What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform where you can support your favorite content creators as long as they have a Patreon account. Generally this means you get access to things early or other perks in exchange for that. It’s meant to be a way to help those creators make some money off of their product that they are putting out.

You pledge at a certain level per month, in my case it’s $3, $5, $10, or $50 per month. Patreon takes a cut of that before it gets sent over to the creator.

Why Do Patreon?

So this is going to be two parts, first will be why I’m setting up a Patreon and the second part will be why I hope you’ll consider supporting me on there.

Why I Set Up Patreon

I’m not sure if it’s been obvious, but hopefully you’ve noticed that there are zero adds on Nerdologists.com. Now, I’ll advertise my own stuff, 10 Minute Marvel and Malts and Meeples, but there are no banner ads, videos that just start playing trying to get you to buy anything. And that’s been intentional. I’m not sure how many ads I’d get, but with 150,000 page views a year, I could probably find some, but I haven’t wanted to. I, like all of you, don’t love browsing websites where I spend more time X-ing out of ads that pop up in front of me.

But with that, since I don’t have ads, that means that I’m not getting in any revenue from the site. I set up an affiliate link before for Amazon, and I might do that again as well, so that people can go through that link and I’ll get a little bit of the money if enough purchases are made. But even with that, it’s not that much money and I would be fighting for your purchases with a lot of other people as well. Patreon, I will be fighting as well, but if you enjoy my content, you can know that it’s going directly to me, not going somewhere else as well. So this isn’t a cash grab for me, I am not looking to get rich off of this, or anything like that, I will break down what I’m hoping to use the money for coming up.

Why Support Me On Patreon

Well, hopefully you’ll do it because you like my content, but beyond that there are a few other reasons to do it, and those are the different rewards you can get for pledging at the different levels. I’m going to go through the different things you can get and hopefully some of them sound interesting to you.

Nerdling

At the $3 Level you get bonus content and a shout out on the Nerdologists Patreon page on this site, the page is yet to be built. So what is bonus content. Well, every month I’ll throw out a theme or a few specific things, so maybe it’ll be deck builders, Isekai anime, horror movies, and Harry Dresden, you’ll get a chance to vote on the subject and then I’ll do a bonus article for Patrons only over on the Patreon page.

Nerd Squire

At the $5 level you get the two things at the $3 level, but also some bonus video content and a monthly coloring page. The coloring page will tie into what you pick for that month and Kristen, my wife, has volunteered to help with that to create the coloring pages. Those will be delivered as a downloadable PDF. As for the video content, it would be a few times a year basically an ask me anything probably with a play along for some board game, probably a roll and write game.

Nerd Royalty

$10 level will get you everything from $3 and $5, plus some bonus Dungeons and Dragons content that will come out yearly, think a fully developed one shot, or for this year it’ll be a mad lib style character creation aid for new players or people who just need a bit of push to get the creativity going. Plus you’ll get your shout out not only on the website but also on an ending screen for Malts and Meeples.

Nerd Emperor

Finally, we have a $50 level. It gets everything mentioned before, but also access to a monthly D&D one shot, and I could be convinced to try another system I already have, for yourself and the others at that level, or if no one else is at the level, yourself and two of your friends. At this level, I wanted to add in more interaction and a whole lot more. I honestly doubt people will go to this level, but I can dream and if you want to play some D&D with me, this might be a way to do it.

What Will I Do With the Money?

So of course, what are you giving money for. Am I just going to use this for pay bills and things like that, no. I want to use the money from Patreon for other things to help add more content to the channel. That might mean upgrading my sound equipment, getting someone to build custom logos for Malts and Meeples and 10 Minute Marvel, buying more board games to show off on Malts and Meeples or to do reviews on, that I might not get otherwise.

I do have some thoughts for goals for fun stuff to do with the money for the Patrons themselves. I have a goal for 100 Patrons, it’s a pipe dream, but if I hit it, I want to do a big board game giveaway to people who are members of the Patreon. And at 25 Patrons, I want to start doing more content that is driven by the Patrons over on Malts and Meeples.

Thank you for even considering my Patreon. I know that there are a lot of sources vying for people’s money. I even have trouble allocating much to Patreon and focus more on direct buying from game publishers when I can. Thank you all for reading this post, and I hope that some of you will consider helping support the website, YouTube channel and podcast.

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In my opinion, the best starting point is to look and determine if your character is a “support” or “attacker” character. Now, It’s possible to be a blend of both, and even if you lean towards being a support character, you should have at least an attack spell option, and if you’re an attacker, you should have some more support style spells for non-combat situations. It’s very tempting to go all in on either side, but there will be times when you need the other spells.

