Kangaxx issue [Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition]

Aboleth

After completing all possible side-quests in Chapter 2, including slaying the three liches required to assemble the mighty Kangaxx, I went to his lair and managed to kill his lich form, however his demilich form proved to be more than I could handle, so I left the crypt area.

After a quicksave I re-entered only to see Kangaxx in his demilich form. Upon entering again, there he was.

I deceided to leave him be and return after gaining a few levels, in the end I went on with the game and finally returned to his lair in Chapter 6, however he is gone.

I've tried everything, resting, coming after dark.

If anyone had the same issue, any and all help would be much appreciated.

semiticgoddess

No idea where he went, but you can use the cheat console to summon him. It should be something like

C:CreateCreature("HLDEMI");

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

jsaving

The last person who had this problem inadvertently went to the wrong tomb (they look pretty similar so it is an easy mistake to make). You might check to make sure you're in the right place. If you are and he is still gone, you'll have to console him in.

Zaghoul

I've had to be careful with that battle as sometimes he has remained in an 'un-killable' state, continuing to take massive damage, never changing forms. I've seen him disappear like that as well.
But yeah, I would probably crutch my ol tomb-dusted butt on out after a while as well, so can't blame him TBH.

PaulaMigrate

Long ago, still in old BGT game, it actually happened like @subtledoctor states above, the Demi-Lich left the tomb and created havoc outside. I used to play heavily modded games back then, so it might have come from a mod or it was a bug. Anyway, it felt very realistic from a roleplay point of view. My party failed defeating him, we were guilty of having restored that monster. That was quite a shock for my overly proud protagonist.

Grond0

Zaghoul said:

I've had to be careful with that battle as sometimes he has remained in an 'un-killable' state, continuing to take massive damage, never changing forms. I've seen him disappear like that as well.

That can happen if you hit him while he's in the process of changing form. To avoid that happening you can have only 1 person attacking at once and ensure they stop attacking as soon as Kangaxx starts to change.

Zaghoul

Grond0 said:

Zaghoul said:

I've had to be careful with that battle as sometimes he has remained in an 'un-killable' state, continuing to take massive damage, never changing forms. I've seen him disappear like that as well.

That can happen if you hit him while he's in the process of changing form. To avoid that happening you can have only 1 person attacking at once and ensure they stop attacking as soon as Kangaxx starts to change.

Huh. I think that was it, sounds like what I ended up doing after a while, and why it might have stopped. Just having one character w/protection from magic on next to him, no summons, and sttin back to wait with the rest.

Reliant

Here's how I deal with Kangaxx. Once he changes into a demilich, I hit him with Ring of the Ram. This knocks him away from my party (I call it 8-ball in the corner pocket tactic). I then protect one of my fighters with a scroll of "Protection From Magical Energy" available at the Adventure Mart. I then have him attack with a +4 or better weapon and he goes down easy. Kangaxx is worst than a normal demilich. I've tried having Minsc go berserk, which should protect him from imprisonment. However, Kangaxx still imprisons him.

Grond0

Reliant said:

I've tried having Minsc go berserk, which should protect him from imprisonment. However, Kangaxx still imprisons him.

That's because Minsc isn't a berserker and his version of rage doesn't provide that immunity (neither does barbarian mage by the way).

sarevok57

Grond0 said:

Reliant said:

I've tried having Minsc go berserk, which should protect him from imprisonment. However, Kangaxx still imprisons him.

That's because Minsc isn't a berserker and his version of rage doesn't provide that immunity (neither does barbarian mage by the way).

although it used to in the vanilla games, still kind of annoyed that they got rid of that in the EEs

Permidion_Stark

jsaving said:

You might check to make sure you're in the right place. If you are and he is still gone, you'll have to console him in.

I like the idea of trying to console Kangaxx. "Come on now Kangaxx, it's not so bad being a demi-lich. Life is still worth living. I mean death is still worth living. I mean living death is still worth living. What I'm trying to say is: try to look on the bright side."

Kurona

sarevok57 said:

Grond0 said:

Reliant said:

I've tried having Minsc go berserk, which should protect him from imprisonment. However, Kangaxx still imprisons him.

That's because Minsc isn't a berserker and his version of rage doesn't provide that immunity (neither does barbarian mage by the way).

although it used to in the vanilla games, still kind of annoyed that they got rid of that in the EEs

Minsc's rage didn't protect against Imprisonment in the original. It would raise some of his stats and put him in a state of Morale Failure: Berserk. Iirc it was the G3 Fixpack that changed it to be closer to a Berserker rage and I don't think it protected against Imprisonment even with it.

Tagging @CamDawg here since he probably knows better.

CamDawg

Fixpack really doesn't mess much with any of the various rages. Minsc's berserk had one duration wrong for a string protection but that was it. Barbarian rage gets some minor errors fixed (e.g. was granting a save penalty instead of a bonus) and rounded out the existing stun protection. Enrage blocked some of its own effects due to bad ordering, and the description says it blocked stun but didn't, so that gets added. All three also get some normal innate fixes (zero casting time, not affected by dead/wild magic zones).

