Experienced Player looking for 'old school' style D&D4e game [any night EST, but Tues/Sat]

I've been looking to get into a 4e game recently, and had little luck, not finding something compatible with my playstyle. Hopefully I would like to play a game of 4e that emulates the style of early D&D - though not necessarily in the dungeon crawl, monty haul style, but in the rare, flavourful magic items, a lack of shops where you can just buy up magic armor and weapons for a fee - instead you have to beg, bargain and steal to get what you need, or put in the time and effort to create it yourself (instead of just using the ritual and waiting a few hours). Something where the party works together, but the DM doesn't shy away from conflict or even violence between party members, and who lets the party interact in a way that feels natural, instead of trying to force players to get along, and create a compatible group, sometimes the best groups are the ones that are incompatible, and have to work through it anyway. Or those rare moments when the party realizes that they've been played and that dagger in their back was from an 'ally'. Effectively, I'm looking for something fun, with a lot of intrigue, both from the players and the campaign setting. I'm generally available every evening, from ~4EST onwards, with the exception of Tuesdays and Saturdays, wherein I am unavailable. Generally, I play in a mixture of voice and text chat, but am open to anything in this front; in 4e, I tend towards frontliners - either tanky strikers, or hybrid/off-class defenders, but can play pretty much whatever role is necessary for the group. It's easy enough to contact me via PM here, or via skype at nakiitae Thanks for any consideration in advance, and I hope to game with you soon :) EDIT: Fixed for time clarifications. My bad.

If you can recruit some friends, I'm your DM, I would be available most nights starting with 7pm Central time (8pm EST). Just let me get this straight, you'd be okay with me being very cheap with treassure, throwing random difficulty monsters at you and so on? (We would probably implement the inherent bonuses from DS to be charitable, And are you ok with banning expertise feats but giving one for free?)

Isn't putting 4E and "Old Skool" in the same sentence an oxymoron?  Sorry lol..    Hey - if you're open to making it Pathfinder I'd totally be interested, and would be cool with a restricted setting and tough encounters.

How about 3.5 Pathfinder is Broken

I'm not keen with banning expertise feats, as I've seen characters that utilize more than one (not that I have one in mind myself), as for 'cheap with treasure', the intent is not to reduce it to a point where they're impossible to find, but to make them a: expensive and hard to find, b: require actual effort to create, or c: rewarding and interesting treasure. +1 swords are great, but 4e is best for adding interesting effects to weapons as properties and powers. That +1 sword can be incredibly interesting and central to the plot. Personally, having used the Inherent Bonuses option - no. They're pointless and reduce interest in exploration of items. You find your preferred magic item and sit on it for the rest of the game, because there's no reason to expand. Not that 4e doesn't -already- do this, but it exacerbates an existing issue. As for random difficulty monsters - I find that the system does this anyway. Anything not in MM3 and MV does that weird power-spike jumping thing, where one fight is fine or too easy, and the next you get crushed anyway. So long as you weren't actively attempting to invalidate characters with no counterplay, or dropping in creatures that we'd have no way of defeating, without actually giving us fair warning, I'd have no problem with that. PCs who get cocky and think they can kill anything die fast. But at no point should that beholder burst through the wall 'because'. Beyond that, I don't have a group to call on at the moment; they're all either busy or have other games (including my own). it would require recruiting some like-minded individuals. EDIT: 'Isn't putting 4E and "Old Skool" in the same sentence an oxymoron?' - Forgive me, but having actually played both Basic and AD&D2 at some point in my life - no. In fact, 4e is closer to 'old skool' than 3.5 or Pathfinder. I'm currently GMing pathfinder, and have no desire to play it. On the flipside, Pathfinder is no more broke than 3.5 is, and I'm not looking for that either.

Hey, Beholders do what beholders do, Im all good for that

Animus said: I'm not keen with banning expertise feats, as I've seen characters that utilize more than one (not that I have one in mind myself), as for 'cheap with treasure', the intent is not to reduce it to a point where they're impossible to find, but to make them a: expensive and hard to find, b: require actual effort to create, or c: rewarding and interesting treasure. +1 swords are great, but 4e is best for adding interesting effects to weapons as properties and powers. That +1 sword can be incredibly interesting and central to the plot. Personally, having used the Inherent Bonuses option - no. They're pointless and reduce interest in exploration of items. You find your preferred magic item and sit on it for the rest of the game, because there's no reason to expand. Not that 4e doesn't -already- do this, but it exacerbates an existing issue. As for random difficulty monsters - I find that the system does this anyway. Anything not in MM3 and MV does that weird power-spike jumping thing, where one fight is fine or too easy, and the next you get crushed anyway. So long as you weren't actively attempting to invalidate characters with no counterplay, or dropping in creatures that we'd have no way of defeating, without actually giving us fair warning, I'd have no problem with that. PCs who get cocky and think they can kill anything die fast. But at no point should that beholder burst through the wall 'because'. Beyond that, I don't have a group to call on at the moment; they're all either busy or have other games (including my own). it would require recruiting some like-minded individuals. Ok, how about this? I was thinking on running a Neverwinter campaign starting at first level with the following features: - Expertise feats are allowed, but no feat bonuses ever apply to attack rolls, or they apply to every single one (this one to avoid overespecialization of PCs) - Treassure is truly random and consisting mostly on goods and coins,  ocassionally a magic item will show up in treassure (I won't be using treassure parcels). If you want to go find expensive things, you'll have to venture out of the city to get it. - Don't expect all encounters to be preciselly balanced, some encounters will be very though and are best avoided - I was thinking on using this houserule: a short rest is a night of good rest, a long rest implies a week on a safe and comfortable place (but only if it resonates with the players) We can work on this one, there is no hurry

