So I'm dming for a school group and I'm still pretty new to DMing. We're starting a new campaign soon and am looking for a baddie for the first "milestone" and found the Night hag to be pretty thematic to what I'm doing. With this large of a party i see that action economy is going to be an issue for sure so I don't know if a Night Hag will be too little or too much?
TL;DR In my opinion, a level 2 party may defeat the hag if she doesn't have any help, you don't use the coven variant, and the party has some healing. However, if the party can't keep the characters up for some reason then the hag could whittle them down.
Let's consider the Night hag ... and the party.
1) Do they have a coven or not? I will assume not, otherwise they will Lightning Bolt the PCs out of existence. Or cast hold person on 5 of them, even with a DC14, lots will fail at level 2 unless proficient with wis saves.
2) Night hag has AC17, 112 hit points, magic resistance (advantage on saves vs magic), resistance to cold, fire and bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage from non-magical weapons. Unless the party has magic weapons, this means that the hag will likely have an effective 224 hit points or so. Most level 2 parties don't have magic weapons.
A typical level 2 will have +5 to hit, +3 to damage - if they all use greatswords this would be 10 damage on average, 4.5 on average due to 45% hit chance - maybe 3/round/character after damage resistance is factored in. (of course most will have something less than greatswords, reducing the damage a bit, and there may be an occasional spell or a character with an extra attack - but ~20-25 damage/round might be reasonable.
A typical level 2 character has 14 con - this means level 2 typical hit points of d6 = 14, d8 = 17, d10 = 20, d12 = 23. Using her melee attack the hag does an average of 13 with a +7 to hit. She also has magic missile at will for an average of 10.5 each time, no to hit roll.
The action economy favors the party since the hag only has one action/turn, only one attack/action and her attack is less likely to knock out a character in one shot and is unlikely to instantly kill a character unless they are damaged and the hag gets a critical hit. If the party has enough healing spells then they can probably keep party members up while the rest of the party tries to whittle down the hag. The hag could cast sleep but it costs her action and the party could just wake them up. Her best tactic is to just cast magic missile repeatedly on the healers and if they don't heal, then she can take out one character at a time.
Of course, when the hag realizes they aren't going to win around round 3, they will go ethereal and come back to haunt the party later - but that would be up to the DM. :)
Keep in mind that if the hag uses their melee attack and crits then they could knock out a character with one attack but with 7-8 characters and at least some capable of healing then that shouldn't be much of a problem unless the party focuses on the hag and leaves the party member making death saves.
The character builder on D&D Beyond rates a Night Hag vs a party of 7 level 2s as a Medium difficulty so the large party shouldn't have too much trouble. It could end up being too easy in that case but adding even a CR1 Imp and the encounter builder upgrades it to Deadly - though this would depend on how the Imp and Hag are played and whether they focus on taking down an opponent. I suspect the Imp and Hag would probably also be pretty doable.
Yeah, the Night Hag isn't exactly a powerhouse in damage output... a lot of her features are built around just getting the hell out of there instead of being able to engage in direct combat, especially against such a large group. I think it makes the most sense to make the challenge less the direct combat with the Night Hag and more the hunt to catch up to her in the first place.
wow! this is a very detailed response. I see how the hag would likely use etherealness to get out of these sorts of situations to keep haunting the players. However, the story I've built around the hag is that her heartstone was stolen by a town mayor and is secretly terrorizing the town in a murder mystery-esque type thing. So the hag wouldn't likely be able to escape easily once she's been ratted out and cornered. I do feel like there might be some difficulty with the mystery part of it, as well as the fact that I have a few players who are either completely new to the game or trying a class they've never used before, so it might balance out? I'm not really looking to TPK in the first story beat as it is a bit more casual but I would like to make some tense moments so maybe a medium difficulty might be ok?
it also might help to point out that there is an artificer, paladin, and a bard, if those classes have any effect.
