TOPIC: How important are purples or better for Hardcore

Having done two "naked runs" where we only used the gear pulled in packs or treasure pulls, it was clear that at least with a mostly experienced group (who slid amazingly at least in the first dungeon) that you don't need gear for normal.

I've heard that with a less experienced party, normal is really set up for players armed mostly with commons and uncommons.

So I'm wondering, what is hardcore balanced against? Would a "red" player be the properly equipped level? Or are some (or all) purples and better really more appropriate?

I was thinking Nightmare was more designed to challenge the purple players.

I ran a hardcore group this year with optimal reds and didn't have any issues that purples would have solved. Honestly its a lot more about the players and good communication. That said I would bring a fair bit of extra item based healing

Try a real nekkid run for a bigger challenge. No equip at all other than a dagger per person. The cleric can't use it so the ranger basically gets two. It's the only run where I actively tried to avoid combat and run from monsters. Usually the best strategy when you see a combat room is just to key the combat as soon as possible for the most time. With the nekkid dagger run, you know you're not going to kill jack crap for the most part so all sorts of alternative strategies appear. About the only one we didn't try was the stall.

Robert Thomson wrote: Having done two "naked runs" where we only used the gear pulled in packs or treasure pulls,

Folks in the forums have been calling that a "Sealed Deck" run.

"Naked" runs are, like Henwy says, runs where you don't equip armour or other important slots. A single weapon is allowed (traditionally a common. Although when I say "traditionally" I mean "both times I've seen it done"). When you run like that, no one tells the Rogue to take the clue from a Rogue box, it's always "Take the treasure! Maybe it'll be a nice uncommon armour! or a +1 sword!!"

Note: the Sealed Deck and Naked runs I've seen have usually made allowances for treasure-enhancing tokens, since those do not affect dungeon stats in any way.

If you are equipped with all rare "red" items (or close to it), you do not need a single UR token for running Hardcore mode.

My wife and I went on a Hardcore combat run where everyone agreed that only rare "red" can be used, except for those that give extra treasure pulls. We didn't miss the UR tokens at all.

On our second sealed run, we went hardcore with just a smattering of rares here and there - mostly weapons. I think our knowlege of the puzzles was offset by the almost total lack of healing tokens, but it was a fun challenge and seemed balanced.

Players>Characters>Tokens

That is how I rank those three changeable components of TD we control. Don't get me wrong I love my tokens, but good players with commons will do better (and have more fun) than bad players with Relics and UR's.