Castle Whiterock Question & Actual Play

Ran Castle Whiterock over the weekend. The heroes snuck into the courtyard at night and surprised the slavers, dividing and conquering them before killing Ikenvar.

Some bandits survived, one of the PC's died, and the two groups agreed to a truce. The heroes withdrawing with their unconscious teammates, and the bandits doing the same. So Ikenvar may still be alive (traditionally non-heroes do not "go unconscious" but I may rule that since Ikenvar was a named NPC, he has the same privilege the heroes have).

Now my question is thus: Is there anything stopping the PCs from just climbing over the tunnel that leads to Area 1-1 and dropping into the courtyard from above? I have serious problems imagining the layout of the upper level in 3D. I've seen the 'model' from Player Handout E but it didn't really help.

It may be the answer is "No, perfectly legal for the PCs to climb up and over the gateway and guardpost." But the text on page 29 of the Red Book is written in such a way that it *very strongly implies* that the heroes are expected to fight or bluff their way past the main gate. I just can't figure out why exactly they'd do it that way--the hard way--and there's no text supporting the idea of just climbing over.

All in all it was not a hugely memorable kickoff session. They're just human bandits after all. I ran it like a "big things have small beginnings" kind of adventure but I think I would have preferred a slightly more exotic opening.

That being said, the PCs were 1st level and it's 5E which is all about mundane foes for the first two levels.

From my recollection, or maybe my opinion from reading that section, the tunnel comes from the other side of the mountain and ends at the guardpost. So there is no climbing near the guardpost, would have to come from much farther away. DM would have to work up the mountain climb up and down, personally I had many caves and encounters for the mountain sides that I added. Better question is why not come in over the lake from some farm land. Of course that hard to get till read past chapter 5, and no real map showing how lake and adjoining land relate to mountain and Castle Whiterock.

My PCs built a raft and rowed across the lake. But the bandits saw them and shot flaming arrows at them. They retreated and tried again at night. Climbing over was too hard - very rugged/steep and exposed.

Hiya!

Yup...I also had that problem. To me, the way the 'upper/outer' level is described made no sense. So...I just made it up and worked that into whatever was written (e.g., I over-ruled the module...as is usual for me). With my group, they managed to avoid the bandits almost completely. It wasn't until they started to sneak into the 'inside' of it all (and I started using the actual module stuff) that things when south. If I remember...TPK.

I plan on using it again at some point, but I'll probably either run it with BECMI/DD (what we are playing now) or I'll try it with either DCC RPG or 1e/Hackmaster. If I did do it with 5e, I'd probably wait until the PC's were all level 3 before 'introducing the hook' to the adventure.

^_^

Paul L. Ming