Two questions about very large ember

1) I heard that you can go into New Londo Ruins early on, kill Ingward, and get the key to the seal, giving me early access to the very large ember. However, I heard this can break your playthrough by him not dropping it. Is this true?

2) If I get the very large ember, do I have to get the large ember as well, or does it count for both?

1) Don't know about that glitch.

2) Does not count for both

I've never had a problem with getting the key early on PS3 I think for a brief time after the DLC came out it could potentially break your game but as far as I know it was patched and should work fine.

No you can't skip the large ember very large only lets you go from +10 to +11 to get to +10 you will need to head down to the depths

It's always possible that an npc glitches out and doesn't drop their stuff.

And you still need a large ember to get weapons past +5. You could degrade the lightning spear from sens fortress and then use the very large ember to leve it up from +10 to +11 though