My players have finally finished the Whispering Cairn, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and experiences on this adventure. Overall, we had a good time and minus a few hiccups, it went smoothly. I made some changes, though, that I thought I'd explain in a little detail. Oh, and one of my players is writing a story hour if you'd like to read more:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=170061
Adventure Intro
I thought the adventure did a good job of providing guidance to get started. True, the adventure does literally start at the door of the dungeon, but the suggestions about the rival adventuring party and using instigators worked perfectly. I've previously posted my instigator handout here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/archives/whispering CairnHeresHowIInstigatedThePlot&page=1#84136
Mine Office Side Trek
I ran my players through a variant of this using lizardmen. Though they are a little tough challenge rating-wise, at the time I had 7 players (plus an animal companion) so it worked out okay. The point was to foreshadow the lizardmen's involvement for later, but as of now my player's have forgotten about this. I'll remind them later. This was good enough to get them to about 700 xp, and it took one session. My version of the side trek is detailed here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/archives/whispering CairnVariantMineOfficeStarterAdventure&page=1#84125
False Tomb
I had read on these boards that there were lots of problems with the swarm, so I was really concerned about the encounter. But I had seven players and an animal companion so I knew I'd need to beef it up just a little. What I did was add a second Mad Slasher, but kept just one swarm. While my players kept playing with the tomb, they relatively ignored the elevator until the swarm and slashers burst forth. This was a tough fight, but it worked out okay. I had previously given them the weapons they needed, and the use of two Mad Slasher was good because it gave the fighter types something to do as well. Only casualty was the wolf companion, who the druid had left in front of the elevator so it got attacked first.
The Wind Dukes and Rod of Seven Parts
I have a mix of old-school and newer players. I passed most of the information through the bard (a newer player) who read it as if it were just ancient history. But it was great to see my old-school players jaws drop at the mention of some of this stuff. As a critique, though, this adventure relies heavily on some Knowledge (the planes) rolls. None of my players have this skill so I've had to fudge some to get the story across (its no fun if they never find out why). Yes, my players should have this skill but the bard is already tapped on knowledge skills (a bard can only go so far), the cleric has low INT, and we have a sorcerer (who we repeatedly find out is no replacement for a proper wizard). On retrospect, it would have been better to have introduced some sort of Rosetta stone that could translate from Vaati to Common.
The Submerged Chambers
This turned out to be a pretty awful combat. When my players first found they water, they immediately turned around saying they weren't going in there. I later used a random encounter to hint there were monsters in the water (by having ghouls come out that were soaking wet wandering about the cairn).
The fight underwater was...well...complicated. I upgraded the water elemental to medium to make it a better fight (since they outnumbered it 7 to 1). I started the fight innocent enough. They were investigating the pool. The sorcerer (who is a bit of an idiot who likes to touch everything....he even ate the orange goo and got sick) stuck his hand in the water. I had the water elemental grapple him and pull him under. The rest of the fight was then the group wading in after him. Mechanically we figured it out, but it was a combat that just dragged on. It seemed a bit much for low level adventurers.
Wandering encounters
I added in two random encounters to try and keep things spiced up. One was the ghoul encounter I mentioned before. I try and use my encounters as story-telling, each one has a purpose so they aren't really random. The ghouls got the players into the water which they wouldn't have gone in otherwise (and thus, would never have found the last lantern).
The other encounter I used was an imp leading several lemures (yes, imps don't have telepathy but I fudged for story purposes). The purpose of this encounter was to foreshadow the rod of seven parts, and the pit fiend looking for it. Right now, the players just know they ran into some devils. But I'm going to make it a repeating occurence around the cairn (with escalating devils, bearded devils are up next). It was helpful when the action slowed down, so I could spice it up with a fight. My group fought the imps/lemures in the brown mold room. The Imp's suggestion ability worked great as the fighter failed and ran into the mold! The imp escaped the fight after taunting the bard and poisoning the sorcerer, so I think I'll have him return as a villian (maybe with some sorcerer levels of his own).
Alastor and the side trek
This was awesome and where the adventure really shines. Sure, it reads like an online game like Everquest where you need X (bury bones), but to get X you must first get Y (find Kullen) and then do Z (filge). But when it plays, it really plays out as a continuing mystery. What happened to the bones? Who has them now?
I changed the encouter at the Land Farmstead from an Owlbear to two tax bears (brown bears). It was a good fight and my players LOVE to fight tax bears. The true beauty of the encounter is when the baby tax bear comes out and the players realize that they've just killed the parents who were defending their cubs. You should have seen the look of shock on my wife! But she was playing a ranger so she adopted the cub and its now her brother's (the sorcerer's) familiar. Again, this was a great encounter with real emotional impact. Those are truly hard to find.
Kullen and his Gang
This was a good complicated fight. Especially the one-two punch of Todrik (with tripping) and Meerothan (with ray of enfeeblement). My players fought them in an alley so the bad guys were able to control the battlefield pretty easily. A tough fight, but very memorable.
Filge
What's not to love about this? My sorcerer still sits at the dinner table when he sulks. Plus, he was plenty creepy. And the story sounds like a Scooby Doo adventure (there's trouble at the Old Observatory!).
Wind Warriors
This was a tough, tough fight. I added one extra wind warrior (figuring that 2 for 4 players meant 3 for 6 players). But my group divided itself getting past the iron ball trap. Half were still working their way through the room when the other half burst in. They expected that they would just get the treasure and go home. It never occured to them there would be guardians. The fight was tough and left everyone in negatives, but fortunately I had a deus ex machina in Alastor to pull out a potion for the cleric.
Overall, this was great adventure. It took 6 actual sessions (plus an intro at the mine office and a linker in town with Chaum). Definately recommended!