SPOILERS -- Playing the Night-Hags in Curse of Strahd: nightmare haunting

[MNblockhead]

For those of you who have run Curse of Strahd, how do you handle the Old Bonegrinder Night Hags 'nightmare haunting' ability?

The party encountered them early in the game and had their first lesson that you need to be very careful about what you pick a fight within Barovia. One member escaped. The others were brought to 0 hit points or put to sleep.

I had the party wake up to the hags making each eat a dream pastry. One party member refused. Morgantha first tried to scare him into it but then just smiled and said "well, then, no matter, we'll see you again."

I'm playing the Night Hags not only with all abilities in the Monster Manual, but with all the coven and lair abilities in Volos.

I'm also giving them a crystal ball. They have taken some hair from each of the party members that they had captured, so they can keep an eye on them, either for giving that information to Strahd or for their own purposes.

For the players who ate the pastries, they only try to scry on the party. For the one character who did not hower, they use scry to try to find his location and then try to use their nightmare haunting on him when he sleeps. They've succeeded once already, bringing his max hit points down a bit.

After talking to Father Lucian Petrovich, they know it is the witches doing this to him and that magic circle or protection from good and evil will keep them at bay. As for recovering his full max hp, they are told that only the abbot at the Abbey of Saint Markovia is likely to be able to help.

But even after a greater restoration, he is subject to continued attacks.

I'm wondering if I've made this too difficult to overcome by giving the witches a crystal ball and am thinking that they would instead use spies. That gives careful players another reason to be careful and a means to have some control over avoiding her attacks on their party member.

I'm wondering if there are other things that can help -- for example, the party is now at Van Richten's tower with Van Richten. Van Richten could tell the party more about night hags. If he were willing to part with it, would his ring of mind shielding help? From the magic item's description, I don't think it would do anything against scrying.

I want the threat of continued attacks to be something that the party must continue to struggle against. It reminds them to be careful in their interactions and also gives them a reason to go back and kill the witches (or steal/destroy the crystal ball). But I worry that this could also ruin the game for the character.

On the other hand, there are two Paladins. Requiring them to cast protection from good and evil every night isn't too burdensome, just enough to be annoying that they will want to resolve the issue permanently. But how exactly will they know when to cast it? My thought is just to hand waive it, that they can tell by the reactions of the sleeping character when he is having night mares.

Wondering what others thoughts are. How have you--or how would you--handle this?

 

[TheSword]

We had the party encounter a single hag selling pasties and taking children in Barovia. They intervened and the child was given back with a knowing look to the parents from the hag that she would be back to collect payment.

Old Bone Grinder was a priority for them therefore. They attacked the windmill before reaching Vallaki when Morgantha was away therefore only had to deal with two. They dealt with them (with great difficulty) and the help of a wereraven from the Blue Water Inn. (Idea from Dice Camera Action)

Morgantha then stalked the Party’s dreams. Dealing the very frightening HP drain. The PCs sought out Lady Wachter in Vallaki who I passed rumors that she was knowledgeable in the occult (the party didn’t know how evil she was). She gave them a ring of mind shielding each which they wore and it protected them from the bags. The party wizard detected some hidden enchantment in the rings (which unknown to him meant that the rings have disadvantage to any mind affected saves from Strahd). As a result the party wizard was targeted nightly by the nightmare of being ridden by the old hag. Because of his higher intelligence he passed about 2/3 of the saves, but it still put him on edge.

In the end at about level 8, the party reached the Amber temple and after restoring the lich’s Mental faculties they were able to convince him to give them a scroll of etherealness which at the right time (during morgantha’s attack) transported them all to the border ethereal where they defeated her.

In hind sight, I wish I’d made Baba Lysaga the mother of the night bags as I think there are a few too man witches in the story I think.

Other solutions could be travelling to the Abbot of St Markovia where he helps them trap Morgantha. Use van Richtens knowledge to trap Morgantha using some arcane ritual, or have the party raise a good old fashioned mob in vallaki to burn the windmill to the ground.

 

[TheSword]

Edit: Duplicate post

 

[TheSword]

The other nice thing about so many cool and well fleshed out NPCs was that I was able to react to the parties actions.

For instance in our campaign Baron Vargas was ‘defeated’ by the PCs when he tried to have them arrested. As a result Lady Wachter was able to take control (the price of the rings of mind shielding was that they took Izak Strasney out of the pictures). Lady W was one evil, devil summoning bee-atch. Upon returning from their extended trip to the Amber temple she had turned Vallaki into a devil haunted war camp run by her thugs that meant whenever the PCs returned there they had to sneak around. Defeating her and the pit fiend she summoned was one of the last things the party did before tackling strand. It was very epic.