Gatehouse

Size: 0.5 ss

Cost: 1,000 gp

Prerequisites: None

This space usually serves as a primary entrance into the stronghold (or one of many entrances). As its name suggests, the gatehouse includes a gate (and a drawbridge, if stationed adjacent to a moat). Defense can be enhanced with a portcullis; see Doors, below, for prices and details.

Most gatehouses are fortified with a barbican (see above), guard post (see below), or both.

Gates: A typical city gate is a gatehouse with two portcullises and murder holes above the space between them.

Portcullises: 2 inches thick; hardness 10; hp 60; break DC 25 (to lift only).

Smaller cities’ gates or lesser gates in a large city are simply large iron double doors set into the city wall.

Iron Doors: 2 inches thick; hardness 10; hp 60; break DC 28.

Gates are usually open during the day and locked or barred at night. Depending on the city and how its wards are laid out, residents might be forbidden from traveling from ward to ward after sundown, or the guards might allow passage only under specific circumstances.