So, what system are we thinking?

4e

You guys still looking for players? I'm always up for anything as long as I can fit it in my schedule and it's fun. :-)

R.A. S. said: Ok, how about this? I was thinking on running a Neverwinter campaign starting at first level with the following features: - Expertise feats are allowed, but no feat bonuses ever apply to attack rolls, or they apply to every single one (this one to avoid overespecialization of PCs) - Treassure is truly random and consisting mostly on goods and coins,  ocassionally a magic item will show up in treassure (I won't be using treassure parcels). If you want to go find expensive things, you'll have to venture out of the city to get it. - Don't expect all encounters to be preciselly balanced, some encounters will be very though and are best avoided - I was thinking on using this houserule: a short rest is a night of good rest, a long rest implies a week on a safe and comfortable place (but only if it resonates with the players) We can work on this one, there is no hurry 1. As in, Neverwinter as presented in the setting book of the same name? Isn't that largely a ruin and den of thieves? I'm looking for something with a roleplay bend still - an extended, combat-heavy crawl would make me balk a bit. Feel free to correct me, however. 2. This is strange. I suspect that it's to prevent players from sticking to a single weapon or weapon type, but as Expertise feats are chosen by group, it seems to miss the mark. Stuff like War Wizard's Expertise is already narrow enough in application that anyone taking it has no desire to use an axe anyway. I'm of the school that weapon tends to be part of a character's identity anyway - strange restrictions on Expertise feats always confuse me, because the math is wrong anyway. I guess I'm just looking for insight into the reasons for the focus on these feats. 3. As I understand it, you can't do that in current Neverwinter anyway. I'm mostly fine on this, regardless. "Truly random" magic items sounds like it ends up being sale fodder - which is fine, but boring. 4. 4e is like this anyway. Remove the expectation that PCs always win and it smooths itself out fine. 5. Return of the Five Minute Workday. This just relegates Dailies to "Rarely used, except in dire situations." and Encounters to dailies. It's probably counter-inituitive to the "Some Encounters are best avoided" because everyone will sit on powers and nova the shit out of that -one- encounter that week that is the hard one. Making it... not hard.

Animus said: 1. As in, Neverwinter as presented in the setting book of the same name? Isn't that largely a ruin and den of thieves? I'm looking for something with a roleplay bend still - an extended, combat-heavy crawl would make me balk a bit. Feel free to correct me, however. 2. This is strange. I suspect that it's to prevent players from sticking to a single weapon or weapon type, but as Expertise feats are chosen by group, it seems to miss the mark. Stuff like War Wizard's Expertise is already narrow enough in application that anyone taking it has no desire to use an axe anyway. I'm of the school that weapon tends to be part of a character's identity anyway - strange restrictions on Expertise feats always confuse me, because the math is wrong anyway. I guess I'm just looking for insight into the reasons for the focus on these feats. 3. As I understand it, you can't do that in current Neverwinter anyway. I'm mostly fine on this, regardless. "Truly random" magic items sounds like it ends up being sale fodder - which is fine, but boring. 4. 4e is like this anyway. Remove the expectation that PCs always win and it smooths itself out fine. 5. Return of the Five Minute Workday. This just relegates Dailies to "Rarely used, except in dire situations." and Encounters to dailies. It's probably counter-inituitive to the "Some Encounters are best avoided" because everyone will sit on powers and nova the shit out of that -one- encounter that week that is the hard one. Making it... not hard. 1. Let's pretend Neverwinter wasn't rased during the spellplague, just became isolated from the rest of the civilized world, but remains mostly the same. As such wealth is very limited within the city and there are no magic item shops as a result. Some powerfull magic items remain on it, but are zealously kept by their owners. want a magic item? make enough questing so the owner to gives it to you, or risk making an incursion into Lusken, or go explore the ruins of other cities looking for a scroll with the ritual to make that speciffic magic item that will only work once. 2. Ok. Let's not go there then.(Though taking any magic weapon that pops out is more old-school) They work normally 3. I was thinking on some consumables, and quirky wondrous items 4. Oh yeah, I'm not expecting PC's to survive every single fight, it wouldn't be old school otherwise 5. Was just a thought.

