D3 too easy? Try Hardercore mode.

Start a new character on Hardcore mode. The first thing you want to do is throw away your starting weapon.

From now on, the first item that you find of each type is the item you must use for that slot, if you find a nice magic sword, hurray! If you find a blunt dagger as your first weapon, boo hoo.
At the start of each act you can choose to throw away any items you don’t want. Again the first item you find of its type is the only one you can put in its slot.

To make this a bit easier – at the start choose:
– One/Two Handed Weapon.
– Melee/Ranged Weapon.
You may only equip this weapon type.

Possible Rewards:
Beating each act boss – may replace an item with one of the items they dropped.
Gaining the Blacksmith – A single use of his crafting straight away, you must use what he makes.

Obviously no Auction house action (selling is allowed), no buying from NPCs and no twinking from your other characters.

These modified rules are pretty close to first item only ironman.

I’m going to give this a go now with a Demon Hunter. Let’s see how long I survive 🙂
I’ve chosen one hand ranged as my weapon type which I believe will give me an advantage so long as I survive till I get one. First 1 hand xbow is req level 5 , ilvl 7.

 

Level 2 – Impale. It works without a weapon, no idea how but I’m glad, this gives me my first ranged attack!

First Item – Thick Sash. Off to a good Start!

Second Item – Inferior Gloves 🙁

Thick Cloth Tunic, yeah boi!!

Killing the horder finds me my first magic item, “Hand axe of the Snake”, it’s not for me:( I do however get a Thick Buckler to up my defence!

Cloth Pants! No Thick mod on these ones, but at least I have more armor.

The boss in adrias Hut finds me a magic two handed bow with +dmg, +attack speed. Not for me though!

I don’t know if it’s on purpose, but I just realised my character punches with her shield arm more often than her free hand.

Found +4% run speed shoes in a chest. Woot!!!

Took down my first boss pack: teleporting ravenous dead (zombies), not too hard, just throw a lot of punches and use impale for extra damage.

Level 4! Caltrops finally, hope they work like they did in SC 🙂

Very slowly took down a blue pack of teleporter carrion bats, almost level 5!
Damaged bracers, almost got all the slots filled 🙂

Made it to level 7, nothing interesting to report except that elite mobs take forever to kill. Am just at the cemetery, these are going to take a while to clear, hope I can finally find a weapon in them!

Smashing the infernal orb trap (after running away from the skeletons) gets me to level 8 and drops a magical hat (I have no hat yet) +6% magic find woo!!! Smoke screen hurrah!

Crown rescued, crypts took a long time. Killing enemies is now officially taking waaaay too long.

Templar rescued, that took a bit. Still punching and impaling enemies (summoners are such a pain). Hit level 9, yay extra skill slot for smoke screen.

Killed a harvester (exploding fatty) in cathedral level 4, he dropped a Fine Simple Hand Crowssbow. +20% damage and I finally have a weapon, WOOT!

Found my first treasure gob, took him down with rapid fire.

Level 10, enemies are pretty easy now. Packs of burrying leapers hurt a lot however, few close calls there.

Lots of boring bits in here skipped, no interesting things happen.

Spider caves are quite hard, first near death experience with a waller spider pack. double smoke screen luckily gets me out of there.

Leve l 14. Find a blue shoulder off a treasure gob, +6 dex, +8 xp, woot!

Moments later a white mob drops my first ring… +5% gold from monsters 🙁
And my 2nd ring +5 Life after each kill, nice!

At Halls of Agony L1.