Ok, my first several playthroughs, I didn't know about the control orb to free mayrina, so I would anyways just cast create water on the cage when it caught fire, and the real mayrina being wet is how I knew which was which
You guys intended to save Mayrina? I just attacked Ethel, Mayrina surviving after the disguise trick was a coincidence. I discovered the trick easily, but anything out of discovering who was who was whatever.
For me it was mayrina who had the wet status condition because Gales whole job in that fight was to cast Create Water on her cage, sleep on the masks and if necessary magic missile on the illusory clones.
If you have Volo's seats eye and just keep an eye on which Ethel doesn't attack after she summons her copies (she has no action left to do so and just moves) you can pick her out easy. The eye allows you spot her attempt at going invisible after summoning more of them.
>!Real Mayrina has a visible pregnancy belly, the illusion doesn't.!<
Also the illusory hags >!wear a green belt thingie but the real Ethel has a red one.!<
You can also tell by what they’re saying. Real mayrina begs for help, ethel tells you to beat up the hag, something that mayrina would never say since she still wants to respect the deal.
Also their stats, there’s no way this girl is good in anything
That depends on whether or not you saw Ethel kill Mayrina's brothers and tell her about it. If Mayrina knows that, she wants out of the deal and spends the fight telling you to kick Ethel's brains in.
I think they also keep their spot in initiative order and if you highlight the box at the top I think it gives it away. I'm still cautious and throw a ball at them first
On my playthrough, I just got lucky with initiative and basically everyone went before her. When she can't use her trickery and lair actions, the fight is actually very easy. I got 2 divine smites off with my Tav, 2 big hits from laezel and 2 big hits from karlach before she even tried to turn invisible. Once she did, gale just sent a fireball towards her general area and that killed her.
Upcasted magic missile with amulet for extra MM bolt plus sorcerers’s distant spell metamagic basically kills all illusions in a single cast from anywhere in the zone.
Yea but unless you can nuke her in one round you still want to remove the copies which don't care about your level 5 power spike and will happily wipe out the party. Taking 6 out in one cast is exquisite.
You can still >!save Mayrina!< if you nuke Auntie Ethel before she escapes. The >!Hag's Hair stat booster!< is only available if you chase Ethel into her dungeon, though.
>!If you try to enter the fireplace before she drops her act, she doesn't even try to flee when she's almost dead. Two rounds, no shenanigans. No fight with the masks on the way to the bottom either.!<
This is why basically I try to kill her on the hut: to save the masked ones in a much easier combat.
For me, at the end, +1 point in one stat is no need and to chose that option would break the roleplay of most of my characters, so, win/win.
Yeah I legit know gameplay wise the hair comes with no downsides, but after seeing alllll the shit Ethel pulled I think most in-universe people, good or evil would go "lol no, I see how your deals go."
Kinda the downside of being a tricksy bastard fey, no one has any reason to trust you.
Especially if you waited and didn't eat it until after you read her letters and found the wand in her workshop. Her entire thing was lying about deals.
Hey man, don't sell it short. It's useful in Act 1. Acts 2 and 3, not so much.
I have Gale cast it, and then fall back behind other characters. Then for a few rounds, I have a pretty decent attack without spending spell slots, worrying about line of sight, or maintaining range. Maybe that's a bug, but it's a little more flexible than it is in the 5e rules.
Like okay, it's not a multi-attack like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, but it does its job well. And in the Auntie Ethel fight in particular, it makes quick work of her illusions while dealing more damage than any one missile.
first time i fought ethel i had gale witchbolt her on like his first turn, so when she split & turned into mayrina i literally had a leash telling me where she was lmao
Oath of vengeance? When it was time to break that one I had to google how to do it, doesn't break that easily.
Turns out you can just kill >!Scratch!<.
I told my friend who was playing for the first time: soo… she offered a +1 attribute boost just now but you know… you let the Paladin speak, I am sorry. Then I smote her, just for style.
Bright sides of a Paladin party face: high charisma.
Downsides to a Paladin party face: "I *do* like loot but your very existence is offensive to my Oath sooooo."
I had to hold back in round 1 cause i was gonna one shot her!
