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Thanks, I just ran it high tier (20 CP): It matched my high expectations. The investigation is well thought-out, and the combats were spicier than expected :)

Heya,

The scenario looks cool. A few questions though:

1- In the chase, how exactly do the leaves in de parade act as Heroism scrolls? Is Heroism immediately cast on everyone who succeeds, or does everyone who succeeds get a scroll of heroism to be used at a later stage?

2- How long does it take PC's to get from scene to scene during the chase?

Hej all,

I loved running this scenario this afternoon! A few rules related questions that came up during the combat with the Tendriculoses:

Do monsters get their Resistance to Piercing & Slashing damage against a target that has been swallowed? I ruled that they did since I couldn't find they didn't. That felt really dirty though, hence the question :/

Can a PC escape though the same hole that a previous PC used to rupture out of the creature? I ruled no because I couldn't find that they could, although that didn't feel very satisfying either.

How does a Thaumaturge's Exploit Weakness interact with the Rupture threshold when he has been swallowed whole? The Thaumaturge used the Fire weakness of the creature to boost the damage of his Slashing attack. I ended up ruling that it would work to help burst out of the creature. It seemed fair to do so since it was part of the same damage instance.

Does Swallow Whole have the Attack trait? It has "(Attack)" mentioned at the start of the description, so I assume I did that right?

Finally: My compliments on setting up the high tier BBEG ! It was awesome to run a BBEG who could survive a severe beating from the party while at the same time casting spells like there was no tomorrow (which there wasn't, of course). Felt amazing!

Same issue; Been trying to buy an organised play scenario since yesterday afternoon. The page can't find the page after the Place Order button.

Alright, here's my post-mortem: All in all I enjoyed running this, and my players had fun.

Experience:
- My party quickly understood how to triangulate; That was nice
- There was some grumbling with regards to the foraging system. Only halfway through did it become clear that you forage either for food or for water; It doesn't seem to be possible to do both at the same time. Understandable, but it makes the foraging feel useless since you need both to account for a ration. Additionally it makes tracking the resources tedious
- Somehow my party decided on the 'disable' approach in the first location they came across, but at the second they changed to 'destroy' because they were afraid due to being low on rations. This meant they could complete neither the GA nor the VS faction goal. Somehow it has to be clear to the party that they need to do either one or the other
- There was some disappointment as to the somewhat low treasure the party got. They didn't go to the oasis or location D (-1). In addition they went for E, F and G, accidentally avoiding all Arid Desert hexes after having had their first fixed location, which made them miss out on encounter B (-2). This totaled for 7 treasure bundles

Confusion on my side:
- It's mentioned on page 10 that an hour after reactivation, Star sends a pulse that scrambles all remaining signals. By that logic, if the PC's have not completed their goal on day 16, they wouldn't be able to locate the remaining ruins anymore because on day 17 has activated Star. It feels like this is not intended; Am I missing something? Or is this simply an abstraction to have team PC and team NPC arrive nearly at the same time counting only the time the party took to get there?
- The reporting screen displayed that this scenario was re-playable, but I didn't see that tag anywhere. Bug?

General feedback:
- I did enjoy the flavor of the scenario. The locations came across scary and unique, and I got the impressions my players seemed to agree
- I loved the additional pieces of lore included in the scenario (setting up a tent, the weird locations in the desert, etc.)
- I enjoyed running the combats, although fighting earth elementals in sand can take forever. Secondly, the mooks in the final battle were utterly useless: Credit to my players, because tactically they did it right, but at 14 CP the automatons needed to roll a 15+ to hit the lower AC PC's with their first attack (lvl4-5 party)
- I'm a fan of haunts, because the players can experience the story of what happened. I would have enjoyed a little bit more description about what happened. It was a bit bare bones for that
- As commented by others: Create Water and Create Food simply break the supplies mini-game. This kind of survival journey really only works for level 1-4 scenario's, because that is the only level range where a party will feel the cost in spell slots. As soon as you have a level 5 spell caster in the party, this is not really an issue anymore
- Either the map is too big, or the speed vs activities per day ratio is way too steep. Higher level characters are slightly more likely to have reliable access to a level 2 Longstrider or a similar benefit, resulting in a higher chance to have a speed of 30+. But for level 3-4 characters this very unlikely, since 25ft seems to be the norm. You need to know almost exactly where you're going and to have the right party composition to achieve the VS goal

Hi all,
How did you interpret this one, since the editing in the scenario seems to be slightly disappointing.

