Is there any reason not to kill Zhurlong after completing his quest?

TheCoffeeGod

I mean, there's no Rep loss for killing him, plus you get the extra 90xp and the boots back.

From a P&P roleplaying perspective, anyone who pilfers from me as a player (or something I've deemed as mine), be it party members, or otherwise, I kill or at least try to.
That's caused some serious game upheavals from my DM in some of the games I've played, since one of the standard game rules of hers is "not to attack or kill party members".

Sure he gives the 25gp back when you complete his quest, but the fact that he stole it from you in the first place has always rubbed me the wrong way.

lunar

He is just a sterotype klepto halfling. I do not think he deserves death, he gives back the gold he stole plus there were another set of those boots in the game, I am not sure if they are in BG:EE, though. Save your wrath for those who truly deserve it. Like, that thief guy in the gambling tent in Nashkel Carnival. If you manage to kill him then kudos to you.

Tresset

If you talk to him again after the quest he keeps stealing from you. Go ahead and kill him. You want those boots right? Especially now that stealth is much harder to max out. By the way there is a duplicate copy of the hobgoblin who drops the boots @ulcaster (I hope that isn't a forumer's name).

Debaser

@TheCoffeeGod I ALWAYS KILL HIM AFTERWARDS, mainly because he stole from me. And he's kind of a bugger who keeps stealing from me after I help him....

I killed him a naught two days ago in fact.

elminster

I kill the little runt once I finish his quest. Though he gives back the money he still deserves it for stealing from me in the first place.

LordRumfish

Even though death is a bit steep for theft as a crime, in my pen and paper games I find that the players are pretty ruthless about certain things, one of them being thieves that target them. My lawful characters would probably try to just bring the runt to the local authorities or get him some jail time, but of course that may not work if he escapes from prison. Since this is a video game and you can't do all of that, I suppose vigilante justice works too.

doomdoomdoom

Eff his stealing ass and his fetch quest. Waiting until after the reward is not worth the humiliation. No self respecting badass with aspirations of godhood would do that. I cut him right after he steals from me.

If you kill him after giving in the quest, to max the benefit, that's just powergaming plain and simple, no way you can talk about roleplaying in such case.
Not that there's anything wrong with powergaming. Just can't have your cake and eat it too. Both powergame and consider yourself roleplaying.
Good guys wouldn't kill him after he gives back your money and apologizes. If you do that, you aren't good at all. And bad guys would do what I said above.

TheCoffeeGod

doomdoomdoom said:

If you kill him after giving in the quest, to max the benefit, that's just powergaming plain and simple, no way you can talk about roleplaying in such case.
Not that there's anything wrong with powergaming. Just can't have your cake and eat it too. Both powergame and consider yourself roleplaying.
Good guys wouldn't kill him after he gives back your money and apologizes. If you do that, you aren't good at all. And bad guys would do what I said above.

-lol-
Then there's the CN people, who kill him or not because they got a wild hair up their butt one day.

doomdoomdoom

That's not what being CN means.

CutlassJack

Well its not like I didn't steal from him first. ...Or afterwards.

TheCoffeeGod

doomdoomdoom said:

That's not what being CN means.

The 2nd ED PH would like a word with you.

"CN characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions.
With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment."

Tyranthraxus

In my last playthrough as a paladin I sentenced him to death for stealing my gold, Judge Dredd style (after doing the quest of course :P). "I am judge, jury, and executioner!"

Pantalion

Yes, the examples provided in the Player's Handbook have always been hilariously terrible, regardless of edition.

Only reason I can think of for letting him live is if you're a god-tier pickpocket yourself and just kept stealing your cash back, or never spoke to him again.

Since I don't believe you can steal gold (oddly enough), 'tis inevitable that he must die.

No wait! I've had an idea! To the threadcave!

szb

I never kill him if I'm good, 25 gold < 1 life.

Don't see how any good aligned roleplayer can justify it.

Ken

I am chaotic neutral.. I would kill him after, just for the rush of it, and maybe because I felt cheated of the tiny reward for the boots!

Pantalion

szb said:

I never kill him if I'm good, 25 gold < 1 life.

Don't see how any good aligned roleplayer can justify it.

What about 1,000 gold? Because I can guarantee any "good aligned roleplayer" has accepted a quest in Baldur's Gate to kill someone for less.

Delvarian

Karma dude.

Darkcloud

szb said:

I never kill him if I'm good, 25 gold < 1 life.

Don't see how any good aligned roleplayer can justify it.

Chaotic good because you think you have to punish evil and your Hamster said you should

Lawful good because you think every one that has done evil should feel your righteous might at full force!

Neutral good anything between the two from above.

Low int score helps making it more believable.

Oxford_Guy

If you have a wild mage in your party, you might want to use Zhurlong as a "bank" for your gold: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/213371#Comment_213371

szb

Darkcloud said:

szb said:

I never kill him if I'm good, 25 gold < 1 life.

Don't see how any good aligned roleplayer can justify it.

Chaotic good because you think you have to punish evil and your Hamster said you should

Lawful good because you think every one that has done evil should feel your righteous might at full force!

Neutral good anything between the two from above.

Low int score helps making it more believable.

So assuming you are good in real life, if someone stole $10 from you, you would have no problem killing them? Lets also assume there would be no negative consequences like going to jail.

Lawful good would call the police, chaotic good would probably beat him up, but I still can't see how any good person would kill over this.