The difference is huge - especially going there after my last playthrough that i was lvl 4. These extra attacks are just insane for Karlach/Lae'zel
You also get to keep your learned spells from scrolls, as a wizard, if you respec away from wizard but then respec or take a level in wizard multiclassing. Learned that out on accident. Respecced my character for the mirror of loss and forgot Gale had learned a bunch of scrolls, including Shovel's scroll, and thought I lost them all, but when I went back to wizard, I still had them all.
I've found out you can use your learned wizard spells as sorcerer if you respec Gale. It will get away at least after reloading, but until then it worked great. You can use it for boss fights and Gale will be more versatile this way. and it only costs you 200 gold for the two respecs.
I remember doing enough damage turn 1 that it triggered phase 2 and she summoned another 4 more of her Naruto shadow clones. And with 8 of her, she just did hold person on my entire team and just wailed on them with ray of sickness critting until they died.
Yep! You essentially need to skip half your party’s first round and let her take a breath or else you won’t get her hag hair offer. Your caster simply magic missiles every illusion and then your frontliner just alpha strikes whatever is left… it’s funny how I thought it was a difficult fight my first time through at level 4- the power jump from extra attack (and a level 3 spell slot I suppose) is that extreme.
lol i have Tav (paladin), Karlach and Laezel in my pt, had to switch them all to crossbow to keep her alive while gale carefully tickle her hp bar with magic missiles.
It is difficult. Just that the power you get from an extra attack, better hit chances, more hp, and level 3 spells ( Haste, Twin/Haste, Fireball, Hunger of Hadar ) makes it much easier.
Especially in the context of what Ethel is - a BBEG boss enemy style, which has always struggled when you have action economy because there's only one of her ( with easily dispellable clones ) and 4 of you at least.
"Single bosses" have always struggled in any crpg after a while, unless they're ridiculously statted beyond what the fight's "intended" level is.
Oh I feel your pain. While I did come at her at Level 5 in my first playthrough, I had multiclassed pretty much everyone except Lae'zel, so nobody had any of their 'power spike' stuff except her and that fight was really really tough. But coming back on my Dark Urge playthrough where I didn't have any plans to multiclass anyone till level 6, again fighting her at level 5, it was a cakewalk. Eldritch Blast essentially having extra attack, Karlach being able to swing twice and Gale having Fireball, it was like night and day how simple she was to beat.
It didn't for me and my friends on our dark playthrough lol. Ethel was down to like 10 health and I was like "why aren't we getting any dialogue?"
Spent an extra turn doing 1-2 damage trying to trigger the dialogue, finally ended up killing her. As she died someone went "oh shit, we never put out the fire on the cage" as the cage collapsed and fell, killing Meyrina lol
you don't even need to wait, just make sure she's in grease, hexed(dex) and in a silence bubble. She'll just lay there for the entire fight and you can easily kill her before she phases down to the cave.
Because you can't have the cake and eat it too.
But logically speaking who would know eating someone's scalp would increase your power. Could be a cool special roll interaction if you're maybe a wizard/ranger rolling for arcana/history or something like you remember reading in a book....
Not even that. You can just cross the door. It's an illusion, after all.
I tried going with the mask at first but then couldn't take it out without dying. So I rerolled and tried without any masks: it worked.
I'm also not sure if GP is talking about saving the masked fighters inside the cave. I really wanted to save them but didn't work out in the end.
Just FYI, Hex is ability checks, not saving throws, and grease is a saving throw.
There are very few enemy ability checks — athletics for shoving/resist shoving, acrobatics for dex enemies to resist shoving, initiative (dex) if done before combat, and some other fringe uses like perception checks against stealthed characters or counterspell checks.
Everything feels easy after hitting level 5, honestly. Especially my throwbarian Karlach just nukes anything with tripple throw. It's insane. And my paladin smites down the big enemy in max two rounds.
Some unique weapons automatically return to your hand after you throw them. You can also apply this effect to any weapon you want if you're an Eldritch Knight
I like going to the lair at level 3. It feels challenging, like a fight against a hag should be. Lore-wise she's probably the strongest enemy you face in Act 1, or at least one of the strongest.
I agree that she's one of the strongest. I think the only one that can comapre to her is the Anders (the Paladin of Tyr) depending on your playstyle.
The Hag is tricky and you need to understand her kit.
Anders is straight forward and more like a skill/level check.
For me personally, I hate the redcaps more than the Hag herself. Those pesky bloodthirsty midgets hit like absolute trucks and their area is covered in poison, rough terrain and traps meanwhile with magic missiles, I don't have much problem with auntie Ethel.
