Could Right-Eye, Redcloak, and Dorukan have killed Xykon?

[Zmeoaice]

So I just finished reading SoD, and when Dorukan sent his angels to attack Xykon, Right-Eye planned to kill Xykon. We do know that Xykon had protection against positive energy, so the dagger wouldn't have harmed him, but Right-Eye's attack might have distracted him from the angels and Dorukan. Redcloak probably knows spells that could harm Xykon, so if he teamed up with Right-Eye instead of zapping him, it might have been enough.

Also, I wonder why Redcloak didn't just destroy the phalactery after Xykon went kabloowie in DCF. Xykon said that that it would make Right-Eye's death pointless, but at this point they were back at square one, since the gate has been destroyed. Xykon did charm the MiTD to eat Redcloak is he betrayed him, but Redcloak didn't know about that.

[Loreweaver15]

Well, first: Redcloak knows that there are other gates and that he just needs to find another one and seize it, so the Plan ain't kaput yet. Therefore, any consideration of abandoning all the effort and awfulness he's put into backing Xykon comes secondary to ANY chance of NOT wasting that.

[DaveMcW]

Also, I wonder why Redcloak didn't just destroy the phalactery after Xykon went kabloowie in DCF. Xykon said that that it would make Right-Eye's death pointless, but at this point they were back at square one, since the gate has been destroyed.

Redcloak is a strong believer in the sunk cost fallacy.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Also, I wonder why Redcloak didn't just destroy the phalactery after Xykon went kabloowie in DCF. Xykon said that that it would make Right-Eye's death pointless, but at this point they were back at square one, since the gate has been destroyed.

There were still other gates. Redcloak is really only at square one once all the gates are destroyed, (and the Snarl isn't unleashed) because only at that point is all the work he put into this invalidated. The reason why Right-Eye's death would be "pointless" is because he only killed Right-Eye because he needed Xykon, and he doesn't want to kill Xykon, because that would mean there was no reason to kill Right-Eye.

In other words, Redcloak will do anything to continue the Plan (and keep Xykon alive), since he doesn't want all the goblinoids' deaths to be pointless.

[137beth]

The fact that Redcloak did not destroy Xykon's phylactery at the end of DCF points to a personal flaw in Redcloak.


As to the fight at the end of SoD, I wouldn't be surprised if Dorukan's character sheet, by himself, had enough power to beat Xykon himself, though he would probably need to get lucky. The reason the duel was so one-sided was because Dorukan acted irrationally, out of love, and out of the trauma of seeing Lirian's body.. Xykon found that Dorukan's weakness wasn't on his character sheet, it was in his emotions.
So, the answer to the question in the OP is no: Right-Eye, Redcloak, and Dorukan could not have beaten Xykon, because Redcloak wanted to keep Xykon alive, and Dorukan couldn't focus in the face of Lirian's death.
Keep in mind, Redcloak's character sheet, Dorukan's character sheet, and Right-Eye's character sheet could probably have beaten Xykon's character sheet. One or two castings of Death Ward would stop Xykon's spamming of energy drain, and Dorukan's character sheet probably had epic spells that he didn't get to use.

But it wasn't just the character sheets that were fighting. It was the characters. The greatest weaknesses of all of those characters are not on their sheet: Redcloak's weakness is his adherence to the sunk cost fallacy. Right-Eye's weakness was his continuing faith in Redcloak. Dorukan's weakness was his instinct to act out of passion. Xykon won the fight as a result.

[Morty]

It would have been the sensible thing to destroy Xykon's phylactery after his soul returned there at the end of Dungeon Crawlin' Fools. But like others said, Redcloak wasn't interested in doing the sensible thing - he was, and still is, interested in proving to himself that the deal with Xykon was worth it. Likewise during the battle with Dorukan - whether or not attacking Xykon was tactically viable, Redcloak's decision had nothing to do with tactics.

[Zmeoaice]

So, the answer to the question in the OP is no: Right-Eye, Redcloak, and Dorukan could not have beaten Xykon, because Redcloak wanted to keep Xykon alive, and Dorukan couldn't focus in the face of Lirian's death.

