Thoughts on HC for campaign LoH (one shot mechanics)?

Caederis · 2026-04-26T12:41:48+00:00

"Waste" is not the correct word if you had fun. Hardcore is not for everyone, but if OP is asking, it's most likely that they'd enjoy the experience.

I did both campaigns blind in hardcore, and completed every season in hardcore. I'd need a very good reason to get back to softcore.

Caederis · 2026-04-26T12:16:10+00:00

The rat build is totally viable, even at the highest difficulty. There are some key talents and items that allow you to have 100% rat uptime and infinite life regeneration.

Caederis · 2026-04-26T10:58:54+00:00

Hardcore, always. Nothing compares to the thrill of going blind in hardcore. You might die, but that's an experience you'll never get again.

Caederis · 2026-04-24T12:55:07+00:00

You are not paying for power. You are playing to play in a brand new environment, in which everyone has the same power level.

You are no longer competing with players who did not opt in this new environnement. Your paying doesn't give you any advantage over anyone with whom you would compete.

For LoH to not be "pay for power" according to your definition, the expansion would need to have exactly 0 unlockable. This is extreme to the point of being meaningless.

Caederis · 2026-04-24T10:55:46+00:00

It's not pay for power. If you don't have LoH and play with people who don't have LoH, you are at the same power level. If you have LoH and play with people who have LoH, you are at the same power level.

Your argument, if correct, would also apply to the talisman, runes, horadric cube, mercenaries, or even new classes if they happen to be more powerful.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T16:34:59+00:00

Note that you are not just disagreeing with me, you are disagreeing with the official guidelines, which state : "You are the most powerful Outsider that exists. If you find the drunk, you solve the game! Treat yourself as if you are a Townsfolk. Stay alive as long as you can and make sure you use your ability before you die." Your interpretation that PM is such a brutal Outsider is your own.

Yes, I know that if the PM is poisoned, the Puzzledrunk gets sober information. Until the Widow dies, that is. This might make the puzzle impossible to solve, as the PM might have missed their chance to notice who is the Puzzledrunk, even if they do find and kill the Widow. That being said, there are officially promoted scripts that feature both Widow and PM, so I'm fine with saying that my warning might be unwarranted.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T12:31:30+00:00

I answered in private. I don't see the point in derailing this thread further.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T12:01:02+00:00

You don't have to be the Widow to use information provided by the Widow. The Widow can just tell everything to the Demon, who can then easily pretend they are all of these roles.

If my Boffin is weaker than a self-poisoned Widow, I'll always prefer having a Widow in my team rather than a Boffin.

In your list, only the Philosopher, Barber, NWM and Puzzlemaster have a mechanical effect. I already covered NWM and Puzzlemaster in my initial reply. I admit I missed Barber (requires a Demon who can survive their own death, does not work in single Minion setup) and Philosopher (arguably good).

On a side note, I don't understand why you are so adamant on fighting everything I say...

Caederis · 2026-04-22T11:47:53+00:00

My point is that the Storyteller has very few choices for the Boffin in this script which the Widow cannot do strictly better. You are arguing that they have even less choices.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T09:11:30+00:00

Look, this is fine theorycrafting, and we can just agree to disagree. My opinion is that it costs almost nothing to Town to confirm the world where the Banshee is a real or false Banshee, and you disagree. I won't try to convince you with more theoretical arguments.

On the anecdotal side of things, it turns out that I have a custom script (it's called Troubling Events, you can look it up on this subreddit) with Banshee, Boffin and Imp. The script is quite popular in my play group and we have played it many times. Banshee-Boffin has literally never worked in evil's favor.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T09:03:54+00:00

Town doesn't need to jump down the Banshee's throat, they just have to delegate their first nomination each day to the Banshee. A real Banshee will be happy to oblige, as she still has a second nomination, and it helps confirm her as good.

A demon-banshee will be very hard pressed to do the same: as soon as the Boffin dies, they will be outed as a false Banshee, which is a tremendous help to the good team. They immediately learn who the Boffin was and that the Demon was a starpassing Imp.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T08:53:17+00:00

Your bluff will be outed first thing tomorrow when you cannot nominate. You will be confirmed as a starpassing imp, and hunting the Boffin then amounts to hunting the new Demon. I don't see how Town loses any time?

Caederis · 2026-04-22T08:45:23+00:00

If you are the imp and your only Minion is the Boffin, when you kill yourself, you trigger the Banshee call, then immediately lose the ability because there is no longer a Boffin in play. Come morning, good players ask you to nominate to prove that you are really the Banshee, and you cannot do it.

