5e Hardcore is a Hard Pass

Really quick: if you want something similar to Dungeons & Dragons, but is more than a mere set of half-baked houserules, check out Dungeons & Delvers.

I've never actually played 5th Edition proper, but I did play quite a bit during the playtest phase, where there were still innovative glimmers of hope that were ultimately, unsurprisingly snuffed out in a deliberate move to reinforce corporate banality. A trend that still persists today, with Wizards of the Coast sloppily re-rehashing old content, and lazily, sluggishly retreading the footsteps of their, to put it very lightly, superiors.

Compared to editions prior to 4th, 5th is quite survivable, what with—among other things I've forgotten about, I'm sure—level-based Hit Dice restoring variable amounts of hit points, long rests fully healing you, and that clerical cantrip that auto-stabilizes you. Granted, there were rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide to dial up the difficulty if you wanted, but they mostly centered around rest times and hit points, and how quickly they recovered.

Personally, I'd just go with an older edition if I wanted to play something “harder”, or just more interesting and better designed. But, if for some reason playing 5th Edition without some of the training wheels isn't enough, and you're too stupid to incorporate rules and procedures from earlier editions on your own, I suppose you could always clumsily bolt on the clumsily designed 5th Edition Hardcore mod.

The cover is apt, because it's quite the critical failure. Why are a bunch of arrows sticking out of the skull? Just the tips, too. Would have been more visually interesting to make it something like a d20-shaped morningstar smashing the skull, with a 20 and all.

Ah, well.

Hardcore Mode, so-called, is essentially a set of houserules, mixed with a smattering of rules from prior editions: roll 3d6 for each stat, in order, roll all hit points, and you die at -10 hit points. These are fine. Tried and true for decades, though the editions in which they debuted featured alternatives in case you wanted to make things a bit more flexible. Really it's what the author concocts that reduces the overall package to a bland in mediocre mess.

The introduction stumbles and faceplants right out of the gate, by immediately misrepresenting gamers in general with assumptions that they only bother houseruling games when they've reached an arbitrary age, as opposed to doing it from the start. Really the author feels like Steve Bucemi, skateboard, cap and all, awkwardly attempting to convince you that he's a gamer.

In all fairness, maybe he's the kind of guy that only bothers “hacking” games after an unknown period of time, and if they're popular of course. I don't think he'd bother with 5th Edition if there weren't plenty of people willingly to blindly, compulsively buy any- and everything with the logo slapped on the cover, somewhere.

Mind you, this still makes him a poser, just one of a slightly different strain.

There's even a “hardcore” code, which is really just one part “let the dice fall where they may” (ie, playing normally), two parts DMing style. Nothing hardcore about it, though the author certainly albeit half-heartedly tries to make it sound badass and unique.

For the actual rules, he for some reason summarizes them at the start, but then goes into detail later, anyway. I feel like this was only here to pad it out a page, or perhaps to bump the content forward a page so things are laid out better. Unsure, and it doesn't really matter.

As already mentioned there are a trio of old school standards, which real gamers have long since accepted or modified to taste, so let's skip over the old and examine the new.

First up is a simplified skill mechanic. It largely operates the same way, but if you aren't proficient you for some reason only count negative modifiers. Technically this makes the game harder, even if it makes no sense.

Like, if you aren't trained on balancing on objects, then it doesn't matter how naturally graceful and agile you are, and if you aren't trained to notice stuff, then regardless of your Wisdom you have the same chance as everyone else, unless they have a negative modifier.

A better way of doing this, would be to set it so that you scrap proficiency modifiers, and being proficient instead gives you “advantage”. Otherwise it's just a normal roll. Downside is that, like 5th Edition's utterly botched advantage/disadvantage mechanic, is that players will have no incentive to take extra care, or utilize additional tools that they naturally would, once they get their first instance of advantage.

So, an even better idea is to just reduce the proficiency modifiers all around. Keep the DCs the same (or even up them a bit), but instead of +2 or +3 at 1st-level, it's +1, and have it scale up from there. Reduces the chance, but modifiers still matter. You could also axe take 10, forcing a roll for everything.

