It seems to me like a fairly reasonable thing to do if you know you can win the fight.
Besides for all his bragging, Kangaxx goes down pretty easy
That's the problem with the encounter: it's stupidly easy.
He is only easy to those who already know what he will do. Those without metagaming knowledge are pretty much dead as soon as they put him back together... They just don't know it yet.
That's the problem with the encounter. Either you're prepared (be it with Protection from Undead or Spell Immunity or whatever) and the battle is trivially easy, or you're not and you just die. It's pretty much binary. Not really the best encounter design in the world, that.
I remember the official guide that listed all the monsters and tactics to defeat them. Under he demilich they said they didn't know how to defeat this ultimate cheese ball and would offer anyone a job who came up with a viable strategy.
It takes metagaming knowledge to defeat him. That doesnt mean it is easy to figure out for yourself.
There is another issue with the RP element of this that a lot of you seem to be missing. How could you actually know how strong this Kangaxx is before actually releasing him? There is no real way to know for sure if you are actually stronger than him other than to throw caution to the wind and release him. All you really know is that he is extremely dangerous as he warrants such extreme measures to keep him imprisoned as 2 very powerful lich guardians. If you had any sense you would also realize that he was most likely imprisoned because he either could not be simply destroyed or because 'destroying' him would make him even more powerful, both of which turn out to be true. Sure you may want to do the world a favor and end his existence, but you do not know what would happen if you fail and you have no idea what powers this guy may have. Releasing him is not heroic; it is incredibly stupid and foolish! I still see absolutely no reason a sane person with a lick of common sense would have for releasing this guy.
There is another issue with the RP element of this that a lot of you seem to be missing. How could you actually know how strong this Kangaxx is before actually releasing him? There is no real way to know for sure if you are actually stronger than him other than to throw caution to the wind and release him. All you really know is that he is extremely dangerous as he warrants such extreme measures to keep him imprisoned as 2 very powerful lich guardians. If you had any sense you would also realize that he was most likely imprisoned because he either could not be simply destroyed or because 'destroying' him would make him even more powerful, both of which turn out to be true. Sure you may want to do the world a favor and end his existence, but you do not know what would happen if you fail and you have no idea what powers this guy may have. Releasing him is not heroic; it is incredibly stupid and foolish! I still see absolutely no reason a sane person with a lick of common sense would have for releasing this guy.
@Tresset, I think it's less a matter of knowing you can take him, and more a matter of know you're better equipped to do so than most people. As I said before, no sealed evil stays sealed forever. Bottling it up and forgetting about it is generally a pretty terrible solution. If Charname releases Kangaxx, Charname has a decent shot at ridding the world of evil before it can become a problem. If Charname doesn't release Kangaxx, the problem occurs and some indeterminate point in the future, with no guarantee that anyone remotely Charname-level is around to deal with it.
So, basically, if you all were paladins in this world you'd go around breaking hardened criminals out of jail to kill them.
"Sorry officer, but that bastard was glowing redder than molten steel. Had to be done. Sorry about the arm. I imagine they can reattach it if you get to the hospital. Next time, don't get in the way of a paladin and his appointed task."
So, basically, if you all were paladins in this world you'd go around breaking hardened criminals out of jail to kill them.
"Sorry officer, but that bastard was glowing redder than molten steel. Had to be done. Sorry about the arm. I imagine they can reattach it if you get to the hospital. Next time, don't get in the way of a paladin and his appointed task."
Geez, the amount of times the world has almost ended from comic book villains who have escaped from prison.
Demogorgon just can't be put down forever. Killing him will just send him back to the Abyss for 100 years, and then he'll be free to wander around once that's over. Locking him up in Watcher's Keep is probably the safest way to keep him from causing trouble.
So, basically, if you all were paladins in this world you'd go around breaking hardened criminals out of jail to kill them.
Well, it depends on the danger the criminal poses, but that's basically what executions are for. Typically one doesn't have to actually release the prisoner first, but principle holds. Given, of course, that we can't just bash Kangaxx's skull into powder with the Mace of Disruption without reassembling him first, because magic. If we could do that, then yeah, releasing him would be pretty dumb. But since that's not an option, executing the dangerous immortal criminal seems like the way to go.
1) The taint is pushing CHARNAME to seek battle. Think Vegeta from DBZ--instead of keeping a dangerous enemy locked up, or killing them while they're weak, CHARNAME would rather fight them even if doing so is stupid/risky in the long run. This is also the justification I use for killing Demogorgon instead of sealing him.
