I'm no moderator but I believe you shouldn't be able to use free towers since it is in the same vain as injecting cash into your game, except instead of cash it is towers and injecting cash is against the rules.

I figured I should give my comments on the matter seeing as I have the fastest time on our leaderboards and second fastest time in the game at any%. The leaderboards should stay as is with how the rules currently are. The main reason for this is that the routing between the two runs is different at least for the start of the game. Since with NG+ there are two characters that can start with a +5 strength weapon as well as snoot who gives +2 strength for a total of +7 at the start of the run. If you were to compare that to the NG any% run with blue knight at different points of the game. At barbarian war Blue Knight is level 2 with +3 strength (you start with +1 all stats), with bear/iceskimo you are level 1 with +8 strength (+5 wep +2 snoot +1 starting str). Now these stats get closer together due to the way experience works since its dependent on hitting enemies who are above 0hp. The stats go in favor of NG over NG+ at level 10 since that is when you can get the clunky mace in NG which also give +5 strength and you’ll have snoot +2 strength and from levels you will have + 18 strength whereas NG+ will have +5 wep +2 snoot and + 14/16 depending on if you hit level 9 before lava world. However, due to having to buy that weapon on NG which 240 gold and needing 2 bombs for 15 gold each and throw in 5 potions (70 gold at thieves) to be safe, it adds up to about 340 gold (This isn’t considering the sandwiches that are needed to be bought for the run since both runs need roughly the same amount) to get the same stats as NG+ while ng+ needs maybe 70 gold just for potions. This adds more shopping and routing for regular NG runs while NG+ runs can get by with less shopping trips as well as less money needed in the route. NG+ doesn’t need the 100 gold from barbarian but NG needs it to guarantee they have enough potions bombs and sandwiches for a run. Basically you only need to route around getting 5 pots and 9 sandwiches for NG+ while NG needs the clunky mace (240 gold) + 2 bombs (30 gold) as well as 5 pots and 9 sandwiches. Not to mention that the NG+ run is much faster at the beginning of the game than the NG run and relatively safer as well. I personally enjoy starting from a new save file and having this route meticulously planned out for the exact gold I will need to have by a certain point and leveling up at specific points of the run (i.e. hitting enough bats to hit level 6 before Catfish is something only NG runs need to worry about since if you aren’t level 6 you miss out on one cycle Catfish. As well as losing the XYY combo at level 8 which happens on flowery field/castle top. Though, I do agree on a new category being an overleveled character running through the game as fast as possible. I know I went mostly on route differences but NG+ changes early game too much and merging the two categories would make beating Mike’s 1:15:02 easier and beating it right now is definitely possible. These are just my thoughts on the matter and I will stand by that the categories shouldn’t be merged.