For example, if you’re a support character and you’re in combat, you’re at the point where most of the party is down but the monster is mainly dead. If you take a good hit from the monster, you’re probably dead as well, and that would end the combat with you all losing the fight. You could get someone else back on their feet with a couple of hit points, but at this point in time, you’re more apt to survive an attack than they would be. Do you just do the support thing and heal someone, watch them get knocked out again, heal them again, and keep that up until you run out of spells? That doesn’t sound like that fun at the table, and it also doesn’t really sound like it’s going to win the combat for your adventuring party. So you can attack, but you didn’t take a good attack spell or any attack spells, so you’re kind of stuck just healing.

The big thing that’s happening in the scenario is that you’re creating a prolonged and possibly stalemated battle for a chunk of time. And while attacking might not be what your character would normally do, a good attack would potentially end that stalemate. But it’s going to cause people to have more fun at the table because it isn’t a cycle of revive, monster knocks out, revive, monster knocks out, and so on and so forth. Adding in attack spell doesn’t stop you from being mainly support, but it can keep the game moving and keep it more interesting. The same goes for the flip side, maybe you’re a fire wizard and you’re up against a dragon that is resistant to fire damage. First, your DM’s a bit of a jerk if it happens all the time, but now you’re out of combat, so what do you do? You can attack, but it won’t do as much, but if you had a support spell or two, you’d be able to still interact with the combat. Or, maybe you want to be the best in combat, why not have your signature attack spell(s) but then also have the ability to support yourself so that you can truly be the best in combat and not have to rely on others for that aid.

This is all good to think about when picking your spells, but not actually picking spells. Let’s go with a Wizard as an example like I did in a previous article on magic. Our Wizard is fairly smart, 16 intelligence, so we get start with 4 spells known and 3 cantrips at first level. We have 2 first level spell slots as well, and I want to be an attacking focused Wizard. I believe in calling down the powers of the elements to smite my enemies and I might like fire a bit too much.

When I’m looking at cantrips, I know for sure that I want to get at least one, if not two attacking cantrips out of the three. These, at low levels, are going to be my go to spells (and even at higher levels), so I want something that feels like a signature ability that I can theme my character off of, or that has fire, because I’m a pyro. So the first cantrip is going to be Fire Bolt, a good attack spell with really good range, 120 ft. That allows me, since I’m a wizard and am always going to have lower armor class and hit points, to be at a safe distance for attacking and not being attacked. The other attack one I’m going to take is Thunderclap, this one is a bit of a jerk spell, because it can hit my allies, but it’s an area of affect, so that is a nice way to hit a lot of creatures if need be. Finally, a utility cantrip of light, simple spell, even if I have darkvision, that doesn’t mean I can see in pitch black, so good utility for outside of combat. Now we’re onto the first level, and with four known spells at first level, I’m going to consider a couple more attack spells, but again, we’re a pretty quishy character, so I’m going to grab shield as a spell. That is going to help keep you up. Witch Bolt is a good ranged spell that does lightning damage. Longstrider is going to be my first enhancing spell for my abilities on the combat field with an extra 10 feet of movement. Magic Missile is then my final one, a spell that doesn’t do massive damage, but it will do consistent damage.

Let’s break down what I picked, I’ve already done some why. Thunderclap and Fire Bolt both give me consistent spells to attack with. Witch Bolt and Magic Missile give me damage when I need a boost of damage. Magic Missile is the consistent damage when I need to finish everything off. The damage ones are definitely the most obvious spells, the others are just fairly obvious, but what I’m trying to create with my attacking wizard is a situation where I can keep out of range, Longstrider, boost my armor class to avoid an attack as needed, Shield, and be able to see outside of combat or even in combat if I’m fighting something with truesight or blindsight. But with so few spell slots available to me, I’m not going to use the first level spells for attacks all that often, it’ll mainly be for shield and then I’ll use my cantrips for attacking. There is a downside for that because cantrips aren’t as good for attack spells, but with a fairly high intelligence, it helps out the odds.

And, I only picked 4 of my 7 spells as attack spells. But even with that, I have a variety of damage, thunder, fire, lightning, and force, so I can get around most damage reductions. And while Fire Bolt will be my signature, the others have good utility for combat. Thunderclap has an area of affect, Magic Missile will never miss, and Witch Bolt can hang around for a while and continue to do damage. When I get to hire levels, I already have picked some utility damage spells, so I can focus in on more fire damage because I know that is going to be my signature element, but I have enough that I can still be effective if fire isn’t.