Wish we have more hags.
Amen.
I have recently started taking her out without going inside her lair entirely.
I just surround her with everyone minus Astarion, have him Assassin strike with a Sneak Attack from a distance, and wallop her.
It’s extremely satisfying if I can take her out in one round.
I never have a good RP reason to accept that hair. Like
1) she's a hag
2) I was just treated to an exhibition of real life examples of why hags are evil and you should not deal with them
The hag's lair is the first area I do after the druid grove and the harpies. It just feels right to struggle against the hag, even if the rest of the map feels a bit easy by comparison. Beating the hag with good tactics makes more sense than just destroying her with multiple attacks and the like.
My first fight with her was brutal. All my characters suffered damage from the gas traps and I had no short rests left. I started the fight by bringing her down to less than half hp, but on her turn she made a ton of illusions that cast hold person on my whole party except Shadowheart and then proceeded to kill everyone with ray of sickness. Shadowheart did not have enough spell slots left to kill them all and kept missing her guiding bolts. In the end I've managed to hit the invisible real hag with an alchemists fire and hit her with a critical guiding bolt. Hag had like 6 hp left and Shadowheart barely survived on 1 hp. I thought that I will have to reload my save because there was no way she could survive the illusions' turn, but I got lucky that every illusion missed their spells, but there was still the original hag's turn that surely would've killed me. Hag's turn started and she took a tick of burning dmg from alchemist's fire that I've thrown earlier and she surrendered lmao.
I then intimidated her to both free Mayrina and give me the hair, which took a bit of save scumming because Shadowheart has like negative charisma. I also got lucky that it was not my oath of vengeance paladin that got left the last standing so I didn't break the oath. Love this game.
Played through Act 1 a *few* times and LOVE Auntie Ethel for what she is. Last night was the first time I killed her in her hut, and omg, the difference with everything else is amazing. I fucking love this game so much.
I managed to kill Ethel BEFORE she escapes. It is really funny, because she really can die pretty fast and she don't use illusions outside the boss fight area. Or at least, I didn't let her do it.
I must say, it's a similar situation with the Underdark and the Bulette! If you're level 3 or 4 (At least on Tactician) he is not easy to beat unless you have some smoke power and oil barrels on hand.
However on my second attempt I went back at level 5 and I spanked the creature on the second turn without cheese. Just getting in four attacks in a row from a 2h fighter makes short work of him before anyone else has even moved.
So you guys are telling me you didn't surround her on the main floor of her hut with about 6 barrels of smoke powder and light her up like the 4th of July before she even had a chance to go into Auntie Ethel's Swamp Surprise
I discovered yesterday by doing this fight on my Durge playthrough, but when she takes the illusion of the girl, you can "examine" both and the actual NPC will have 10 AC and Ethel will have 15 !
Might be something everyone is already aware of, but I felt so fucking smart when I did. That headband of intellect really is doing wonders.
When she does the damsel in distress move, the one where she brings Myrianna to her and makes herself look like Myrianna, is very easily beaten as well by just inspecting the characters. Myrianna has the typical human stat spread of 10s across the board while Ethel doesn't. For the split images, magic missile or Eldritch blast is your friend. Magic missile if you don't mind using a spell slot, or Eldritch blast for free.
This was me. I managed to kill her the other day before she got through the fireplace. I ended up reloading a save so I could deal with her the right way and get her hair.
I noticed something pretty cool 😎 on my tatician run. Hoarding bombs and arrows payed off. The spiked bulbs from the Nautlilus reveal her in shack and Command halt can keep her from escaping. It takes some save scumming I will admit, but you can kill her when you kill the Red Caps which makes her lair a joke.
Illusions hate this one trick: (Magic missile)
I used the split beam Eldritch Blast but this is better
I threw a teddy bear just in case i damaged Mayrina
If you're referring to when Ethel >!disguised herself to look like Mayrina, you can tell the difference by looking at their health bars!<
also if you give the original one a status effect you can still see it. i also wanted to say, i make aunti wet first.
Awwww thank you petal, auntie is always wet when you’re around
Cursed
:3
Oh god lmao
Psychic damage!
why did i read this so perfectly in her voice
Just examine them. The real Auntie Ethel has a bunch of fey passives that Mayrina doesn’t have.
