Pathfinder Module: Crypt of the Everflame (PFRPG)

Great module to bring players in or to start GMing. It has everything a game should have.

I was looking for a module that would be good to introduce a 9,12 year old to Pathfinder (as well as a 7 and 9 year old with a little experience, one 41 year old with AD&D Ed 1 experience and one 43 old with no experience!) In any case the forums here pointed me to Crypt of the Everflame as a good starting point. As a somewhat standard dungeon crawl it's a good introduction for these kids. Traps, puzzles, skellies, and more!

Having survived (barely) we are going to continue on with the next two modules.

Spoilers --- I created some Hirst Arts terrain - http://drumsdrumsinthedeep.blogspot.com/2013/01/creating-sarcophagus.html for the final battle so I enhanced it with more skeletons, Asar raising zombies, and other surprises to give us more time using the terrain. I am also coming up with a reason for the party to come back to the crypt for another encounter after the other two modules.

I listened to this podcast that covers Crypt of the Everflame for some hints and support

I just recently ran this for my group, and the adventure simply is... not good. It's not terrible, but there are too many better adventures out there for this to be rated anything more than 2 stars (the higher starred reviews are, AFAIC, inexplicable - I sob to think what people have played through in the past!). ;)

There are numerous editing errors and omissions throughout, including a missing key, no mention of where a passage goes to, and no note of what the doors are made of. Encounters are of a questionable nature (CR 3 shadow in a room with a necessary key immediately comes to mind) in difficulty (especially when it is discovered that there's pretty much a time limit involved).

Notable is that the maps are truly horrendous. It looks like it's just a bunch of ugly, simple tiles put together (which it is), and the boring layout and ugly map quality result shows. Really awful - my players rolled their eyes seeing the layout and maps (especially disappointing considering other Paizo products... including part 2 and 3 of this series!).

The story/motivation is decent (and if explained well enough by the DM, I've found is good enough for players to want to continue on to the next modules in the series - though I tied it into our FR campaign, which we prefer, so that helped a lot I think), and the town of Kassen (complete with a nice map and good description) was really great and added value.

I have always been a fan of this module, which I ran twice before trying it out as a three-part PFS scenario. I may have some bias in my review but it does come with experience.

FOR THE PLAYER:
This module will give you a challenging dungeon crawl with plenty of places to recover and heal up. The puzzles are just as fun to conquer as are the monsters. The plot is rather straight forward but the subplot(s) take a conscious effort to put together. DO NOT engage the crypt without a Cleric, the experience is way less satisfying. Wanna grind the module in record time? Then add a thief, a hard to hit tank (or high damage-dealing melee expert) and any arcane caster to the party. Either way your party rolls you get to enjoy the mind of Bulmahn, which is a treat in of itself.

FOR THE DM:
I found there was more material to work with than what was needed to run three sessions. Most PFS events that I had heard run this do this event in two. I recommend making this a three-part PFS scenario to give your players the unique experience of having a 1-3 hour RP session, which depends on how fast or slow you want to run the wilderness portion of Part 1 (i.e. getting to the Crypt from Kassen). I had many of my players thank me for a unique experience without the feeling of a 4-hour clock pushing them through the module to collect max PP/XP/GP. It will give you the chance to set a more homebrew feel for the adventure upfront - then for the next two sessions you can increase the feeling of horror by making the clock relevant again. Also if you plan on running the other two modules (Mask of the Living God & The Golden City) right after each other, having the RP time to set the foundation for an ongoing plot-thread should make your players come back for more.
A little note about the module (please correct me here if I got it wrong). The first level of the crypt does not explicitly tell you what the doors are made of. During our second session, two tables were running this module: one claimed the doors to be wooden and one DM described them as steel (both legit in my mind). Unfortunately, two very different experiences happened: one group left feeling the module was too weak and the other felt it was too overpowered for a level 1 party. I believe the small write up in the beginning of Part 2 about "all surfaces are stone" is supposed to tell the DM to assume the doors of the first level are stone as well.
I admit that the first level can be hard for a party that doesn't have a way to deal with the undead effectively (especially the incorporeal). With certain keys guarded by not-so-straight-forward-to-kill monsters, the party's first-level-of-the-crypt experience will consist of a lot of door breaking. You may need to adjust the first level to accommodate a party that is not optimized to defeat it.
Lastly, there is no storyline help from Paizo to aid the DM in turning this module into a typical PFS scenario. If you want to use a hook I came up with, I told the party that 'the VC of Nermathus has heard of a gang from the other side of the lake infiltrating the quite, urban locations of his kingdom-territory' and it is up to the party to find substantial clues to confirm this. Further if you do plan on running "Mask of the Living God", the party will naturally want to travel to Razmir to uncover the why behind the who they uncovered with this module.

FOR THE DEVELOPERS:
I know I have already mentioned the high RP value of the module in Part 1, but there is alot more going on than what was initially wrote. The module has pages of intel that colors the town of Kassen - something that is rarely supplied to a PFS senario module. I found my party so wrapped up in the town's politics that they were trying very hard to get on the list of potentials making the pilgrimage to the Crypt. What a pleasant turn of events it was to have the mayor volunteer them since, "the Pathfinder Society has blessed us with seasoned adventurers to make the pilgrimage on behalf of the citizens of Kassen." To summerize, the plot hook I had the VC offer the party made them more than willing to interact with the town and uncover anything worth bringing up to the Pathfinder Society.
Secondly, I can count on both hands the number of times me and my players said throughout the first and second levels of the crypt, "that is a Faction Mission waiting to happen". Bulmahn gives a lot of thought and description to the crypt that makes it feel like a living dungeon; so why not take advantage of all that material? I would be willing to bet my special edition reprint of 'Rise of the Runelords' Chapter 1 that Jason could list ten faction missions over lunch.
Lastly, I would really like to see a page or two of notes included in each sanctioned module that help GMs run the game with more PFS flavor. Write up an intro VC encounter, add faction missions and notes on how to break up the module into two and three 4-hour sessions. Seriously, this is something an intern could do. I so happen to be in the market for extra work: please contact Andy Flores at manyminis@gmail.com if you would like to know how I can help implement this idea.