Encounter D:

To disable the signal, the crystals can simply be smashed

Disabling the signal without damaging it requires a successful DC 18 Crafting, Thievery or Perception check (DC 20 for levels 5–6) to remove the correct wires without damaging them and to make the panel go dormant without burning through the remaining wires

The PCs achieve Zarta’s mission for this location if they either successfully study or disable the signal

I'm assuming the first entry should say "destroy" instead of "disable", and only the latter helps to fulfill Zarta's mission, right?

Edit: Same question applies for encounters E and F, I see.

I had the same response from my party yesterday (4 lvl1 characters): They immediately wanted to split up. In the end they saw Alec move towards the library on his own and decided to pursue him as a group, because they sensed what was going to happen. After the encounter with the gremlins, they decided to stick together. Weall thought the gremlins that gave lice were a very nice touch for a school trip.

I loved the titles of the romance novels in the library :D

Kudos, this one was a breeze to run!

I ran this on the low tier with 15 CP this weekend: The adjustment for the Ambush encounter seemed to skip a "14-15 CP" adjustment. I ended up using the 16-18 CP adjustment, which still made for an easy encounter (The leaded skeletons are sooo slow!). It's only now that I look at it again that I see that the sidebar seems to have two "12-13 CP" entries with a different description.

Compliments on the scenario though: Easy prep, easy running, everything was where I expected it to be, lots of fun!

Corps is a great title. But it should be corpses.

I would suggest Press corp in Karlsgard now that would be a twist.

True that, true that... I blame my phone :)

@Michael: Thanks for the reply! That looks more in line with what's to be expected in the high tier.

Hi all,

It looks like a fun scenario, but what's the idea of the final encounter in the high tier?

Tactics: Use the same as subtier 5-6.

You get a lot of fun 5th and 6th level spells that are not supposed to be used, and the wall of 3 skeletons with 42 HP each is not going to stop anyone with a +5 to hit. Both the attack and the defense of the enemies (both the seriously weakened gnome and the skeletons) is way below what should be expected at knoll 8-9.

Am I missing something, or is this a case of editing gone wrong, in which case, how to proceed?

Exactly: Since the DC between the two options varies, imo cross-skill assists lead to weird situations, as Lau described above.
Also, the rules for Aid Another on skill checks indicate you have to make the same skill check to assist in the check. Allowing cross-skill assists is usually a GM fiat, based on a specific situation.

As for how to deal with the rolling: It's as Lau described above. I give them max 1 minute to decide the approach (ending with a "5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Choose!), and have them all roll at once. You want to keep up the speed in a chase scene, which should in turn keep the players more towards the edge of their seats.
In my experience, it usually ends either with a decision based on "a majority of the players is good at one of the approaches", or with "one player is excessively good at one of the approach".

One thing that usually comes up that has not been covered by chase rules so far since the introduction of Group Chases in Season 6, is the question if companions, familiars, etc can make their own check to help the party. I usually let them assist their 'owner', which allows every PC with a companion to have a better result, without having to face trivialisation of the Chase DC's due to the sheer number of rolls.

Same happened to me, and it's not necessarily a bad thing: You don't have to 'punish' players for being prepared :).
WOW are pretty nasty creatures for their CR, so it's ok that the players get fair warning if they're not familiar with the creature.

Giving the party time to go to a library and investigate what they can find about the creature goes a bit far, since there is a time constraint to the scenario.
But they do know the creature is a WOW, so you could allow them the Kn. Dungeoneering check to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the basic creature (excluding templates, so basically the entry about the creature in the PRD/ Bestiary).
Stretching what's technically allowed by the rules, if the players are really inexperienced, you could allow them to make the check untrained, or reduce the DC a bit, since they have an eye witness that can maybe tell something about what he saw.

PC's with the Blessing of Ashava have the Scent ability. As soon as they get within 30ft, they know something is up, so the surprise round makes sense.
Once they get within 5ft, they can pinpoint the location of a lurker (but it still has concealment).

Depending on how you read the entry in the text, the "effects" of the haunt trigger at initiative 10, so they should not be able to get out before running before that. But I get your point.
Still, explaining that they the party instinctively knows they can bite the haunt to death should be an incentive to fight it, rather than run away.

So with the haunt “Into the Mist”, does it attack each PC still in the area or only one PC? It wasn’t clear to me which way it was meant to work.