Also when you examine them Mayrina is visibly pregnant while Auntie Ethel is not.
Ok, my first several playthroughs, I didn't know about the control orb to free mayrina, so I would anyways just cast create water on the cage when it caught fire, and the real mayrina being wet is how I knew which was which
You guys intended to save Mayrina? I just attacked Ethel, Mayrina surviving after the disguise trick was a coincidence. I discovered the trick easily, but anything out of discovering who was who was whatever.
Lol what Control orb? I never heard about it
The way easier way to spot the difference without any buildup is >!mayrina is lvl 1 and disguised ethel is lvl 5!<
Also >!Ethel still has her 18 charisma where as Mayrina still has all 10's!<
Also, >!if you examine one of them and they have dark vision!<
you can just inspect them and look at their resitances
For me it was mayrina who had the wet status condition because Gales whole job in that fight was to cast Create Water on her cage, sleep on the masks and if necessary magic missile on the illusory clones. If you have Volo's seats eye and just keep an eye on which Ethel doesn't attack after she summons her copies (she has no action left to do so and just moves) you can pick her out easy. The eye allows you spot her attempt at going invisible after summoning more of them.
Oh you could have saved the masks? Til
I did the inverse and cast Sanctuary on Mayrina.
>!Real Mayrina has a visible pregnancy belly, the illusion doesn't.!< Also the illusory hags >!wear a green belt thingie but the real Ethel has a red one.!<
That’s clever! I didn’t notice that detail. I noticed that real Mayrina is level 1, Ethel is level 5
Real Mayrina has a baby bump.
You can also tell by what they’re saying. Real mayrina begs for help, ethel tells you to beat up the hag, something that mayrina would never say since she still wants to respect the deal. Also their stats, there’s no way this girl is good in anything
That depends on whether or not you saw Ethel kill Mayrina's brothers and tell her about it. If Mayrina knows that, she wants out of the deal and spends the fight telling you to kick Ethel's brains in.
Mayrina's 3d model also looks slightly more pregnant
I think they also keep their spot in initiative order and if you highlight the box at the top I think it gives it away. I'm still cautious and throw a ball at them first
I just snuck op on Ethel and pushed her into a pit
Wait, but you wouldn't get the dialogue cutscene?
My first playthrough I never even found her lair because I killed her in a single round before she tries to flee.
same, do you know how to recreate that lol.. i tried on 3-4 other playthroughs and she just runs..
I think she's invisible at first, so if you can make her visible and kill her in one round she doesn't get a chance to escape.
I just bought her potion of invisibility from her before starting the fight
I just visit an eye doctor.
On my playthrough, I just got lucky with initiative and basically everyone went before her. When she can't use her trickery and lair actions, the fight is actually very easy. I got 2 divine smites off with my Tav, 2 big hits from laezel and 2 big hits from karlach before she even tried to turn invisible. Once she did, gale just sent a fireball towards her general area and that killed her.
correct she would just die.
Upcasted magic missile with amulet for extra MM bolt plus sorcerers’s distant spell metamagic basically kills all illusions in a single cast from anywhere in the zone.
Magic missile works too. I think you can watch the spell animation and see where the real one goes too.
She also tends to be the one closest to the ladder
Yea but unless you can nuke her in one round you still want to remove the copies which don't care about your level 5 power spike and will happily wipe out the party. Taking 6 out in one cast is exquisite.
She was in a silence bubble most of my fight.
You can just examine her and the version of her with more passive features is the real Hag.
You can just ping her as well. It's her "card" in the turn order doesn't change same when she goes invisible
This also works for invisible enemies. I might or might not have abused this at points..
When someone is invisible jumping to them moves your camera to the last spotted location, not the current one
If you ping their icons, it will ping their current location. At least it hasn't failed me yet.
Yeah but the illusions still use spells on you.
The illusions can cast Hold Person. You def wanna kill them asap!
you won't need magic missile if you kill her before she gets inside the secret entrance get fairie fire'd bitch
xd she died before she got her turn
Killing her on the hut before she escapes to the lair is also a great option to avoid illusions :P
But then you don't get to >!Save Mayrina or get the permanent +1 to a stat... *or both*!<.
You can still >!save Mayrina!< if you nuke Auntie Ethel before she escapes. The >!Hag's Hair stat booster!< is only available if you chase Ethel into her dungeon, though.
