I'm about to run this adventure myself. It's been a week or two since I read it, so I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any mechanical reason why Iesha has to stay in one place. Given that, I'd use her moans to lure them all over the manor - by the time they're done dealing with one nasty surprise, the sobs are coming from another direction, which leads them into another haunt or encounter.
As soon as my players got on the grounds, I got out the battle map and had them roll initiative, and we stayed in initiative until they left. They had a different mindset that way, and when in initiative they were more likely to just open a door at random.
Being in initiative also cranks up the tension, especially when you stay in it for hours.
Iesha is in the attic, so just getting up to her will get the party through a big chunk of the house. I had the denizens beneath the house let her pass by (I don't think most parties can keep up with her) and they were delayed dealing with them, arriving just in time to see Aldern using a portrait/trinket to keep her sobbing while gloating over her. Then all hell broke loose. =)
My players are finishing up Burnt Offerings, so I'm glad I saw this thread. Keeping them in initiative sounds good for tension building, but I think it would get annoying after awhile and break the mood.
I do like the idea of having Iesha lead them around a bit if they make a beeline for her. If they don't though, I'll run it as normal.
If I may bring up another topic, I have a player who is playing a VERY wrathful character (male elf/draconic sorcerer). Through a series of bad rolls, bad tactics for the player, and good tactics for the monsters, the sorcerer has gotten two diseases already. I'm not intentionally picking on him, but he keeps putting himself out there. I think the player has begun to suspect that I'm doing this intentionally, which isn't true.
My problem is the haunts in Misgivings. They will absolutely tear him apart and the player will definitely think I'm doing it intentionally. Should I change some of the wrath haunts so they target different sins or should I talk it over with the player? Maybe this will help highlight the themes of the AP?
One thing to watch out for--I used the Misgivings as an inspiration for a single-session adventure I ran a few months ago, and my players decided the front door was obviously going to be the site of an ambush and went in via the second storey windows. That was interesting.
OmegaZ, looking at the wrathful haunts, neither of them are terribly likely to put your player's character in danger--one involves making him attack a female PC or himself, the other will make him flee upstairs where the party will encounter a festering haunt. Best suggestion if you want to go easy on the character for the first haunt and you have no female PCs is to have an improvised weapon handy and make him pick that up to attack himself. One of his companions should be able to restrain him in a grapple if necessary.
Of the universal haunts, one does involve Vorel's phage, but the entire party is subject to that, so it shouldn't look like you're singling that particular player/character out. With any luck it should just be worth a laugh that he has encountered yet another disease. I suggest getting him a scrapbook to collect his contagions in. ; )
The best advice I can give you is to avoid splitting the party if you can. Then there's plenty of help available to stop haunted characters who have failed their saves from doing anything silly, like jumping out a window or administering a coup de grace to themselves with a chunk of wood.
Just a word of advice: Don't focus too much on what you expect the players to do unless you've been gaming with them for years. When my group got to the house, they immediately began hacking EVERYTHING apart. Every piece of furniture, destroyed. Every door, smashed in and taken off the hinges. They got about three rooms in and one of the haunts mentioned something about the basement, so my group hacked through the living room floor to go straight to the basement.
And that's not to mention the fact that they literally tried hacking the house apart from outside first. Oh, and those sobs heard from upstairs? Nobody even thought twice about it.
