Deussu's page

At this point, season 0 does not permit anything but the 3.5 PHB (with a few feats removed and minor multiclass and alignment restrictions), equipment from the Campaign Setting hardcover, and feats from the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play. What will and won't be open in the v2.0 of the rules hasn't been announced yet, but my guess is that anything needing even the slightest conversion from 3.5 to PRPG won't be, at least not initially. We'll find out in August!

Actually to my knowledge even Monster Manual feats are available. This doesn't interested many, but druids and monks are interested (Ability Focus and Impr. Natural Attack for the animal companion).

Deussu wrote:

Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.

I did a test on the Character Creation page, tell me what you think.

Much better, but my artistic eye would still remove some line breaks.

Will there be a character database?

I fairness I'd say you should always stick to a 4-player table. But I can come up with a scenario where you have enlisted 4 players, but one of them just fades and doesn't arrive. Doesn't answer calls, and people have traveled far to play.

At that kind of situations I would allow a 3-player table, since this one person's disappearance would needlessly shaft the others who have arrived. Later on this missing person would deserve a beating, or something. :P

Lehmuska, thanks for the compliment. I agree they were pretty innovative.

Chris, I had seven players show up for a game. I could run a seven player table (illegal), or a four player and a three player table (illegal), or I could tell one person they had to sit out the game. My primary objective as an organizer & GM is to help people enjoy themselves. My secondary objective is to build the membership of Pathfinder Society. After that, I worry about academic rules like the number of players at a table.

Living Greyhawk was very heavy into academic rules like legal tables. After a while the rules became more important than the game, and you see a lot of that legacy here on these discussion boards when people argue about stuff like "evil acts" or how many animals a PC can bring with them. My philosophy is if people enjoy themselves at the table, they will tell their friends and the membership will increase. When enough players show up for events that I can spread them all into tables of 4-6 people, I will then adhere to the organized play rules.

So to answer the question, technically yes I agree but in the spirit of the game I disagree. The 3-player got full credit for the scenario.

To me a 3-player table and a 7-player table are both legal. I've ran one 7-player table, and frankly I hated it. Actually even the reporting tool gives the possibility to add an extra player, so 7-player tables are legal in the given circumstances, though not adviced.

A 3-player team that beat #9 was indeed worthy of its salt. Congrats to them as well.

This seems to start conversation. Good.

I admit the importance of awarding loyal customers, but there are multiple reasons why one has not started subscribing earlier. One possible would be that the person hasn't heard of Paizo's stuff before.

Offering a notable percentage off from the price of previous product from the same line (such as Companion) would encourage the customer to buy them off, and not steer the customer to buy those older products from Amazon. You might see what my point here is. ;)

Frankly speaking selling PDFs is just a bonus. There are no real material costs selling more and more of them, so even giving a 75% discount for the PDF when a subscriber buys both the paperback and the PDF shouldn't hurt at all. It ain't free, but it sure gives more of a reason to become a subscriber, even at a later stage.

Trouble might be if people would just start subscribing and cancel them outright. Though even then it'd easily mean they'd buy everything at once. Not something I would find to be a bad thing. :)

I was planning on getting a Pathfinder Chronicles subscriptions, but I am also interested in getting most of the previous Pathfinder Chronicles products. As I've understood, I cannot combine these orders for matters I do not understand nor care about, but there's another issue that troubles my mind.

Since I tend to spend many hours in front of a computer, I'm fond of the PDF versions as well. Now, with a subscription I would get the PDFs from the products I get. But even if I would have an ongoing Pathfinder Chronicles subscription going on, buying previous products wouldn't give me the benefit, or am I wrong?

I'm asking this because I hope Paizo isn't ... favoring old customers over new ones. Let's say a new customer hears about Pathfinder RPG's success and browses through some of the free goodies, and approves the quality Paizo produces. Now the customer, in his or her great wealth, applies for Pathfinder Chronicles subscription and in addition orders the rest of the paperback products under the same line of products (Pathfinder Chronicles).

