Ye Olde Inn

There are so many different views on this but here is my advice to players who are just starting out and want to tackle this very difficult quest pack:

Zargon should go through and remove 1/3rd to 1/2 of all the monsters from each quest. Don't have to do anything more than this really, besides dealing with the Yeti Hugs (I recommend going with Avalon Hill's suggestion in the companion app that Yeti Hugs simply don't do anything when there's only one Hero on the board.. and in group quests you can roll a 5 or 6 on two red dice to break free immediately or try again at the start of each hero turn).

Another suggestion I would give is for the Solo Quests, just use a party of heroes. Perhaps 4 is too many, 2 at the very least. To compensate, the rewards should be multiplied by the number of heroes. So if you find a sword, then you should find a sword for each of the heroes, one healing potion becomes one for each, etc. Very easy to implement and remember.

Now this won't work with the Companion App but it sorta can still, because when you reveal a room and it has four monsters, you just point and click and kill two of them (or whatever). Then proceed as normal with your rolls and things. When it said a rewards, double, triple, quadruple it.

Now it won't always be perfect because the Wizard can't use all the same gear as everyone else. But you can give him a potion or something. If the reward is a weapon or armor, give him a staff or bracers. If it's an artifact, give him the Talisman of Lore or a spell scroll.

I would have similar advice for the Mage of the Mirror.

In some cases whole portions of the map can just be cut out. In Quest 5 Deadly Depths there's a whole quadrant with no special treasure that contributes nothing to the quest, that could easily be cut out.
I would also suggest, in all quests, to limit the Wandering Monsters to 1 of each. What the hell? 3 Ice Gremlins? 2 Yetis? 2 Polar Warbears? They'll take 3 to 4 turns to kill even with mercenaries.

we took yeti hug out, significantly increasing their attack and defense dice for added difficulty, so they are stronger than polar warbear but don't have the double attack that the warbear has. they are still challenging and fearful foes to meet. I think we increased body points by 1 as well, they are big dudes!

also, didn't implement heroes falling to their deaths in the ice ledge, but limited mobility unless they had snowshoes and monsters could move freely. For fun, we did have all vanquished monsters fall in though

aside from those modifications for difficulty, we pretty much played as written - except gave my player a break on quest 8 - left out the typical wandering monster by the wooden exit door.

kept the # of wandering monsters numbers though - man that sucked when they were polar warbears and yetis!