I'm about to retire my Brute in Gloomhaven shortly before I get to level 7. It's a pretty good character, but our tinker's player/the game's owner became a character with almost exactly the same moves (3 spears, hence the name Brittany) when they "retired"*.
*The tinker died in the last mission before retiring, so everyone except the player has agreed we definitely brought the body back to get rezzed, and didn't just leave the tinker to rot in the cave. The tinker retired to a farm upstate, but is happy and wouldn't want to be reminded of the adventuring life they left behind, and that's why we can't visit.
I'll probably be picking up either the cragheart to get some healing again, or the triforce character.
oh i also tried Elona, but didnt get too far in the start. thought i could play mutant tourist but the controls alone are tricky.
Yeah, it's partly based on ADOM, so there is some old-school weirdness to it,
before it got Japan-ed up. You might want to start with a fighter or pianist (for weightlifting), and not a slug or tourist. Not because those classes are good, but because they're fairly easy to do early-game stuff with. Depending on what you're into, it's fairly easy to do most of the first continent stuff without any combat skills, if you pick good allies.
I'd recommend doing whatever non-combat quests you can in every town you go to, to gain the skill tokens. The god who gives you the goose can help with that as well. Step 2 is grabbing the gardening and cooking skills and some sort of portable equipment for cooking, then go south-southeast to the farming village (starvation can be an issue there, which is why you want cooking skill), and do all of the harvest quests there. It builds a lot of important stats, they're fairly easy, and your allies will get some combat training. You can eat food off the ground without stealing, but there's no good way to check to see if it's cursed without picking it up.
Once a town is overrun by aliens/clones, it's a good time to accept the nuke palmia quest, and just get rid of whatever town you want to. Leave town before the explosion (obviously), then return asap to collect the loot everyone dropped. Good way to fill your museum (which may or may not be worth buying before you get all of the nice NPC cards and figures).