Gloomhaven Scoundrel Guide – Cards, Builds, Perks, Enhancements & Items

Last Updated on May 28, 2025 by Samuel Franklin

This Gloomhaven Scoundrel guide builds maximises the damage of this powerful rogue fighter with recommendations for cards, perks, enhancements and items. As a master of damage that is empowered by nearby allies the Scoundrel also has themes of invisibility, status effects, speed, looting and ranged throwing knives.

Table of Contents:
– Scoundrel Cards, Perks, Enhancements and Items Overview
– Scoundrel Cards Detailed
– Scoundrel Perks Detailed
– Scoundrel Enhancements Detailed
– Scoundrel Items Detailed

Gloomhaven Scoundrel Guide Overview

This section is a quick reference sheet for various playstyles, party sizes and dynamics by focusing on flexible blends of damage and utility.

Scoundrel Cards Overview

• Level 1: Remove Backstab, Trickster’s Reversal and Sinister Opportunity to create your starting deck
• Level 2: Open Wound replaces Venom Shiv
• Level 3: Duelist’s Advance replaces Quick Hands
• Level 4: Flurry of Blades replaces Throwing Knives
• Level 5: Visage of the Inevitable replaces Thief’s Knack
• Level 6: Burning Oil replaces Duelist’s Advance
• Level 7: Stick to the Shadows replaces Single Out
• Level 8: Select Spring the Trap (level 7 card) but leave it out of your hand unless its useful for a specific scenario
• Level 9: Long Con replaces Swift Bow

Scoundrel Perks Priority Overview

• Remove two -1 cards (take twice)
• Replace one -2 with +0
• Replace one -1 with +1
• Remove four zeros
• Ignore negative scenario effects

Scoundrel Enhancements Priority Overview

• Add +1 move to the bottom of Swift Bow
• Add jump to bottom of Flanking Strike
• Add jump or +1 move to bottom of Flurry of Blades
• Add dark generation to the bottom of Open Wound
• Add strengthen to the top of Smoke Bomb

Scoundrel Items Priority Overview

• Minor Stamina Potion
• Cloak of Invisibility
• Boots of Striding
• Iron Helmet
• Minor Healing Potion

Gloomhaven Scoundrel Guide Detailed

This section recommends individual cards in level order for players to consider in designing their deck for party mechanics and scenarios.

Scoundrel Cards Detailed

• Backstab (Starting): A strong card on the surface given the fantastic initiative and high movement value. However, the top loss is hard to fit into out limited hand size and the Scoundrel is not short on other fast movement cards.
  
• Flanking Strike (Starting): A staple theme card that you can use from start to retirement given the strong attack value and easy to generate experience. This card also has a large move 5 on the bottom that is paired with one of the fastest initiatives of Gloomhaven at 4 which allows us to basically always go first when necessary.
  
• Quick Hands (Starting): Providing a loot option to steal all the gold with a flexible move and attack top. A direct upgrade to this card becomes available at level 3 in Duelist’s advance though so this card is often quickly sidelined from that point onwards as the two cards serve similar purposes.
  
• Single Out (Starting): Single Out gives us the exact same top action as Flanking Strike although with worse initiative and a bottom that we can’t really use regularly for our small hand size. The bottom is also slightly harder to setup as it relies on enemy positioning rather than that of our team mates and in anything but a party size of 2 is simply unlikely to occur given enemy numbers quickly increase. Playing into your Scoundrel theme perfectly though this card still is useful initially until you unlock other options.
  
• Smoke Bomb (Starting): Our best loss card given the setup is perfect for many high damage combinations for a final room in a scenario. Until that time use this low initiative card for the 2 default movement or to pull an enemy into a trap or manipulate their position for an attack. For scenarios where you don’t expect to face a boss enemy it is reasonable to skip taking this given the niche but highly effective role it provides to the Scoundrel.
  
• Special Mixture (Starting): Adding to our survivability with a reusable self heal this adds safety to your deck and allows you to position yourself with the benefit of poison. If you have a strong healing party member or one that regularly inflicts status effects already it does lose some value to us and can potentially be a swapped for something else.
  
• Thief’s Knack (Starting): Thief’s Knack is a card that can be quite good or average depending on your party composition and how much movement you need. Having a bottom attack is useful in most situations in Gloomhaven though where you don’t need to move in that turn and adds to our potential for burst damage nicely. While the top isn’t something you’ll want to use regularly it’s not a terrible way to create some experience in the early levels for traps that can’t be used against an enemy or to help clear the way for your allies.
  
• Throwing Knives (Starting): Giving us a ranged backup attack option this is the first of many Scoundrel knife themed attacks. I recommend always having at least one of these ranged attacks for the flexibility and this one has easy experience gain, low initiative and a grab all the loot button in a final room.
  
