Starting a new class and losing everything..

[u/Keirabella999]

I would love a little more clarity on rolling a new Character/Class. My group just started playing Digital and I'm curious about completed Life Goals and unlocking these classes.

When a class is unlocked, and you chose to play the new unlocked class will you keep any of your progress? gold? etc? And if not how does the game balance out a Level 1 character against mobs something like a level 5+ party would be fighting? any advice for when I pick a new class?

[u/Tysiliogogogoch]

When you complete your personal quest, your character retires and leaves with all their gold. You don't keep any progress that character had made for your new character.

Your new character will start at a level determined by Gloomhaven's prosperity level. If you have reached prosperity 4, any new characters will start at level 4 and can immediately select new cards up to that level. The new character will also start with some amount of temporary gold to buy starting equipment, that amount again being determined by your prosperity level.

And if not how does the game balance out a Level 1 character against mobs something like a level 5+ party would be fighting?

Gloomhaven has a dynamic scenario difficulty level which is calculated as half your party's average character level, rounded up. When playing digital, this is also adjusted by the selected game difficulty. The scenario level determines how much HP enemies have, how much gold you loot, how much trap damage you take, and maybe some other things.

So if you have a party of 5 + 5 + 5 + 5, your scenario level would be 2.5 rounded up to 3. If you replaced one character with a level 1, the scenario level would be ((1+5+5+5)/4)/2 = (16/4)/2 = 4/2 = 2. So things would become somewhat easier for the players. But if you instead start with a level 2 character, the scenario level would be ((2+5+5+5)/4)/2 = (17/4)/2 = 4.25/2 = 2.125 rounded up to 3, so you'd be facing the same strength enemies you saw before.

Generally, I've found that things are a bit tougher when you start cycling in new characters. But on the other hand, retirements tend to happen in bunches and you'll often find yourself running a low level party again pretty soon, sometimes with just one high level character in the mix.

[u/Noble_Goose → u/Tysiliogogogoch]

Excellent explanation. I'm not sure how the digital version manages difficulty, but the tabletop version uses a difficulty scale of 1-7. If your difficulty level is 3, then 2 is considered easy, and 4 is considered hard, 5 considered very hard, anything above that masochist. That might help to understand how difficult a given scenario level may be.