I am admittedly not all that familiar with Neverwinter in any situation. I was of the impression that it was ruined, but I guess it is still a somewhat thriving city. Whatever works here. I guess I need to actually read that book closer. >_> Regardless, it sounds fine to me; I don't have any real concerns beyond what was already addressed - I don't think it's any more or less old school to be tied to weapon, or use whatever, depending on early edition you look at. Beyond that, if you're looking for 'more dangerous' with the last one, I'd target surges, rather than power-usage, so they're not a constant source of 200% extra HP. Random thoughts would be to half the number, while making Second Winds easier (Minor instead of Standard; dwarves do it free), or just generally making it harder to recover them. I'm completely open to anything along those lines. I dunno if anyone else would be though.

The purpose of the proposed houserule was to slow down healing. Maybe we could rephrase it so it becomes "For Hit points and Healing surges, a short rest is a night of good rest and a long rest is a week on a safe, comfortable place. Powers and stuff remian as normal"

If you guys decide to go with this and could use another, I'd be interested in the premise based on how Animus phrased his original post.  I'm typically open to anything other than leader or controller (any kind of striker or defender works for me).

Hey, I would like to join as well. I'm not sure what character I'd pick yet and I'm usually in the habit of randomly making new characters anyway.  I like the premise and since I'm fairly new to 4E, I would probably adapt pretty easily to whatever changes in the rules that you guys made.

Jonathan R. said:  I'm usually in the habit of randomly making new characters anyway. Minor suggestion: break this habit. It sounds like a great idea in theory, as it gets you familiar with the concepts and ideas of character building, but in actual play, you'll find that with so many 'cool new characters', you get bored with what you're playing, and that tends to grind on -other- players and GMs when you consistently aren't into your cool new character after a couple of sessions. Regardless, I count four people interested at this point - the surge changes are fine with me - they're overbearing anyway. Powers remaining as-is is great, as it doesn't inadvertantly ruin everything. That said, figuring out times, dates and creation rules/limitations would be great at this point.

I'd be interested in joining your campaign Animus, as you seem to have a solid grasp on 4e mechanics and present an interesting scenario proposition for the game to play out. In regards to surges, I would caution against changing mechanics without applying due consideration to all related mechanics, such as expected damage output for monsters, expected encounters per adventuring day, and other things that cost surges (eg: skill challenges or rituals). There is no real point to shifting surge-spending from short rests to long rests assuming you have at least one character in the party with an encounter-based surge-spender (eg: any Leader). On the other hand, untying surge regains from daily rests would have the effect of providing more use of daily powers per "day", whereby adventuring day is bracketed by the character's ability to continue to another combat encounter by having enough resources to do so (ie: surges). This is probably a bad thing, though, as it would encourage players to dump dailies and refresh them every 2-3 encounters rather than every 6-8, or it would simply force players to take extended week-long rests every time they would normally take extended night-long rests.

Hey I would be interested in joining if possible! Your premise seems cool and I am always up for a challenge! I am new to the site, but I do have some experience with 4e. Let me know if you still need players :) EDIT: What days/time were you thinking of doing this? Thanks!

I dunno if the DM is still about - but it seems like there is enough interest at this point to fill them group. getting either confirmation, or someone else to DM seems like it would be the best option at this point.

If the DM disappeared i would be willing to do this i am free on Wednesday nights as one of my campaigns i am playing is interfering with my schedule on Wednesdays. 1. Plot central hand hard to get memorable Magical items is the way i go anyways. 2. Not to sure on what you mean on random monsters and challenge ratings but i like to give a few inescapable encounters unless you roll really lucky on the diplomacy check and several more if you either roll poorly on stealth, make combat to loud, ect. "that sound of combat down the hall is completely irrelevant to me standing here twiddling my thumbs" Said no monster ever. 3. I can put you all in a room together and the rouge has just taken your coin purses. You want to gut the rouge for stealing from you, alright roll initiative and better hope something big and nasty doesn't hear you guys fighting and yelling. Anyways i am very easy to get a hold of just shoot me a pm here or reply back to me if you want me. I am open to different times other than Wednesdays however my Saturdays are kinda booked as it stands.

Oh no I'm still here Just had a busy weekend. I could run this on Fridays will it work for all interested?

Any time after 5 PM EST works for me

Friday evenings would work for me as well.

After this week, I've noticed I have no time to script and build another 4e game (the one game I'm running is fully written already) So I'm sorry gonna have to withdraw my offer to DM this.