• Venom Shiv (Starting): Another strong starting card although is quickly overshadowed by a superior option in Open Wound at level 2. Until that time or if you want to hold onto it for a little longer for playstyle reasons this is a reliable method to create poison, deal damage, acquire experience and a large move action.
  
• Sinister Opportunity (Starting): This card has some issues as we lack dark generation to maximise the top action. In party compositions that can do this for us though it grows in power as the bottom has many uses and the late initiatve can balance our speed options.
  
• Swift Bow (Starting): An incredible loot card to accumulate early game gold when paired with boots. When there isn’t loot the top is a solid ranged attack for when there isn’t an enemy nearby or one we would rather not get close to.
  
• Trickster’s Reversal (Starting): A card that waits on the sidelines but is ridiculously overpowered in certain scenarios where enemies have high shields. In these situations where you add it the initiative provides plenty of opportunity to go early while you wait to use it usually for default actions.
  
• Flintlock (Level 2): The top of this card is not useful as we have other looting options available and combined with the bottom loss there is little reason to select this card at level 2.
  
• Open Wound (Level 2): Providing a direct upgrade to Venom Shiv this often replaces that card. Every part of this card is useful with a decent damage of 4, the wound status effect to add more damage, great initiative and a strong bottom move when needed which all makes Open Wound a staple of our Scoundrel build.
  
• Duelist’s Advance (Level 3): A straight upgrade to Quick Hands and while we do lose a loot bottom action for this swap we gain a damage source and better initiative. This card may eventually be exchanged for other higher level options but at level 3 it has fantastic flexibility and burst empowerment.
  
• Hidden Daggers (Level 3): Another card that plays into the flying dagger fantasy side of the Scoundrel this top is unfortunately a loss otherwise it could have been potential competition for our level 3 choice. While you may definitely find the bottom invisible as tempting you actually don’t need invisibility with careful flanking positioning as intended by your character design and your medium health pool.
  
• Flurry of Blades (Level 4): Another knife throwing card that serves as an upgrade to an earlier card (Throwing Knives) for another clear swap out option. This upgrade adds another target to boost effectiveness when there many low health enemies nearby. The bottom is a significant upgrade to Throwing Knives as well with a movement action that gives us advantage when necessary with the fantastically low initiative of 3 in addition to that.
  
• Gruesome Advantage (Level 4): The bigger brother of Backstab this card has a massive move value of 7 and a potential 9 damage against a single enemy that can be buffed further with other cards. While a nice fantasy in certain scenarios it is hard to pass on our other level 4 option with Backstab more than capable of this role already.
  
• Cull the Weak (Level 5): An upgrade to Single Out and Flanking Strike this card adds an additional attack point to help keep up with enemy health scaling although you give up an extremely strong card in our other level 5 option. Add in the fact that the bottom is simply too inconsistent to use this is a card that can be easily skipped.
  
• Visage of the Inevitable (Level 5): An amazing top and bottom that makes level 5 cards an easy choice for the Scoundrel. With this card instead of simply damaging enemies that stand alone we take them out of the game completely to significantly speed up our party progress. For situations where this is difficult to use we can lean on the bottom or the utility buff to damage.
  
• Burning Oil (Level 6): Burning Oil provides an easy way to create wound on a target at range which is an important team utility. In addition this top action provides us some element generation that while not useful for ourselves can be invaluable to some of our allies and pay back our debt for all the gold we’ve looted from them. Especially given this bottom action is a loot 2 that gives us even more potential to steal the loot from our friends in each room of the scenario.
  
• Crippling Poison (Level 6): A decent card for a niche poison build although the effectiveness of this is debateable as we simply don’t have enough poison in our build without some enhancements or equipment. It also suffers from the weakness of other loss cards in that we really can’t afford to play it as a Scoundrel most of the time and it’s competing against Burning Oil for a level 6 option that is such a reliable card.
  
• Spring the Trap (Level 7): A unique top mechanic that can actually be quite effective in particular trap heavy scenarios. This top is perfectly paired with a bottom that you’ll want to save for the final room and gives us even deadlier potential combos of massive single target damage. Despite all these benefits it’s hard to justify as a regular card in our hand as it can be really weak in scenarios that lack traps or a big boss enemy. I do still recommend you grab this card (but at level 8) where you’ll want to swap it in as necessary when you think it will be effective for the scenario ahead.
  
• Stick to the Shadows (Level 7): The better generalist card of the level 7 options that significantly grows in power when we have the ability to empower our own dark through card enhancements to create an 8 attack. If you haven’t quite managed to enhance dark yet on a card or don’t have an ally that is happy to share their dark generation it is unfortunately weaker until then. Regardless even in this weakened state you’ll enjoy the decent attack 4 and bottom action that opens up aggressive plays with the move and invisible combination.
  