I expect it will often go down before it becomes a problem, but want to make sure I run it correctly.

The haunt should be attacking everyone, since everyone is supposed to be within the extra-dimensional mist.

For GMs, I would suggest staggering the initiative of the Lurkers so that they don't all go at once that way after they show off how dangerous their Blindness is, players have a chance to react, rather than all three of them going at the same time.

I absolutely agree on the principle: In the low tier, both Lurkers should have a different initiative count. In the high tier, I'd suggest at least pairing them up (2 groups of 2 for 4- players, 3 groups of 2 for 5+ players) Sadly in my case, they were split into 2 initiative groups that came immediately one after the other due to an almost similar roll without any players in between :(.

Also, mind that technically the tactics dictate casting Blindness during the first round, then engage into melee.

Ran this yesterday at the 4-player high tier.
Due to playing in a store, the spookiness suffered a bit from it, but the scenario was well received by the players.

First off, there was some confusion about the Blessing of Ashava: Is it a Curse effect?
The reason this came up, was because there was a druid at the table.
Can the player still use polymorph abilities? Normally AFAIK, with a curse, this would not be possible.
If so, what happens with the boosts granted by the Blessing?

The first encounter felt a bit weak, but I assume this was intentional to have the players test out their newfound strengths.
Is there a reason the Inquisitor isn't going for 2 Judgments in the first round?
It's a level 8 ability and he's level 9, so I assumed he would activate both the attack and the damage bonus.

The chase was extremely well received:
One player said this was the best chase he ever played.
Another said only the Scions of the Sky Key chase topped this one (for flavor reasons).
Right during the first read-through, I found the DC's pretty high, but spot on due to the possibility of changing into wolf form for a +20 speed, the party has easy access to a +4 on all the skill checks.
My party did not realize this was a possibility until I told them about it afterwards.
As usual with group chase scenes, I did not allow cross-skill assists since madness lies that way.
Without speed boosts, they still achieved 5 of the 8 obstacles.
I'd also like to shout my approval for both 4- and 5-player adjustments for the chase scene.
The fight with the lurkers had more oomph than I expected: The spiritualist's phantom and the druid were blinded, with no solution to clear the condition.
I realized the Lurkers could technically cast Blindness 3 rounds in a row, but I decided against that, instead going for the sneak attack after the first round: The tactics were a bit unclear on that one.

The wolves encounter felt a bit strange on the mechanical side:
The players don't know the wolves, so how do players know the alternative skill they can use?
There appears to be nothing that prevents every player from both rolling checks and assisting someone else on the same wolf.
I ruled a player could make only 1 roll per wolf, so the player can either make a check or assist another player, and I warned the players a single success might not be sufficient.
On the flavor side, it was an excellent encounter.

The Mists section was interesting, and I had to think on how to present this.
In the end I went with:
0- At the beginning of the session, have players write down their character's worst fear
1- Have all players hear a question in their head at the same time
2- Once all players have answered or decided not to answer, roll for initiative
3- As the first player comes up, explain what's written in the Sidebar
In the end, the Spiritualist won initiative and blast the haunt away with Purge Spirit.

The boss fight was awesome.
The party knew off the bat what they were up against, so after the fight against the lurkers, they had See Invisibility up (if they weren't blind).
After rescuing Cubelle, I ruled she would know the Glade wasn't too far off (I'm missing a timeline/ distance in the scenario), so they cast their 10min/level buffs.
The party was concerned with the damage they got from the Grasp of the Haunted ability, and then by the haunt.
The spiritualist almost blast the haunt away in the first round (but came 1 damage short).
But after the second round, with Tulvatha with nowhere to hide, the fight was pretty much decided, although it lasted for another 4 rounds.
I'm also impressed by how well thought out the 4-player adjustment is for this scene.
Adjusting the action economy for a single boss with crowd control abilities/environment effects is always difficult to manage, but this one is really spot on!

All in all, the scenario was top notch, even with the few remarks above.
The flavor of the encounters was great, and the encounters were meaningful, and the players were challenged.
Also kudos for keeping a scenario with such "complexity" so easy to prep!

Me too, I'm impressed by the setup, so far... though I find it's a shame to have a swamp without the swamp flip-mat ;)

I'm impressed by the DC's in the chase scene. I understand players get a big speed boost from the Wolf form, but still, I recently encountered DC's like this in a 10-11 subtier. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of higher DC's in "group" chase scenes, as they always appear to easy.
I'm also intrigued by the use of both a 4- and a 5-player adjustment for that.

