I suppose when they were writing this piece of the scene, they only took into account one of the character's reason behind the deception to just be loot. But they failed to take into account that the character's reason might also be to just make a false promise with the intention of killing her after gaining the bonus. But they failed to provide a choice for that potential character reasoning. So it breaks character immersion and feels terribly unsatisfying as an outcome.
I’ve not seen anyone argue with this point. You’re right. The disagreement is about whether any improvements that Larian make to address this issue should include making it possible to both kill Ethel and get the ASI, which it currently isn’t. Of course, a character might *want* that, but that’s not to say they should be able to get it.
We might just have to agree to disagree, but my preference (for reasons of story/drama) remains that getting it all is not possible, either because Ethel has a convincing escape route if you try to kill her after getting her hair, or, as per my more recent brainwave mentioned above, because killing her deprives the hair of its power so you lose the ability point.