How are these situations handled? I might have missed some important bits. I couldn't find any exact information, and I've heard negative answers from other people I've asked from.

[snip]

Be glad you never had to compare Tier 3-4 and 6-7.

Illusory skeletons are a pain to run, as there are no exact rules how they work. How many will saves must the PCs roll? And then I have to remember which PCs the skeletons don't attack! Aargh! It's an encounter I like to skip, or make more sensible by just making them real. Or something.

But now, compare Enkendu's lair monsters. Tier 3-4 is very dangerous to the party of the level, but Tier 6-7 is something ridiculous. Gargantuan Animated Object with 148 hit points, and a Huge Air Elemental. Actually this encounter itself makes the scenario have 7 combat encounters in total, since it says to have EL 7 encounter each time. Yeah right. I've ran this two times, and both times I skipped this.

And to those DMs going to run this on Tier 6-7... DO NOT PUT 7 IMPS ON THE FIELD! Instead have 2 Bearded Devils and 1 Imp, it'll be much more enjoyable. Cursed be those Imps with high AC, Fast healing and poison attacks.

Also the last encounter can be ridiculously easy to a well-equipped group if played on Tier 3-4. The constrictor snake makes itself vulnerable by grappling (further drops its AC). But I couldn't imagine putting the Bone Devil against 6th level characters.

Maybe if I have the time I'll completely revise the encounters to something much more enjoyable both to the players and the DM, as well as make them more balanced between tiers. Possibly add some sense to the Enkendu encounter. Really, what's the deal with it? I still can't understand what's going on there.

Deussu wrote:

I checked it. The appearance is good, albeit the site seems to be very slow.

Indeed the images need antialiasing. I don't know how to do that, but someone might. Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.

...damn the site is slow.

Couple of things, The site going slow seems to be different per individual, where are you located? seems like most of the complaints are coming from Europe side *I am in germany*. I did a trace rt and there seems to be alot of lag in route. Majority of people I have talked to so far, say the page loads fine.

Aye, inside Europe, in Finland to be precise.

Also now once I log onto the forums, it refuses to show me any forums. Just says that "This board has no forums." Intriguingly if I don't log in, I can view the forums.

I checked it. The appearance is good, albeit the site seems to be very slow.

Indeed the images need antialiasing. I don't know how to do that, but someone might. Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.

...damn the site is slow.

And indeed there's something wrong with the forum software being unable to recognize the user. Numerous logins needed, and yet it fails to access it. Pressing the "Board index" button just reveals a site saying "This board has no forums".

Waiting for more, then.

And it doesn't keep the chosen color styling which can be chosen on the forum page. That's a shame.

I'm guessing the intention is you can only reroll d20 rolls. Damage isn't done in d20s anymore. :)

Surprisingly it was the one armed zombie (apparently a bugbear zombie in the normal adventure from what I am reading on this thread, I like our DMs interpretation better) which nearly wiped out the party. The mist spray in the final encounter and the crazy gardener were the highlights of the module.

I'm definitely not surprised if your DM described the monster as a long lost guardian of the necropolis yet used the stats of the bugbear zombie. It works very well that way.

Actually I've been playing the Beta for some time in our home campaign, and we've found numerous nitpicks and things that still need fixing. Besides there are inevitable MAJOR changes in the final product, such as cleric domains and CMB mechanics.

Besides, in my mind, both 3.5 and PFRPG are still very much the same. PF will bring some fixes to the 3.5 system (like skill system) but retains some of its biggest flaws (ridiculous power curve).

Of course this all will change once PFRPG kicks in.

Now that this thread has finally started, I can start talking about this as well. I played this one first, and have run it one time.

I would also like to know where the book is at the moment you meet the weak Black Marquis. If this Black Marquis would be depicted as a huge burly man who could punch your teeth straight to your neck, the situation might be different. The players were kind enough to ask "Give us a reason why shouldn't we just get the book from you now?" beforing attempting an assault. I had to put the room full of burly pirates, which in turn made it hard to explain why this was supposed to be so hush-hush.

