Well my group of four have just defeated the stag lord and after an epic fight and about 12 sessions are nearing the end of book one so i thought i'd share some bits of the experience. There are to many bits to spoiler tag so if your playing book one i would stop reading now.
The groups made up of Monty a life oracle with a wasting disease curse, Liza a greatsword barbarian who kills most things with minimum damade, Eric a druid with a tiger pet who replaced his cousin Bill an alchemist who passed away fighting the "not a kobold" tartuk and Nefty an evil eye and cackle witch who replaced Monty's bodyguard a cavalier named Tilian who also passed away in what my players affectionatly call the effing illusion encounter.
I've run most of the set peice encounters out of the book other than swaping a few feats or spells or increasing the odd hp total here and there to make the fights a little more epic, we've had a few deaths saved by hero points. Kressle was responsible for one at the thorn river camp, Happs also caused another at the thorn river camp after they showed mercy and let him go from Olegs trading post (on a side note Happs escaped again at the thorn river to haunt the party later).
They enjoyed the two session encounter with the faeries and spent litterally hundreds of gold on bribes while wandering around the northern reaches of the forest, this all paid off as the faeries saved them from encounters with an owlbear at level one, a will-o-wisp at level two and some trolls at level two. They cleared the temple of the elk with no issues at level two but lost most of their horses (and gear) to a shambling mound on the way back to Olegs, quick thinking by the Tilian saved Monty the would be king from a mossy death, then suffered a days camp in a blizzard (random weather generator). After escorting Jhod to the temple they hit the hot springs, Tilian was 1 round away from drowning when Bill finally killed the last frog and pulled him out, this encounter was all the funnier as if they had fallen for it more completely insted of being paranoid about it they would have had much better time swimming without their armour on.
Random encounters ended up being more challanging than some of the set pieces and i have now rolled trolls three times but every time i just use them as a threat to highlight the danger, tracks or in the distance or fae warnings.
The mite lair proved to be entertaining after they realised the mites were basicly no threat, they rescued mikmek whom they had already met and bartered with at the raddish patch (who is also fast becoming a friend of the pc's and may one day be a pc in his own right). After the first two rooms they came to the chasm, Tilian was straight onto the handholds and straight down the the bottom with the giant centipede, after 6 rounds of fighting Bill put it down with alchemists fire however not before Lisa was poisoned to 5 dexterity, that one fight sucked up all the party resources other than a few potions and a couple of channels. Amazingly and bravely they decided on "one more room" and climbed out of the chasm rounded a corner walking straight into the chiefs war room. I made a few changes to the chief giving him a fighter level and the mounted combat archtype so he could make ride checks for his mount, this resulted in the party on the verge of dispair with Lisa and Tillian down, Monty out of spells and Bill heavily wounded until they were reminded that those hero points they had been hoarding could be used to recall channelling uses per day, add to hit, add to saves etc. Armed with this knowledge they defeated the mite chief and his pet in a flurry of hero points then retreated safely to the kobold caverns.
Upon reaching the silver mine they headed straight for chief sootscale and handed him the statue, securing his alliance and fealty if they would remove Tartuk the usurper shaman, sadly for them the shaman was a wily one and had some aoe effects to mingle with his illusions including color spray which i swapped into his spell list and a five charge wand of fireball in place of his magic missile wand. After driving the party crazy with invisibility, silent image and colour spray he spent 3 rounds umding his wand until it went off, for nearly max damage, and dropped the party before they had a chance to hit him.
I blame this near tpk on the precious session when they burned all their hero points to stay alive in the mite warren but thinking outside the box Tartuk did a runner with his loot and left them to bleed to death.
As everyone stabilised before minus con it took them three days of natural healing to awaken, during which time Tilian had become extremely ill from infected tick bites. Unable to clear the disease with his heal skill and fearing Tilian may pass away (on a side note it would appear that a disease which drains str cannot actually kill you, just force you into a coma until you waste away. I house ruled this to if your disease causes double your str score in damage you shuffle from the mortal coil) the party entered a break neck race across the stolen land to Jhod at the temple for healing, fighting througrandom encounters and pushing their horses to the brink of death they made it with scant hours to spare (Tilian was at the point a failed save and a high roll would spell the end). Thankfully Jhod is a highly skilled cleric and easily stabalised Tilians health and nurse him back from the brink.
Arriving back at the Sootscales they set up an alliance with the chief and spent a couple of days writing up a treaty, after that freshly reloaded after their heroic actions saving Tilian and brokering peace with the kobolds they set off tracking Tartuk and his sack of loot (svetlana's wedding ring). A heroic fight insued with the sneaky "not a kobold" illusionist killing both Tillian and Bill before Tillians horse kicked him to death.
Now two months into their adventures in tbe stolen land and reaching level three with just a few hexes left on the edge of the south westerns swamps to explore the Blighted as the band of hero's have come to be known receive a new charter from Restov to finish the bandits once and for all, not a moment too soon as Monty is currently having a recuring nightmare about his home being burnt down with him in it then falling too his death in icy waters as a stag helmed figure cuts the floor out from underneath him which is preventing him from resting and regaining spells. Spending a hero point to pass (just) he regains his spells and they set off with their wagon loaded in loot and booze to the stag lords fort.
Time for a lunch break and this is a little long so i'll post the fort encounter in a while.