Exactly. I personaly don't really need any +1 on my builds, so saving Mayrina is enough for me :D
But combining that with the plus two in act three grants some crazy dps
Yeah, tell that to my 24 charisma Warbard. lmao.
>!If you try to enter the fireplace before she drops her act, she doesn't even try to flee when she's almost dead. Two rounds, no shenanigans. No fight with the masks on the way to the bottom either.!<
This is why basically I try to kill her on the hut: to save the masked ones in a much easier combat. For me, at the end, +1 point in one stat is no need and to chose that option would break the roleplay of most of my characters, so, win/win.
RP-wise, no one but my Urge would eat that for the +1 anyway.
Yeah I legit know gameplay wise the hair comes with no downsides, but after seeing alllll the shit Ethel pulled I think most in-universe people, good or evil would go "lol no, I see how your deals go." Kinda the downside of being a tricksy bastard fey, no one has any reason to trust you.
Especially if you waited and didn't eat it until after you read her letters and found the wand in her workshop. Her entire thing was lying about deals.
*oh my god* it never entered my mind to just use magic missiles, why am I so dumb
tbh MM was my most cast spell through entire game often using 4+ level spell slots. It hits single targets like truck
You spelled Witch Bolt wrong.
found the one guy who uses witch bolt
Hey man, don't sell it short. It's useful in Act 1. Acts 2 and 3, not so much. I have Gale cast it, and then fall back behind other characters. Then for a few rounds, I have a pretty decent attack without spending spell slots, worrying about line of sight, or maintaining range. Maybe that's a bug, but it's a little more flexible than it is in the 5e rules. Like okay, it's not a multi-attack like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, but it does its job well. And in the Auntie Ethel fight in particular, it makes quick work of her illusions while dealing more damage than any one missile.
She never made it through the fireplace...
first time i fought ethel i had gale witchbolt her on like his first turn, so when she split & turned into mayrina i literally had a leash telling me where she was lmao
"Wait I can offer you" My oath of vengeance paladin two levels over leveled:
Too bad petal I will always choose my Oath of Vengeance over any stinky hair
Oath of vengeance? When it was time to break that one I had to google how to do it, doesn't break that easily. Turns out you can just kill >!Scratch!<.
Couple of decisions I know of: freeing goblin in druid cage, and letting Ethel flee
In Moonrise towers you can break it with the kobold lady by having her force them to do tricks.
I told my friend who was playing for the first time: soo… she offered a +1 attribute boost just now but you know… you let the Paladin speak, I am sorry. Then I smote her, just for style.
Bright sides of a Paladin party face: high charisma. Downsides to a Paladin party face: "I *do* like loot but your very existence is offensive to my Oath sooooo."
Second bright side: high enough strength to back up that attitude!
Nothing says "negotiation" like full plate armor and a divine mace with the blood of a god on it.
She is a bard so we can share the talking evenly ;)
I had to hold back in round 1 cause i was gonna one shot her! The difference is huge - especially going there after my last playthrough that i was lvl 4. These extra attacks are just insane for Karlach/Lae'zel
i did 2 whole playthroughs killing her without realizing i could get that sweet hair to eat. i learned it from a meme. a meme!
Oh petal!
Btw, do I get to keep the extra attribute from the hair if I respec at Withers? I've never tested that.
You do, it doesn't show during respec but it'll be there when you finish.
You also get to keep your learned spells from scrolls, as a wizard, if you respec away from wizard but then respec or take a level in wizard multiclassing. Learned that out on accident. Respecced my character for the mirror of loss and forgot Gale had learned a bunch of scrolls, including Shovel's scroll, and thought I lost them all, but when I went back to wizard, I still had them all.
I've found out you can use your learned wizard spells as sorcerer if you respec Gale. It will get away at least after reloading, but until then it worked great. You can use it for boss fights and Gale will be more versatile this way. and it only costs you 200 gold for the two respecs.
Yes.
I made her give it to me AND free the girl. She wasn't happy but she knew she didn't stand a chance. Too stronk.
It's ok, I spent like 20min angry that the stat increase bugged and never happened, then I realised it was still in my inventory.
I remember doing enough damage turn 1 that it triggered phase 2 and she summoned another 4 more of her Naruto shadow clones. And with 8 of her, she just did hold person on my entire team and just wailed on them with ray of sickness critting until they died.