And what happens IF they just kill Black Marquis? As I recall, Lady Riverbane is in the room at the time, and wouldn't probably make a move against the Pathfinders. I might even imagine she'd congratulate them and offer a reward. Heh, even maybe tell what's there in the cave. It'd remove two encounters altogether.

But yeah, these plot holes are getting out of hand. I see them in almost every scenario. Increase the page count so there's more room for detail.

The encounters are really really easy, I noticed this myself. I haven't even pulled the Tier 6-7 off, but I just know it'll be such a massacre the pathfinders are basically doing such things asleep.

And now that you mention it, the spiders indeed seem to act way too intelligently. Why would they wait for all party members to enter, and not just block the passage after the first enters? I agree with Doug^2 it would create more tension and excitement, albeit making the encounter harder. Still, using mere fire to the web would grant access to the deck below.

I really disliked the traps in the woods, they serve no cause. You fall into them, ouch, no biggie, heal up and continue. What's the point in scattering random traps around the woods? Incorporate them to encounters and they will be much better! I put both traps with the marionette, but even then it felt dumb as there's no monster trying to kill you.

On Tier 1-2 the ettercaps' encounter is hilarious, yet devastatingly easy. It all ends too soon.

And now for the greatest nitpick. A player expressed his discontent with the Riverbane and the Wild Bunch encounter. "Why a monolog?", he asked. To that I can't give a good answer, other than "It's cinematic." But it wasn't just that. He asked me a better question, to which I couldn't give an answer at all.

"Why were they waiting for us outside the cave, and not ambush us in the woods? Or better yet, just go back to Deadbridge and let the pathfinders find their own way back?"

Indeed, why aren't they just ambushing the pathfinders? In hindsight it really does seem like a hugely stupid course of action to wait outside and give a SPEECH. Also Lady Riverbane says "Black Marquis will die tomorrow", although it took as 3 days to reach this place. Even going downstream won't be fast enough to triple your speed.

I gave this 4 out of 5 stars. The main weak points are the few stupid NPC reactions (a thing that should be addressed in all scenarios) and weak combats. Good things include atmosphere and setting, those were done right.

Just to nitpick, the actual rules have merely arrived to the printer. ;) Then again you don't lose anything by waiting a couple of months, since the scenarios will be available to you later on as well.

yes, they should be open content. The only non-open content should be "fluff" items. (descriptive text) All game info should be open content.

"Should" isn't a term I so much like. I like to be sure and secure.

[snip]

I'll take that back. After a short discussion we chose to put those things behind a password due to, well, obvious reasons. So you are not in luck.

You could, however, get yourself one of those PDFs.

This question is directed to the following people (so far):

Matthieu Dayon
Craig Campbell
Benjamin Wenham
Greg A. Vaughan

Although I understood Greg's work was meant to be released later, but in the absence of suitable scenario proposals for #20 it was chosen instead.

The important bits I would like to see is the overall composition of the proposal.

can anyone tell me what weapons are listed in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting equipment list? I currently do not have access to one. (local game store is sold out of it at the time)

I have put all relevant items from the campaign setting to our local wiki. I'll have you do a little discovering, since the whole wiki site is in moonspeak. You'll find them eventually. ;)

Deussu wrote:

Preferably a druid, monk, or a sorcerer.

[snip]

Druids, monks, and sorcerers need less gold than, say, fighters, rangers, and paladins. A fighter naked will most definitely lose.

I didn't include wizard, since a wizzie tend to need monays to scribe stuff into his/her book.

Sure, a monk works better with equipment, but it can work with less as well.

I've eaten four scenarios. #2, #6, #15, and #20. I haven't been able to run #20 yet, and I adviced the local players to gather at least 6 7th-level characters before even trying.

At this point using images and all that artsy stuff is irrelevant. So far the site looks alright, but I won't say anything final until one has actually used it. Especially under stress.

