ai, behavior, gloomhaven monster, monster movement, monster target, gloomhaven tips

Id: dHHxPaXqQe8

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Tue May 12 2020