Pathfinder Society Scenario #2: The Hydra's Fang Incident (OGL) PDF

Is the town razed by Du Moire named Wittleshine or Wittlestone? Both names appear during the scenario.
The thug doesn't seem to have daggers listed in its gear nor attacks. An easy thing to fix oneself, but still a minor editing error.
On page 9, the map of the Underdocks encounter ... how large squares are they? I'm assuming 10 ft., but they could be 20 ft. 5 ft. would be ridiculously small. And why is the pathway blocked by the bunker? This map seriously made me stop for 30 minutes to try to think why it was ever put there.

...I saw what you saw with the bunker and docks, but since the description referred to boats being lowered into the water, I just made the part of the docks that sticks out the guard watch post and assumed that they access the rest of the docks via cargo nets or somesuch...but then, I ad-lib stuff all the time. I don't know if that map issue you saw was intentional or not, is what I'm trying to say.

The dock running straight into the the bunker is correct,
however the other dock that seems to just stop... That's actually supposed to go off towards Lubor's Exports.

thank Nick the lacedon encounter isn't more brutal, I'd actually used 4 in the original text

DuMoire is supposed to be wearing a Signet Ring, though its not listed in his possessions.

The adventure synopsis paints Captain Darsielle Du Moire as the scourge of the Inner Sea and the bane of the Chelish and Andoran navies. He has sunken half a dozen pirate ships! Yet, for most parties he is a 4th level aristocrat surrounded by 1st level warrior flunkies. I think this would have been a much better adventure tiered to challenge 4th or 5th level characters with appropriately dangerous foes.

Why is the encounter with the Consortium officials in the Underdocks geared to be a combat encounter? These are the duly appointed custodians of law and order in Diobel. Yes the Consortium is made up of criminals, even if these guards are conveniently evil; they still represent the law of the city. Is it rational to assume a party of 1st level adventurers is going to attack what amounts to the City Watch? And are these the ONLY watchmen under the city? Add to this that anyone of the Qadiran faction is pretty much forced to attack them in order to steal their log book. I don’t think this encounter was thought through.

At first I had some serious problems with the sahuagin encounter. It seemed very much like it was thrown in to simply add another combat. Certainly the explanation given in the module text does not do a very good job of explaining it, or providing any rationale for why it would be occurring. I think there are ways to make it work – but they do require making inferences and conjectures that have no basis on the actual text. As written it could be an near insta-kill for a number of parties and anyone dropped into the bay in full armor.

A Possible Solution:
One solution might be that in order to get to where the Hydra's Fang lays at anchor any small boat has to pass through a narrow and shallow "passage" between some large derelict vessels. The sahuagin are lying in wait in the passage waiting for any small boat headed toward the Fang. They know that any boat moving through the passage is going to the Fang as it is the only vessel at anchor in this particular anchorage (the anchorage is somewhat secluded and Darcy bribed the harbor pilot to use it). The sahuagin can easily discern that the row boat headed toward the Fang is being crewed by novice seamen (too much splashing, unsteady oar strokes, bad navigation, etc.). Hence they know that they have a pretty good chance of swamping the boat and dropping the boaters into the shallow waters of the passage. Also, given the orientation of the passage and the Hydra's Fang, any lookouts posted aboard the Fang are unlikely to see the sahuagin's assault.

The party I ran through this module had no trouble dispatching the vicious pirates at each turn. I’m not sure how the dastardly 1st level warriors managed to sink so many pirate ships but they weren’t much of a match for even a lightly optimized adventuring party.

Almost nothing about the Hydra’s Fang makes sense. Given that Paizo has put out some very well received nautical adventures I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I would encourage the author to do a little more research about sailing vessels, what it takes to crew them, and how they are put together – I’m still not sure what the big box in the center of the boat is.

I have done quite a bit of research on medieval and Renaissance-era sailing vessels. I probably had a lot more time and energy to devote to this than the author, and came up with an alternative deck plan for the ship.

This was the second Pathfinder Society module I played through, and for 4, 1st level characters, it was a real pain. The module made sense, and I got the time intensive element, but it was, overall, deadly.

For Tier 1, ouch. The GM let me have a look at the module afterwards and, wow.

Encounter 1's EL wasn't listed, but it could have easily been a EL 2.

Encounter 2 wasn't bad. It felt balanced.

Encounter 3 felt like it was designed to kill the PCs. I'm curious as to how many players didn't tie off gear, take off armor, and died when the boat flipped...

Encounter 4, again, doesn't list an EL. Nor does the trap have a CR. So, I'll assume the trap's CR is equal to the 1d3 medium sharks it summons. (An EL 2 or 3 itself, we'll be nice and call it CR 1). Add two more brigands (CR 1/2 x2) and the CR 3 end guy? I'm going to say EL 4, maybe 5.

Encounter 5 was a solid EL 3. However, by the time we reached it, resources were completely exhausted and it was far more difficult. A party without a cleric would die here.

All in all, the run of the module for 1st level characters is very difficult.

I would not run this for level 1 characters. Moreover, as it is the second Pathfinder Society module, it strikes me as being intended for 1st level characters when released, which seems inappropriate.

The writing, story line, and feel was amazing. I loved the feel of it. But the encounters. Ouch.