Well it'd only be stupid to give your free GM xp to a characters whose class requires expensive equipment. Preferably a druid, monk, or a sorcerer. Those don't need much money.

Sounds good though. I'm wondering what kind of scenarios these "secrets" would be. Personally I'd hope them to be drastically different from the norm, i.e. not following the basic 4-hour-slot line. It'd give much more room to delicate intrigue and/or other elements not yet found from PFS.

I know how much Josh dislikes when people compare Living Greyhawk and Pathfinder Society, but I initially started to think about Core Specials when he mentioned "secret scenarios". This, in fact, is a good thing. Core specials used to hold a grande plot. In PFS I could imagine something like "Travel to the edge of the Eye of Abendego", "Journey to the Silver Mount of Numeria", or "Expedition to the Worldwound". Something epic would be nice. It wouldn't have to effect anything canonically, but the locations would be very very nice.

Navdi wrote:

DarkWhite wrote:

Hmmm ... I've GMed 25 scenarios. So my character advances to 9th level, having actually played only two scenarios? Wow!

I think the idea was to reward "eating" a scenario, not running a scenario that you've already played or DM'd once.

So you'd only get the character benefits for running each scenario once, not multiple times, if say, you'd run Silent Tide five times. That's a good catch!

And in addition this wouldn't include situations where you played it first, then DM'd the same scenario. Only if you render yourself unable to play the scenario by running it yourself.

In case the DM would 'eat' a scenario, thus never be able to play it himself/herself, he/she should at least get the XP out of it, if nothing else. You have to remember this DM can give this 1 XP to any of his characters, so no character would sky rocket to level 11 instantly.

To some groups this rule might be unnecessary, but it wouldn't disrupt anything.

I'm in for: the XP, gold depending on character's level (I know there's some table in the DMG, but I can't find it. Wealth gained by level divided by 3), and maybe the equipment access... depending on the character's level. E.g. the DM's 1st level character couldn't get Tier 3-4's equipment access even if the group plays it on that tier.

Tsk, I jerked the moment I read "the paladin ran away!!". A dire, dire tactical mistake. Then again it was a paladin, so nothing new. ;)

This already garnered a nickname "King Xerox of the Old Printers" or "King Printer".

NotMousse wrote:

Osprey is a venture captain.

One would hope....

AFAIK Osprey has never been declared as a venture-captain. More like an associate to the Pathfinder Society.

Slightly off-topic, but a cleric spell by the name of Deathwatch is labeled as an evil spell. Once you look at the spell description, you can come up with tons of positive, *GOOD* uses for it. It's practically the best spell a cleric can have when trying to find survivors after a large battle.

So my verdict is that the [evil] descriptor is completely moot. Disregard it, and instead use common sense. If a character raises his enemies as undead to fight more enemies, it's not too evil in my scope. Raising your own friends as undead ... that's a bit too far, to tell the truth. Disturbing your comrades' rest.. yeah. Also walking into a city with some summoned undead is probably the stupidest thing you could ever do. A DM like me would easily just set up an insta-kill to the character in question (really, failing at logic that bad shall not go unpunished, regardless of how epic the character is in mechanical terms).

Our table took the the phrase "I've stepped in a pile of Andoran" after the sewer adventure. (Even the Osirians took up the phrase.)

A common joke. All but Andorans tend to joke (?) about how Andoran is just one big sewer. Hey, it's a chance for my Taldan halfling to befriend at least some of the Chelish pathfinders ... I know, impossible anyway. :)

Until there's an official policy on how to act accordingly, I'd say the policy varies depending on DM and/or region.

Heh, yeah, 28 scenarios for only $100. That'd be a bargain, really. :)

Personally I would very much like the idea. At the moment I have a binder with all the scenarios (as many pages removed as possible), but it would be much easier to have a book for hold them.

If you would include 28 scenarios into one book, that'd also be around 475 pages. That'd be a HUGE book. Thus it'd be preferable to have all the scenarios spread into quarters. But then again all of this is just speculation.

Disregarding the loud chatter above, I would like to address this "PFS is not LG, and never will be" issue.

