Made lots of progress over the last few weeks. I'm basically playing the module repeatedly to pick up broken convos (more than I expected), broken global integers (far fewer than I expected), and issues of flow (level development, items, story etc - all of which need work).
I've revamped level progression and made it much slower, and rebalanced the combat so its a bit easier. I think the pace works much better now. The current content would take 5hrs to get through I think (although its hard to predict), and would leave the player at around level 3 which feels about right. I've removed some enemies that were too hard, and I'll add them into later missions where the player will be higher level.
Story pace is a challenge. I've made it simpler (again!), which helps. I've also made the quests a bit less specific. They were basically "go there and kill that" type things, which on reflection didn't encourage exploration - which was a shame given there is "off path" stuff to find. So now they're more in the "go somewhere around there and work out what's going on" style. It hasn't actually taken too much input to change the style - the actual content broadly stayed the same, just now reveals itself more slowly. I feel it makes a big difference though. I've also gone back over convos to add in more race/class/trait stuff.
I'm trying to avoid adding too much completely new content at this point, but there are few areas that sagged and needed it. This is the opening combat in a three-level tomb I've just completed:
- skels.png (332.06 KiB) Viewed 92370 times
Its a bit of a maze, and there are some fun encounters and puzzles. I've gone a bit "Pools of Radiancey" with monster numbers in this fight - skeletons are fairly weak enemies and the party are well equipped/second level, so they would have no problem with a smaller group, but they could still be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Its a war of attrition!
Finally, I've been playing with ways to introduce a "bandage" skill or spell that stabilises a bleeding character. Haven't quite worked out the best way of doing this yet, but will get there!
Most of the great RPGs have lots of content that many (the ones who play fast and are not thorough) never see, but the "true" RPG players appreciate 
Chapters 1 and 2 in first half of next year sounds great! I should have my IB and IBbasic bug/feature list done by then 
(side note: I'm working on my IB to IBbasic import tool and will be using Hearkenwold as a test to make sure it works well).
A good Iceblink night. 
