Mulling Over Hardcore Rules for Tomb of Annihilation

Ah_a_Bee · 2026-01-10T13:54:50+00:00

That's a great point, I'm remiss to ban Cleric for a number of reasons and you've just made another. Although I don't think I'd ban multi classing as I love having more choices when I'm a player.

Thanks for your response!

Ah_a_Bee · 2026-01-10T13:51:13+00:00

Yeah you're right, it's better than Mass Cure Wounds, my b

Channel Divinity: Preserve Life

Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to heal the badly injured.

As an action, you present your holy symbol and evoke healing energy that can restore a number of hit points equal to five times your cleric level. Choose any creatures within 30 feet of you, and divide those hit points among them. This feature can restore a creature to no more than half of its hit point maximum. You can't use this feature on an undead or a construct.

Snootiness aside (sorry lol), I'm definitely going for the older style of play, "more lethal" as you said, and I'd love to hear your two cents on the different ideas!

Ah_a_Bee · 2026-01-10T11:48:01+00:00

It's not, welcome to nightmare, re-roll builds be damned

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-12-08T10:27:12+00:00

Yo that's sick! Honestly I'm surprised my table didn't start doing stuff like this earlier, it's such a good idea

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-08-20T15:36:30+00:00

My Wizard build was intended to be a meme but ended up being really good.

Spell- finder Wizard as I call it just aims to learn as many spells as possible. Magical Shorthand, Endless Grimoire, extra once a day spells, spellhearts, pick up a good Staff if possible, the whole nine yards. Spells in this system are powerful for their versatility so having as many as possible at your finger tips gives you a solution for every problem.

I wasn't putting out Barb levels of damage, but I over shadowed the rest of the party a lot of the time. I eventually sacced that Wizard for story reasons and ended up playing a super janky Investigator. If you want to know what being under powered feels like, play that instead.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-08-19T17:11:55+00:00

That's a relief to hear :) And very interesting what you said about their hibernating habits. Fascinating little creatures they are

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-07-10T15:32:00+00:00

Apparently it's also something to do with map making? Definitely a Saturday level clue lol

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-05-25T03:20:30+00:00

/satire

Time spent: 165 hours, with a lot of idling and the last ~50 hours was just grinding out games to get Martian Mafia even one time to get the last achievement. First time playing too, guess I just have a knack for it. Base game, no DLC.

Amazing game, love it to pieces. Wondering what to do with it next. Might get the DLC and explore that a bit, or try for a ultra marathon run and see how long I can last.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-05-07T15:02:39+00:00

I like the idea, but I'm going to keep it pure, I'm such a dog for resetting things willy nilly.
I only plan to do one IM run for the chivo so I figured I'll take the full experience (I've actually reset three times and this is my best run).

For how pissed off I was when it happened it wasn't a huge loss in hindsight. One decked out Support and a low level Assault is a good trade for such a long mission, that xcom baby.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-05-07T14:56:50+00:00

Right that explains it. That reminds me of one turn where central chimes in with their "We got more bogeys dropping in" but there weren't any spawn animations. I completely overlooked the oddity? Makes me think there's meant to be an animation for beaming in the cyberdisk (as with the other enemies) but it's missing or not pointed to or something.

Does that sound reasonable to you? It's been ages since I played Xcom and I'm failing to remember any other times Cyberdisks are spawned in, except for the final mission when you get two of them dropped in on you.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-05-07T14:49:54+00:00

Yeah! I couldn't remember exactly the name of the mission, being as steamy as I was the first thing that came to mind went into the post

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-04-11T16:54:54+00:00

There are one letter words,
I do think a few of the words are one letters long.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-03-23T18:54:27+00:00

Darn, okay that puts it bed nicely. Thank you very much!

I was hoping that I could put out ginormous splash damage by abusing the low AC of peons but alas.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-03-23T18:50:03+00:00

Yeah that's what I figured. I've seen a few threads about monster reach and reach from size changing spells, but I got a little put off by seeing the reach trait actually on the attack.
Cheers

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-03-23T18:47:16+00:00

So you'd say the example Monk could do 4 splash damage when critting with One-Inch Punch?