As to the "convince the wolves" part... I'm not entirely convinced that allowing Diplomacy at the same DC as the alternate skill is a good move...

For the final encounter: What are the Mist squares that are being referred to?

Sure it hits hard if you choose to stand and trade full attacks with it but its maneuverability is awful as are its saves, even with the second save thing.

I beg to differ slightly about the damage: The Greater Vital Strike and Power Attack make it an attack for 12d6+21 (33 to 93 dmg, avg. 53 dmg) with a 19-20 threat range.

I played at Kwinten's table last night, and agree the Reaver had us pretty scared until we faced it.
The initial encounter could be enhanced by describing a halo in the form of the helmet the party is looking for, located around the Reaver's head from the long exposure to the helmet.

On now reading the monster entry and tactics: Yikes!
But having the Reaver roar in the first round, throw a DC19 save against a Fear effect is pointless at this level since you're reasonably likely to find the ritual for a +3 on all saves, so that feels like a wasted action. On the other hand, should he get to attack, it's probably going to hurt.
The Roar should only be used to initiate the chase scene (no save): It's an iconic ability for a King Kong-like monster, but mechanically it's far too weak for a CR14 creature.

I can only agree with the complaint about everything being called a feat. I would have preferred something like Ancestry Attributes, Background Features and Class Abilities or something, to easily reference the kind of ability, without it becoming too general, as is now the case.

Intelligence gives you additional Trained skills. No way that's weak... But you have to like skills for that, and accept the shift in game balance.
Also Language unlocks becoming more rare is an interesting story component.

I'm sorry, but comparing the balance of a new edition by basing it on the previous edition makes no sense. This is a totally different game: Play it and judge based on those experiences, rather than on fear of losing power.

I concur with Kwinten: I ran it this afternoon in approx. 3 hours as well, because most fights can be avoided by having a minor investment in Diplomacy.

The final fight was a setup I enjoyed though, even if quite punishing for a level 1 party with the potential amount of swarms.

MO-BO-GO!... TA-BOO!!... WHY?!?!

All in all, I enjoyed the scenario: Unusual environment, interesting enemies, and a final encounter that had an answer to a lot of player tactics.

In response to Quentin and Lau:

I would ask that find her and bring her back with you—if she is willing.”

This I presented as such: If she is willing.

She’s considering staying with Sundered Stone, working with Pamari (assuming the ifrit survived) to transform it into a legitimate mercenary group, perhaps with Reyshal’s aid. She is also pondering disbanding the group and going her own way. If she leaves, she could either go out to research on her own or rejoin the Pathfinder Society. Whatever decision she comes to, she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to the bandits, since, in her view, many of them were just trying to survive in the war-ravaged area. The PCs can attempt a DC 18 Diplomacy check (DC 22 in Subtier 6–7) to convince Grave Treader to rejoin the Pathfinder Society. Otherwise, she decides to stick around and reform Sundered Stone. Regardless of her decision, Grave Treader thanks the PCs for their input and promises to meet with Sorrina Westyr to talk things out.

The interpretation of the conclusion I went along for, was as follows:

I agree that it's short, although I ran it in a little over 4 hours, giving players ample time to roleplay and enjoy the unique environment and encounters. Also the fact that someone failed their save against the Dominate from the Graveknight caused some delay.

At APL 9.8 I hit the Earthquake as the first random event. I forgot the round of "no action" for players. Then the lvl 11 druid demolished the juggernaut with the first 3 of his 5 attacks.

Remark: The hint that you're going to fight a juggernaut is given. Squishy/ ranged characters can just stand on the bridge instead of going down. There's no way the construct is going to be there for at least the first 3 rounds. Also I chose for a relatively straight trample-line, which limits the amount of targets hit at once.

Still a Question: Can the gargantuan construct end its movement on an opponent? As far as I know, it can't, which marginally limits its trample paths, as the area isn't that large, compared to its size.

Still, I have compliments for the writer from the party I ran for, for the flavour of the scenario.

The key question, I suppose, is "When does the AoO against Overrun occur?"

Barring Reach, the AoO for an Overrun attempt happens the moment you attempt to enter someone's square. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense for you to stop right before them as soon as the attempt fails.

If the target has reach (or if you move through someone else's threatened area), you are provoking for a different "offense".

