I also played this at GenCon '08. This adventure was fun and exciting...
until you join a caravan to complete your mission... at which point someone, I guess the author decides to throw a CR5+ combat your way. I won't reveal the specifics of the combat, but it was large and ridiculous for a level 1 party. It involved terrain penalties that the 'monsters' did not suffer.
The GM running our table told us that only one group he had ran won the encounter and they were 2nd level, the other 2 groups (3 including us) survived, but only because he did not Coup De Grace the players. We were robbed & left for dead til our cleric that we convinced to run could make it back to us.
Other than that combat, the module ran fine and was entertaining. I was grumpy and having 'Living Greyhawk' flashbacks. ( 3 Psuedonaturals, surprise round, entire party Truestrike grappled... yea, that happend!!!) Until I realized something on the car ride home. GenCon '08 did not use the 'PATHFINDER' rules for character creation, it was standard 3.5 PHB stuff. Meaning, our cleric would've had approx. 5-6 'Channel Energy' aka 1d6 healing bursts, not to mention health increases across the board that fight would've gone much better.
