I‘m running White Plume Mountain. I thought I would put a question out to the group familiar with the adventure. Have any players ever find or explore the “Induction Center” and want to fight Keraptis? I was thinking of a contingency plan in case this happens. Do you have any plans or suggestions?
If players in "White Plume Mountain" unexpectedly find and explore the "Induction Center" and express interest in confronting Keraptis, it's essential to be flexible as a Dungeon Master. Consider adapting the storyline to accommodate this possibility, perhaps by introducing clues or encounters that lead them toward this path gradually. Develop Keraptis as a formidable adversary, with unique abilities and challenges to make the final confrontation memorable. Additionally, be prepared to improvise and adjust the narrative based on player actions, ensuring an engaging and rewarding experience for everyone involved.
Keraptis is a high level wizard who (at least going by the info in the module) was a ruler of significant lands and is more than 1300 years old. (Assuming the current Keraptis is the same one). Keraptis has bound several powerful creatures to his will (vampire, ogre mage, gynosphinx, etc) forcing them to remain in the dungeon. He has several Efreet that will block the exit of the characters from the dungeon if he desires.
So, this comes down to how you want to run it and how "realistic" or "heroic" you want to make it. Since you can make Keraptis any stat block you like, you can make them easy or hard to defeat. However, "realistically", one would not expect them to be an easy opponent. For an old an powerful mage, you'd likely start with the Archmage stat block and tweak the spells to be more useful. He would also have minions and guards at the induction center along with machinery/spells to permanently brainwash those who are being "inducted".
What the characters decide to do really depends on how you present it. In the times I have played/run this module, no one has gone looking for the induction center and attempted to defeat Keraptis because they figured, rightly so for the games I ran, that they would probably lose. Keep in mind also that there is no mention of an induction center in the module until the very end when the characters are confronted while trying to leave the dungeon so if you want this to be an element in the module, you either have people who have already played it and have meta knowledge that such a place exists or you have added foreshadowing and information to the module itself ... in which case, you should already have a plan :)
Keraptis is a powerful, devious opponent that somehow stole three of the most powerful weapons in the world and placed them within White Plume Mountain. Whether the quest to recover these is for Keraptis' amusement and entertainment, whether Keraptis is looking for a party that can succeed at recovering the weapons because he has a much more challenging endeavor in mind and needs a group that succeed at this test at a minimum, or for some other reason .. who knows, that is up to you. If the characters plan to use the weapons against Keraptis, keep in mind that an intelligent wizard would have already thought of this and have a plane to deal with it.
Anwyay, it is certainly possible to extend the module by adding an induction center and a confrontation with Keraptis directly but there is no need to do so and from a character perspective - the party has no idea that such a place as the induction center might exist. They don't even know where Keraptis might be found .. so whether the players find out about this and what kind of encounter might result is entirely up to you.
P.S. To actually answer your question ... I've never seen anyone surrender at the final fight to be taken to the induction center. Either the party has been pretty beat up so the DM left out the final encounter at the exit or the party just defeats the Efreets and manages to escape. The module itself does NOT contain an induction center. There is no way to "randomly" find it by exploring unless you add it since it isn't there. The party doesn't even find out such a place might exist until the final encounter when trying to escape the dungeon with the weapons - and that encounter is optional so the party might never even find out that there might be an induction center to find. Basically, it comes down to how you want to run it and whether you want to create a map for the induction center, a stat block for Keraptis, and populate the induction center (and likely Keraptis' living quarters) with appropriate opponents - keeping in mind that the challenge could be MUCH higher than the other encounters in WPM.
I‘m running White Plume Mountain. I thought I would put a question out to the group familiar with the adventure. Have any players ever find or explore the “Induction Center” and want to fight Keraptis? I was thinking of a contingency plan in case this happens. Do you have any plans or suggestions?
If players in "White Plume Mountain" unexpectedly find and explore the "Induction Center" and express interest in confronting Keraptis, it's essential to be flexible as a Dungeon Master. Consider adapting the storyline to accommodate this possibility, perhaps by introducing clues or encounters that lead them toward this path gradually. Develop Keraptis as a formidable adversary, with unique abilities and challenges to make the final confrontation memorable. Additionally, be prepared to improvise and adjust the narrative based on player actions, ensuring an engaging and rewarding experience for everyone involved.
Keraptis is a high level wizard who (at least going by the info in the module) was a ruler of significant lands and is more than 1300 years old. (Assuming the current Keraptis is the same one). Keraptis has bound several powerful creatures to his will (vampire, ogre mage, gynosphinx, etc) forcing them to remain in the dungeon. He has several Efreet that will block the exit of the characters from the dungeon if he desires.
So, this comes down to how you want to run it and how "realistic" or "heroic" you want to make it. Since you can make Keraptis any stat block you like, you can make them easy or hard to defeat. However, "realistically", one would not expect them to be an easy opponent. For an old an powerful mage, you'd likely start with the Archmage stat block and tweak the spells to be more useful. He would also have minions and guards at the induction center along with machinery/spells to permanently brainwash those who are being "inducted".
What the characters decide to do really depends on how you present it. In the times I have played/run this module, no one has gone looking for the induction center and attempted to defeat Keraptis because they figured, rightly so for the games I ran, that they would probably lose. Keep in mind also that there is no mention of an induction center in the module until the very end when the characters are confronted while trying to leave the dungeon so if you want this to be an element in the module, you either have people who have already played it and have meta knowledge that such a place exists or you have added foreshadowing and information to the module itself ... in which case, you should already have a plan :)
Keraptis is a powerful, devious opponent that somehow stole three of the most powerful weapons in the world and placed them within White Plume Mountain. Whether the quest to recover these is for Keraptis' amusement and entertainment, whether Keraptis is looking for a party that can succeed at recovering the weapons because he has a much more challenging endeavor in mind and needs a group that succeed at this test at a minimum, or for some other reason .. who knows, that is up to you. If the characters plan to use the weapons against Keraptis, keep in mind that an intelligent wizard would have already thought of this and have a plane to deal with it.
Anwyay, it is certainly possible to extend the module by adding an induction center and a confrontation with Keraptis directly but there is no need to do so and from a character perspective - the party has no idea that such a place as the induction center might exist. They don't even know where Keraptis might be found .. so whether the players find out about this and what kind of encounter might result is entirely up to you.
P.S. To actually answer your question ... I've never seen anyone surrender at the final fight to be taken to the induction center. Either the party has been pretty beat up so the DM left out the final encounter at the exit or the party just defeats the Efreets and manages to escape. The module itself does NOT contain an induction center. There is no way to "randomly" find it by exploring unless you add it since it isn't there. The party doesn't even find out such a place might exist until the final encounter when trying to escape the dungeon with the weapons - and that encounter is optional so the party might never even find out that there might be an induction center to find. Basically, it comes down to how you want to run it and whether you want to create a map for the induction center, a stat block for Keraptis, and populate the induction center (and likely Keraptis' living quarters) with appropriate opponents - keeping in mind that the challenge could be MUCH higher than the other encounters in WPM.