And when picking utility spells, I looked, besides the cantrip, as to what can boost my effectiveness in combat. Sure, I might want to use magic missile a one of my first level spells, but Longstrider allows me to avoid, which, again, I’m squishy, cause I’m a Wizard, and Shield is there for the same reason. I can’t be an awesome fighter if I’m constantly getting knocked out. At higher levels I’ll be able to improve upon those options as well with spells like Blur which make me even harder to hit.

I can flip this as well, and while I’d probably still keep a spell like Fire Bolt and Magic Missile (it’s kind of a signature of Dungeons and Dragons for a spell), I’d focus more on what can help other people. Longstrider on a Dwarf would allow them to charge into combat faster. Though, a Wizard probably isn’t the best support class out there, they do have some decent options as you get into higher levels. A class like Cleric would give you more support options.

When picking spells do you pick a variety of them or do you really focus in on attack spells or support? Have you every made a mistake with the spells that you’ve picked? I guess, that’s the last bit to write about for me, the mistakes and what what can mean. In Season 2 of Dungeons and Flagons the wizard picked a lot of weird attack spells, but they are were all area of affect spells, so that meant with two melee characters rounding out the party, he was always, when attacking, going to do damage to them as well. So thinking through your spells is important.

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I knew, going into Gloomhaven that it was a beast of a game but I was up for that. I thought that I’d enjoy it from the get go because of how the combat worked, how the scenarios worked, and how there was story to the game, and it’s been almost two years of playing almost every other Tuesday, plus some long Saturdays knocking out a bunch of scenarios, but it was worth it.

If you’re been following my Top 100 Games, you would know that I had Gloomhaven as my #1 game. And there are a lot of reasons for it, the story aspect, the unique combat, and the giant epic nature of it all really speak to me and have helped me figure out that I like games like that a lot. Also the bit of a legacy aspect to the game is a ton of fun as well. Is it a perfect game, I don’t think so, but it’s the closest that I’ve found.

Let’s talk about it a little bit more in detail, because I think there are two primary things that hold people back, besides the size of the game, and that’s, do the characters feel different, and do the scenarios feel different?

Do the Characters Feel Different?
I think that this is a clear yes for me. We unlocked every character in the base game and we’ve played all but two of them (plus there’s a new one in the expansion), and the characters have felt different. Some of them were great at healing, some of them would boost others attacks, some of them would go fast and do bits of damage, but always been in and out. Others would go in there and tank and even others would do massive amounts of damage, but were a bit of a glass cannon. There were ones that slung spells, and some that played riffs. Each of the characters felt unique and basically all of them felt like you can tailor them a little bit to how you wanted to play. And while I always wanted to find a tank, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by pretty often playing a support type of character in the game, because how the supported was different for each character. And yes, we all probably had our favorites coming out of the game, but I don’t think any of us hated a character that we played or even disliked a character because they felt weaker or anything like that.

Do the Scenarios Feel Different?
Now, while the characters feel different, I think that this is one of the areas that Gloomhaven isn’t perfect. It’s not much of knock, but there are a lot of scenarios where the win situation is just kill everything, so that part of the scenario feels the same. And we also happened to hit the run in, grab this thing, and run back out a number of times in a row. But, while the end goal most have been similar fairly often, the story leading in was always interesting and helped the scenarios feel different, but more so than that, the monsters made scenarios feel different. A black imp is very different than a drake which is very different than a skeleton archer in what they do. So you had to play now you played each scenario differently and that’s often where you got most of your differences. Plus, then, you have the unique characters. There were some scenarios that we had to wait until we had a better team to come and deal with it, but that was part of the fun of the game that made scenarios feel unique, there were some characters that were just better in different types of scenarios, and generally, even if they weren’t ideal, you still had a chance to figure it out.

Overall, I don’t really have complaints about Gloomhaven. Maybe that some of the scenarios or more of them anyways, could have been goal oriented, but combat is easier to explain and make as a goal than something that’s trickier, and there was good variety in combat anyways. While I don’t think that Gloomhaven is going to be the game for everyone, I think that a lot of people will enjoy it. The combat is a bit more tactical than your standard Ameritrash game and there is more story than Euro games. And while it is big, the game, once you’re into it, isn’t that difficult, it might just take a couple of scenarios to teach someone who doesn’t do dungeon crawl games all the time.

Overall Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: C+

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