Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Killing the Hag Quick -- **SPOILERS**

This not only kills the Hag quick but completely negates all of the bad magic in her underground stronghold...you just walk through, grab her loot, and free the maiden. I did this as soon as my party hit lv4. Astarion, PC Cleric, Gale, and La'zael. Make sure you have at least 2 ways of casting a Grease spell.

When you see her first, on the road with the kidnapped maiden's two brothers, ask her what she did with the girl. This will cause her to dislike you and tells you to apologize to her next time you meet. When you do get to the tea house, FIRST make sure the fire in the fireplace on the main floor is OUT--click on it. More on that later. All you have to do to initiate a fight with the Hag in her Tea House is to demand she release the girl. At fight start the Hag will go invisible. The first player that can cast grease, hit the spot where she was standing, the next player that can cast grease, hit the spot closer to the fireplace (her exit to underground). The grease spell somehow negates the Hag's invisibility, which is handy. We DO NOT WANT TO IGNITE THIS GREASE--igniting it doesn't damage the Hag much and uses up the grease too fast. The Hag seemingly has a horrid reflex save because she couldn't stay standing, and all I had to do was put Astarion on her (he DOES have a good reflex save) and his two short sword attacks at 100%, plus the two attacks he got whenever she stood up and tried to run (promptly falling prone again) were enough to kill her, while the other three dealt with the redcaps.

Easiest fight ever, and lots of good loot down below.

I have fought Ethel one time with success. She said bye-bye to us... but didn't disappear.
I wonder if it's because I bought her potion of invisibility from the trade button in the friendly conversation that preceded our attack.
I don't intend to go back to an old save to retry any time soon. It was a hard and unpleasant fight.
But if anyone wants to try....

The Hag seems a bit bugged right now because she is supposed to flee after a round of combat but instead she takes her invis potions - and then just hangs around. She used to invis and then poof gone.

Incidentally I try not to kill Auntie Ethel as she is the best resource for Potions in the game right now. She regenerates Speed Potions, Greater Healing, resistance potions and of course the incredibly useful Potions of Hill Giant Strength. Love my Auntie Ethel.

The Hag does try to flee, the grease spells keep her from getting far. I have even had her abort the exit and try to fight my party--when she DOES somehow get up. Also, to modify the strategy somewhat to make it even easier, throw a 3rd grease spell (or bottle) in the doorway of the Tea House as well...slows down the redcaps. Then you can spend a couple rounds bombing in spells to help get the Hag down faster.

No, something is seriously wrong with her AI right now. She used to go invisible and "aggressively" flee after one round and she would misty step out the back room. We used to have to kill her using the Wyvern poison and it was a near-thing every time.

recently after the last two patches she uses the invis potion, and then will forget she is fleeing and attack someone. I have even stopped attacking her and backed off and she will proceed to make physical attacks against my team even when we stop attacking. It's actually harder to get her to flee downstairs than it is to kill her in the teahouse.

The only way i did it recently was to go past the fireplace and force her to spawn downstairs. I think it's unfortunate as the fight downstairs is much more dynamic and interesting than fighting her in the tea-house since she uses almost none of her abilities or tricks in the tea-house.

Also she is an incredible potion resource - best in game.

Maybe I just got lucky, I was able to two turn ko her by grouping up my level 4 party around her and successfully using menacing attack while positioning the user in a way where Ethel fleeing would provoke all attacks of opportunity. Lucky hits really. I have fought her a lot; Halt and Menacing Attack have been the biggest factors in my successes.

I've noticed that in recent patches the Hag doesn't auto-flee after going invisible, especially if undamaged. She eventually flees when she gets to sub 30/20ish, but there's a good chance you can finish her off before she can make her escape.

I tend to forget about her until I finish the Underdark, so her fight tends to be very easy in my playthroughs because my party is so geared up. Bursting her down in the hut is definitely the easiest way to go, and her invisibility is pretty counter-able by almost any AOE - IIRC even a Shatter spell can reveal her (I forget if it's because of concentration or the game is programmed differently from the TTRPG rules). She's relatively vulnerable to crowd control since her saves aren't actually that great.