Next is the injured status. As with “simple skills” it's a nonsense, gimmicky rule, just worse. Despite the opening description--in a “hardcore” game of 5th Edition, hit points don't just come and go—hit points do just come and go. It's actually even easier than in 5th Edition, where you need to take a short rest to burn Hit Dice to recover.

Here you can “grit your teeth” and use them right away. What's even stupider is that you only become injured when you suffer 10 or more damage from a single attack. That's it. If you get shot with a dozen arrows for a combined 50 or so points of damage, so long as none of them inflicted 10? You're good. You're not injured...even though you clearly would be.

You also only recover from the injured condition if you receive 10 or more hit points from a single effect or ability, or take a long rest (which still replenishes all lost hit points). So, if you're injured, and someone heals you to full, unless one of those cure spells got you for 10 or more? You're still injured. Somehow. Even though you're not injured at all.

Again, it's a stupid gimmick. The guy thought of it, and no one challenged him. Or someone did and he just didn't listen.

A superior way of handling this, is to do what we did in Dungeons & Delvers, where you have both Vitality Points and Wound Points. VP represents minor injuries and exhaustion, while WP are your “meat” points. So, you could toggle on an injured state when a character has suffered WP damage at all, or maybe even when they are at half or less (similar to 4th Edition's “bloodied” condition).

Makes so much more sense, in that it makes sense at all. A very low hurdle, I know.

Now, as bad as the injured status was, Zymer's candle is worse. It's actually the worst in the entire book, solid only as a contender for being more retarded than combat wheelchairs. It's essentially a video game save point: you light the candle, and at any time can return to that point.

The author tries to spin it as a necessity, that without this moronic gimmick that players will be unable to utilize character death as a learning experience, a “story-telling” tool, as if roleplaying games are intended to be used to tell stories.

It's a crutch. Something for lazy, stupid players to fall back upon should they have a string of bad luck or, more likely, make stupid decisions. They could easily learn from the death of their previous character, use the mistakes to better inform their decisions next time around. This is how we did it before, and it worked fine for decades.

All this does is cheapen the experience, and will make players less cautious and slower to learn, if they learn at all. It's like playing a game with cheat codes: you'll get it done, maybe, assuming you don't grow so bored you stop playing entirely, and any victory will be bitterly watered down, a hollow.

But is this really surprising from the generation of narcissists overly focused on making a character that is special, unique, at least in their eyes? With a ten-page backstory that a GM is expected to somehow implement along with everyone else, in a game that isn't and never was about that sort of thing in the first place? Where character death is triggering, something that isn't supposed to happen, even with relatively easy access to no-risk-or-loss resurrection magic?

What's worse is the flavor surrounding the candle. They're made by a wizard—somehow—and he just gives them away to “heroes”, a term that like so many others has been watered down so as to be effectively meaningless. To the author a hero is anyone who merely adopts the label, regardless of merit and morals. You're a hero if you say you are, even if you've never accomplished any heroic deeds, and this wizard is more than happy to hand out magic save point candles.

Not to anyone else. No, the mundane, non-heroic masses surely have no use for such a thing. Not even for sale, not that they could cost much. Otherwise the wizard wouldn't just hand them out willy-nilly. Perhaps the peasantry should show up with a sword and claim to be a hero? It's not like the wizard can be bothered with a background check. Probably doesn't have much free time having to make a living in between passing out magic save point candles.

There's a variant magic system, which removes the ability to cast spells using higher level slots to enhance them. You know, in case you're too dumb to figure that out. You can also tack on a shallow spellcasting check mechanic, which the author considers “radical”. You just make an Intelligence or Wisdom check against a DC of 10. Spell level doesn't matter, for some reason.

If you roll a nat 1, you roll on a woefully shallow “volatile magic table”, which features all of 12 likely unrelated effects. For example, you could critically fail at casting a lightning bolt and have 1d12 imps show up (easily enough to demolish a low level party). There's even a lol-so-random confetti result, because coming up with halfway decent effects is hard.

Oh, almost forgot about the variable XP table. This is a mechanic pulled from 2nd Edition and prior, where classes required different amounts of XP to level up. The idea was I'm sure that classes had different degrees of power, possibly over time, a rationale the author tries to evoke again, here, except 5th Edition XP is uniform, under the pretense that classes are effectively equal in power.

