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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuzzlewump" data-source="post: 5108435" data-attributes="member: 63214">Warning: Major Thread Necromancy and Minor Spoilers for "Seekers of the Ashen Crown" follow.So, now I've actually run the Ashen Crown! Not all the way through it, but a fairly good portion of it. Or should I say, I've barely run a third of it?The group got to Encounter 22: Moon Pool and beat it, which has only taken 4 sessions to get there. But, I skipped 13 encounters on the way! So, really, I've only run 9 encounters from the book (out of 30) and thus I've only really 'run' a third of it. So anyway, I can't agree more now with the quoted section in the original post, about how 4E is not meant to be used for dungeon crawling, at least, not how the writers are trying to use it.So why did I skip so many encounters? Well, the fact is, very few are essential to the story of the module. I've come upon a little rule of thumb that I use: 1-2 encounters per story bit. Generally, that corresponds to a quest, but sometimes the players don't know about a 'story bit,' as in this module, where they are stumbling upon the place where a piece of the Ashen Crown is hidden without knowing.So to lay it out, the players are sent into the tomb with only the mission of clearing out some Kruthiks. That's story bit one. The other story bit is that it's the resting place of a crown fragment. That's story bit two. So, solving this problem, or seeing it through should take 2-4 encounters. The module stretches it out beyond what I see should be the maximum to 8 encounters in this mini-dungeon.Why do I have this rule of thumb? From my own point of view, I get bored running encounters that don't have any relevance to the story. I think my players would be bored too, but it's hard to speak to that. If anyone has any experience with dungeon crawls in 4E or in particular with this module feel free to chime in.So really in that section I only skipped 2. But the next section, "On the Road to Six Kings" and "Six Kings" itself, I skipped 11! Story bit one here is meeting the Order of the Emerald Claw and their local captain, story bit two is meeting the Wordbearers whom you will be working for, and story bit three is going in to 'Six Kings' to what is identified as the 'Moon Pool' to get a crown fragment. So, that's 3-6 encounters. I ran it in 4, but the module called for 12! That's the difference between it taking 1 session and 3 sessions! For some people, that's three weeks, for others, 3 months or more.For those curious, I 'ran' the skipped encounters in Six Kings by just rolling 3d6 and telling them to subtract surges from the group as a whole equal to that amount, and to roll a save, and on a failure their daily is spent (used during the previous skipped encounters.) That actually worked well. I probably wouldn't do that again, though, I would rather beef up the encounter than take stuff away. It ended up being a really tough encounter for my party as it was.(End Minor Spoilers)--Problem: Dungeon crawls in 4E should be designed entirely differently, if not scrapped altogether. Proposal: If you want to have a bit of a crawl before reaching the story relevant section, instead of having 6 encounters on the way, have 1 or 2 that spread out among the dungeon, and don't allow a short rest. When they start resting, a wandering monster appears! The 4E characters won't have much problem sawing through 1 or 2 monsters at a time, but without a rest, you will have the feeling of attrition and speed! that previous editions had, and maybe toward the end the party could be running low.</blockquote>

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