1-2 Withers coming for You!
Some further thoughts, just cause I really like the idea of game mode that sets this stuff up for us. Having rules or restrictions or achievements that would be tough for a player to establish for themselves, at least with a broad consensus. For example the single-save aspect or the legendary actions in Honour Mode would probably be a tough sell if the difficulty setting didn't bake that all in for us. Sorta the difference between having a nice boxed cake ready to go, maybe Funfetti or an 'I-scream' cake from 31 flavors, as opposed to like baking a wedding cake from scratch. Maybe we get to crack that one egg and doctor things up, so it feels more personal, but you know what I mean. If honour mode is the "we trust you" to know how you want to punish yourself, vs just getting the punishment doled out. Like where the game does the things for us, that we can't be trusted to do for ourselves, or gives us some new spin that mixes up the grab bag.
Fast Travel Waypoints: Mini Map Glows Red so we know what's what.
So I understand the warp convenience factor in all other modes, but for a Nightmare difficulty setting it just seems like Fast travel via Waypoints should be much more restricted. An interesting riff or compliment to Honour Mode would be that in Nightmare, all areas in the game turn into Hostile environments - where the Mini Map shows red the entire time, except for select safe-spots where Long Resting resting is allowed. No fast travel unless the player actually clicks on a waypoint or an area transition. Every main area hub has a waypoint already, so this would serve as a sort of checkpoint for this mode. Fleeing combat could still work, provided the character isn't being observed or if they can put enough space between themselves and nearby enemies, but it would warp us to the Waypoint rather than directly camp just to preserve the scheme. Lots of areas in the game already work like this, and those are usually the most intense parts of the run. Main example being the Illithid colony capstone to act 2, which many seem to enjoy. This would just have the entire game working more like that. Turns the campaign into a limited Long Rest run, since you'd need to actually transition to camp from a location in-world first (the Waypoint). This puts pressure on the Long Rest, and makes Short Rest more important for the party, but without totally pancaking things there. Once the theme is established it can be hammered home with further adjustments to other stuff like...
The Camp Chest:
I feel like the chest works against what's going on in Honour Mode, for the Party's resource management and the Monty Haul generally, so in Nightmare it's probably the first thing to go. The camp chest makes encumbrance a non factor, which spikes the GP across the board from casual looting. I think a lot of challenge could be gained by just making everything weigh more and restricting our use of this Camp Chest. Something like 2x the weight, but without any added damage from that in the case of objects being thrown. Downstream more weight means fewer explosive barrels lugged around less trash sold for gold, but it also puts pressure on Player when choosing what kit to bring along or which stuff to sell. The armor and heavy weapons are the often the most valuable so this is a kind of offset there where we're encouraged to offload or spend instead of hording a massive pile. Being able to store an infinite amount of stuff at camp feels somehow different than being able to send it there automatically via the camp chest right click, so the idea would be that in the Nightmare you actually have to walk the stuff back if you want horde it all. Here the tradeoff in tedium vs riches becomes more pronounced and it probably pushes the GP down a couple grand per act so the economy can be tighter. For example in Act I, if the party can be held closer to say 1500-2000 GP and spending, as opposed to say 4000-5000 GP and saving, that's a big difference. Not all classes are the same, but just ballpark like cutting the money in half. Suddenly the more expensive scrolls and items feel much pricier in relative terms. You can do this to yourself by just ignoring drops or throwing gold off a cliff, but I'd rather it be more gamified than that and built into the mode. I don't know maybe Withers calls us out on our conspicuous consumption, or Arron jokes about how he's going to start raising his prices since he knows we can afford it now hehe. Perhaps if we start pushing the ceiling on horded gold, we might face some highway robbers at the waypoints or things of that sort? Basically where the game has some extra ways to shake us down, or gives us little nods signaling to the player that they have enough gold for now. Could happen at the waypoint transitions, or intermediate areas, so there's a spot to stage such encounters.
