So. I decided to start a playtest thread. As I write this, my players have just wrapped up Part 2, and this week Sunday we start Affair at Sombrefell Hall.
My next post shall see my write-up of Part 1: The Ashen Ossuary.
About me as a GM: I don't run all my monsters with the most absurdly difficult tactics allowed under the rules. When deciding their actions, I try to take things like morale, intelligence, and aggression into account. If a monster's whole kit reads like the monster favors hit-and-run tactics, I try to run it as using hit-and-run tactics, adjusting its strategy based on what the PCs do. By extension, I try to run my monsters with a measure of self-preservation: my monsters try to flee or fight more defensively when they sense things are going downhill, and depending on the scenario may even surrender. If a module or adventure path calls for a creature to behave a certain way, I try to stick to that within reason.
With regards to players and balance: Balance versus the game is subjective. If my entire group is over-optimized, I can always scale encounters up. If my entire group is playing sub-optimally, I can scale things down. And sometimes, I don't scale things at all (in cases where the enemy is too weak to present any challenge to the party, I tend to just say "you kill them" rather than roll initiative, but I've also run combats where the objective was flee, stall, or alternative in nature). But I digress. I'm running this playtest with an attempt to be faithful to the playtest goals whilst also challenging my players without quite turning things into a meat-grinder (but if things go that way as a result of the playtest being too difficult, so be it; I have yet to encounter this scenario, though).
Experience so far: So far, I haven't particularly pulled my punches with my players, and I can say they have never come exceptionally close to wiping. They have never had a Cleric - though that will naturally change in Part 3 - and I don't particularly hand out Hero Points like candy (if you're ready for session before I am/the appointed time, whichever comes later, you get one more Hero Point at session start. Don't think I've ever handed one out otherwise). Now, my luck with the dice has some renown in our group for being on the terrible side, but law of averages and rolling electronic dice (we play on roll20) should theoretically even that out. This is not to say the PCs have never struggled. The dice having a sudden swing in my favor have boosted the effectiveness of certain encounters immensely. In short, while the monsters do need a balance overhaul regarding level-appropriate skills, combat has mostly felt like luck of the dice is the single biggest factor, and a lot of people have gone into painstaking detail elsewhere as to how the math supports that, so I won't post it here.
But that's enough for tonight, I think. Tomorrow I shall endeavor to post my players' run of Part 1.