2) CHARNAME wants the power and prestige that would come from defeating such an opponent. This works better with evil and Chaotic Neutral alignments.
3) CHARNAME wants to rid the world of such a threat, and figures they're the best one suited to do it--if a half-god can't kill something, what can? This works better with good and Lawful Neutral alignments.
4) CHARNAME throws themselves at so many "impossible" opponents because they're secretly suicidal. They're just too damn tough to actually die.
Odd that there would be such a nasty trap on the door to a house that only had a few minotaurs squatting in it (not sure where they came from).
I always imagined that, much like the trap on the door, the minotaurs were placed there deliberately by whoever divided up Kangaxx's body in the first place, to prevent people from uncovering him and putting him back together.
Couldn't the minotaurs have just left though? Like climb out a window or something. Why hang around in an empty house? How did they get food and use the bathroom?
Couldn't the minotaurs have just left though? Like climb out a window or something. Why hang around in an empty house? How did they get food and use the bathroom?
Couldn't the minotaurs have just left though? Like climb out a window or something. Why hang around in an empty house? How did they get food and use the bathroom?
I don't mean that the minotaurs were "trapped" inside the house - I mean that they were probably assigned to guard the place by whoever dispersed Kangaxx, to prevent someone from breaking in and releasing him, and that that same person also placed the trap on the door to further discourage people from breaking in (remember that Kangaxx says that one of his enemies was responsible for chopping up his body and dispersing it throughout the city).
As far as how and where they went to the bathroom - well, they did have access to a sewer chamber right under the house, after all. ;-)
A bigger question is, if you want to hide an evil super villain's skull why the heck did you put in a trap door in the first place? A much better option would have been to hop a ride on a Spelljammer ship and drop ol' Kangy on that planet of tarrasques. Make those crazy adventurers really WORK to put humpty dumpty back together again. They didn't even follow the conventional rules of moving the body parts to the far corners of Faerun. Probably it was a funding issue. The" Help Me Get Rid Of This Evil Lich" Kickstarter didn't reach any of its stretch goals, and the physical backer rewards ate up over half the funds, so they had to make do.
A bigger question is, if you want to hide an evil super villain's skull why the heck did you put in a trap door in the first place? A much better option would have been to hop a ride on a Spelljammer ship and drop ol' Kangy on that planet of tarrasques. Make those crazy adventurers really WORK to put humpty dumpty back together again. They didn't even follow the conventional rules of moving the body parts to the far corners of Faerun. Probably it was a funding issue. The" Help Me Get Rid Of This Evil Lich" Kickstarter didn't reach any of its stretch goals, and the physical backer rewards ate up over half the funds, so they had to make do.
If you knew there was a powerful lich split into many pieces to prevent its resurrection and you wanted to put it back together... well, you would assume the pieces were scattered all over Faerun. You would never think you'd find them all in one place, would you? So the liches put all the pieces in one place, assuming no one would ever to think for them all in Athkatla.
Or maybe it went like this:
*Shade Lich, Elemental Lich, and Biff the Understudy beat up Kangaxx. Kangaxx falls to the floor but can't be hit by Imprisonment.
Shade Lich: "Hey, it's not working. We gotta keep this guy from getting back up. What do we do?"
Elemental Lich: "Let's split him in pieces and spread them all over Faerun. One of us takes the arms and legs, one of us takes the torso, and one of us takes the skull."
Biff: "Great! But where do we put him?"
Shade Lich: "How about we put some of it in Maztica, another in Chult, and the last one in Athkatla?"
Elemental Lich: "Agreed. Who takes what where?"
Biff: "No time for that! Let's get going, before he wakes up!"
*All three end up stashing him in Athkatla, thinking the others are going to Chult and Maztica.
well, you would assume the pieces were scattered all over Faerun. You would never think you'd find them all in one place, would you?
For some reason this reminds me of a Doctor Who quote
Yes. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Dalek fleet, minimum twelve thousand battleships, armed to the teeth. Ah! But we've got surprise on our side. They'll never expect three people to attack twelve thousand Dalek battleships. Because we'd be killed instantly. So it would be a fairly short surprise. Forget surprise.
This is the kind of anti-undead claptrap that drives me insane.
I help Kangaxx because everyone needs a little help now and again.
...
Everyone else should feel the same way.
...
Also Evil is just an opinion. Stamping on a defenseless spider is considered by many as an Evil act. Yet many flies would agree that it was an act of good.
From an RP perspective, If Charname in their adventures has already amassed a Scroll of Protection from Undead and any particularly potent anti-undead weaponry or magic at that point I could see the mental risk/reward looking pretty favorable- even without meta-knowledge of the 'encounter'.
