in general at the start you rely on the quest items at the start and one wrong creep blast at the start could have you redoing 2-3 hours work because a creeper destroyed half your base and the required items with it. that is why most skyblock types that use the HQM disable it. on hard core a creeper blowing up next to you will still kill you whether it takes half the base with it or not.
View it as an additional difficulty aspect.