Of course it won't be like Living Greyhawk. Nevertheless ignoring experience and insight from previous global campaigns would be a grave mistake. These messageboards are the people's way of expressing themselves, and supressing the voices would only lead to grumpiness.

The speed of leveling is one, which the thread's title says already. Some like fast, some like slow. That is one issue where there are no real compromises. At the moment the steady, linear progression is in line with the wealth gained. Using the model proposed by DarkWhite would require alterations to the income, making it a bit of a challenge to address the wealth correctly. At that point it'd become necessary it deploy a gold cap, limiting the amount of wealth gained. This would be similar to Living Greyhawk.

Continuity is another thing people seem to discuss a lot. Some like one-shots and some plot-arcs. Plot-arcs tend to be trilogies or quadrilogies, and involve a much bigger plot and/or dungeon with the word 'EPIC' stapled on the cover. These plot-arc adventures are easily more memorable than everyday odd jobs. The impact these plot-arcs have could easily affect future scenarios in a very drastic way. However I know there is one dire problem impeding this concept's progress.

Since scenarios can be played in the any order, these plot-arcs couldn't hold a ground-shaking effect on e.g. the leadership of some big town. The plot-arcs would always return to status quo ante. Of course nothing prevents from creating adventures of great length yet without an impact on Golarion. Albeit a working solution, a bit unsatisfactory. I actually would have an example from #18 The Trouble with Secrets. Only for those who have read or played the scenario.

Namely, although there would be a chance for a permanent effect, there just isn't one. This issue has actually been talked about in our local gaming commune.

So far I haven't seen much political intrigue in Pathfinder Society, possibly due to the strict limit with pages and time. Without extra space you aren't able to include lots of important NPCs with their delicate motives, or explain the scheme to the DM in a elaborate fashion. I think this is also an issue I hope will be addressed some way. We've tried to introd-... seduce old Living Greyhawk players to play Pathfinder Society as well. Disappointingly I have had to compare PFS and LG in terms of scenarios and the use of alternative methods, as it's a thing they tend to ask about. Frankly every time I've said "Don't do a diplomat, so far the PFS scenarios have been just hack-n-slash." Navdi already has been seriously irritated by scripted combats, but that's another story.

The final verdict... it's all about choice. Provide multiple things and you'll get a much more satisfied crowd. I accept the fact I won't like every scenario written (I hold hatred towards Third Riddle and Trouble with Secrets), but I cannot avoid disappointment. Not everyone like everlasting political intrigue, and not everyone likes mindless dungeon crawls.

Oh, and totally off-topic, I would recommend the forum admins to just outright give a temporary ban to both NotMousse and _metz_. Reasons for this should be quite obvious.

[snip] An unlucky critical with a x3 pick could also ruin a 1st level character's day in #7 Among the Living.

...A x4 critical, thank you very much. *grumble grumble*

I would imagine #1 Silent Tide,#5 Mists of Mwangi, and #8 Slave Pits of Absalom to be good choices for a new start.

Actually now that I look at the list, wouldn't it be better to number the scenarios differently? In Season 2 the scenarios will start off with #57, and Season 3 with #84. Instead numbering them as if they were a TV series might actually prove to be a simple solution. Season 1, module #17 (#45). Season 2, #24 (#80) and so on. At least all my PDFs are named "PFS<season number>-<scenario number> <scenario name>". For example "PFS0-06 Black Waters".

Hey guys, after adding up the gold for high tier, it looks like people are getting shorted by a grand. The sheet states 1251, around 200 more than mid tier, while adding it up comes to 2251.

Excellent notice. Surely some groups are very intrigued by this. :)

were the allips supposed to be removed from that room? we fought two of them at the high tier of the mod, and the 380gp cost for getting restorations for several party members after the game was a big gp hit. very sad to spend our hard earned gold only to hear the allip shouldn't have been there.

