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TOPIC: Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide

Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #1

So this year my group took the move from casual to hardcore level and while we did ok it was only because other members were way over geared. I guess hardcore got harder this year according to some volunteers but I can’t find any announcement about this. Also the players guide says that hardcore is recommended for anyone with more than 3 bags of tokens. Unless this means 3 250 orders of tokens this is very misleading and could create negative experiences for newer players. We almost had our rouge die first room first turn of combat with 2 hits of 14 damage and that really doesn’t feel good.

Overall we had a blast and will continue to play hardcore but we would have liked more accurate information on how hard hardcore is.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #2

We're pretty experienced as well, good at sliding, and geared in BIS and more Purple end of the Red/Purple spectrum. Hardcore has been our sweet spot with challenge in the past.

Not this year, though- out of the two Hardcore runs, we only were able to defeat one monster. :dry:
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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #3

Agreed. We did N3 on hardcore. In the past, hardcore has been generally mildly challenging, but comfortable. This year, with slightly better gear than the year prior, we barely made it into room 7 and had no chance on the final boss. After that, we did normal for N2 and N1, which felt a little too easy for us, but might be a disaster for a group of new players.

All characters had rare or better equipment, and 3-5 had UR/relics. Its been my understanding that Hardcore is supposed to be tuned for rare level gear. My experience in N3 is that a party with straight rare gear wouldnt make it to room 7 very often, and would have 0 chance against the boss.

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Last edit: by Seth Murray.

Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #4

I've tracked the HP and AC of all combats for several years (I have data from 2013 to 2017) and the ranges are like so:

Normal
AC: 15-23
HP: 60-200
Melee: +4 to +10 / 3 to 20 dmg
Ranged: +2 to +8 / 6 to 10 dmg

Hardcore
AC 17-26
HP: 90-300
Melee: +5 to +15 / 6 to 30 dmg
Ranged: +4 to +12 / 9 to 16 dmg

*excluding skeletons for both
**excluding special attacks for both

The "three or more bags of treasure" is misleading. However, "ten players with three or more bags of treasure" would be completely accurate. Especially if it was the same group running 3 times together and trading back and forth.

I helped a brand new group of ten players trade their gear back and forth (their "quartermaster" had taken money from everyone and purchased one extra pack of tokens for each). They felt confident enough to try hardcore and I found out later they finished with only one death. It can be done.

I'm curious to see what the modules list for this years' creatures and see if there was a big change or not.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #5

I also felt that the difficulties seemed to have increased.
The amount of damage thrown around was down right brutal at times. The Troll room alone could wipe a party very quickly.

BTW: I am not complaining, just making an observation.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #6

Joshua I know at least one monster the dm said had 400+ health on hardcore this year. I can’t remember what it was as all my runs kind of blur together. I talked to at least 2 volunteers who both said they upped the difficulty on hardcore this year.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #7

John DiMartino wrote: Joshua I know at least one monster the dm said had 400+ health on hardcore this year. I can’t remember what it was as all my runs kind of blur together. I talked to at least 2 volunteers who both said they upped the difficulty on hardcore this year.


Most likely: N3 room 7
Next most likely: N1 room 6

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #8

I also think it depended a lot on what dungeon.

N2 I found to be really tough (at least unless you rolled 18/19/20 on your saves!).

Many monsters had damage that hit the whole party. Many monsters had effects that cost the entire party an action on a failed save.


The Giants in N2 had a _ton_ of hitpoints on Hardcore (or immunity to some types that we didn't understand). Assuming no immunity I personally did around 100 to each Giant, and we didn't kill them both. It seemed like they each had over 300.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #9

Our group ran Odin's Haven on Thursday. The Troll Shaman and the Giants definitely seemed to be over tuned. Not sure if they got easier or not over the weekend, but both of those combats had a bunch of health and a bunch of damage.

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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #10

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Agree 100% that the giants were a bit much for a room 5 encounter. I ran N2 with a very well geared NM group on Saturday night and we lost 3 members to AOE and a misunderstanding about how guard worked before we took down the first giant. The second one lived with about 100hps left. Healing back up in the next room left us way short on time for the arrow puzzle but we recovered.

I suspect with Jeff being very understandably distracted and a new AC handling N1 & N2 there might not have been as much fine tuning as normal this year.

Still it was a great show.
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Last edit: by Picc.

Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #11

John DiMartino wrote: So this year my group took the move from casual to hardcore level and while we did ok it was only because other members were way over geared. I guess hardcore got harder this year according to some volunteers but I can’t find any announcement about this. Also the players guide says that hardcore is recommended for anyone with more than 3 bags of tokens. Unless this means 3 250 orders of tokens this is very misleading and could create negative experiences for newer players. We almost had our rouge die first room first turn of combat with 2 hits of 14 damage and that really doesn’t feel good.

Overall we had a blast and will continue to play hardcore but we would have liked more accurate information on how hard hardcore is.


John- my two friends and I were on this run with you. Your group was a pleasure to run with.

I do remember Cait getting hit for 28 points right off the bat. It made me wonder if that particular monster in N1 was pre-programmed to target the Rogue.

I'm glad we were able to heal her back up to near-full. Although it did not help that our cleric opted to slide rather than heal her that combat.

I would agree with you that the run did not seem "3 bag" friendly.
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Harder hardcore and outdated info in players guide 5 years 7 months ago #12

Picc wrote: Agree 100% that the giants were a bit much for a room 5 encounter. I ran N2 with a very well geared NM group on Saturday night and we lost 3 members to AOE and a misunderstanding about how guard worked before we took down the first giant. The second one lived with about 100hps left. Healing back up in the next room left us way short on time for the arrow puzzle but we recovered.

I suspect with Jeff being very understandably distracted and a new AC handling N1 & N2 there might not have been as much fine tuning as normal this year.

Still it was a great show.


I can tell you based on Origins and discussions at GenCon that the N1 AC made many adjustments as the Cons went on.
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