Thirteen Cages and the Stormblades

[Big Jake]

I've been going over Thirteen Cages here and there (I haven't had time to sit and read and re-read all the details) and I'm leaning towards including the Stormblades into the adventure.

Honestly, I was hoping that the adventure path would include a chance to bring the two groups together. My group started off as bitter rivals (nobles vs. commoners), emphasized by the encounter provided in the web enhancement.

But later, when a party member was killed by Skaven (in Flood Season), the Stormblades attended the wake at the Tipped Tankard. Annah performed, the fighters dueled in the dead character's memory, and ties were being made.

Even later, when the party was invited to become members of the Cusp of Sunrise, the party spent time socializing with the Stormblades (when they were all in town), and lastly, the party members rescued Todd from the Cathedral of Wee Jas.

I'm now trying to find a good in-game story to bring them together, and I'm contemplating my alternatives to including the Stormblades in the adventure.

I think I am going to write up a character sheet for each of the Stormblades, and hand one to each of my players. I think they understand the Stormblades enough to role-play them well, and it would be interesting to see their tactics with more numbers.

One thing I think I'm going to change: Cora. Why would Cora take levels in Duelist? She doesn't have a high enough Int-modifier to take advantage of the benefits!

[Vic Wertz]

Big Jake wrote:

Why would Cora take levels in Duelist? She doesn't have a high enough Int-modifier to take advantage of the benefits!

Cora's not smart enough to know she's not smart enough. In fact, she's not even aware of the game mechanics involved.

:-)

Besides, don't most people wind up learning useless things? I know that's what my entire college years were....

-Vic.
.

[Big Jake]

Strange double post...

Laughing too much...

[Big Jake]

Wait... let... me... stop... laughing...

Hwoo! Okay.

That was entertaining... I was so involved in the story behind the game, I was surprised by the "she doesn't realize she's in a D&D game" answer.

Cool.

[Rauol_Duke]

Hey, Jake. Just wanted to give you a friendly reminder about the Stormblades: Campaign Seed in #113 "Foundation of Flame". It states that the Stormblades whereabouts are to be explored in an upcoming adventure. Using them in "Thirteen Cages" sounds like a cool idea, but hopefully it won't conflict with the upcoming story arc.

Having said that, I really like how you've used the Stormblades in your campaign. IMC, the PC's and the Stormblades are bitter rivals. In fact, the leader of the PC's group was given a nasty facial scar by Todd Vanderboren when they were kids. Since their emergence in Cauldron, the two groups have been always trying to one-up each other, but have yet to actually fight...

[James Jacobs]

Cora at level 4 may only have an Intelligence of 10, but what's to say she didn't use her ability score modifiers for level 8, 12, 16, and so on to increase her intelligence? A headband of intellect'll also help her intelligence score as well, and let her use her duelist skills more effectively.

That said, though, Vic's right. Not all NPCs are meant to be perfect examples of their class or profession. They don't always make the best choices, and that helps give them character and personality. Cora's certainly got the scars to prove that she's not the best duelist she could be!

In any case, it's really cool to see how the Stormblades are being used in the various Cauldron campaigns! Anyone else have any Stormblade stories to share?

[Chris_Thomasson]

I really, really wanted to include the Stormblades in Thirteen Cages. It turned out that I just didn't have the room. I wanted them to be major players in the volcano so the PCs could finally have a showdown with them. I overwrote tremendously as it was, and Erik and James did a great job trimming my fatty adventure to publication length.

As it stands, I think they're better served as each DM's discretionary bad guys. If I'd included them, I think they might have been less cool than leaving them to each of you wacky DMs to use as you see fit. I think it's telling that James did such a good job introducing the Stormblades that folks kept wanting to see them again. But I also think that no matter how we brought them back, lots of folks would have found that our way didn't fit with their ideas of the characters. Not to mention that if you used them in "Flood Season," there's a good chance your PCs killed them, making reintroducing them at a later time difficult. I hope that all makes sense. Rival adventuring parties are tricky, much like recurring villains.

Chris

[Big Jake]

Hey, Chris!

I think that the sidebar was the best way to include the Stormblades. I didn't mean that I wanted another detailed encounter with them... I just wanted the story to bring them back together in time for them to be included in the end of the adventure.

So, what I meant to say in my original post is that "I was hoping that the adventure path would include a chance like this to bring the two groups together."

One of my favorite aspects of the Adventure Path is the open-endedness of many of the NPCs. I'm sure that each campaign has some similar stories, but at the same time, some vastly different ones as well.

So... great job! What you gave us is what I was hoping for.

By the way... I inadvertantly named a character after you. It's a long story.

[Dominecus]

James Jacobs wrote:

In any case, it's really cool to see how the Stormblades are being used in the various Cauldron campaigns! Anyone else have any Stormblade stories to share?

Stormblade stories eh?

For my players it went like this...

PCs: You guys are so snobby! You're trying to goad us into a fight and could you stop trying to steal our jobs (adventures). Get off our kool-aid!

Stormblades: (with a snobby laugh) Yes, I think I understand your street slang well enough. We will leave for now but remember we are very influential in this town. You won't operate here for long. This is our town!

So this went on for a while. The PCs joined the Cusp of Sunrise and had an enlightening, mind-expanding experience with the Stormblades (also members).

PCs: What is this stuff? You called it the house Leaf?

Stormblades: Yes. Now that you are adventurers of marginal wealth you can enjoy some of finer things in life.

PCs: (After much wine and much of this "leaf") Man, I feel funny. Also, I see this little ball of light and its talking to me. Is that normal?

Stormblades: Totally.

So, after many nights of hanging out at the Cusp and with some shared intelligence and experiences, my party is allied with the Stormblades. My party's rouge, Therival, is romantically involved with Annah Taskerhill. Both parties are wanted by the government and are fugitives. But together, they are a powerful force.

[Berandor]

Honestly, if there's one thing I was disappointed with in "Thirteen Cages", it's the NPC write-up. For one, after the first adventures all had very difficult encounters, I think my players catered to that. Having suboptimal choices now just counters that expectation. There are some really funny choices, like giving the Con16-conjurer (name?) Toughness as a feat.

Secondly, if you really want to express suboptimal choices and persoanlity, then go all the way. The Stormblades all have one level of Aristocrat. Why not more? This reeks of min/maxing and taking levels not for the sake of the story, all the further incriminating suboptimal choices later on.

[James Jacobs]

The Stormblades have that one level of aristocrat precisely for story reasons. They were all rich kids who were dissatisfied with the high society life, so they got together and formed an adventuring party. They did so to escape lives of placid nobility, so there's no reason for them to look back and take more aristocrat levels.

Actually, I'm kind of a fan of suboptimal choices and personality when designing NPCs; just look at Shensen from the Adventure Path. You can't get much more scatterbrained than being a Monk/Bard/Druid (a carreer that requries an awful lot of voluntary alignment changing... )!

As for the cagewrights taking suboptimal choices... maybe they did. They are all damaged goods, after all—they're all crazy. The adventure path is a meatgrinder, so if by the time the PCs get to high-level they have a chance to actually feel high-level, I'm okay with that.