Dealing with immortal foe

[Pinjata]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

[hymer]

I'd ask the DM: "Can I go home now? I want to go do something trivially pointless."

[Lunali]

Cremation, package the ash into little trinkets, sell them to people all over the world/planes, particularly trying to sell them to adventurers likely to get eaten by nasty beasts.

[zminseo]

1. Put him in a Vitamix blender so he turns into a red smoothie.
2. Mix in water into the red smoothie.
3. Freeze the red smoothie so it turns into a red ice cube.
4. While keeping the red ice cube under the freezing temperature, pour it into a vat of strong acid so it dissolves.
5. Go back in time and seal the acid concoction in the Voyager 2 space probe.
It's a happy world!

[Mellack]

How is this foe immortal? Do they regenerate? Do they reform at a certain spot like a phylactery? Do they just stay alive even though chopped up? Without more information you are not going to get very useful answers.

[JoeJ]

Can the foe be imprisoned? That's how the Zeus got rid of immortal Titans.

[Fire Tarrasque]

I've put way to much thought into this.

Idea 1: Through unconscious body into lava.
Idea 2: Seal inside solid metal coffin filled with water.
Idea 3: Chop corpse into ___ pieces. Disintegrate some, melt others, through a few into the sea, maybe make a hat from one, put some pieces on spikes, trick some trolls into eating them. Then scatter them wherever you can, preferably extraplanarly.

[holywhippet]

Flesh to stone. Alternately bind them somehow eg. repeated casting of stone shape to seal them in a large block of stone. Bury it deep in a random part of a desert or dump it into the ocean.

[Sigreid]

Feed him unarmed and unarmored to the tourasque. Let him spend eternity being slowly but never completely digested.

[KarlMarx]

Depending on how immortality works in this case and the DM:

Imprison them in circumstances that are paradoxical to break, requiring keys that logically cannot exist (the "dryness of water", for (a terrible) example), and thus cannot be broken, much like how the Aesir bound Fenris Wolf in Norse mythology.

Promptly destroy as much evidence as to the fact that they once existed in the universe.

Become immortal and spend eternity making sure nobody wakes them.

[MilkmanDanimal]

Plane shift them to the Nine Hells and tell them to have fun.

[Eggy the Duck]

Personally? Depends heavily on who my character and that character were. But for me myself... In theory, lines of thought for ways in 5e go like this:


If they simply have eternal regeneration of HP, I'd find some Illithids, steal an Intellect Devourer, let it eat his brain power, and either toss him in a demiplane/Imprisonment spell or find an Int-save based way to possess the body.
If Illithids aren't available or if they heal stat damage over time, Plane Shift to the plane of Negative Energy is my next choice, if they can survive that then they're still doomed anyway.
If that's not possible or they can just get right back out: well, might as well get some use out of them. Time for brainwashing via repeated Mass Suggestion casts. Or just the less clean more conventional methods.
If they're uncontrollable, unkillable, and unplaneshift-containable, then we just need to go the simple way and hire a butcher. Or get some hungry animals.
If they also regrow body parts and organs like a troll, That's where we get bored and True Polymorph them into a worm.

You might notice that almost all of these involve some rather high-level magics. Temporary solutions could be taken until you're able to do this sort of thing, like keeping them underwater if they still react to things like a normal mortal would minus the dying part. Otherwise rocks work. Pretty hard to dig through those.

[MaxWilson]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

What resources do I have? The two most obvious options are "turn him into a pebble" and "wipe his memory", but only if I'm actually capable of such things.

"Take over his body" may be an option too, if he's a humanoid. E.g. Magic Jar.

[Vessyra]

1. use plane shift/gate to throw him/her into space
2. use plane shift/gate to throw him/her into the negative energy plane
3. use plane shift/gate to throw him/her into the sun

[Mercurias]

True Polymorph the enemy permanently into a toilet.

Find the least reputable restaurant in the kingdom and give them the gift of a new privy.

[Derpaligtr]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

Don't try to kill him.

If the person is a sentient creature, just make plans to annoy the hell out of him until he finds a way to rid himself of his immortality.

Or try to unite the Lion and Rebel Zebra, become friends with the sentient creature if possible (do note, this could be part of option 1).

[Keltest]

Split his remains into various Bags of Holding, then destroy them, sending the contents to various locations in the Astral Plane. Keep a few random chunks on your home plane and just bury them in a random field somewhere.

Anybody capable of reassembling him after that really has no business seeking other people for power in the first place, especially a being who has already been violently disassembled.

[mgshamster]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

I love things like this because it requires players to come up with a solution that doesn't involve hitting it as much as possible. It requires people to think beyond the character sheet - no longer can you fix the world's ills by punching something or hitting it with a fireball. Instead you actually have to put some thought into it, and as a result players can actually have a sense of accomplishment when it works.

Some immediate thoughts: send them to another plane of existence (and now they're someone else's problem), shoot them into space (they're immortal, so it won't kill them, but by the time they get back you'll be long dead of old age), physically imprison them somewhere so they can't do any one harm, or even lock his mind in a dream world where he thinks the world is real (may require a mcguffin).

[rmnimoc]

So this is something that's personally come up for me a few times, both as a player and as a DM. As a player I usually went with the "scatter the pieces across the world" route, both because it's easy and because it's a good plot thing in any future campaigns in that world. As a DM I've seen this and three other solutions. One was using a combination of spells to essentially erase them from existence. The second was the Terrasque method, beat it down and get a god to help you keep it that way, permanently. The final one was to use a combination of psychological torture and diplomacy to basically mind-break them into being a loyal minion of the party. I wouldn't recommend that last one unless you're either evil or trying to become evil.

[Rynjin]

It requires people to think beyond the character sheet -

Depends on the level. High enough and Imprisonment or Trap the Soul among other things are easy "on the character sheet" solutions.

Edit: Whoops, I've accidentally wandered into the 5e forums.

[mgshamster]

Depends on the level. High enough and Imprisonment or Trap the Soul among other things are easy "on the character sheet" solutions.

Edit: Whoops, I've accidentally wandered into the 5e forums.

For 3.X, you make a fair point. In such a game, you could make a similar challenge by having an enemy who is immune to damage and magic.

[Tubben]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

I dump him into lava.

[Derpaligtr]

I dump him into lava.

Side Note: Technically you can only dump him onto lava, lava is too dense and hot for pretty much any creature to be dumped "into" it.

An earth elemental or fire elemental might be able to be dumped "into" the lava.

[Amdy_vill]

Say, you have an immortal foe. You dump so much dmg upon him, he is constantly unconcious, but can never be truly killed. He can be chopped apart and taken "to four corners of the world".

How would you deal with such an enemy?

normally with foes like this the game handles them as follows. when this creature hit 0 hit points it reforms or comes back to like in XdX days/weeks/months. while they can't be killed through hit point damage they can be incapacitated while there body needs to fix its self. so if he is scattered to the four wind i would assume he would reform over time or his body parts would move towards each other over time. you best beat to kill him is plane shift him into the sun. even if you miss he will still land in the sun. but then he could always reform.

[Vogie]

Dormammu, I've come to bargain

[Dr. Cliché]

Chop his body into pieces and scoop them all up into a Bag of Devouring?

[Sigreid]

Do you know what his other powers are? Because if he's just immortal but otherwise within human norms, confinement should be easy and miserable for him.

[Derpaligtr]

Dormammu, I've come to bargain

The best boss fight in the MCU, using your brains to annoy the crap out of an immortal until you win.