The major difference between Trample and Overrun is that the former has an automatic success on the Overrun attempt. All the rest appears to be a rider effect.

Trample (works as Overrun), like any combat maneuver, only provokes from a target of the trample.
The movement itself (as opposed to the overrunning) provokes from everyone who can make an AoO.

The last line in the section Terminalmancer quoted is correct: there are some further detailed rules on how to handle cave-ins.

I did want to address some of the concern about the effectiveness of this hazard. My original interpretation of the earthquake spell, which upon re-reading could easily be incorrect, is that a successful Reflex save should allow the character to avoid getting pinned under rubble. Having every creature automatically forced under the rubble without a save was not how I interpreted the encounter in development.

Given my interpretation was just a DC 15 Reflex save, and that this only occurs in higher Subtier 10–11, I thought it was completely reasonable, and a means of allowing 'high level shenanigans' to shine. Obviously there's a lot of room for additional GM interpretation with this hazard, and as a GM running this, I'd encourage out-of-the-box uses of class abilities/spells/items to free any trapped allies. Given that I've got multiple reports of '1 or 2 rounding' the juggernaut, the hazard should be fairly potent... just not 'no save, enjoy being trapped under rocks before the lava eats you alive' potent.

Anywho, hope that clears up some of the intent with this encounter! Sorry for not responding sooner; I've been in the midst of battling other projects.

Thank you for the clarification. That is a lot less rough, and about what I was expecting. Still brutal if one players fails his save at that point, as freeing him still requires 10 rounds per attempt. But it is indeed high tier.

It is mentioned the juggernaut is not impeded by the Earthquake effect. I suppose that's in regard to the "cannot do anything for one round" part of the Earthquake?

Now that I look at this closer because my table is steering towards high tier, how is the Earthquake supposed to work? Since it's a cave, they can attempt a Reflex save for half damage, but they are pinned by rubble anyway (as worded by the spell), despite the mention of "potential" in the hazard description.

I don't have much experience with this high level spells: How does that work exactly? The spell states the duration is 1 round, but there is a clause for taking damage from being crushed every minute.
Can people somehow get out, or is this a case of "get flooded in lava, fail the mission and pay for resurrection"?

Using the Cave-in rules seems harsh as well, since that gives you a DC25 strength check to get out every minute (in an erupting volcano with 40% chance of progressing lava every round + an unaffected trampling Juggernaut waltzing over the party, for 10 rounds).

Also: What does the Caster level 20 for the spell have to do with anything? I see no relevant level-dependant variables except Range. Is this for the unlikely case of a Counterspell?

The end encounter looks like it will either by very deadly or very easy. Using pretty much the same stats for the opponent looks like a terrible idea I can see a number of low tier groups being very surprised by this. I don't see it lasting long against high tier anything. Either way it doesn't look too hard to avoid this encounter given the opposition is mindless.

The boys is nearly the same, but the environment greys much harder: The high tier has 40% chance to have an Earthquake cast, which is reasonably rough when your caster gets buried in an erupting volcano. Also is still a crapload of damage possibly coming at everyone at the same time.

This looks like it could run extremely short. With only 3 encounters, two of which can be bypassed quite easily, I can see completing this in about two hours which brings me to my last observation.

Season 7 was often called season of the skill check, season 8 seems to be turning into the season of the very easy skill check. The DC's throughout the adventure are extremely low, especially for tier 10-11. I think we have a DC above 30 maybe once or twice through the whole thing, most are 20-27. That's not putting up much of a challenge even to groups with only moderate optimisation. 10 ranks, the class skill bonus, a +5 stat modifier and a masterwork tool are getting you up to 70-90% success rate on most of the DC's here. Anyone with even a bit of focus in the area is autopassing the lot.

Ward Asunder want that long either. The encounters can be bypassed, but some DC are still rough at 35. But I agree that many of the checks seem trivial.

Running this next week: I have a question concerning the tavern scene: It states CR8 or 11, but apart from the loot, I see no difference between low and high tier. Is this correct? Are the DC supposed to be different? Am I missing something?

I'm prepping to run this in a couple of weeks at a small local convention - has anyone found the cleric's tactics coming into play - ** spoiler omitted **

There are more scenarios where this is the case, even at this tier. Sometimes tactics are to raise dead PC's as undead out of spite. So this is not uncommon.

