Auntie Ethel is just a sweet little old lady. That is, until you dig just a bit deeper, and see that Ethel is much, much worse than she seems. What options should you choose with Auntie Ethel, and what are the rewards? Find out, in our Baldurs Gate 3 Hag Guide!
Spoiler Warning: This guide does have spoilers for the quest and fight of Baldur’s Gate 3’s hag. Read at your own risk!
Baldurs Gate 3 Hag Quest Walkthrough
The Hag quest is rather gross, but it offers an extremely interesting dungeon to explore, and some new characters to talk to. There’s actually a huge variety of endings to this quest, from immediately walking away to completely destroying Ethel. We’ll explain some options and discuss what is best.
Riverside Teahouse
Entering the Riverside teahouse will pull you into a cutscene, where Ethel is feeding Mayrina, an (apparently) pregnant woman. She offers to remove your mind flayer parasite, in return for… kissing your eye. Eww. We recommend that you do not use this; removing your eye gives you a debuff that removes your ability to crit, and gives you disadvantage on Perception… And she can’t even remove your parasite! She gives you a charm in return, but as far as we can tell, it doesn’t do much.
Ending the conversation will cause her to teleport her and Mayrina away, with some nice “the door is always open” sentiment.
However, her fireplace is an illusion! You can walk right through it and head into her hag’s lair. The overgrown tunnel is where she left to, but she won’t fight you… yet. You can talk with her captured victims down here (though one of them is, super dead).
Gnarled Door
To get past the Gnarled Door, you must walk through it; it’s just an illusion. You might want to equip the Whispering Mask first, but otherwise just move your camera behind it and click. You then fight four people wearing masks, who are trying not to fight you but are forced to.
Head south to jump across the gap through the waterfall. This gas pit has a little vent that you can cover, or you can light it on fire and put out the fire with Create Water. You may have also seen the Peculiar Flower, which also can light the torch on fire. Make sure you move fast to avoid the gas returning!
The Fight
Now, the fight begins. Ethel has Mayrina captured in a cage… but Mayrina doesn’t want to leave. Odd. Well, too bad for her, because Ethel starts by lighting her cage on fire! Put the fire out fast, with some source of water (either barrels or Create water, or water bottles), and prepare for an awful fight.
She’s level 5. Yikes! She clones herself, but you can find the real one with Area of Effect spells (such as Burning Hands) or with multi-attacks (like Magic Missile). Hit her with a debuff to ignore her Mirror Image, since she’ll always have that debuff on her. Good debuffs are Pinned Down, Burning, and Poison.
The third time, she turns invisible. Try to prepare Fairie Fire, or another way to ignore invisibility, if you can. Pay close attention to where she dashes after this teleport, and snuff her out.
Her clones hurt a ton. Take them out the best she can, with cleaves or area of effect, or Magic Missile. Otherwise, they’ll just absolutely crush you.
At low health, she’ll beg for her life. You can persuade her to give you some power and save Mayrina… or just kill the hag. Have good persuasion, and you can get the power and Mayrina, which may eventually be the best option… though “power” doesn’t seem to give you anything more than Ethel’s Hair, which may eventually give a buff to an ability score, but does nothing right now.
After the Fight
Head to the Acrid Workshop, which has a bunch of potions and a staff. There’s also a wand called the Bitter Divorce (if you saved Mayrina), which helps advance her quest. This wand revives Mayrina’s dead husband, as an Undead seeking a master. Give her the wand; right now, keeping the wand does absolutely nothing.
You could also snap the wand, which pisses Mayrina off, revive the husband without Mayrina’s blessing, which pisses her husband off, or you can not tell her about the wand and simply make her feel better. Right now, talking to her and reviving her husband seems to be best, morally and reward-wise.
Conclusions
Before you leave, talk to a few of Ethel’s prisoners. Some have regained their sanity after Ethel’s death, and might give you some backstory or goodies. Otherwise, you’re done in here! Good luck with the Ethel fight; it’s absolutely terrible if you’re below level 3! That’s it for our Baldur’s Gate 3 Kill the Hag guide!
See Also:
- Baldur’s Gate 3 Fighter Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3 Rogue Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Spells Guide
