D&D 5E (2014) Hags - Something doesn't add up.

[Tonguez]

Hags are suppose to be in Covens, thats their natural habitat and where they have power. Lone Hags should be RP encounters bringing fae terror, or give them some Troll minions if you want the PCs to get some close up melee

 

[jgsugden]

Hags are suppose to be in Covens, thats their natural habitat and where they have power. Lone Hags should be RP encounters bringing fae terror, or give them some Troll minions if you want the PCs to get some close up melee

A solitary Hag with the ability to grant curses is common in various folklore. Saying it should be otherwise, are are suppose to be in Covens is ignoring the materials upon which the monster is built.

We can all disagree until we're blue in the face, however, as the RAW are clear, and those of us that don't like it are going to change it.

 

[Weiley31]

I'm pretty sure there are hags who endorse the coven system and others who don't cuz they don't like how that one Hag, they are rivals with, does things. They can be petty like that.

Also, Hags can introduce a lot of RPing moments. Pathfinder, for example, states that Changelings are given to families by Hags so they can be raised. And then if they can convince the Changeling to go back with them when they are older, and before puberty, that Changeling gets turned into a new Hag.

Perhaps the real issue with Hags, is how sometimes, they know how to play The Long Game. And sometimes, the only way the PCs can fight the Hag is by trying to see how they can subvert or play for keeps in said game. Perhaps the Hag moves on when it sees that its Changeling daughter isn't going to become like its mother thanks to the PC's intervention.

Or perhaps, at that point, that's when the Hag decides to curse the party or dedicates themselves to payback.

So fighting a Hag and dealing with it can occur in multiple, long term phases.

 

[Flamestrike]

Also, the adventure paths are awfully popular, and as far as I've been aware the fights aren't tuned as you describe.

Not sure I would agree with that.

In any event, DMs are required to add/ subtract from encounters to mix things up (this is even a rule in AL play).

For example in my current RotF campaign, I had Kelto attack the PCs solo - and granted him Legendary actions and reactions to make him a worthwhile single encounter for the day solo encounter.

Simply gave him 2 x LA, either Sword attacks or Freezing ray (2d8, 6th level) and 2 x LRs. Made that up on the spot (the players had just gone off script and had assisted a potential sacrifice by rescuing her and escorting her across the lake - it just felt appropriate for him to turn up and seek vengeance at that point).

Prior to that they went White Moose hunting, and I made a point of throwing a few 'random' encounters at them as they went looking for the Moose (some Crag cats, the Elf Banshee with a Bow, a Blizzard that knocked them around a bit, the White Moose, and then a pack of wolves on the way home, led by a Winter Wolf Boss, drawn by the scent of the Mooses head).

By the time they got the Mooses head back to the town, they were freezing, battered and bruised and well out of spell slots and resources.

You have to improvise a bit. The adventure just provides a bare-bones framework from which you work your magic.

 

[Tonguez]

A solitary Hag with the ability to grant curses is common in various folklore. Saying it should be otherwise, are are suppose to be in Covens is ignoring the materials upon which the monster is built.

Are they though? The stories of the three sisters/three muses are the material upon which thes particular monster is built, similar stories about solitary crones may have overlaps but do they need to be the same creature?

I’m all for creating unique solitary monsters that have their own abilities - if you want Baba Yaga as a minor fae goddess in Hag form with unique strengths, curses and a flying pestle, go for it - but thats different to discussing the Hag in the Monster Manual.

 

[Don Durito]

What is the argument here? I mean, personally I agree that I don't think hags should have to be in covens, as it seems a strange and somewhat arbritrary way to approach it.

But if you want to ignore that then everything you need is right there in the monster entry- including the adjust challenge rating for giving the spells to the individual hag.

This has got to be one of the simplest adjustments ever.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Hags IMO have traditionally been creature types that do NOT want to fight the PCs directly in combat. They tend to have powers of illusion and trickery - they'll try to corrupt or kill the PCs through deceit. For example, appearing as an injured peasant and trying to send the PCs off into danger ostensibly in search of their kidnapped family. Or by selling the location of a magical item to the PCs...leaving out the fact that the item is cursed and situated somewhere dangerous. Or luring someone into quicksand or other appropriate hazard. Or finding some scheme to get the PCs to kill or harm innocents.

Their combat abilities are better used for when/if the PCs see through their schemes. If they do fight, they'll likely want to bring allies or draw a PC away from the others.

 

[jgsugden]

Are they though? The stories of the three sisters/three muses are the material upon which thes particular monster is built, similar stories about solitary crones may have overlaps but do they need to be the same creature?

Why ask if there are stories about solitary hags that curse when you acknowledge they exist in the second half of your sentence? The question is not whether the Coven also exists - it is whether there are folklore origins that are the solitary hag, and we both agree there are.

I’m all for creating unique solitary monsters that have their own abilities - if you want Baba Yaga as a minor fae goddess in Hag form with unique strengths, curses and a flying pestle, go for it - but thats different to discussing the Hag in the Monster Manual.

And the Hags discussed in the monster manual lack key features common to their folklore origins, the Hags in the monster manual differ from the common Hag of folklore. That is the issue we're raising.

Putting it another way. Let's say they add a monster to the monster manual. It has four fairy legs, and two red eyes. It has claws that it brutally uses to slash people with and it can use those legs to trip opponents 10 feet away. They call it a goblin. This is not the goblin we expect. This is not what we think of when we think of goblins. It works fine as a monster, but it just doesn't evoke what we expect. That is the problem here - the Hag, as evidenced clearly and without room for reasonable argument in Baldur's Gate III and Critical Role's Campaign 2, is expected to have the power to elicit curses and supernatural styles of magic based upon their folklore representations. The versions we've been provided have this deficit. It is far from a tragedy, but it is a disappointment they could have done better.

A hag, literally, is a folklore witch. That is where the name originated - it comes from a word that meant witch The difference between them and a witch in most lore, however, is that a witch was once human while a hag was always something else.

If I'd been involved in 5E construction, the Hags would start at CR 7 and go through CR 19. They'd have a variety of cursing powers, but these would not be their combat powers, generally. Instead, the curses would be used as plot devices and challenges. They'd be intended to be one of the iconic challenges of a campaign or adventure, with a setting placed around them that turns on their existence, much like the Realms of the Ravenloft setting were designed around the Lord of the Realm. In my opinion, if you have a Hag, it should be something that provokes Folklore in the region. Otherwise, it doesn't bring anything iconic to the table and it just becomes another layer of a boring sandwich.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I feel like a lot of people are missing the point here.

It's definitely weird that cursing is a major part of "Hag lyfe", that the books go on about, but it isn't represented mechanically at all. There are a lot of reasons for that, but basically it's because 5E monster design sort of falls between two stools. It's not like 4E design, where monsters expressed their personalities and themes and stuff through their abilities, even if that was at odds with how such monsters had previously been designed, ability-wise, and resulted in a lot of unique abilities. It's also not like 3E and earlier design, where monsters were designed sort of "encyclopedic-ally", where, even if stuff might never come up in play, or was seriously minor, it got detailed, which caused some massive, complex stat-blocks which were full of important-but-easy-to-miss stuff (indeed it was a serious balance problem too). 5E's approach has been to be like a pared-down version of the encyclopedic approach, where most spells/abilities that aren't basically for combat don't have much description and limited rules, if any at all, even thematically important stuff. It's a bit of a mess, honestly.

 

[Guest 6801328]

5E monster design sort of falls between two stools.

Best typo ever. And so true.