Nice! Glad you found something that works for now at least. Hopefully something more permanent gets released though. I'm sure modders will find something eventually, but it might take a while.

Like I mentioned, I'm partial to randomizers. It keeps things fresh and the shenanigans can range from trivially easy to downright impossible for some areas. It does get a bit tedious in the beginning of the game if you don't get a good start and then turns into more of a key item scavenger hunt after a while though.

I've had the same experience with SL1 runs because the dlc is just an obnoxious slough of high health enemies and weapon durability management. It kind of stops being fun. Challenge builds for me typically end up being magic or faith builds because I'm more of an unga bunga gamer(specifically dex with curved great swords usually) and it forces me outside of my comfort zone. I don't like trying to "force" weak weapons to work.

Funny enough I don't think I've ever done a legitimate CoC run either. It's just not interesting to me because I'd just use it to farm souls where I otherwise couldn't, which removes the challenge. The ring is really fun for a strong fists build though.