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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ComradeGnull" data-source="post: 6001503" data-attributes="member: 6685694">I think two things majorly contribute to this feel- survivability, and the use/presentation of the encounter rules.First, as character creation has gotten more and more detailed and time consuming, having level 1 PCs (or any PC) die has fallen increasingly out of fashion.  You encourage people to be very attached to their character from an early stage, you require a lot of work and selection in order to create a character, and the result is that 1) players are unhappy when PCs die young, because now their carefully imagined and built creation, possibly with a pages-long background and personality, is all wasted effort, and 2) DM's are unhappy when characters die because the opportunity cost of pausing play to create new characters gets higher.  The result of these developments was high starting hit points, more abundant healing, and fewer deaths.  That makes non-combat threats like traps and puzzles much less likely to have lethal manifestations.  The suggested cost of failing a skill challenge (like a trap or other non-combat encounter) was losing a healing surge, something you had a half dozen of at level one and could restore at any time by taking a nap.  That kills the high-threat atmosphere of a traditional dungeon crawl.Second, the way the encounter guidelines were presented left a lot of people- particularly DMs new to 4e and new to RPGs- with the feeling that every single time combat started, there HAD to be a full compliment of level-appropriate enemies who added up to the correct amount of per-level per-encounter XP.  This meant that instead of a lot of small fights- taking out goblins one at a time, clearing one small room of skeletons, etc.- you got a handful of large, set-piece battles that needed to take place in a big room that could readily accommodate 4-6 PCs and 6-10 opponents.  This made for multi-hour long combats that ate whole gaming sessions and left people burned out on spending most of their time picking which power to use next instead of doing something more creative.I'm confidant you could build a dungeon crawl using 4e, but you would need to artificially reign in healing and take the recommended encounter building guidelines with a big grain of salt.</blockquote>

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