Merchants:
Along those same lines, I don't think players should really have to come up with inventive ways to ignore merchants in order to get a challenge out of this mode, but some sort of narrative conceit could be introduced to help explain it. All the merchants could use a separate Nightmare loot table to determine what sort of consumables and such are made unavailable or to factor in additional costs. Things like Smoke Powder Grenades, Strength Potions, Speed Potions, specialty Arrows and Scrolls, those could all bump up a tier in cost. So uncommon potions and elixirs become rare, and everything is priced at that higher level. From the other direction put some limits on what merchants will restock once purchased, so for example Ethel stops brewing new potions and lotions after her big firesale on day 1. Forcing players to use the alchemy system seems kinda rough, but I think that could be the fallback to ensure that there's always one of whatever super special potion. Also no knockout drops from the Merchants in Nightmare Mode. Having them just drop their most valuable items for sale circumvents too much and upends the real cost for everything else they're selling. Examples would be being able to just swoop Cat's Grace from Ester, or the Dex gloves from Jeera, the Yuan-Ti Mail from Talli, the Fur Coat and Drakes Glaive from Roah, the Risky Ring from Oblodra, the Halberd of Vigilance etc. Instead of forking over a couple grand those all just become quick gets. There are some modestly priced items you might lose out on sure, but then because they're more modestly priced you can just swoop those too, then take back the gold you spent and get the more expensive items from the drops on top. Fine for the lower difficulty settings, but for the highest difficulty setting seems like Merchants just shouldn't drop anything at all. Or I don't know, say they cap it at like couple hundred GP and a couple rez scrolls say, something sensible like what Cyrel at the Tollhouse drops. Merchants probably shouldn't be like Mini-Bosses but they all sort of work like that now. Or if they are meant to be mini-bosses they should be way harder to kill. Like if Quartmaster Talli had legendary abilities, ok sure, but right now the pickings seem too easy in Honour. Nightmare could probably split the difference, where they get buffed for combat and we get nerfed on the loot? A lot of issues come down to just being a bit too rich, overkitted or overlevelled, but this can be controlled somewhat by how we interact with the merchants.
Spells and Scrolls:
I think a lot of this stuff would be self correcting once the Long Rest and merchant economy is tighter, or if using a more restrictive scheme where some scrolls or especially high level spell scrolls can only be used by the associated classes. Just wanted to highlight some examples that sorta bookend things by Act, one from the start of the game, one from the middle, and one the end.
The CC spell "Hold Person" vs Neutrals:
Right now I think this one breaks a lot of potentially pretty tough fights, especially early on. When the spell lands on an isolated NPC the game treats it as if the targeted character was unconscious rather than just paralyzed. When the spell fails to land, the targeted character just gives off a warning. This is busted because it allows the player to open a fight by just continually casting Hold Person until it lands, with the only downside being the spellslots expended. So like for the above Merchants above, you can Hold Person, knockout a merchant with Non-Lethal then come back the next day and the NPC will act like nothing ever happened. If the party is observed doing this by another NPC, it can prompt wonky stuff with initiative by factions. For example, you might have one faction (say Zhent merchants) go aggro and turn red, while another faction (say Guards of the Absolute) just sorta stand around max healing and doing nothing while people are killing each other on their watch in full view. You can make weapon or spell attacks, but rather than pulling those characters into initiative, the game then treats it like they're chillin' outside of Time or in another dimension. I've seen the same thing go down with Necromites spawning outside of initiative on the roof of Moonrise, so not entirely down to the Hold Person spell I guess, but I think it's exacerbated by the way enemies respond to the CC spell. For example, I can cast Hold Person and then murder Kithrath Thereyzzn right in front of her Wolves and that Guard standing a couple feet away. Or I can kill Z'rell in her room at Moonrise with no chance for her to Black Hole or do anything at all really. There are other CC spells that are similarly problematic, but Hold Person is available to almost all the Caster classes and it comes online at lvl 3. It's useful for most of the game via upcast (even after Hold Monster comes online it's still pretty solid if dealing with Humanoids) and for some classes like say Paladins or Bards or Warlocks with more focused spell lists or a slower spell progression, it sees a lot of use. The spell is very satisfying to cast too, like the associated animations and feeling of power when it lands, especially on more than one foe at a time for the crit dogpile. It's a fav for sure, but lately it's feeling on par with barrels. I think on higher difficulty settings a failed attempt to cast Hold Person should function more like ranged spell attack where the targeted character instantly turns hostile/red and we get dinged on character or faction approval. If it lands, it makes sense that someone who's been frozen in place can't like look over their shoulder to witness the who or the why on that, so no witnesses is fine, but then you'd think they'd be sorta freaked out by the experience. I don't know maybe they raise their prices and hire an extra guard the next day. Talli maybe stops talking about how she sold Marcus those Boots, and instead rambles about how the Shadowcurse must be getting worse. I legit think Holding and Command type spells are among the more villainous options available to a spellcaster. It's like the broke version of Stop Time or a Barrel of paralysis or something lately though. Probably needs work.
