Tips on running War of the Burning Sky - my players stay out!

[Sir Enigma]

As the thread title says, I'm going to be running War of the Burning Sky (the 3.5e version) for my group, starting in a couple weeks. I've seen a lot of people proposing re-workings of the Red Hand of Doom to shore up weak points of the module - has anyone done anything like that for WotBS? Or does anyone who's run it before have suggestions on things to watch out for, bits that could use re-working, etc? I'm also open to general DMing advice - I've only run a few games and I could always improve :smallsmile:

A couple of specific questions:

Other than obviously broken material, is there any 3.5 stuff that will cause trouble in this module?
The first module suggests the possibility of starting the campaign at level 2 instead of 1. Is this a good or bad idea for a party of 5? If I do advance them, should I give extra money or just normal starting cash?
The first module also suggests re-working the trillith-possessed characters (Kathor and Crystin) to be psionic characters rather than sorcerers - good or bad idea? Any tips on good ways to do so?
Can anyone suggest a good pre-existing pantheon of gods to use? The module just uses generic descriptions, and I'd rather use an existing pantheon than try to write my own

[Noblesse]

I can only really help with the 2nd question as I haven't finished RHOD yet nor have I even seen WotBS

The primary bonus of starting at level 2 instead of one is that a single arrow which happens to crit- COULD kill off your wizard flat out. In the RHOD campaign I'm in right now, my DM bumped up the point buy a bit and gave us max hp and another level.

Also, even levels are much less powerful then odd levels (if you are running spellcasters). So the offensive power difference is relatively minor from 1 to 2. (+2 to hit for melees, +1 BaB and a masterwork weapon--a couple more spells/day, but none any more powerful than the ones they could cast at level 1) for the casters.

In short- go ahead. It won't change too much other than give you a bit of lee-way when it comes to what you are throwing at them if you are unsure of their overall party performance.

[Sir Enigma]

I can only really help with the 2nd question as I haven't finished RHOD yet nor have I even seen WotBS

The primary bonus of starting at level 2 instead of one is that a single arrow which happens to crit- COULD kill off your wizard flat out. In the RHOD campaign I'm in right now, my DM bumped up the point buy a bit and gave us max hp and another level.

Also, even levels are much less powerful then odd levels (if you are running spellcasters). So the offensive power difference is relatively minor from 1 to 2. (+2 to hit for melees, +1 BaB and a masterwork weapon--a couple more spells/day, but none any more powerful than the ones they could cast at level 1) for the casters.

In short- go ahead. It won't change too much other than give you a bit of lee-way when it comes to what you are throwing at them if you are unsure of their overall party performance.

Sounds like good advice, I've told the party to make level 2 characters. In the long run, I suppose the extra 1000 XP will be meaningless (or even disappear entirely as they get less XP for encounters for a while).

Other thoughts, anyone?