Also, there are plenty of religions or various ethos in FR that strongly encourage or demand their followers act to exterminate the undead when possible.
I killed Kangaxx only once. When I picked up the Ring of Gaxx and contemplated all the trouble I had going through the quest, I thought to myself "That's it?"
They should have t-shirts. 'I killed Kangaxx and all I got was this stupid ring'.
Would not do again.
Okay, it's a good ring. But it's not that good.
In terms of cost/benefit, it's not worth it.
If you want to RP doing the world a public service by killing him, then consider this: How many people have killed him on their first try? Because if you didn't, you just released a demi-lich on Athkatla. Getting to retry is only a function of the game. In a realistic RP, you only get once chance for everything.
From a risk perspective, you might as well leave him to rot. Ya, someone more unscrupulous might free him at some point in the future, but considering how long he's been locked up already it would seem that such skilled adventurers are extremely, extremely rare. So rare that the risk of leaving him there is far lower than trying to take him on in battle and free him if you are defeated.
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That said, if metagaming is applied you can wipe kangaxx right after gb's house with 0 risk.
It takes metagaming knowledge to defeat him. That doesnt mean it is easy to figure out for yourself.
"Sorry officer, but that bastard was glowing redder than molten steel. Had to be done. Sorry about the arm. I imagine they can reattach it if you get to the hospital. Next time, don't get in the way of a paladin and his appointed task."
Better to put them down I think.
Isn't watchers keep a similar conundrum?
1) The taint is pushing CHARNAME to seek battle. Think Vegeta from DBZ--instead of keeping a dangerous enemy locked up, or killing them while they're weak, CHARNAME would rather fight them even if doing so is stupid/risky in the long run. This is also the justification I use for killing Demogorgon instead of sealing him.
2) CHARNAME wants the power and prestige that would come from defeating such an opponent. This works better with evil and Chaotic Neutral alignments.
3) CHARNAME wants to rid the world of such a threat, and figures they're the best one suited to do it--if a half-god can't kill something, what can? This works better with good and Lawful Neutral alignments.
4) CHARNAME throws themselves at so many "impossible" opponents because they're secretly suicidal. They're just too damn tough to actually die.
Brb, hacking in my ToB party to deal with this... (jk, but really, Charname would have to be slightly insane).
As far as how and where they went to the bathroom - well, they did have access to a sewer chamber right under the house, after all. ;-)
Or maybe it went like this:
*Shade Lich, Elemental Lich, and Biff the Understudy beat up Kangaxx. Kangaxx falls to the floor but can't be hit by Imprisonment.
Shade Lich: "Hey, it's not working. We gotta keep this guy from getting back up. What do we do?"
Elemental Lich: "Let's split him in pieces and spread them all over Faerun. One of us takes the arms and legs, one of us takes the torso, and one of us takes the skull."
Biff: "Great! But where do we put him?"
Shade Lich: "How about we put some of it in Maztica, another in Chult, and the last one in Athkatla?"
Elemental Lich: "Agreed. Who takes what where?"
Biff: "No time for that! Let's get going, before he wakes up!"
*All three end up stashing him in Athkatla, thinking the others are going to Chult and Maztica.
This is the kind of anti-undead claptrap that drives me insane.
I help Kangaxx because everyone needs a little help now and again.
...
Everyone else should feel the same way.
...
Also Evil is just an opinion. Stamping on a defenseless spider is considered by many as an Evil act. Yet many flies would agree that it was an act of good.
Also, there are plenty of religions or various ethos in FR that strongly encourage or demand their followers act to exterminate the undead when possible.
They should have t-shirts. 'I killed Kangaxx and all I got was this stupid ring'.
Would not do again.
Okay, it's a good ring. But it's not that good.
In terms of cost/benefit, it's not worth it.
If you want to RP doing the world a public service by killing him, then consider this: How many people have killed him on their first try? Because if you didn't, you just released a demi-lich on Athkatla. Getting to retry is only a function of the game. In a realistic RP, you only get once chance for everything.
From a risk perspective, you might as well leave him to rot. Ya, someone more unscrupulous might free him at some point in the future, but considering how long he's been locked up already it would seem that such skilled adventurers are extremely, extremely rare. So rare that the risk of leaving him there is far lower than trying to take him on in battle and free him if you are defeated.
An evil character would have decent logical reasons to release both Kangaxx and Demogorgon.
The game gives you a choice to be good, neutral or evil after all.