Darkcloud

szb said:

Darkcloud said:

szb said:

I never kill him if I'm good, 25 gold < 1 life.

Don't see how any good aligned roleplayer can justify it.

Chaotic good because you think you have to punish evil and your Hamster said you should

Lawful good because you think every one that has done evil should feel your righteous might at full force!

Neutral good anything between the two from above.

Low int score helps making it more believable.

So assuming you are good in real life, if someone stole $10 from you, you would have no problem killing them? Lets also assume there would be no negative consequences like going to jail.

Lawful good would call the police, chaotic good would probably beat him up, but I still can't see how any good person would kill over this.

First one big difference. In todays society killing is an absolute no no. This is not the case in the forgotten realms.

And here is the next point. The moral values of the lawful-chaotic and the good-evil scale should only be absolute for outer-planetary beings like planetars and demons or devils which are kind of the representation of the absolute values of these scales.

If your character is lawful good sees himself as one that has to enforce the law and think it is good to enforce this without mercy than he still is lawful good and an idiot.

szb

Darkcloud said:

First one big difference. In todays society killing is an absolute no no. This is not the case in the forgotten realms.

If you think that morality it realitve, then your argument works, but I don't agree with your premise.

Darkcloud said:

If your character is lawful good sees himself as one that has to enforce the law and think it is good to enforce this without mercy than he still is lawful good and an idiot.

Only if the laws of the sword coast (or city) state that theft (of any amount) is punishable by death and that any ordinary citizen can deal out the punishment on the spot witouth any sort of trial (highly doubt it).

Pantalion

szb said:

Darkcloud said:

First one big difference. In todays society killing is an absolute no no. This is not the case in the forgotten realms.

If you think that morality it realitve, then your argument works, but I don't agree with your premise.

Darkcloud said:

If your character is lawful good sees himself as one that has to enforce the law and think it is good to enforce this without mercy than he still is lawful good and an idiot.

Only if the laws of the sword coast (or city) state that theft (of any amount) is punishable by death and that any ordinary citizen can deal out the punishment on the spot witouth any sort of trial (highly doubt it).

No, morality is not at all relative in D&D, Good and Evil have explicit, finite realms of applicability. Killing is neither Good, nor Evil in alignment, and therefore is Neutral and accessible for both parties. Secondly, the crime for theft is indeed death (in fact, looking in someone's sock drawer is punishable by death), this is why guards kill you. It is also enforced primarily by non-governmental forces - primarily mercenaries - who will happily murder the crap out of you for stealing 5 gold and offering a 200 gold bribe by way of an apology.

So yes, any lawful good person is morally A-okay with killing someone who robbed them, they kill Bandits for even attempting to do so without a second thought.

Welcome to Faerûn, everybody's kind of a dick.

szb

Pantalion said:

Secondly, the crime for theft is indeed death (in fact, looking in someone's sock drawer is punishable by death), this is why guards kill you. It is also enforced primarily by non-governmental forces - primarily mercenaries

But mercenaries in employment of the goverment. In the same way you could say that todays police force are just mercenaries, for they take money from their employers (the gov) to do a specific task.

Pantalion said:

- who will happily murder the crap out of you for stealing 5 gold and offering a 200 gold bribe by way of an apology.

Those are just limited gameplay mechanism to deal with player actions. I'm not that familiar with the setting, but some forgotten realms guidebook is sure to have a laws section, and I would be very suprised if the punishment for stealing 5 gold would be death.

Pantalion said:

So yes, any lawful good person is morally A-okay with killing someone who robbed them, they kill Bandits for even attempting to do so without a second thought.

Defending yourself from armed bandits when there is absolutely no gaurantee that they will let you walk away even if you give them your money/equipement is very different from killing unarmed civilians.

Pantalion

- But mercenaries in employment of the government. In the same way you could say that todays police force are just mercenaries, for they take money from their employers (the gov) to do a specific task.

By the same imagining, you are therefore an appointed government agent, as you are a mercenary unit that handles jobs for the various officials thereof. This has little bearing on a decentralised feudal governmental system however.

- Those are just limited gameplay mechanism to deal with player actions. I'm not that familiar with the setting, but some forgotten realms guidebook is sure to have a laws section, and I would be very surprised if the punishment for stealing 5 gold would be death.

We are operating within the world as represented by Baldur's Gate, not PnP, if you wanted to go by PnP, 25 Gold pieces is more than your average commoner would earn in a year, and definitely worth killing over. But no, the laws, as per Baldur's Gate, are to murder people who peek in sock drawers. "Good" NPCs such as Khallid and Jaheira will also automatically turn hostile should you be in their sight when the guards talk to you and become hostile.

Vigilantism is socio-normative within the Realms, this is why adventurers exist. Likewise, if a Paladin can pick a fight with you for being rude to them without falling, there's no reason whatsoever that someone who actually robbed you gets a pass unless you're feeling abnormally benevolent.

- Defending yourself from armed bandits when there is absolutely no guarantee that they will let you walk away even if you give them your money/equipement is very different from killing unarmed civilians.

He's not a civilian; he's a potentially dangerous and utterly unrepentant criminal with levels in Thief, not Innocent. He's no more a civilian than any of the thieves you encounter in the Thieves guild, the mage minding his own business boiling up Nymphs, or the innocent young girl trying to avenge her mother against evil fishermen.

szb

Then I guess when I'm playing a lawfull good, I'm a saint the like the realms have never seen before and consider all the above actions as lawfull evil at best.