It's a pretty dangerous encounter, even for a strong party. The problem your party is facing, is that they are scattered all over the place, meaning whatever frontliners can't protect the squishies. You could try and hint at it by having the ghuls herd the PC's towards one of the corners/rooms and by having the statue not leave the area where it comes from.

Much like Nefreet, I haven't gotten around to training away my Investigator's Technologist feat. I am scheduled to play tonight.

Yes, glad I didn't trade it away on my Savage Technologist either.

Looking forward to playing it on Sunday.

The cost is mentioned in the 3-4 Subtier.
After that, you can upgrade the item little by little to arrive at the 90k-or-so value.

The +30 CMD vs Grapple should prevent any grapple except on a natural 20. These are Secondary attacks and thus should suffer the -5 to attacks on their CMB to Grapple.

But I agree about the 4-player adjustment: The action economy of the tails is of the charts.

I'm no campaign leadership, but I think you should probably correct out of subtier gold yes. It currently doesn't add up to the sum of what is indicated in the scenario.

Seems like this would have a significant impact on the difficulty of the encounter.

That is the difficult part of the scenario, since the Xacarba has Combat Reflexes. If the party didn't get the hint "Abjuration = usually beneficial" and drank from the fountain, this is most likely a difficult encounter. This is the case especially with the 4-player adjustment, since the action economy is extremely in favor of the Xacarba.

When I ran it, I had two (of the 4) players run back to the fountain during the combat and fill waterskins with it to feed it to the others (while one player was uncouncious and the other one suffered the redirected Oppressive Boredom cast by one of the players, as well as the 3 attacks/round from the Xacarba.

When Lau ran this for me, I thought it would probably be Dim Light since werebats have lowlight vision. But he ruled otherwise, in favour of all participants (normal lighting).

2. I'd just provide the school, given the power of the object.

Given the nature on the final encounter, the fountain is key to the survival of the players. Abjuration is either a protection (generally), but also planes-related stuff and traps.

3. Time is measured in game time, but estimated based on activities. I think I'll use mostly-real time, but modified for any time-consuming things the PCs do like Take 20's and so on.

That was also my conclusion, but that was speculating.

6. Probably won't matter - most PCs will have much higher mods than the NPCs in any case.

So what to do? Automatic success then?

7. Compulsion (suggestion) trumps regular enchantment (charm person/monster).

How about charm vs. charm? The Xacarba has a charm monster ability he has been using on the archeologists. Charm Person could technically work to overrule the enchantment, but how?

On a sidenote: Suggestion is also available to players in this tier. How does it work when a player attempts to use Suggestion on a PC that is victim of a Suggestion by the Xacarba?

9. Putting discs in the slot do not provoke from the monster because the PC has improved cover from the wall. It seems like it should from other PCs if they're trying to stop the person.

Given that the Xacarba and the golem switch places before the combat starts (Confrontation box text), there is no cover at all and the thing has a reach of 15ft.

Below, my remarks.

1- Chronicle Sheet: Out of Subtier gold is incorrect. It states 748/1496 instead of the 1122/2244 (half of the sum of low tier + high tier) or the 2245 from the accumulated gold from encounters.

2- I did not see a DC to identify the magical aura (Abjuration) or effects (Spellcraft) of the fountain. How would PCs identify this? There is not mention of a caster level either.

3- PC's have 1d20+60min before the door breaks. How is this time measured?

4- What happens if the PCs decide to wait for the next day before leaving the Azlant Ridge encampment? Just delay everything that unfolds in Starwatcher Tor?

5- What mechanics to use if the PCs want to use the Ivory Sphere's dust on Juliet Dias or one of the other archeologists?

6- What stats to use for Perception, Sense Motive, Will, etc. for Juliet and the other archeologists (exc. Arletta), when players attempt to use Bluff, Sleight of Hand, etc?

7- How does it work when a player attempts to use Suggestion on one of the archeologists? Is that a Caster Level check to overcome the Caster level ofnthe Xacarba ?

8- The Xacarba's Suggestion ability has the potential to create PvP due to conflicting interests concerning the tablets. How to handle conflicting interests within the party? With a DC23 Will save when looking into the crack, this is bound to happen.

9- Does placing the tablets in the slots in C11 provoke Attacks of Opportunity? I do not notice it does not.

10- In the Confrontation, how long does the stalemate between the Xacarba and the monolith last?
What does the Xacarba do when there are no legal targets in sight?
How does this impact the fight wit b the monolith?
How long do the PCs have to place the disks?