• Pain’s End (Level 8): A strong heal that can mitigate some damage we accumulate during the course of a scenario. Before this point you’ll be using this as a move card that can guarantee a kill on a low health enemy which is useful utility given we often go before our opponents.
  
• Stiletto Storm (Level 8): The last of our dagger themed cards that upgrades targets from 3 to 4 compared to Flurry of Blades although even in 4 player parties it can be rare that we have the ability to get 4 enemies in a single turn. The bottom is also a downgrade as retaliate is quite a weak mechanic overall in Gloomhaven so it is easier to pass on this choice.
  
• Long Con (Level 9): Your ultimate level 9 card with an incredible top at an insanely fast initiative that allows you to walk into any room or situation and simply shut down the enemy from attacking. The bottom is an interesting concept in Gloomhaven but even in the last room of a scenario you’ll likely prefer the ability to disarm than playing this loss.
  
• Watch It Burn (Level 9): A card that gives us the ability to add two deadly effects to all of our attacks and designed to pair perfectly with Crippling Poison although realistically we are unlikely to be able to play both losses for our hand size. Playing Watch It Burn itself has potential though and where all of our multi-target dagger attacks can turn us into a deadly debuff machine. Unfortunately this card is competing against the top action of Long Con which is simply more powerful most of the time.

Scoundrel Perks Detailed

Scoundrel perks are similar to other Gloomhaven character choices with your goal to remove the negatives that we can and replace them with either zeros or positive numbers for greater consistency. Once you build up the deck you can eventually trim away the zeros and also look to add ignore negative scenario effects to help counter any potentially crippling scenario debuffs.

Beyond this point players need to be careful of adding too many rolling modifiers to the Scoundrel so limiting it to the plus ones and invisible are good choices. This is because the way rolling modifiers function in Gloomhaven in that they can actually turn an attack into a miss as they keep rolling modifiers after the first which can be painful when triggered on one of our big combos against a boss or similar deadly enemy.

Scoundrel Enhancements Detailed

Scoundrel enhancements fill some gaps to give us an easier time looting the map and dealing damage to anything that stands in our way. Initially adding a move to the bottom of Swift Bow is a cost effective option that is both a useful addition to our movement and an investment in the future as it gives us greater loot potential for future necessary enhancements. Second to this we can add jumps to the likes of Flanking Strike and Flurry of Blades which stay with us for our adventure and help to overcome our weakness of high movement cards that lack jump which can be situationally useful for positioning.

The timing of adding a dark element the bottom of Open Wound is an important highlight though as it helps us setup the deadly Stick to the Shadows when empowered so this should be your goal just prior to level 7 and takes precedence over other options. The last important enhancement to acquire although lower priority than the others here is boosting our Smoke Bomb combo with strengthen which adds just a bit more damage to this although is a one time per scenario play.

Scoundrel Items Detailed

Scoundrel item choices include the Minor Stamina Potion as a number one priority as the Scoundrel desperately needs it early to give our small hand additional longevity before purchasing other items. Cloak of Invisibility is a clear second buy for the Scoundrel as it allows us to deliver some of our combos with ease while allowing us to recover from a mistake or play ultra aggressively.

Next we can look towards boots such as the Boots of Striding but only if another party member doesn’t need them as the Scoundrel already has a wealth of movement. Failing this we can take Winged Shoes to help us until we enhance jump on our cards or wait until one of the higher prosperity shoes becomes available with different utility.

The head slot for Scoundrel is less of a priority (dependent on party composition) but the Iron Helmet is a cheap effective option early game before higher prosperity options become available while also considering a Minor Health Potion around this time. The Scoundrel’s character design does allow it to make use of a variety of unlockable items and without spoiling these you’ll want to keep an eye out for equipment that rewards you with added bonuses for long moves, allow you to summon an ally to empower your attacks, add area of effect to your attacks or allow you to manipulate enemy movement.

For information and build guides on other Gloomhaven character options visit our Gloomhaven classes overview and the related Gloomhaven class tier list.

Written by

Samuel Franklin

Samuel Franklin is the founder and lead editor of the Games Finder team and enjoys video games across all genres and platforms.

As a seasoned Gloomhaven adventurer Sam has delved into both the physical board game and the digital adaption for hundreds of scenario hours. While he enjoys the camaraderie and social aspect of the tabletop experience the digital version conveniences make it his preferred way to play where he has unlocked all of the Steam achievements. Sam frequently commands the Spellweaver, an elemental spellcasting powerhouse that he finds immensely satisfying for the risky, high reward playstyle that the class offers.