But the only class-based mechanic that's been changed are that spells can no longer scale up from using spell slots, as opposed to earlier editions where they scaled by level. So, wizards have become somewhat weaker, yet require the most XP out of everyone to level up. Makes about as much sense as the stupid save point candle.

On the other side of the screen, you're encouraged to make monster statistics even more predictably inline with Challenge Rating, something that was more present in 3rd and especially 4th Edition. Can't give the author any credit for this (or most "ideas" in this book, as they were shamelessly stolen from other editions), though given people generally disliked 4th Edition's incredibly strict numbers, one has to wonder why he did this. Probably money and attention.

For example, Armor Class is 10 + Challenge Rating. Doesn't matter what the monster's Dexterity is. Doesn't matter how big it is. Doesn't matter what armor it's wearing. Knight decked out in plate and shield? Well, if his CR is 5, his AC is 15, even though it should be around 20. Really tiny, fast monster, with a Dexterity modifier of +3? Whelp, if it's CR is 1, its AC is 11.

He also stupidly suggests rolling a die to see what action the monster takes. Yes, even if the monster is quite intelligent and knows the most optimal action, you should still roll. So, a lich might end up poking someone, instead of unleashing an incredibly powerful spell, or fleeing if things are going bad. There's no advice for if an action doesn't make any sense, or is unavailable (such as if it is recharging), or what to do if you roll a spell and the monster has a bunch to choose from.

Roll another die? I would love to hear about an encounter where the players face off against a dragon, and it just keeps using Frightful Presence. Especially if the entire party already failed their save. Or a single claw attack, when it could have used all of its attacks. Makes sooo much sense.

There's a part afterwards, where the author states that you must stay true to the adventure material, even when it proves difficult or impossible for players. I agree for the most part, though I think it is often poor design to have one very specific way of overcoming an obstacle that causes the game to grind to a halt.

Where I disagree is when he follows up by stating that your players will have a sense of accomplishment after using the stupid save point candle to replay encounters over and over, until they win. If they have a sense of achievement, that's not a good sign, as “beating” the game by reloading a save over and over again is about on par with a participation award.

The tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons isn't a video game. There are actual video games for that. I expect video games to have save points and checkpoints, if only because one cannot generally play through the entire game from start to finish in one sitting. Also, video games are often centered around a specific character, one that isn't “supposed” to die, and I could imagine people being frustrated having to start the entire game over.

In Dungeons & Dragons, you play with other people, and even if the whole party dies, you can roll up a new crew and try again. Not necessarily start the entire adventure over, mind you, but pick up where the previous group left off. This is something I would imagine is much more difficult to deal with in many video games.

Point is, I wouldn't feel accomplished with a stupid save point candle that effectively renders my mistakes null and void. Hell, you could use this thing for all manner of trivial activities: light it, and have someone run down a hall. Traps? Memorize where they were, and roll back. Going to pick a lock? Light the candle, give it a shot. Did you fail? Rewind and give it another go. Do it as often as you like.

Do it before trying to fast talk your way past guards. Intimidate someone. Cast a sleep spell on unwary monsters, just in case it doesn't take (or you critically fail it). It enables the tabletop equivalent of save-scumming, except that's only really possible due to necessity, or the software platform (emulators make this very easy), and not because the game tried to shoehorn in a stupid gimmick with an even stupider justification.

Will 5E Hardcore Mode make your 5th Edition game harder? In same ways yes, but with the save point candle, I expect that to negate much of the challenge. Will it give you a hardcore experience? Hardly. If you want a comparatively, comprehensively harder dungeon crawler? Go with 2nd Edition. Rules Cyclopedia. Hell, even 3rd Edition will do the trick, and any one of them will be a complete, stand alone game, and not some hack's houserules that you pile on an already bloated and burdened ruleset.

Again, you could also check out Dungeons & Delvers. It's based on Dungeons & Dragons (and will give you a similar, more classical experience), but is an actually complete game. There are new mechanics and ideas, but none of them are as stupid as save point candles, and the magic systems are designed to reinforce the "flavor", the description, as opposed to being merely half of an existing magic system.