It feels like, if the rules are going to be specific that you need leverage, they should also be clear about what counts as leverage. Including leverage in the text of aproriate moves just makes sense. Saying, if it does then it does, puts the one and only social option directly in the hands of GM fiat and I am very uncomfortable with that.

I might add that for as long as you hold forth your holy symbol in faith, you have leverage over them.

Last night's game ran a bit smoother than the tuesday game. I think there are two good reasons for that. First, having played the adventure before, I felt more comfortable with it. Second, I knew where the adventure had bogged down last time and I made some changes. All in all I'm pretty happy with how both games went and I only have a few more changes I want to make to the opening dungeon before it is ready to go.

While I agree with your first point but the open plains works for me. To that point, an elephant and a cheeta might both live there and both threaten the party but would have different HP.

Just finished my first playtest of Whispering Cairn with a new group down at my local game store. I had two players who had expressed interest on the local Meetup group and while I was setting up and waiting on them I noticed that there was a woman I recognized from D&D Encounters wandering around while her husband was battling with minis so I invited her to join in. Once everyone was there I did a quick rundown of the rules (I need to get better at that) and passed around the playbooks. 

The party ended up consisting of Hawke the Fighter, Wesley the Cleric, and Shank the Thief. It seemed like a pretty well rounded group though no one took any of the newer classes. Character creation took barely any time at all and we were off. 

I wrote out some specific questions for the players to answer about their characters and I took their answers for opportunities on down the road and some managed to work in during the first session. I think I need to rework the questions I ask the group and I need to add a few more individual questions but over all they worked out well, filled in a bit of backstory. 

While they were creating characters and answering questions, I drew a picture of the opening to the cairn and a pair of evil looking eyes peering out. When they were done, I laid the paper out and told them that as the approached the cairn they could see the eyes and hear growling coming from the cave. I hit them all with, "What do you do?" in turn and they all came back with drawing weapons and waiting as each failure to act brought on more wolves, getting surrounded and eventually attacked. I took my time and announced a lot of future badness hoping I wouldn't have to break the stalemate but eventually I did. 

The wolf attack almost ended it all. I was using variable damage but it hardly mattered. Thinking back on it I should have really should have used my wolves other moves more, tripping the PCs up or dragging them off but I did decide to announce some future badness by having one of the wolves run off howling to the sound of other wolves off in the distance. 

The party was pretty darn near dead (I need to re-examine the wolves and see if they really should have been as dangerous and tenacious as they were) so the retreated to an abandoned shack nearby to make camp. Hawke spent the evening skinning the wolves and prepping their pelts. Wesley handed out some healing before they went down for the night and all but Hawke were at full health the next morning. 

They approached the cave more cautiously the next day but there were no wolves to greet them only the things they left behind. Wesley found himself a shield and a large, blue, crystal lantern in the wolves den. When they decided to light it, light also appeared far down the corridor. 

They investigated the light and found a burial chamber. Within the chamber were five other lanterns of different colors on long chains. The sarcophagus in the center held both the hints they needed to solve the puzzle of the room as well as a trap, both of which they managed to roll to find out. 

They didn't bite on some of the clues but rather decided to investigate the strange death of a boy who's body they discovered in the chamber. Their investigation lead them to climb one of the chains and discover a hidden passageway with a wind trap that through poor Wesley to the floor of the chamber below. But triggering the trap did convince them that they needed to solve the puzzle before they went on. They finally made the connection between two of the clues and started rotating the sarcophagus which led to an elevator of sorts showing up. 

The elevator took them to a lower level where most of the level was under water. Ever brave Wesley dove in to see what he could see while the other two checked the body they had found at the edge of the water. While Wesley was trying to return with some loot he had found he was attacked by a vengeful ghost that once belonged in the body his party mates were looting. Wesley managed to break off the attack and get some air but the ghost was right on him. 

Shank and Hawke spent a little while being fairly ineffective but finally landed a blow getting the ghost off of Wesley. Once Wesley was free he destroyed the ghost with one blow of his mighty mace. 

With the ghost vanquished the party searched the rest of the submerged chambers and found the last missing lantern. With that they returned and lit it a pillar of air lifted them into the trapped hallway where they could clearly tell that the trap was disarmed. And thats where we left it. 

I forgot to do the end of session move but I'll try and do it first thing next game. 

I'm working on a series of modules that follow the old Age of Worms Adventure Path from Dungeon magazine. I've found myself changing enough in them that I think I'm going to try putting them together into their own thing with all of the rules and such that you would need to sit down and play (with Sage and Adam's aproval of course) I'll be putting each one out individualy as I go along. First playtest is tonight with my home group and Saturday with my Skype group!

I'm with glitch here. I think that even in the planes there will be weak and strong creatures.

I think the problem may also be in how static the numbers are. If you presented a range for each tier people may be able to judge it better. I've already done this with the HP tiers. Here is what my monster making notes look like for What environment spawned it?

•  Naturally safe places— HP 3-9
•  Inhospitable places— HP 9-15
•  Dangerous places— HP 15-24
•  Twisted places— HP 24-40
•  The planes—  HP 40-80

That gives me a range to work within to make each monster unique.