Mindthief augment mechanic

[olivier_sd]

Hi there,I played a lot this summer and then put Gloomhaven aside until more core game mechanics were added, mainly the perks and other characters. All of this is now live so I came back for a new game.

There seems to be a problem with the augment mechanic for the mindthief. When you play an augment card (which is The Mind Weakness most of the time lol), the augment activates BEFORE the attack, so that attacking with The Mind Weakness should always be an Attack 3. (in the same way, using parasitic influence, you should get healed 2 directly if you decide to apply the augment) Currently, the game seems to process the attack and then move the augment to the active cards, without a way for the player not to use the augment.

From the official FAQ of the game:

*In general, Augments are persistent ability cards that go in your active area when played. They will give you (not your summons) some persistent bonus (the part with the darker background) to all of your melee attacks once in your active area, and then will also allow you to immediately perform a one-time attack, which benefits from the augment just activated.

The Augment part of an augment card is an ability and can be skipped so you can play the card for its other abilities and leave a currently active Augment in play.*

I should be able to play an augment card without replacing my active augment, and I should also be able to play an augment card only for the augment, without doing an attack. Finaly, simply making the attack without using the augment should also grant me an experience point. Yes I know, the mindthief is awesome :D

Hoping you guys can correct this to allow our favorite rat to live up to her reputation!

[YunAsmodee]

Hi olivier_sd!

Thank you for your detailed report. I've forwarded it to the team in charge, so they can investigate. :)

Cheers,

Yuna

[olivier_sd]

Thanks for the quick response!

[Valmar]

Yeah I agree on that. I own the boardgame and that topic was clarified in the BGG forums. Its basically what olivier said.

[Oman]

FYI - You can already play an augment and skip the attack - you don't need to use the attack to get the augment. We are looking to add the ability to skip the augment in the future.

[olivier_sd]

I think it would be easier to simply consider the augment, when you're about to play it, as an infusion. You click on the augment if you want to send it to the active deck, or you don't click it and it will only perform the normal attack and give you 1 exp. (or vice versa, it may be more intuitive to have the augment played by default for beginner)

In all cases, a page the How To Play section should be dedicated to the augment…

[netzhaut]

Still the Problem as Oliver said. Please Fix it.

[traevanon]

Another reason to stop in the middle of an action and ask if you want to do something that is automatic 95% of the time....

Play a move 2 / heal self 1. Only move 1 to nearby enemy.
*Confirm End of Move (annoy +1/2)
*Confirm Heal (annoy +2)
Play The Minds Weakness
*Confirm Augment (annoy +2)
Choose Target, only 1 in range (annoy +1)
*Confirm Target (annoy +1)
Do you want to take Retaliate damage on your HP, lose a card or just die? (annoy +1)
*Confirm End of Turn (annoy +1/2)

Repeat 3 more times for the other characters.
End of TURN 1!

There has GOT to be a better way.

[flay]

Will this ever be addressed? This issue with unskippable augments seriously gimps the Mindthief.

Being forced to replace The Mind's Weakness makes the attack with additional experience on other augments unusable and forces the player to use regular attack instead.

This way we lose much free experience over the course of the campaign and advance slower than in tabletop.

It's even worse when you get the Silent Scream at level 3 which basically forces you to forfeit an exp point when you don't want to switch augments as it has Attack 2, 1 XP on the top.