However, in my experience, while bursting her down on the top floor is the easiest, it does not provide the best rewards. To get the stat boost, you need her to surrender, and only the version* of her in the lair does that. Furthermore, at least in Patch 6, you can get different awards depending on what you do once she surrenders (probably a bug)

- If you intimidate her into giving you extra powers AND let Mayrina go, you get only the +1 STR consumable.

- If you let her HAVE Maryina after beating her, you get the +1 STR consumable, and also a quest award pops-up that lets you choose another +1 of any stat).

So while it's more difficult to go through her lair and fight the lair version of her (who has more tricks), right now in the EA you can get 2 more stats out of it. I also really like that rest is restricted now in your lair - really creates a sense of urgency (although I'm not sure what happens if you backtrack and go rest) and challenge.

* Side Note - due to a weird graphical bug, I have noticed that the game actually spawns a brand new Auntie-Ethels once she's escape to the lair. I.e. the Ethel you fight in the hut is not the same in the one in lair. I'm going to try to play around with it next time to see if I can duplicate items or get her to spawn and kill the one on the main floor(i.e. maybe non-lethal damage would do that).

Silence, wyvern poison …quick and easy …
Rest of the characters just attack with their best options - but I’ve used silence on her to great effect a couple of times now…

Interesting. This is news to me. I had to kill her to end the fight, even in the lair. She's never offered to surrender.

You have to reduce her to below 10 HP and then let her take her turn. It almost feels like a secret interaction to be honest – if you're focusing her down, you're not going to stop while she's on low HP, so you need to get really lucky with turn order.

Thanks for the info. I had not stumbled into that scenario as yet.

As an addendum to the whole hag fight situation, when she disguises herself as Mayrina, I have tried a few things to get around this like taking a non-lethal attack, which, I invariably hit the real Mayrina and knock her out but then can continue with the fight. This seems to result in the same thing as if you had just killed Mayrina which seems buggy to me.

I don't know if they fixed her in patch 7, but she used the potion and then immediately fled. I have not tried the grease strategy yet.

To differentiate between the 2 copies, use a aoe water(water staff/bottle) on Mayrina's cage once combat starts. Mayrina will be "wet" if you examine her and the Hag copy will not.

Wife and I found her standing up high on a ledge/path in the lair.

Took an invisibility potion. Snuck up behind her.
Pushed her over the edge.
One dead hag.

Yes but just killing the Hag is the least rewarding outcome especially if you lose the body. Remember, the Hag is the best resource for potions in the game (in EA anyway) - and she has some interesting rewards if you get her to surrender in her lair (+1 ASI)

Personally, I wait until I have had a chance to really stock up on potions and then leave her to last.

How the heck did you do that? Everytime I tried to push her over the edge, the game absolutely refused to send her into the abyss. Even if a relatively strong invis character snuck up to her invisible, then tried to shove her, the game would show a crap trajectory with 0 damage. It seemed impossible to push her over the edge.

So how did I beat her? Had an invisible character walk up to her with the water/entangle staff, pinned her butt down, and as close to simultaneously as I could manage dropped the Cone of Silence on her. It was then a (relatively) simple matter to dice her into small chunks.

I managed to burst her down in one turn (one turn of suprise then one full turn) basicly I hit her with dissonant whisper wich feared her (fear in this game makes you unable to move unlike tabletop) Once she went invisible (wich she does after you first attack her) I used Shatter to bring her out I think you don't stall her she teleports away I have seen it in the past. Then the way I went about it was.. from Stealth Shadowheart hits her with Guiding Bolt.. then I send Gale's Crow familiar to Peck her eyes so she is blinded (disadvantage on attacks but more importantly you get advantage on your attacks. Then using Wyll Hex+Scorching Ray combo to do most of the dmg combined with Gale using Lvl 2 Magic Missle with the amulet that adds to each missle +1d4 psychic dmg killed her before my fear debuff went away.

The downside to that is right now this bugged Mayrina she is stuck in the chair and I can't talk to her.