Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback New Hag Fight Suggestion SPOILERS

OK. Either Ethel beats the crap out of me or I kill her before she even escapes into the lair. Both are not fun. I've replayed this initial fight several times now.

How about this? Instead of the hag getting a surprise round when you arrive in her lair, give her a surprise round when she first transforms up in her house. Basically, characters are so freaked out watching her change before their eyes that she gets a surprise round. During that surprise round, she escapes. Player doesn't even get a chance to attack her. This way, players don't waste their attacks, spells, etc. on her in this initial fight and she doesn't slap them with a poisonous cloud to weaken them against the Red Caps and thus making the Red Caps, which isn't a boss fight, much harder. I shouldn't be wasting all my spell slots and stuff on the Red Caps.

I do want to face the hag in her lair, not in the house, so beating her in the house seems kinda lame. I think new players would probably feel the same. Big epic boss fight turned into lame nothing fight.

However, players should be able to beat the Red Caps with a bit of a challenge without spell slots and easily using their spell slots. Knowing you have a hag to face, however, players should probably figure out on their own that they might not want to use up all their combat abilities so early in this scenario. Maybe even a Tutorial suggestion might use this as a teaching moment about not wasting their resources too quickly in such scenarios.

To prevent players from just giving chase, what about having a Red Cap actually in the house. Take the one that's really far away and put him in the house as a sheep that turns into a Red Cap right before the player's eyes. This way the players are distracted fighting the Red Cap as opposed to chasing Ethel.

The Red Cap that's farther away keeps getting stuck anyway. He just shouts things like how I'm going to be hag meat and doesn't actually attack until I go out there and kill him.

Finally, in her lair, instead of giving her a surprise round so that she kills all the characters in that round, how about the cutscene shows her throw the fire flask at Mayrina's cage. Then it is an initiative order just like any normal fight. Still gonna be hard, I assure you, if you do it this way. She's one tough cookie.

(Please don't suggest how I can beat her easier. That's not the point of the post. The point is that new players won't necessarily know tricks on how to kill her like using Protection spells etc. Gotta give new players a hand in the game in beating such enemies.)

Finally, I would like to suggest that the masked adventurers be recruitable against the hag to make the fight easier. If you don't kill the adventurers, you can ask them to join you in your quest to save Mayrina. To keep balance, if this winds up overpowering the hag fight and making it too easy, what about having a Red Cap or two available in her lair should the adventurers join the fight. Something like that. OR, the hag has a haste potion and uses it, but only IF the adventurers join you in the fight.

I just want to be able to respond in kind to the Hag. She threatens me and talks her trash, I want to tell her to shove it up her ass or I'll be drinking her blood from her skull.

HAH! I love it! Yes. That would be awesome. More dialogue options like that please.

As a brand new player, I didn't chase her, and fought the redcaps, because I legit had no idea where she went.

I like having a final showdown in the lair. It's one of the most fun portions of the game... Or well it should be. The idea is fun. The execution right now is not quite there.

I've retried it multiple times now this playthrough. I stand by my suggestion. Have her just surprise round in the house and get the flip out before players can attack. If not, at least have her immediately exit on her first turn. If not, I have too much chance of killing her in the house. Then the entire lair is ruined.

I like that the player has different options as to how approach this combat encounter. What you propose would reduce the fight upstairs (which frankly I find more fun than the one downstairs) into a movie sequences that plays out the same no matter what you do.

OK. Perhaps I spoke too soon. I think Patch 4 fixed a LOT of things with the hag. Used to be that no matter what I did I couldn't stealth it into her lair. Then, on top of it all, she'd get a surprise round, multiply, throw a flask on Mayrina and blow the crap out of at least one of my characters until they were dead, AND any spells my cleric enabled before the fight would be broken somehow, all before any of my characters could even move once. Then, no matter what I did, I couldn't hit her.

This was MUCH better. I did actually attack her in the home upstairs, she escaped, killed the Red Caps, beat the adventurers by knocking them all out, and got to her lair and beat her all with just 2 short rests. Short rests, though still not totally believable when chasing someone, since they are supposed to be 1 hour rests at minimum, makes a lot more sense than being able to Long Rest (take the rest of the day off and sleep 8 hours and then return). I did sneak into her lair and surprised her, so not sure if that totally added to my ease of defeating her, but the point is that there are more options now to strategically beat her, which is one of the biggest issues I had with this encounter originally.

Regardless, it was SO much better than before. The fight was still tough, but not so much so that I felt like new players couldn't do it. Maybe if they are at level 3 or below it might be impossible, but if they are that low and they pursue the hag after all the warnings you get, well...

I still think the hag should get a surprise round in her house, though, and ONLY use it to escape. There's too much a chance of messing her up and causing her to not flee and then killing her upstairs as opposed to in her lair. Lae'zel's Menacing Strike Frightened her a few times I did this fight upstairs, and the next thing I knew she was not fleeing into her sanctum. She just fled to a corner of the house and let me pummel her with all my characters. This messes up the whole scene as it is supposed to be about chasing her to save Mayrina and her taunting you the entire time as you make your way down.