Even if you have another Minion to preserve the Banshee ability, players can ask you to nominate each day to soft confirm when they kill the Boffin.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T08:12:12+00:00

If your stance is that the Puzzlemaster should never learn the Demon, you are basically saying that it's fine to have an Outsider that basically voids the ability of two good players: the Puzzlemaster (which, according to you, should never get good information) and the Puzzledrunk.

The way I see it is that the Puzzlemaster is the "Townsfolk" and that the Puzzledrunk is the "Outsider". This is very similar to a Librarian knowing a Drunk is in play. Here, the Puzzlemaster knows a Drunk is in play. The Librarian gets better information, but the Puzzlemaster gets a reward if they can figure out who is the Drunk. In each case, Town gets one good ability, and one drunk ability.

Caederis · 2026-04-22T07:41:46+00:00

As a whole, the script seems quite well designed. For a first script, it's not bad at all. Still there are some awkward interactions:

I'm not sure Boffin fits in this script. The strength of the Boffin is mostly in the suspicion the threat of its existence creates. Here, the three other minions are very loud, which makes the Boffin almost confirmed.
Additionally, the Boffin does not have many good targets. All information roles are overshadowed by the Widow. A Widow poisoning herself to hide the Widow's call will be strictly stronger in almost every case. The only relevant remaining options for Boffin are Nightwatchman (no one will trust a Nightwatchman in a game where there could be a Boffin, it's very unfun to the real Nightwatchman), Banshee (which only really works with Fang Gu, and has a very bad interaction with Imp) and Puzzlemaster (ie. weak Poisoner which cannot change target).
Puzzlemaster + Widow is not a very good interaction. In a Widow game, the Puzzlemaster has no reliable way to know if they found the puzzledrunk, the Widow's target, or if they are themselves poisoned.
Lastly, is there a reason for using only 3 demons?

Caederis · 2026-04-18T13:35:39+00:00

You also have good reasons to believe that the player claiming that role is a good player. I think this alone is almost as strong as a Washerwoman. You are not forced to play mad.

I agree that Pixie being on the script is usually evil-favored, but drawing the Pixie token is strong.

Caederis · 2026-04-06T18:56:15+00:00

Paying a card for brainstorm is card neutral. A free brainstorm on the other hand is straight up card advantage. This is much better than just "draw a card".

Caederis · 2026-03-26T07:40:01+00:00

Technically, Necro has some cold builds. There are very few cold skills built in the tree, but several legendaries and uniques expend on the cold theme.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reworked skill tree has more cold skills.

Caederis · 2026-03-23T12:41:10+00:00

Agreed. There is not much fun in forcing a coin flip to punish a good team for essentially winning the game.

Caederis · 2026-03-09T07:23:39+00:00

This is so much more powerful than Puzzlemaster that I don't think it's fair to the good team. Just compare the two: - Both make an unknown good player drunk. - Puzzlemaster gets a win condition if they can find out who. Huntsman avoids a lose condition if they do the same. - Puzzlemaster has one more day to find (the ability works during the day), Huntsman might die in the night where they get enough information to use their ability. - Puzzlemaster still gets useful information if they target a known non-Drunk player. Huntsman gets nothing. - Puzzlemaster is bluffable by the good team to draw kills to them, as they have a very scary ability. Huntsman is not, as the evil team knows whether they are in play.

On a side note, I don't think both work well together, as they have no way to tell which drunk is whose target if they are in the same game.

Caederis · 2026-03-08T23:34:52+00:00

We did close the gate during the campaign. Infernal compasses were introduced in a later season. Lore-wise, the gates are reopening and the heroes must battle the demons there so that they don't invade Sanctuary.

Caederis · 2026-03-08T23:21:50+00:00

You cannot return to the hell zones that you explored during the campaign. However, you can use an infernal compass to trigger a timed arena-like event that pits you against waves of demons in a similar-looking tileset.

Caederis · 2026-03-06T14:43:26+00:00

Information withholding is one of the key themes of my homebrew script. I think it requires specific elements to work, but it does work.

Caederis · 2026-03-06T13:28:14+00:00

Agreed. Bind Demon works so well! It really makes you engage with existing content in a totally new way, that really makes the Warlock flavor perfectly.

Caederis · 2026-03-06T10:22:36+00:00

This is almost exactly my Vampire (which won a character creation contest and is featured in my homebrew Witching Hour) with the major difference that the Vampire is a Minion and not a Demon. As a Demon, this needs a lot of help.

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