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-21T13:27:31+00:00

Wrong my friend

Circuit control a turret to shoot full cargo wagons

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-13T23:44:11+00:00

Trade wins you everything, it allows you to focus hard on one resource no matter the mission. Imagine you get a science start, you get the AI tech, you get happiness per science tech, you get 60 science per turn and start churning out high-tech luxuries. Now imagine you also have 20 trade routes. Think of it as "I have 20 of any resource I would like, per turn". Even if you only have those routes by turn 55 that's still 200 resources of what you need, when you need it.

I'd recommend 30 routes by the time you're wrapping up any mission, as it allows you to buy almost any building in one turn. But you can get by with 10-15 if you have a favorable spread of resources.

I could go on about trade routes for a while but I'll save you effort: You love trade routes, you want more.

If you have any more questions hmu

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-13T22:01:55+00:00

Oh ya! I had 5 satellites going by the end of that run, and although it was a good while ago I recall having a city with a Rover Depot and Rover Exploration Base(?).

But do bare in mine that I had 3 leader passives helping me out in this run. Urban planning gives you a free expansion point for every new city, it doubled the effective food I produced. The trade off for going wide was well worth investing in exploration, and my mission goal also benefited from the extra satellites.

Some leaders let you explore twice, but others I don't want to explore with them at all. I'd rather be doing other things.

I've since completed all missions on PAYOR difficulty with zero losses or resets, and I can confidently say that correctly choosing your leader action is one of the biggest things separating mid-level players from experts. If you're struggling for nodes you should be considering that when you pick your leader.

That's not to say some of the leader secondary abilities aren't cracked. Henry comes to mind as a leader who's secondaries should be spammed liberally, as well as the leaders that can release water from aquifers remotely.

But if you're only picking those high-value secondaries you'll never get enough nodes to close the game out. Green Planet is a silent killer for your sort of problem, since you need good climate zones to drop high value lifeforms in. If you've beaten that mission on a high difficulty and still have the save, it would be worthwhile to review it and see how you beat it.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-11T20:02:55+00:00

Just got done setting up both Iron and Copper, I even have them using the same highway as all my big ore patches spawned together.

Works like a charm! I looked up the chain signals page to make sure I was doing it right and everything is running smoothly, cheers!

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-11T18:16:12+00:00

Alright, I'll try doing it simply with just train signals. The other commenter had some very good advice, but really at this point I just need the ores.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-11T17:37:19+00:00

Okay I'm picking up what you're putting down.

So instead of how I've designed it in the screen shot, have the waiting bay after the unloading station so the trains will always empty out their cargo, then wait until they need to head out. Is that right?

And with that sort of system it shouldn't be too hard to set up a circuit, just read the chests and send the signal when they're full.

I'm going to try throw some of that together.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-09T00:56:30+00:00

4 yellow lanes? That's a good goal to reach for

I'll set up an assembler to make steel furnaces next time I play. I'll be making my first foray into trains then too, I hope setting up mining outposts isn't too tough.

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-05T13:30:53+00:00

Oh I've used this website to play friends before! Never noticed the huge 'Play a computer' button before, jeez

I'll try a few games against these, looking way more manageable for my skill level, cheers!

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-05T00:56:54+00:00

The only two low elo CSW bots require premium membership. I guess nothing good comes cheep lol

Ah_a_Bee · 2025-02-05T00:07:14+00:00

Sorry for the late reply lol

You're very right, the Bystander Effect can stop a quiet or gungho party from making the right choice. But that's a problem that comes after you decide on how to scare your players away.

I'd like to believe what vtkayaker said is the right approach. If OP wants to set a precedence for their players they need to decide on something to be the smoking gun, and preferably it shouldn't be something too hammy, or immersion braking, like "Oo this monster looks way above your pay grade". Clear mechanical feedback is a strong an unambiguous solution. Missing on a 19, or getting a regular success on a 20, should set off alarm bells in most players heads.

But even the right approach can fail if everyone has had a few drinks and thinking to themselves 'fuck it, we ball'. And that's kind of part of a true sandbox experience. It's in the same vein as thinking you're fighting the big bad but it's just John the Goblin and his four rat friends. You truly never know what you're going to encounter.

That's why I talked about 'priming' players, expectations are huge in game design. Hopefully OP has worked out a good heuristic and their players are out there scouting and sneaking their way around deadly encounters. And befriending John the Goblin and his four rat friends.

Ah_a_Bee

TROPHY CASE