1) I believe they specifically stated it was tied to having a bedroll, or at least that's what it sounded like when reading the notes (I may be wrong, they need to clarify)
2) Ferals always spawned at night in A20 even on day 1 in my experience and the fat guys aren't hard, they just have a little more health, idk what the problem seems to be. I also had them on night 1 as well as spider zombies and had no issue dispatching them on default settings with my level 1 club. Difficulty overall seems to be the same but maybe a little more balanced in terms of damage and debuffs.