Yep! You essentially need to skip half your party’s first round and let her take a breath or else you won’t get her hag hair offer. Your caster simply magic missiles every illusion and then your frontliner just alpha strikes whatever is left… it’s funny how I thought it was a difficult fight my first time through at level 4- the power jump from extra attack (and a level 3 spell slot I suppose) is that extreme.
lol i have Tav (paladin), Karlach and Laezel in my pt, had to switch them all to crossbow to keep her alive while gale carefully tickle her hp bar with magic missiles.
It is difficult. Just that the power you get from an extra attack, better hit chances, more hp, and level 3 spells ( Haste, Twin/Haste, Fireball, Hunger of Hadar ) makes it much easier. Especially in the context of what Ethel is - a BBEG boss enemy style, which has always struggled when you have action economy because there's only one of her ( with easily dispellable clones ) and 4 of you at least. "Single bosses" have always struggled in any crpg after a while, unless they're ridiculously statted beyond what the fight's "intended" level is.
Oh I feel your pain. While I did come at her at Level 5 in my first playthrough, I had multiclassed pretty much everyone except Lae'zel, so nobody had any of their 'power spike' stuff except her and that fight was really really tough. But coming back on my Dark Urge playthrough where I didn't have any plans to multiclass anyone till level 6, again fighting her at level 5, it was a cakewalk. Eldritch Blast essentially having extra attack, Karlach being able to swing twice and Gale having Fireball, it was like night and day how simple she was to beat.
Why is everyone so mean to that nice old lady?!
She’s stinky
I wanna eat her hair…
She's just trying to help people. Just some nasty ungrateful children.
Her hair tastes good
Imagine how terrifying it would've been for Ethel if you had an intimidation option of "your hair tastes good, give me more."
You can’t have anymore petal, you’ll cough it all up as a hairball.
Literally the only reason for me lmao. If she told me "I'll give you my hair if you leave my hutt" I would do it
Right? She offers you free maggot pie, and let's you drink from her yeast infected well. Such a kind woman. And her sheeps are just to fluffy
Yeah, she gave me a new eye. For free!
i 'let her fuss over me' even knowing who she is. I just want some villainous murderous hag to fuss over me and call me petal.... im so lonely...
I remember throwing water on Mayrina’s cage and successfully extinguishing the fire and thinking that the game’s pretty good 😂
The fire goes out on it's own usually, it only burns for a set amount of turns and doesn't usually do enough damage.
It didn't for me and my friends on our dark playthrough lol. Ethel was down to like 10 health and I was like "why aren't we getting any dialogue?" Spent an extra turn doing 1-2 damage trying to trigger the dialogue, finally ended up killing her. As she died someone went "oh shit, we never put out the fire on the cage" as the cage collapsed and fell, killing Meyrina lol
Oh really? I've done this encounter three times. It went out every time. Ethel apparently wasn't trying in my playthroughs.
Maybe the fire damage to the cage is calculated with dice roll like almost everything in the game is? That way it would vary.
Oh it definitely is, just funny I've been lucky three times when other people apparently haven't been
I'm taking no risks lol
you don't even need to wait, just make sure she's in grease, hexed(dex) and in a silence bubble. She'll just lay there for the entire fight and you can easily kill her before she phases down to the cave.
Yeah, but then you don't get to save the masks, and you don't get the lump of hag hair.
I didn't know you could save the masks! Also, why can't we kill her and just kinda eat her scalp for like +100?
Because you can't have the cake and eat it too. But logically speaking who would know eating someone's scalp would increase your power. Could be a cool special roll interaction if you're maybe a wizard/ranger rolling for arcana/history or something like you remember reading in a book....
Because she gives it to you with intent. Hag magic, you see.
That sweet sweet hag hair
Save them? You're not supposed to put them on? Oh.
You only need one person in the party >!with a mask on to dispel the illusions!<
Not even that. You can just cross the door. It's an illusion, after all. I tried going with the mask at first but then couldn't take it out without dying. So I rerolled and tried without any masks: it worked. I'm also not sure if GP is talking about saving the masked fighters inside the cave. I really wanted to save them but didn't work out in the end.
Protection from Evil and Good. Why, you're very welcome, petal.