Except the premise of the question is Redcloak agreeing with his brother to kill Xykon, so that point is moot.

So your answer is "yes" then?

[Gray Mage]

So I just finished reading SoD, and when Dorukan sent his angels to attack Xykon, Right-Eye planned to kill Xykon. We do know that Xykon had protection against positive energy, so the dagger wouldn't have harmed him, but Right-Eye's attack might have distracted him from the angels and Dorukan. Redcloak probably knows spells that could harm Xykon, so if he teamed up with Right-Eye instead of zapping him, it might have been enough.

No, not even close. With the protection against positive energy RE wouldn't have been able to cause any amount of damage on Xykon and would be a non factor, while Redcloack wouldn't have had many usefull spells against Xykon in that situation (through a combination of lower caster level, undead immunities and Xykon's high saves). It'd probably have a very similar outcome.

[BenjCano]

Yes, the three of them could have. Redcloak had at least one spell rocking that day (Disintegrate) that could have inflicted serious damage on Xykon, and could have restored those levels Durokan lost to energy drain, and a high level rogue like Right-Eye could have solved the problem of Xykon's ring with Sleight-of-Hand roll.

By the way, you may want to edit your post to indicate spoilers.

[Gray Mage]

Redcloak had at least one spell rocking that day (Disintegrate) that could have inflicted serious damage on Xykon.

It'd need to hit a touch AC attack first and Xykon could have already had his source of deflection bonus, then it's a Fort save that while it's probably Xykon's weakest save it's probably still 10+, so not a guaranteed fail, plus Xykon has probably a lot more HP then 26d6 (do we know Redcloack's exact level at the time?). Good, but not a game winner by itself.

Could have restored those levels Durokan lost to energy drain.

Not sure why he'd bother, Durokan wouldn't gain his spell slots back, which are the main issue.

A high level rogue like Right-Eye could have solved the problem of Xykon's ring with Sleight-of-Hand roll.

Ok, that point I'm willing to concede.

[King of Nowhere]

Well, redcloak could have restored dorukan (wouldn't restore the spell slots, but would at least prevent him from dieing), but it's arguable whether dorukan would trust him enough to go close. redcloak's spells were only of limited use given that xykon must have had uber magic defences, but the fight with dorukan was close enough that it may have tipped the balance.
So the answer to the original question is uncertain.

on regards of whether redcloak should have done it, i think there's much more than sunk cost fallacy. consider redcloak's plan: find a powerful arcane caster, get control of a gate. if he kill xykon, he's back at step 1. he has to find a powerful caster, and it must be very powerful because any gate will have epic defences. redcloak, while pretty high level by then, had no chances of doing it by himself. So he needed someone more powerful than him.
It took him years of searching before stumbling onto xykon. getting someone of the appropriate level is really hard. convincing him to join your case is harder. finding an epic level evil arcane caster, convincing him to join the cause of the dark one, and convincing him to not take charge? pretty much impossible. finding a substitute for xykon is nowhere near as easy as right eye made it seem. and in all likelihood, if redcloak did that, it would be no better than xykon. at least xykon is lazy, and that makes him somewhat more manipulable. Is it really realistic to hope to find something better? Can he really hope to find an arcane caster that is epic or near epic, is evil enough to embark on a plan that would kill scores of humans, and yet would be willing to acept the autority of the much less powerful redcloak? Or even one who would be as powerful as xykon, but more easy to manipulate?
On the other hand, if redcloak went along, there were other gates, and taking them was still on the table.
So, from the point of view of redcloak, i.e. pursuing the plan at any cost, staying with xykon was the best thing. Sacrificing his brother hurt him a lot, but he sacrificed many other goblin lives, and it would have been selfish to sacrifice random goblin #125 but change the plan to spare his brother. who, by the way, was pretty old and going to die soon anyway. A commander must not make favourites, so if he would sacrifice random goblins, he must be as ready to sacrifice his beloved ones, or even himself. And redcloak has many flaws, but selfish is not one of those.
We disagree with redcloak's plan because we know there are good and reasonable people among the humans. we know that if redcloak asked for parlay with roy, or hinjo, both would grant it, and would not betray him, and would be horrified at realizing the injustice done to the goblin people and work to fix it peacefully. WE know it. redcloak don't. He is sure there is no parlay with the humans, no quarter given. So he tries to win the war. Plus, it's his god's plan, and his god is much wiser than he is, and if his god cannot find a better plan how can redcloak hope for it? From his point of view, knowing what he knows, pursuing the plan is the best logical decision. Redcloak lacks some vital data that would show his decision to be wrong.

