It doesn't look like there's a thread for this adventure yet; apologies if there is.
The cairn wights in the first combat have a critical failure outcome for Funereal Dirge of: "The creature is frightened 2 and takes a –2 status penalty to saving throws against drain life." This is problematic on a couple levels.
First (and less problematic), it doesn't do much: the status penalty from the crit fail doesn't stack with the status penalty from frightened, so it does very little in the short term.
Second (and potentially quite problematic), the status penalty has no listed duration. As written, the effect is permanent. Moreover, the ability lacks any relevant traits, so there's no way to remove the effect: a PC who critically fails this save takes a permanent -2 status penalty against Drain Life.
By the rules of OrgPlay, that's a permanent negative condition that isn't cleared at the end of the adventure, and thus the PC must be marked as dead. This is *almost surely* not intended, but it's the scenario as written.
I have read the table variance rules very, very carefully and repeatedly. There is no ambiguity or lack of clarity in how Funereal Dirge works, it's just (probably) written incorrectly from what the designer intended it to do; it has the same phrasing in the Bestiary.
Within the bounds of the OrgPlay rules, am I allowed to not run the ability as written? If so, what gives me that permission? Is it the dictum to "provide a fun, engaging, consistent experience", and being marked as dead due to a badly written ability isn't "fun", and wouldn't be "consistent" with how most GMs would run it (because they overlooked the problem)? Is it that this sentence doesn't include the word "abilities", so the GM can change monster abilities: "No changes to armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapon"
I'm asking for guidance on the OrgPlay principle that gives the GM permission to not "run [the] Pathfinder Society adventures as written".
