Castle Maure - Not All That

Turjan

Explorer
Bagpuss said:
The Unopenable Doors..

The following is the player information...
These massive doors are each 4 feet wide and made of 2-foot thick iron and wood. The doors and floor in front of them are scraped and scratched, as if someone had unsuccessfully tried to force them open. It seems that they open inward, but even that it debatable.
I'm a little curious as to how the players know how thick closed doors are by looking at only the outside, but lets, let that one slide.

The doors are described as scraped and scratched, yet in the DM's info he's told, spells or items that cause damage merely rebound off and do no harm to the doors.

Opening spells like passwall fail on the door (no mention if they would work okay on the wall just to the side). So unless you give them them a MINOR ARTIFACT (Silver Key of Portals) or they use a wish/miracle or go astral they are stuck.

"Clever players may hit upon the idea of setting up camp near the Doors and waiting for someone to come out."

Clever? Or if they get bored of banging their heads against a dead end.

Anyway assuming the PC's wait and don't give in and find a better adventure to do, some Gnolls leave the dungeon in 1d6 hours.

Now you have to hope one of these gnolls is kind enough to hold the door open for the PC's as the doors cannot be jammed, held or barred open by anyone other than the opener. The again maybe these gnolls have some way of getting back in with them, no mention of it in there description, but since they are carrying an letter and are off to bring someone back I guess they must have a copy of the minor artifact (Silver Key of Portals) on them as well, for the return trip.
This is a wonderful example that pretty much sums it up. I like this, because it's a thorough investigation of everything I don't like about the adventure by just picking out a single point. Unfortunately, this point is exemplary for the writing style of Rob Kuntz in general. Some people may like that, but I most definitely don't.

The other point, the fact that the cool background will most certainly never come to the attention of the players, is unfortunately a bit more widespread. Many adventures have this problem.
 

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