I am wrapping up There is No Honor and planning the start of Bullywug Gambit.
Great! I'm glad to see this AP survive as long as it has. (I have friends who have children younger than STAP).
I dug into the rules of Affiliations in PHB2, and I did note that for multiple affiliations a PC gets a -10 score on any second affiliations they join. So of the six listed for Sasserine, this implies you can really only belong to one at the start, rather than multiple.
I don't see a problem with a character belonging to as many as make sense (tho I'll agree that more than 2 is impractical). You'll note that the all the Affiliation Score charts start with "3 or Lower". And a few of them can generate significantly more than 30 points to a dedicated player.
However, it does note that for Witchwardens, you get a +2 to that Affiliation if you are a Dawn Council member. On top of that, belonging to the Dawn Council really just means being a citizen of Sasserine.
It's really a bit more than simply being a citizen, the character should be interested in participating in the governing and/or bureaucracy of Sasserine. The Witchwarden bonus would apply in any case.
Did anyone play it to ignore the -10 specifically for Dawn Council? In other words PCs could start in one other affiliation plus qualify for Dawn Council?
No, we would not have ignored the penalty, had any of my players had an interest in affiliating with more than one group. Qualification for an Affiliation is based on the tenets and restrictions outlined in the membership section, not the actual score. As I pointed out above, having a score lower than 4 does not keep a character out of an Affiliation. It just means they are a junior member for longer.
Secondly, I note that for Dawn Council one of its powers is Holiday, and that means citizens of Sasserine have a +1 morale bonus for attacks, saves and skill checks during the festival. So the PCs will get this benefit during their siege of the Vanderboren manor. Not unbalancing I would assume.
No, not unbalancing but, as above, simply being a citizen does not enter a character into the affiliation automatically. I would happily allow any Dawn Council member that bonus.
If you read ahead (which you really should), esp. in the Dragon mags articles Savage Tidings, you will discover a couple more Affiliations pop up as the adventure continues. You may want to prepare you players for these future additions.
Since you are so early into the STAP, I have one great big bit of advice. Read thru the ENTIRE adventure path completely before you continue (if you haven't already) both the Dungeon mags and the associated Savage Tidings from the Dragon mags. There are actually a whole bunch of articles from that last year (before it even *cough* Demonomicon of Iggwilv *cough*) that may prove interesting and helpful you a DM wishing to understand and provide more depth to this adventure.
You may want to go back and reread sections before continuing. There is a lot of stuff that carries over to later adventures and some details from earlier modules are explained in later text. For instance, what happened to make Vanthus the way he is, is explained well into the adventure path. You will gain a whole lot of insight and places where you can improve your storytelling with foreshadowing and the like.
Have Fun with this Great Adventure Path!!!
Cheers!