Originally the lower tier (1-2) had an allip, a near impossible monster for the tier. The allip was removed from that tier, but the two allips in the higher tier were left untouched. Having a high charisma cleric with you when you go dwelling to a necropolis is a good idea. ;)

Deussu wrote:

Gnomes do get a chance to speak with animals, but burrowing only. Dogs, according to my knowledge, are not burrowing animals in the D&D sense.

You don't have burrowing dogs in Finland? Life outside the US sure is strange.

Heh, honestly said I've never seen a dog dig a hole in the ground. Furthermore they don't actually imitate moles, and that's my defense. :)

In addition gnomes are awesome, especially in Golarion. Finally they are given an intriguing background instead of the generic "we has big noses and brains, we invent shizzle".

Gnomes? Gnomes do get a chance to speak with animals, but burrowing only. Dogs, according to my knowledge, are not burrowing animals in the D&D sense. ;)

I was contemplating whether leaving Heat ability out of the equation was made deliberately. After all heating all the ice beneath wouldn't be much of a good idea... although it'd serve as a good reason to how the hatched eggs would be able to free themselves from the icy shell. Hmm...

Or maybe the remorhaz is just a very very calm one for some peculiar reason. ;) Sure, sadistic GMs will use the ability and have many many corpses scattered around the cairn. :)

Another list with short reviews (in Finnish) can be found here:

Mekanismi

Though the stars give a hint whether or not we liked them. :)

I ran this for the 9th time yesterday and something happened that hasn’t been tried previously. ** spoiler omitted ** They managed to win the scenario in a single act, without facing any other obstacles.

I complimented them for their ingenuity but they missed out on some fun, especially since most of them would have failed their Will save. Has anyone handled this situation before?

Our group also checked the surroundings, but never actually decided to go through the window. Going inside one by one would easily result in a TPK, if stupid enough.

While Ankhegs may not be listed in the MM as common to desert environments, without referencing the MM I would have assumed large burrowing beetles with a name sounding like the egyptian "Ankh" to be perfect creatures for such an environment. Golarion often uses side-bars that re-purpose creatures for different environments, eg "Desert Beetle: use stat-block as per Ankheg" and I think the Ankheg is a perfect candidate for this. So I regard the OP's criticism as needlessly pit-nicking in this instance.

I admit I brought the issue too strongly. Merely I was contemplating how in an open call proposal such a thing could have been viewed as an error, where as in this it is okay. And in fact as a large burrowing beetle in a desert terrain I do feel it to be fitting in the setting. After all, the Ankhegs imitate the 'Sand worm' phenomena. Maybe I still had the fumes of a post-DM rage at the time I wrote the piece.

It's probably not what the DM thinks what's random and what's not, but the players sure saw everything as very random. If it's isolated from the rest of the world for every 100 years, it should probably have used the 'survival of the fittest' rule. Having a personal zoo of three very odd creature (bear, animated object, swarm), it does seem very very odd and random to the player, despite the reasoning.

I guess it's that the players don't expect a desert mirage to be full of oddities. Especially since I was imagining a scenery from Dune with only the tumbleweed idly rolling by with the breeze whizzing. Illusory (I thought it should be 'illusionary') soldiers further make things random.

Overall paladins have a tough road to hoe. I suggest being Andoran as their missions are least dishonorable from what I've seen.

In addition Osirion tends to be fairly paladin-friendly, consisting mostly of "this thing was a piece of our national treasure, go get it back".

Taldor and Qadira are a real pain for a paladin.

I was assuming OP was talking about an assassin in a descriptive way. I'm all for it, although this particular assassin should model him- or herself after Altaïr from Assassin's Creed.

I had an idea close to this, and I'm sure it would generate a lot of friction between people. Brace yourselves, I am going to create a Lawful Good Paladin of Asmodeus. It will certainly be a role-playing challenge, and thus I must plan for situations that might be tricky.

Oh and yes, he's going to wield a scythe.

Despite everything, both Pathfinder Society and Living Greyhawk are (or were) global campaigns. Where as Living Greyhawk worked on a regional level, Pathfinder Society works on a factional level. It's a new approach, one I gladly accept.