And that's why one should not do evil for a greater good; not because it's wrong per se, it would be really great if it worked. But because you can never be sure enough that you have all the informations and are not making a terrible misjudgment. If you do evil for the greater good, you are surely doing some evil, but there is no guarantee that it will serve a greater good, or even a good at all. That's the case with redcloak.

[Anarion]

Is say that if Redcloak happened to have a second disintegrate that he could cast that day, he could have beaten Xykon. Two high damage spells or Xykon wasting at least a round to kill Redcloak and another dealing with Right-eye with angels still around could have done enough to destroy Xykons's body.

[pendell]

Did Redcloak have Heal prepared? Could he have tagged Xykon with it if he had? 'Cause that would have put Xykon in single digit hit points, an easy kill for Dorukon.

I find it unlikely Right-eye would have been able to serve any purpose in the fight other than a distraction. His first sneak attack would have failed. How does he go from that to A) Xykon is protected from positive attacks B) that attack happens to be from the ring he's wearing, as opposed to something else?

How does he make up his mind about this in one combat round, now that he's in grapple range of a lich who can inflict paralysis with a touch?

I do think Redcloak and Dorukon together could have taken Xykon out -- but Redcloak would have had to prep for anti-lich combat from the start.

But I think there is an out-of-story answer that better fits -- the entire point of that arc was to show Redcloak coming to a decision, and changing the course of history. Having that decision rendered null and void because Xykon is just that overwhelmingly powerful would take away his agency.

So I think that Redcloak, Right-Eye, and Dorokan working together could have taken out Xykon in that battle. Even if they had no particular capability to hurt him, it would have at least distracted him so that Dorukan could cast a minimum of two additional spells without having to eat an energy drain.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Zmeoaice]

on regards of whether redcloak should have done it, i think there's much more than sunk cost fallacy. consider redcloak's plan: find a powerful arcane caster, get control of a gate. if he kill xykon, he's back at step 1. he has to find a powerful caster, and it must be very powerful because any gate will have epic defences. redcloak, while pretty high level by then, had no chances of doing it by himself. So he needed someone more powerful than him.

Well the cloak pretty much made him immortal so he'd have a lot of time. Heck, if the goblins settled down in a village, they could have trained a powerful wizard in that time, and he wouldn't need to find one outside.

And before Xykon reappeared 3 years before DCF, Redcloak seemed pretty open to forgetting about this plan and settling down with his family, which he would be able to do with Xykon out of the picture.

Can he really hope to find an arcane caster that is epic or near epic, is evil enough to embark on a plan that would kill scores of humans, and yet would be willing to acept the autority of the much less powerful redcloak? Or even one who would be as powerful as xykon, but more easy to manipulate?

Was killing scores of humans any part of the plan? The plan was to teleport the gate to the God's home to blackmail them into giving Goblins better stats and terrain, so they could have an even playing field. A less evil, or even neutral or heck good sorcerer could get behind that plan.

About the only thing they would object to would be the potential destruction of the universe, which Redcloak would keep quiet about.

Also, I know dragons can be pretty powerful spellcasters, and are probably unhappy that their offspring are killed for XP as well. Tiamat is allied with the Dark One, so they might have been able to find a dragon spell caster.

Sacrificing his brother hurt him a lot, but he sacrificed many other goblin lives, and it would have been selfish to sacrifice random goblin #125 but change the plan to spare his brother.

Those goblins would be sacrificed for the greater good, while his brother was going to kill a sadistic psychopath, who senselessly kills his people. They got all the information they needed from him (that there were multiple gates) so killing him and finding a new arcane caster would have been a better idea.

[King of Nowhere]

Well the cloak pretty much made him immortal so he'd have a lot of time. Heck, if the goblins settled down in a village, they could have trained a powerful wizard in that time, and he wouldn't need to find one outside.