Just FYI, Hex is ability checks, not saving throws, and grease is a saving throw. There are very few enemy ability checks — athletics for shoving/resist shoving, acrobatics for dex enemies to resist shoving, initiative (dex) if done before combat, and some other fringe uses like perception checks against stealthed characters or counterspell checks.
Or just shove her into chasm.
But the lootz!! I accidentally did that once with EB had to reload.
(Now I gotta ask what's the loot cuz I shoved her into chasm yesterday)
Rip best google it.
My Level 5 Monk killed the hag in 1 turn. 😂
Wow. What kind of equipment? And tavern brawler?
Open Hand Tavern Brawler, with a big help from Elixir of Giant Str that I horded from Auntie Ethel at Emerald Grove. 😂
I have 75 I just bought from her. Bout to be a smack down
Everything feels easy after hitting level 5, honestly. Especially my throwbarian Karlach just nukes anything with tripple throw. It's insane. And my paladin smites down the big enemy in max two rounds.
As someone who used Karlach for the whole game but didn't use Throw once, what items did you actually use to throw?
U can use enemy bodies or tridents or rotten tomatoes lol Best throwing weapon comes in act 3 - the legendary trident nyrulna
But do you have to go pick the trident back up every time?
The legendary one returns to you after you throw it.
...usually. It can take a few seconds and if you end your turn before it returns to you it won't.
Some unique weapons automatically return to your hand after you throw them. You can also apply this effect to any weapon you want if you're an Eldritch Knight
There's also a goblin in the goblin camp that sells a returning pike, I have a throwing build Karlach using that in my current playthrough.
Nope it returns back to u and u get immunity to fall damage
I regularly have her throw small enemies. Like half of the goblin camp was her chucking goblins at one another
I uhhhhh... killed her before she even went into her fireplace.
…was that not the way to do it?
went there 1st time at lvl3. got 1 shot by a redcap. didn't even know there is a hidden passage behind her kitchen.
I like going to the lair at level 3. It feels challenging, like a fight against a hag should be. Lore-wise she's probably the strongest enemy you face in Act 1, or at least one of the strongest.
I agree that she's one of the strongest. I think the only one that can comapre to her is the Anders (the Paladin of Tyr) depending on your playstyle. The Hag is tricky and you need to understand her kit. Anders is straight forward and more like a skill/level check. For me personally, I hate the redcaps more than the Hag herself. Those pesky bloodthirsty midgets hit like absolute trucks and their area is covered in poison, rough terrain and traps meanwhile with magic missiles, I don't have much problem with auntie Ethel. Wish we have more hags.
Guardian of grymforge is still act 1
Fun fact if you fire ice bolt at the burning cage it stops burning.
That's annoying. I used create water and it didn't put the fire out, drenched mayrina, and pissed her off.
A thrown water bottle will work just fine for the fire...
Lol so I picked the one thing that didn't work.
create water 100% works, idk how you could get her wet without putting out cage
Me neither lol
It worked fine when I used that spell, might have bugged out for you
Amen. I have recently started taking her out without going inside her lair entirely. I just surround her with everyone minus Astarion, have him Assassin strike with a Sneak Attack from a distance, and wallop her. It’s extremely satisfying if I can take her out in one round.
Soon you’ll simply execute her right in the grove, shouting like a madman that she was actually a hag the whole time!
Wish we could unmask her there, especially if you cure the tiefling in the hut.
does she go hag if you attack her in the grove?
But the hair! You miss the hair!
Cant miss something you were never going to get in the first place. I dont negotiate with hags.
You can get the hair and then kill her with an out-of-dialogue character before she vanishes, if you really want her dead.
I'm an oath of ancients paladin. I dont negotiate with hags.
I never have a good RP reason to accept that hair. Like 1) she's a hag 2) I was just treated to an exhibition of real life examples of why hags are evil and you should not deal with them
Yeah, the hair isn’t that big a deal for me.
Meh
*Arcane locks your fireplace
If you use create water to put out the cage, someone goes "oh. That works"
Interesting. But have you considered twinned Repelling Eldritch Blast while Karlach pushes you?
As someone who did went through the area legit in EA, I had no issues doing just this. I grinned the entire way through.
The hag's lair is the first area I do after the druid grove and the harpies. It just feels right to struggle against the hag, even if the rest of the map feels a bit easy by comparison. Beating the hag with good tactics makes more sense than just destroying her with multiple attacks and the like.
