Ok, so I'm thinking about running the carrion crown AP, and have been reading through it, and I came to a problem. I will most likely be running this through skype and maptools, so the Haunt where (spoilered for spoilers)
You could rework it to be a group based event. Make it so everyone sees what normally only the target sees. You'll need to adjust the will save so it is easier for them to break out of it and probably relax the penalties for failing, but it would be fun.
Whenever a person breaks free, you send them a private note saying that they find that they are still in harrow stone, that a ghost in chains is walking between those still unconscious, and that they can try to fight the haunt (holy water, positive energy, etc). Those still asleep see that person drop unconscious/dead.
I'd even have fun making the save harder each time someone succeeds to indicate both a loss of hope and an increase in the haunt's attention on those remaining. Change the penalty to be a more of a short term ability drain or the like (I don't recall the specific cost of failure as written; it has been awhile since I ran book 1).
The one thing is, I'm not much of a killer DM, in a big, dangerous fight, or if a player does something stupid, I won't nessisarily interfere, but I will fudge dice, or "accidentlu" forget to activate an ability the monster has, if it looks like a pc is in danger in a normal fight. So the players will know something is amiss, if a PC 'dies.' Though a party-wide illusion might work, but I'll have to look at what his crimes were specifically, to think of what illusion to do.
I wouldn't have anyone die. I would also have the haunt trigger when there are no monsters around. Make the combat be a need to wake up (pass will save) and have those who are awake have to work to take out the haunt while he makes it harder and harder for the sleeping ones to wake up. It should end up with 1 or 2 asleep and suffering damage while the others scramble to figure out how to take out the haunt.
The fun part is the start when the players are all wondering who this guy is and where he came from. Then they all get a will save and those fail get hit with a headache and some damage (HP or ability score) and those who pass wake up and see that the guy is actually a ghost.
So the structure it just how it describes the haunt, but have it affect the party and have the DC start easier and ramp up to harder as more characters wake up.
In our campaign, it was beginning to look like that particular haunt would activate during our fight with (trying to be spoiler free) a major bad guy who has a serious axe. Given that this would be a Really Bad Thing, our GM forced a minor battle before we could get there, and basically let everyone outside the trap keep busy while my character (an arcane class with the second best will save in the party) rolled out of it.
It's nice to see a kinder, gentler GM though. My GM took PARTICULAR enjoyment in announcing that my character had just dropped dead and immediately ended the session. Heh.
He got with me privately a little later to let me know that I didn't need to roll up a new character quite yet, but he let everyone else go 'Whaaaa?' until we all sat down again the next week.
I thought Father Charlatan was going to be fun until A.) He latched onto the Barbarian and B.) The attack that actually activated it was both a crit and DID actually knock him into negative HP.
The rest of the party decided the skeletons had some sort of death attack and nearly ran off until my GMPC Cleric decided to check on the Barbarian's vitals to try and get them to stay.