And before Xykon reappeared 3 years before DCF, Redcloak seemed pretty open to forgetting about this plan and settling down with his family, which he would be able to do with Xykon out of the picture.

YEs, he was, cause he had no xykon, so the plan wasn't a realistic option anymore. think of settling down and raise a village as plan B. Or think that his brother managed to change his mind, but after xykon took away the village he changed his mind cause raising saidd village was a much less realistic hypothesis. or just that he changed his mind under the charismatic influence of xykon.

Was killing scores of humans any part of the plan? The plan was to teleport the gate to the God's home to blackmail them into giving Goblins better stats and terrain, so they could have an even playing field. A less evil, or even neutral or heck good sorcerer could get behind that plan.

About the only thing they would object to would be the potential destruction of the universe, which Redcloak would keep quiet about.

Any gate would be defended. the defenders would likely be good aligned sapients, like the elves in lirian's gate, the draketooths in girard's gate, or the paladins in soon's gate. I doubt a good sorceror could have been tricked into that. "Hey dude, those paladins are trying to keep the gate from us, but they are misguided and killing them is clearly the best course of actions. All that so that my (evil) deity can blackmail the other gods, but he will force them to make a better world for everyone, he would definitely not take advantage of it or seek revenge". Well, as far as we know it may even be true, but it is still very hard to believe. So redcloak would need a very powerful good aligned wizard or sorceror with an abysmal wisdom score.

Also, I know dragons can be pretty powerful spellcasters, and are probably unhappy that their offspring are killed for XP as well. Tiamat is allied with the Dark One, so they might have been able to find a dragon spell caster.

Well, a dragon could actually be a good choice. but if the dark one never contacted tiamat for it, it's not likely to happen. maybe they don't trust each other enough to give control of the gate to one side. maybe tiamat would rather keep the situation as it is than risk world destruction.
And if they can't talk to tiamat, persuading an evil dragon to seek the gates could actually work. but said dragon would be as likely as xykon to take control, as likely to not give a crap about the goblins, and probably less manipulable.

Those goblins would be sacrificed for the greater good, while his brother was going to kill a sadistic psychopath, who senselessly kills his people. They got all the information they needed from him (that there were multiple gates) so killing him and finding a new arcane caster would have been a better idea.

In redcloak's opinion, said psyco was still useful for breaking the other gate's defences. His brother was sabotaging a war asset.

it would be very difficult to get a substitute for xykon and there would be a huge risk of getting someone worse than him. You need someone powerful enough to take epic challenges, crazy enough to endanger the world, and manipulable enough that redcloak can pull his strings. xykon is all three. you risk getting something that only has the first two. You risk waiting forever for that goblin wizard that will never arrive, while millions of goblins are killed all the time.
Or, you could keep xykon, and accept that he will have some "friendly fire". He still kills much more enemies than friends, and that's enough from the point of view of the war to consider him an asset.

I'm not saying it was impossiible to kill xykon and look for someone else. and it wasn't even an unreasonable idea. I'm just saying that there is enough of an argument there to consider redcloak's actions completely logical.

In fact, the choice was not between staying with xykon or killing him and getting another caster for the plan. it was between staying with xykon and giving up the plan at all. redcloak's logical failure was assuming building up the goblins was too unlikely to succeed and the plan had more chances of success*.

*if rich wanted to pass the message that it would have worked, he certainly failed to give that impression to me. right eye managed to stay in peace for 15 years, but how long before a band of adventurers would hear of goblins around and just assume they would start assaulting villages even if they never did anything wrong? Or just think "hey, xp!". After the goblins would kill those adventurers in self defence, voices would spread that they killed some adventurers (voices often tend to distort the truth) and others would come for them. Or maybe a single goblin would have stolen a cow during a hard winter, and then the village would have called someone to deal with the "goblin menace". maybe building a village would have worked, but it had a high risk of failure. redcloak had to choose between two plans that both had a high risk of failure.

[B. Dandelion]

I do think Redcloak and Dorukon together could have taken Xykon out -- but Redcloak would have had to prep for anti-lich combat from the start.