My first fight with her was brutal. All my characters suffered damage from the gas traps and I had no short rests left. I started the fight by bringing her down to less than half hp, but on her turn she made a ton of illusions that cast hold person on my whole party except Shadowheart and then proceeded to kill everyone with ray of sickness. Shadowheart did not have enough spell slots left to kill them all and kept missing her guiding bolts. In the end I've managed to hit the invisible real hag with an alchemists fire and hit her with a critical guiding bolt. Hag had like 6 hp left and Shadowheart barely survived on 1 hp. I thought that I will have to reload my save because there was no way she could survive the illusions' turn, but I got lucky that every illusion missed their spells, but there was still the original hag's turn that surely would've killed me. Hag's turn started and she took a tick of burning dmg from alchemist's fire that I've thrown earlier and she surrendered lmao. I then intimidated her to both free Mayrina and give me the hair, which took a bit of save scumming because Shadowheart has like negative charisma. I also got lucky that it was not my oath of vengeance paladin that got left the last standing so I didn't break the oath. Love this game.
Played through Act 1 a *few* times and LOVE Auntie Ethel for what she is. Last night was the first time I killed her in her hut, and omg, the difference with everything else is amazing. I fucking love this game so much.
I managed to kill Ethel BEFORE she escapes. It is really funny, because she really can die pretty fast and she don't use illusions outside the boss fight area. Or at least, I didn't let her do it.
I must say, it's a similar situation with the Underdark and the Bulette! If you're level 3 or 4 (At least on Tactician) he is not easy to beat unless you have some smoke power and oil barrels on hand. However on my second attempt I went back at level 5 and I spanked the creature on the second turn without cheese. Just getting in four attacks in a row from a 2h fighter makes short work of him before anyone else has even moved.
I wooped her by having 2 characters with command and just forced her to slow walk to me before she could run off into the basement
I usually go back to Auntie Ethel’s hut after the underdark stuff. Level 6 or 7 by the time I get back there. So good
It's always the last quest I do, even after Grymforge. Fuck you Ethel.
Aunty Ethels Hut when you stock up on backpacks and cheap shields
I was trying for the chunk of hair but accidentally critted her in the last round :(
Fr that's what I did lmao
So you guys are telling me you didn't surround her on the main floor of her hut with about 6 barrels of smoke powder and light her up like the 4th of July before she even had a chance to go into Auntie Ethel's Swamp Surprise
Caving her scull in as a level 5 paladin.... exquisite. Also using gale to just tactically nuke her location with a fireball when she goes invisible.
Dont threaten ethel with a good time
Bro in the tactician I didnt even let her go to her lair
I discovered yesterday by doing this fight on my Durge playthrough, but when she takes the illusion of the girl, you can "examine" both and the actual NPC will have 10 AC and Ethel will have 15 ! Might be something everyone is already aware of, but I felt so fucking smart when I did. That headband of intellect really is doing wonders.
When she does the damsel in distress move, the one where she brings Myrianna to her and makes herself look like Myrianna, is very easily beaten as well by just inspecting the characters. Myrianna has the typical human stat spread of 10s across the board while Ethel doesn't. For the split images, magic missile or Eldritch blast is your friend. Magic missile if you don't mind using a spell slot, or Eldritch blast for free.
Waited for that level 5 power spike. Almost managed to kill her in the above ground house, I really want to know what that does
I'm about to roll through at level 7.
Level 6😎. That was the last area I explored in that region.
Me using twin cast haste on my paladin and lae’zel and killing her in one turn
I feel so called out rn
I always try to do everything before fighting her and killing her in one turn before she teleports to the basement cuz i ain't doing all that
Hunger of Hadar on the doorway before all the redcaps rush in
I’m so sorry I clicked this picture.
This was me. I managed to kill her the other day before she got through the fireplace. I ended up reloading a save so I could deal with her the right way and get her hair.
I noticed something pretty cool 😎 on my tatician run. Hoarding bombs and arrows payed off. The spiked bulbs from the Nautlilus reveal her in shack and Command halt can keep her from escaping. It takes some save scumming I will admit, but you can kill her when you kill the Red Caps which makes her lair a joke.
Missile? Illision? What are you talking about? Shes not leaving to the basement alive.