I will say, though, another little bonus they added that REALLY makes this side quest great is the animations for Speak to the Dead. People complain that Larian isn't delivering anything to us, but this was a real fun surprise. Especially having Astarion wear the amulet and having him talk to Ethel's dead corpse. Talk about creepy and a touch horrifying and yet somehow appropriate!

All in all, very well done. I can't say how happy I am with it.

Besides the Red Cap encounter I've mentioned, the only other thing I'd say needs maybe a bit of tweaking is the fight against the adventurers. There were some glitches that still happened there. I tried to knock them out, and after knocking out the Mask of Vengeance my Main got locked. I couldn't move my Main or do anything with him at all. He was just frozen. Even after I finished the fight, he still wouldn't move. I left the lair and came back and he would come with me, but he still wouldn't move or act or anything afterwards. I couldn't fix it no matter what I did, so I had to reload back at the beginning of the lair.

Anyway. Thank you Larian for fixing that part up. You made it so that Long Resting and Fast Travel were disabled during the descent into the lair, you made it so the hag was not unbeatable, you added more creepy elements, and the whole experience was much MUCH more enjoyable.

I dunno, i kinda like the Hag encounters as they are:
- first she dont concider you a threat, so she attack you where you are ...
- then she realize that you might be a problem, so she calls for her minions, and run to place where she would have advantage ...
- and finaly, when you confront her in the lair and almost kill her, she even try to persuate her way out ...

Its just purrfect. :3

I need more "smug asshole" conversation options in general ...
I hate that your character need to be in soooooo many cases just polite and nice. -_-
That you have to answer your companions so often, you cant just tell people "go f**k yourself" and go away. It pisses me off especialy with shadowheart, who do that to you soooo often. :-/

I totally agree - the whole Hag interaction - from meeting auntie Ethel the first time in the grove to confronting her one final time down in her lair is one of my favorite game moments. I find the lair wonderfully creepy - all of it shows, how serious business hags are. I'm very excited to meet Ethels sister in Baldurs Gate.

I always thought she was using the spell "Vicious Mockery", but larian just hasn't finished spells during dialogue. It's a bard spell too.

Agreed with this. This is the fight that makes the game. The build up is great, the illusions are fun, the dialogue is perfect and the final fight is challenging without being insanely hard.

And I was able to beat it without cheese -- just D&D rules. Magic missile takes out illusions (just like BG2), create water puts out the fire, dash + bonus dash puts Astarian in place to act, gith psychic-jump spell puts Lae'zel into place.

And yes the final dialogue is the perfect test of alignment -- do seek power or justice?

I think it says she's using vicious mockery as of the latest patch.

It would be funny and ironic to be able to get both and just trick the Hag with your wording of the deal. That would be true turnabout is fair play.

Did they make the fight more difficult in 4.0? I died the first time, though the only trick there that I remember is to now be overwhelmed by illussion. Magic MIssile pretty much took care of all of the illusion - it's guaranteed to hit multiple targets, so its a great spells for making those pesky illusions disappear.

I agree with you point, @fylimar, and had no idea that she have .. a sister ?! She will probably fall in my killing path soon ... chop chop !

@OP, I don't know what's wrong in chasing and killing the hag ? This is a fun challenge - I appreciate her "evilness" and giving me a reason to chase hunting her down !

Nothing wrong in chasing and killing. The point actually is that I want Larian to make sure players will chase her. In my recent playthroughs she didn't run right away. I attacked her in her house, frightened her, and killed her. It was very anti-climactic so I reloaded. Same thing. Reloaded, let her get away so I could chase her.

I'd rather have Larian take it out of our hands. Don't even give players a chance to kill her in her house. Ruins the entire thing. Makes the lair very boring.

And no. Hag is not tougher. She's still tough, but I was able to beat her twice in a row. Only 2 short rests between the Red Cap fight and confronting her. They improved the whole thing. I highly recommend talking to the dead every chance you get all throughout.

Oh...and there are letters about Ethel and her sister in Baldurs. You just have to find them.

Down in the lair of the hag, in the room, you find the Staff of Crones and the portal, there are two letters, one from Ethel to her sister, one from her sister to Ethel.

Idk, I don't think many are gonna kill Ethel before she escapes on their first time through.

Immortal NPCs are terrible, I'm still kinda pissed they made the dragon unkillable in patch 4. Unless you're gonna stop an invisible player from dropping off a nautiloid tank care package, or attacking her with a hasted bulette spore slave, I'm not sure how you'd prevent players from killing her, without resorting to immortality.

The escaping villain trope is overused in games, imo. Turning combat encounters into scripted events with a predetermined outcome takes away from the game.

Just because it is boring for you, doesn't mean it is so for everyone. I find the house fight more interesting, because it is in very close quarters. By comparison, in the lair you have more room to spread out the party to your advantage. It is also easier, since you can just push her off the ledge.

Full adult red dragon vs halfling barbarian. "Their is no escape"!!! Lol sorry it's all can think of atm.