Outside of enrage getting its listed stun protection, no immunities get added or removed; Minsc's berserk and barbarian rage have never protected from imprisonment. I suspect this is another one of those "Boots of Speed added haste" things that many players believe even though they've never been true.

The player really only has a few methods to block imprisonment, especially since it's not subject to normal MR: enrage, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Avoid Death HLA, an item that blocks level 9 spells such as the Protection from Magic scroll and IIRC Spell Trap. By the time you're getting HLAs and Spell Trap, you probably have better ways of dealing with demi-liches (spike traps, huzzah), leaving the (limited) protection scroll or the purely defensive ORS. Enrage is probably the most useful option here, if you have it and don't want to burn a protection scroll.

Tresset

@CamDawg failed to mention the most commonly used option, I think; which is, of course, Spell Immunity: Abjuration.
Edit: though I suppose that is not a specific block to the imprisonment effect itself, just the spells that tend to inflict it.

CamDawg

Tresset said:

@CamDawg failed to mention the most commonly used option, I think; which is, of course, Spell Immunity: Abjuration.
Edit: though I suppose that is not a specific block to the imprisonment effect itself, just the spells that tend to inflict it.

Oh right, that would definitely work as well.

And though it's also not an immunity to imprisonment itself, another common tactic against demiliches is to use a Protection from Undead scroll, as it makes you invisible to them.

Lehigh96

Kangaxx is a two trick pony. If you can't protect your character from his imprisonment spell, reform your party and leave them behind. Use Berserk, Protection from Undead or Magic Scroll, or Spell Immunity-Abjuration to avoid imprisonment. The bigger problem is hitting him because you need +4 weapons to hit him. The easiest +4 weapons to obtain are Sling of Everard +5 (Joluv in Copper Coronet), Carsomyr +5 (Firkraag), Firetooth +4 (Roof of Watcher's Keep), Usono's Blade +4 (Watcher's Keep Level 1), and the upgraded Mace of Disruption +2 which hits as a +5 weapon.

Grond0

Another excellent weapon for Kangaxx is Daystar. The bonus damage that does to undead / evil bypasses Kangaxx's high physical resistance so will take him down much faster than any of the above other than the iMoD.

Lehigh96

Grond0 said:

Another excellent weapon for Kangaxx is Daystar. The bonus damage that does to undead / evil bypasses Kangaxx's high physical resistance so will take him down much faster than any of the above other than the iMoD.

Daystar works well with the Sunray vs Kangaxx the lich, and it is supposed to hit as a +4 weapon vs Kangaxx the Demi-Lich but for whatever reason, I always get weapon ineffective when I use it against him. I just figured it was a bug that hasn't been fixed yet. Or maybe it has, I haven't tried using it in a while.

ThacoBell

As of 2.x at the very least, it does hit as a +4.

Lathlaer

ThacoBell said:

As of 2.x at the very least, it does hit as a +4.

No it doesn't.

When I played 2y ago it hit as +4 (basically every weapon that hit as +x against some kind of enemy had the enchantment level of the highest bonus) and I remember myself claiming that because of this, Daystar was arguably the best longsword in SoA (seeing that it hit as +4 and gave additional damage against evil and double against undead (both of which are prevalent in SoA).

When I decided to return to the game later this month (about a week ago), I launched DLTCEP and wow, it has +2 enchantment level again. RIP.

I suspect that some kind of update that also removed pulsing light from weapons like Carsomyr and Daystar is to blame here.

JuliusBorisov

@Lathlaer It's +2 enchantment level against everyone but evil. Against evil opponents, it's +4 enchantment level.

Have just checked in the NearInfinity, for the game version 2.3.67.

It has the following Effect 1 (in addition to general Enchantment of 2):

Type: Enchantment vs. creature type (344)
Target: Self (1)
Power: 0
IDS value: MASK_EVIL - 3
IDS target: ALIGNMEN.IDS (8)
Timing mode: Instant/While equipped - 2
Dispel/Resistance: Natural/Nonmagical (0)

Lathlaer

@JuliusBorisov Interesting, thanks. I haven't really checked this in that way. Makes sense for it to be this way, still disappointing though

broshimo

Man I love Daystar. The +4 enchantment vs evil and double damage vs undead are why Daystar is the best longsword for Shadows of Amn. The demilich in Watcher's Keep uses Protection from Energy though, so Sunfire is useless. Still, it's a lot easier to kill when compared to Kangaxx.

Reliant

broshimo said:

Man I love Daystar. The +4 enchantment vs evil and double damage vs undead are why Daystar is the best longsword for Shadows of Amn. The demilich in Watcher's Keep uses Protection from Energy though, so Sunfire is useless. Still, it's a lot easier to kill when compared to Kangaxx.

I send Minsc solo to take that one out.  His berserker rage protects him from that demi-lich, but not Kangaxx.

Humanoid_Taifun

From what I understand, the reason why Minsc's rage kept him un-imprisoned despite not protecting against it was that the AI thought it protected him and thus didn't target him when he was raging.

Minsc is a great bluffer. That just goes to show that you shouldn't judge people by their attribute scores.