Griffin School Grandmaster Gear Hunt - Mont Crane Castle strategy

[wmgibsonfan]

As a (relatively) noob gamer, I'm inordinately proud of having discovered a strategy for obtaining the diagrams for the Griffin School Grandmaster gear located in Mont Crane Castle.

The castle is occupied by Fourfingers' hanse when you first arrive there. The guides I saw on the Web all say that you have to kill the bandits on the first level and then use the Eye of Nehaleni to dispel the illusory wall at the end of the courtyard. If you've elected to pursue this Treasure Hunt at a relatively low level, this will be quite a challenge - or at least a tedious exercise (if you're a highly skilled melee fighter).

However, if you go over to the left (as you face the entrance gate) side of the castle, you will find a way to jump up and climb into the castle through a hole in its damaged roof. With a bit of care, you will be out of the sight of the bandits in the courtyard below. (There's a bit of Loot to be had in this area, too, might be worth a couple of minutes of exploration.) Meditate until the wee hours (say 2 AM) so there are only a few bandits in the courtyard. Get the Eye equipped and ready, then drop down into the courtyard. You should find yourself very close to the illusory wall at this point. If you're lucky, you may not have to fight at all - once you get the illusion out of the way and have stepped through it, the bandits will quickly lose track of you (or at least this is what happened when I did it). I had to fight a couple of bandits, but, as I said earlier, there were only a few of them awake at that time of night.

You can also make use of this 'back door' when you undertake to clear the hanse from the castle by the Ducal Camarlengo as one of the 15 commissions he has for you. Drop down into the courtyard and start luring the bandits into the narrow passages below the opening in the wall you created with the Eye. I use a lot of Signs, so I used Far-Reaching Aard that worked beautifully to knock down several opponents at a time, followed by Finish Off, then retreat and do it again.

[Scheneighnay]

My first time to it, I got to the wall after only a handful of enemies, but as I was inside, the entire mob of them comedically swarmed into the tiny hallway out of nowhere to get slaughtered by my aard spam.
Still have the recordings saved, though I never uploaded them. I was paging through my inventory, then as soon as I closed it, there was a ♥♥♥♥-ton of dogs and guys.

[McGeeZac]

Geralt wouldn't do this. He is no backdoor flipping coward who is afraid of a group of measly bandits.

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by McGeeZac:

Geralt wouldn't do this. He is no backdoor flipping coward who is afraid of a group of measly bandits.

you're a measly backdoor bandit