Discussing level progression bases mainly on what people have experienced. I believe _metz_ mentioned how some abilities get never used before they are obsolete or upgraded with fast level progression. This similar experience could even be from certain home games. A slower level progression provides longevity, a thing I don't really see harmful at all.

Secondly, Levelling up too quickly results in a lack of 'getting to know your PC'. In LFR (which follows this system) there is already a backlash of folks who only used their powers in one-two games before they were largely redundant or had levelled. If PCs level too quickly (Especially in 3.X) then powers are replaced by newer abilities, and the progression at each level won't be savoured, it will be like spamming your way up to level 60 in World of Warcraft because all the stuff before then is irrelevant.

Third, this extremely fast levelling Works in a Home Game because ideally, there is a big bad at the end you want to vanquish. This does not exist in...

Quoted for truth, for both things. I tend to like more of this slower progress, making you feel like the character has really worked hard to achieve a level like that.

A local player (a veteran LG-player) also expressed his frustrated early on due to the lack of a wand of cure light wounds. Granted, it didn't become openly accessible in LG till year 2006, I think.

I ran this adventure over the weekend, so I read your assessment of it with certain questions in my mind. The main one being 'how long did this adventure take to run?'

Then I realized you didn't do Act 3. It is like a mini-module within the adventure! And if you were to run it I'm sure you would have even more comments. For instance - Tier 3/4 has a polar bear in the lair. I'm just not sure how it would get there.

I struggled to find a reason Enkendu would want the party to clean out his lair of the creatures within. As if he couldn't take care of them himself.

That being said, I do think my group enjoyed the very challenging encounters at Tier 6/7. They did a great job improvising and using anything and everything they could find to help them.

For me, this took over 5 hours to run and even then it was rushed.

Yeah, even without the Act 3 this module took way more time than expected. Having 7 bothersome imps with poison attacks, DR, high AC, and fast healing really make it annoying.

As I said, the Tier 3-4 encounter are really really imbalanced. 2x Ankhegs, 2x Imp + 1x Lemure, Polar bear + animated object (huge) + centipede swarm, constrictor snake, and some stupid illusionary monsters.

Act 4 and 5 are ridiculously easy on Tier 3-4. This module is a grand example of how to not make combat encounters. I hope you DMs read this and just replace the god awful Tier 6-7 Act 4 encounter with 2 bearded devils and Krasus. Trust me.

I would like to add in my 2 cp. I just ran Stay of Execution at a FLGS that had agreed to sponsor a Pathfinder Society Game Day. I had four people arrive to play. Two were from my regular Sunday gaming group and two were there as new players wanting to learn about Pathfinder. We had a slight misunderstanding from the new players. They had downloaded the Beta and the Guide to Organized Play, but had created their PC's using the Beta rules. I modified their rolls on the fly and we played the scenario. ** spoiler omitted **

This makes my TPK rating at 2. Overall everyone had fun. As I said at first this is just my 2 cp.

Could you tell what characters played this (level, class, race)? I'm wondering if player tactics have a remarkable effect on the outcome. We haven't had a single TPK in your local gaming group.

Thank you for the well worded explanation. I can't say that it really makes a difference. We had multiple LG characters due to the time units so creating new ones is not the problem. There just isn't anywhere to plan to go with these characters. 12 is too low, but I understand that above that is also where a great deal of problems start in.

I appears that shackled city is where we are heading for the short term.

Having about 4 years of Living Greyhawk under my belt I can't say 12 levels is too low. My main characters never got that far (managed to get to 11), though the reason might be that I created multiple other characters with which I played the lower APLs. Frankly, I enjoyed the lower levels a lot more than the ultra-complex high levels. Some players weren't so bright on how to act in a useful way, which caused a real time sink and such.

Unprepared summoners, ugh...

In the Finnish capital area (Espoo, Helsinki, Vantaa) the highest level is 6, and only one character has reached it for now.

And why must some keep misbehaving?