11- If the party manages to obscure themselves from sight (ex. Via Obscuring mist), can the Xacarba use Scent and Perception to pinpoint and attack blindly? Since this requires a Move Action, how is this handled, as the main body is focused on the monolith?

Since it's not mentioned as such, no. The exploit acts as if it were on the spell list.

At 1st level, a white mage can expend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to use one of her spell slots to cast a cure spell (any spell with "cure" in its name) from the cleric spell list as if it were on her spell list and prepared.

though you might be able to talk nicely to people, if you don't actually talk about stuff that they're interested in, the conversation will eventually wane. Find the person or people whose interests are the same as yours, and you'll have great conversations all night long, perhaps even making a friend. The anti-social wizard in the back of the room who likes to talk about history and local politics will only ever have a polite surface conversation with the barbarian who wants to talk about the gladatorial fights and weaponry. Once he finds a like-mind, its open season.

I think this might be one of the more sane explanations about how and why this works.

I ran this a few weeks ago, among others for Lau/Ascalaphus.

First of all, let me say that I enjoyed the background of the various NPC's, and the flavor they were trying to bring, as well as the Kalistrade way of dealing with the rental of a whole city.
Not homes, no...
A whole city. Let that sink in.
It's like the state of New York renting off Manhattan to a few wealthy merchants, to do with as they please. Love it.

--
To the mechanics:

I used the following handouts:
* First handout: Skills for the Discovery checks and what you could get for type of information (Analyze, Strength, Weakness)

* A handout with each mechanic summarized in a sentence (Recognize, Discovery, Influence).
I added an explanation what the Influence check was about (= Convincing the NPC to spend more money), as well as that the first successfull Influence check would reveal the favored location

* A handout for each party:
- What skills were easier or harder (simply with the tag "Easier"/"Harder")
- And the skills how to impress the host
I always portrayed the host being at the entrance to the room, welcoming the guests. This gave the players the possibility to pick up on it immediately, and act upon it

--
Discovery checks
When I gave players the skills to influence after a successful Discovery check, I mentioned the special skills would be easier.
I mentioned nothing about other skills being harder, unless it was written in the description of the specific NPC.
I don't think any of the PCs was put off by that. They went on using "traditional" social skills like Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive when they could, and left the NPC's for which they thought that would work less well on to other players.

All in all, the idea of the skill challenge is interesting, but really a lot for a GM to handle, between:
- The various DC's,
- Special environmental modifiers
- Special modifiers per individual PC (which could not be communicated to them (think of the bonuses/penalties for interaction from the biases, which forces you to keep track of which PC talks to which NPC).
- The amount of success for all 5 districts
At some point, you simply start making mistakes.

I have a question concerning the "selling out to Myrosype" part:
In the end, one of the players (playing the Meligaster pregen) decided to accept Myrosype's offer, causing the party to fail at the secondary objective.
Between the text in Myrosype's party and the conclusion text, I was unsure how to handle the Serpents boon.
One says to give "PC's who accept Myrosype's offer" the Serpents boon, while the other says "If the PC's struck a deal with Myrosype, each PC earns the Serpents boon".
I decided to go with the latter. Was that the correct interpretation?

I'd start by warning that desacrating a corpse could be considered an evil act.

Secondly, I'd remind Silver Crusade players about what their faction is all about, and what its goal is during season 6 before the scenario starts.
The Silver Crusade is a force of good and should not reward playing like a murder hobo.

Many solutions for that. Remember that this is a 5-9 adventure, and making use of terrain should be normal tactics by now:
Fireball is one.
Fly and hurl things from the distance is another.
Haste makes it possible to outrun and kite them.

My players had the monk and conjurer wizard (suddenly remembering Kyra had one of his MM rods) defeat them, while the paladin was cowering in a corner of the circular room (and laughing his a** off IRL).
Kyra was rusted out of her gear and started distracting the monsters with coins.

Anyway: My players had a blast when I ran it a few months ago.

All resets for traps are either manual or 1 day. They should therefore only trigger once during the scenario.

"Any time after the first that a skill is used at the location" is how I interpreted it. Which means the second player to attempt the skill at the same location will immediately face the increased difficulty.

There is the potential for 1 very marginal minor combat in the case of a complication or something, but I decided not to use the map. It tends to invite players to focus on it rather than on what is happening.