The summoning spell "Greater Elemental" vs Bosses with Mobs:
I thought about this one compared to say Animate Dead or the Minor Elementals which are similar and come online much sooner, but the big elementals are potent in a way that those other summons aren't, mainly because of the elemental warp. Slam and Multi-attack are powerful by themselves too, but it's the warp around that makes them so formidable. Average cost is probably 1000 GP with some give or take there based on the party's rizz, so relatively affordable by the time we come across these scrolls. It basically like gaining a 5th party member complete with Misty Step, except where each member of the party have one. It's probably still more entertaining to slam Ketheric with a stone minion than it is to just blow him up with grenades or whatever, cause at least the big ones can go toe to toe, but this seems like something for Druids and Wizards and such. I think a compromise might be something like Limited Duration, say 10 rounds instead of all day. Or maybe that has a check and some randomization when cast. For example, sometimes the Elemental spawns hostile (more likely if cast from a scroll), sometimes allied for 10 rounds, maybe only dedicated casters can have one still around all day or where it feels like a big bonus when that happens. Also just the idea of the elementals maybe not being able to exist on the material plane for quite so long, but needing to return to their elements. The smaller memphits have that potential downside where they can explode and hurt the team when they fall, so perhaps the larger ones do something similar when they die but with a larger blast radius? Again, maybe Druids and Wizards can mitigate the fallout on that somehow, but where the danger is still always there. The pricing could be a more significant factor, especially if the gold becomes tighter, but just to preserve that idea of summons as a specialty thing so they're not too OP, or just buddies for everyone. Being able to pre-buff a summon is very powerful, whereas if other characters had to use an action in combat for this it would also even the score I think. You know so where only dedicated casters can do that sort of stuff.
The protective bubble spell "Globe of Invulnerability" vs Endgame Bosses:
Unlike Hold Person this spell comes online very late in the game, so the issue is a bit different on that score, but it's so powerful that it subsumes and subordinates all the other battle tactics beneath it's glowing dome, once the spell is attained. I think the earliest it can be acquired as a drop is when we first visit the Astral Plane at the Gith Creche. This works alright cause there's a chance you might get Wall of Ice or Hold Monster or a few others instead, but I mean more like when we get into Act III and they can be purchases at the Sundries. The cost is high, but the spell is so effective it just feels like something that should at least have more class restriction imposed on it. Wizards can't write 6th level spell scrolls, so there is some pressure there, but just the idea that any old fighter could pop one up without really breaking a sweat. It always works, there's no potential Globe of Hella Vulnerability backfire really. I think it would be different if after casting the Globe meant being frozen in place so that character couldn't be taking additional actions while trying to maintain the Globe, or again, like maybe only Wizards and Sorcerers can pull that off? Duration could be shortened, or there could be a condition imposed when it breaks like lethargic works for Haste, just something to make that one more intense. Most Nightmares in Act III, probably start with a bubble bursting, so I don't know, just seems thematic.
There are other things and I'm sure I can keep rambling, but I just think Nightmare has a nice ring to it. When the player reaches out to touch the brine pool on the Nautiloid, like that's when we get our first glimpse on it hehe.
