TOPIC: Hardcore, Nightmare and Reward Tokens

So... for the first time since 2007, I will be finding myself at loose ends at GenCon for a portion of my time, especially on Sunday.

Currently, I'm geared out with max red and combo items for Fighter and Bard as well as having a Charm of Good Fortune. I'm trying to decide:

1. If that level of preparation (very few people I know have actual healing disposables) is enough to perform a Hardcore run successfully - my sense is "yes"

2. What the run reward tokens are, though I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed if they were announced.

3. If I should bother trying to get into a Hardcore or Nightmare Golem run on Sunday. I'm obviously not geared for Nightmare.

Last year, Henwy among others offered to take me on a Nightmare run, but it conflicted with my schedule. Are there likely to be similar open slots as of the convention this year? Im not sure that I can commit before actually getting there...

1. It's always good to have a little item based healing on hand for a nightmare run. For hardcore its harder to say since it's the first year for it but I would assume yes.

2. All we know so far is two of the items are belts, and two are iounstone. Hope they release more info soon but they might be saving it for a later ticket push email or something.

3. If you can manage go for it. Gear is important but brains and good group dynamics are more so and most of the groups that organize on here will likely have some extra stuff you can use anyway.

I don't believe we usually know what the tokens are until GenCon.

Traditionally, that is how it has been. Tokens are not known until the runs come out and receive them.

To directly answer your questions:

1. Play hardcore. That setup is exactly what hardcore has been built for, from my understanding of the discussions of the past several months.

2. The tokens are strong. Torgue strong. SPLOSIONS?

3. Why a golem run? I would guess that since Golembane is selling slightly less than Lycans Afoot, the better participation token will be from that run. But, that's only a guess.

darkangel866 wrote: I would guess that since Golembane is selling slightly less than Lycans Afoot, the better participation token will be from that run.

I'm not sure if that was a "falling toast always lands buttered side down" style comment, but I will respond to it as if you were serious. If you weren't serious, feel free to roll your eyes at me, but know that the response below is sincere.

The decision to assign a particular participation token to a particular adventure has nothing whatsoever to do with ticket sales.

I was serious, but not in a bad way. (And, apparently, I have guessed wrong)

TD is a business, and has to look at the bottom line, if you are going to continue to put on dungeons year after year. From that perspective, it makes sense to give the stronger reward tokens to the dungeon selling fewer tickets. That may drum up enough interest in that dungeon to sell more tickets Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

*I have not looked at the actual sales of tickets, or the remaining availability. My information is strictly from threads on this forum, and may be skewed or outdated.

darkangel866 wrote: Traditionally, that is how it has been. Tokens are not known until the runs come out and receive them.

To directly answer your questions:

1. Play hardcore. That setup is exactly what hardcore has been built for, from my understanding of the discussions of the past several months.

2. The tokens are strong. Torgue strong. SPLOSIONS?

3. Why a golem run? I would guess that since Golembane is selling slightly less than Lycans Afoot, the better participation token will be from that run. But, that's only a guess.

My "good" group is doing the Lycan run, so I'll have done that on Hardcore. The other group will almost certainly not be willing/able to do Harcore through Golembane, so I'm interested in catching a harder run on that module.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll be floating around the story-scape a lot and will harass people about potential runs there - it sounds like I should be able to slip in an additional Sunday run.

If Nightmare is played, does one receive the better token even if they don't succeed?

Last year, if you played Nightmare you got both the green and red participation token. Yes if you go into the first room and die you still get the participation tokens for that run.

From memory here:

Non-lethal/normal: green reward token
Hardcore: red reward token
Nightmare: Both red and green reward tokens

This year.

Normal gets you the uncommon. Hardcore gets you the rare and Nightmare gets you both. I will post the link as soon as I find it.

FOUR Levels of Challenge

Due to the response from our players, we make our adventures playable at different challenge levels. Here they are in order of difficulty.

Non-lethal: If all players in the group agree, the party can tell their Coach they want to play their adventure on the "non-lethal" challenge rating. This is designed for people who just want to enjoy the True Dungeon adventure without having to worry about their character dying. Awarded XP for this challenge level is 650 XP

Normal: By default, the party will play their adventure on the Normal challenge level -- characters can die on this difficulty, but a good party can emerge victorious with only basic equipment as long as they work well together and think on their feet. If this challenge is too much (or insufficient) then other levels are available. Awarded XP for this challenge level is 650 + 50/room reached.

Hardcore: If all players in the group agree, the players can tell their Coach they want to play their adventure on the "Hardore" challenge rating. This is for people who have some TD experience and at least 3 bags of tokens. Awarded XP for this challenge level is 1650 + 50/room reached. They get only the Hardcore/Nightmare Completion token for attempting this level.

Nightmare: If all players in the group agree, the players can tell their Coach they want to play their adventure on the "Nightmare" challenge rating. This is for people who have lots of experience, moxie and/or tokens. THIS IS A VERY DIFFICULT EVENT. There are also special slots set aside for Nightmare level, and tickets purchased in these slots must be played at Nightmare level. Awarded XP for this challenge level is 1650 + 50/room reached. They get both the Normal and Hardcore/Nightmare Completion tokens for attempting this level.

The reward allocations are listed here .