But I think there is an out-of-story answer that better fits -- the entire point of that arc was to show Redcloak coming to a decision, and changing the course of history. Having that decision rendered null and void because Xykon is just that overwhelmingly powerful would take away his agency.

This is sort of funny, in that I was somewhat recently taking a similar-but-opposite tack regarding that. Yeah, if Redcloak has no real ability to take out Xykon, it does kind of take away his agency in that moment. It doesn't mitigate the moral importance of his decision because he didn't know how the deck was stacked against him from the beginning, but the idea that Redcloak couldn't have done much to turn the tide in his fateful moment of choice is sort of... unsatisfying.

It's just that I think that it kind of is supposed to be unsatisfying in that sense. It would have been much more obvious to go the other route, where Xykon instead pointed out something Redcloak could have done that absolutely would have turned the tide of battle in their favor. It would have so much more painfully hammered home how Redcloak had a choice between wrong and right, and chose wrong. As it was it kinda felt like he had a choice between bad and worse and went with worse. Yet that kind of seems like his character in a nutshell. He's had nothing but a series of bad choices to work with all his life, which isn't really his fault, and has generally gone with the worst of all options, which obviously is.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Redcloack, at the time of that fight, at least had Restoration, since in his conversation with Right-eye, he noted how RIght-eye had refused to let him restore his eye with that spell (Right-eye was saving it for in case he failed to kill Xykon and had to get away and find another way to kill Xykon).

Fourth Level Spells:

Air Walk, Control Water, Cure Critical Wounds, Death Ward, Dimensional Anchor, Discern Lise, Dismissal, Divination, Divine Power, Freedom of Movement, Giant Vermin, Imbue with Spell Ability, Inflict Critical Wounds, Greater Magic Weapon, Neutralize Poison, Lesser Planar Ally, Poison, Repel Vermin, Restoration, Sending, Spell Immunity, Summon Monster Four, and Tongues (eeewwwww).

Hmm, I assume Imbue With Spell Ability lets non-spellcasters cast spells of your level or lower.

And, well, I assume Controll Water applies to the water inside a person's body a la Bloodbending; or maybe it makes you create the other kinds of ice that are denser than water, or create clouds with the water in the air. Air walk would have been cool if he'd cast it on Right-eye, instead of Right-eye jumping.

[Anarion]

This is sort of funny, in that I was somewhat recently taking a similar-but-opposite tack regarding that. Yeah, if Redcloak has no real ability to take out Xykon, it does kind of take away his agency in that moment. It doesn't mitigate the moral importance of his decision because he didn't know how the deck was stacked against him from the beginning, but the idea that Redcloak couldn't have done much to turn the tide in his fateful moment of choice is sort of... unsatisfying.

It's just that I think that it kind of is supposed to be unsatisfying in that sense. It would have been much more obvious to go the other route, where Xykon instead pointed out something Redcloak could have done that absolutely would have turned the tide of battle in their favor. It would have so much more painfully hammered home how Redcloak had a choice between wrong and right, and chose wrong. As it was it kinda felt like he had a choice between bad and worse and went with worse. Yet that kind of seems like his character in a nutshell. He's had nothing but a series of bad choices to work with all his life, which isn't really his fault, and has generally gone with the worst of all options, which obviously is.

Going even further than this, I think it had to be the case that Xykon at least created the impression that he was impervious no matter what Redcloak had done. Whether Xykon was telling the truth or not doesn't matter (and frankly, we'll never know for sure if Redcloak+Right-Eye could have turned the tide).

The importance there is what happened to Redcloak after: he became loyal to the point that even when Xykon was destroyed, Redcloak saved the phylactery and never tried to destroy it. That's more than the sunk cost fallacy. It's also the belief from Redcloak that he'll never get out. That no matter what he does, Xykon is a step ahead of him and he might as well just go with it and see things to the end.

That lasted all the way until Redcloak's realization during the war when the hobgoblin saved him, and since he's lost his eye trying to make something of the goblin people, he has since become considerably less loyal to Xykon. But for a period of time between his brother's death and a brave hobgoblin who knocked him out of the way of a rock, Redcloak was basically Xykon's loyal slave.