A night hag by itself would be beatable but tough for a party of 7-8 level 2s, but I don't recommend it as a boss because it will be spectacularly boring (it attacks or casts magic missile. All the PCs whale upon it. Repeat until dead). I would recommend making it a bit less durable (say, remove resistance to normal weapons, which will reduce it to around CR 3 equivalent; say it's a side effect of the heartstone theft or w/e) and adding minions to the fight -- say, 3-5 CR 1/2 monsters.
yeah this is probably more in line for what i was imagining. finding a way to get back at the attack economy would probably make the fight much more ineteresting
So I'm dming for a school group and I'm still pretty new to DMing. We're starting a new campaign soon and am looking for a baddie for the first "milestone" and found the Night hag to be pretty thematic to what I'm doing. With this large of a party i see that action economy is going to be an issue for sure so I don't know if a Night Hag will be too little or too much?
TL;DR In my opinion, a level 2 party may defeat the hag if she doesn't have any help, you don't use the coven variant, and the party has some healing. However, if the party can't keep the characters up for some reason then the hag could whittle them down.
Let's consider the Night hag ... and the party.
1) Do they have a coven or not? I will assume not, otherwise they will Lightning Bolt the PCs out of existence. Or cast hold person on 5 of them, even with a DC14, lots will fail at level 2 unless proficient with wis saves.
2) Night hag has AC17, 112 hit points, magic resistance (advantage on saves vs magic), resistance to cold, fire and bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage from non-magical weapons. Unless the party has magic weapons, this means that the hag will likely have an effective 224 hit points or so. Most level 2 parties don't have magic weapons.
A typical level 2 will have +5 to hit, +3 to damage - if they all use greatswords this would be 10 damage on average, 4.5 on average due to 45% hit chance - maybe 3/round/character after damage resistance is factored in. (of course most will have something less than greatswords, reducing the damage a bit, and there may be an occasional spell or a character with an extra attack - but ~20-25 damage/round might be reasonable.
A typical level 2 character has 14 con - this means level 2 typical hit points of d6 = 14, d8 = 17, d10 = 20, d12 = 23. Using her melee attack the hag does an average of 13 with a +7 to hit. She also has magic missile at will for an average of 10.5 each time, no to hit roll.
The action economy favors the party since the hag only has one action/turn, only one attack/action and her attack is less likely to knock out a character in one shot and is unlikely to instantly kill a character unless they are damaged and the hag gets a critical hit. If the party has enough healing spells then they can probably keep party members up while the rest of the party tries to whittle down the hag. The hag could cast sleep but it costs her action and the party could just wake them up. Her best tactic is to just cast magic missile repeatedly on the healers and if they don't heal, then she can take out one character at a time.
Of course, when the hag realizes they aren't going to win around round 3, they will go ethereal and come back to haunt the party later - but that would be up to the DM. :)
Keep in mind that if the hag uses their melee attack and crits then they could knock out a character with one attack but with 7-8 characters and at least some capable of healing then that shouldn't be much of a problem unless the party focuses on the hag and leaves the party member making death saves.
The character builder on D&D Beyond rates a Night Hag vs a party of 7 level 2s as a Medium difficulty so the large party shouldn't have too much trouble. It could end up being too easy in that case but adding even a CR1 Imp and the encounter builder upgrades it to Deadly - though this would depend on how the Imp and Hag are played and whether they focus on taking down an opponent. I suspect the Imp and Hag would probably also be pretty doable.
Yeah, the Night Hag isn't exactly a powerhouse in damage output... a lot of her features are built around just getting the hell out of there instead of being able to engage in direct combat, especially against such a large group. I think it makes the most sense to make the challenge less the direct combat with the Night Hag and more the hunt to catch up to her in the first place.
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wow! this is a very detailed response. I see how the hag would likely use etherealness to get out of these sorts of situations to keep haunting the players. However, the story I've built around the hag is that her heartstone was stolen by a town mayor and is secretly terrorizing the town in a murder mystery-esque type thing. So the hag wouldn't likely be able to escape easily once she's been ratted out and cornered. I do feel like there might be some difficulty with the mystery part of it, as well as the fact that I have a few players who are either completely new to the game or trying a class they've never used before, so it might balance out? I'm not really looking to TPK in the first story beat as it is a bit more casual but I would like to make some tense moments so maybe a medium difficulty might be ok?
it also might help to point out that there is an artificer, paladin, and a bard, if those classes have any effect.
A night hag by itself would be beatable but tough for a party of 7-8 level 2s, but I don't recommend it as a boss because it will be spectacularly boring (it attacks or casts magic missile. All the PCs whale upon it. Repeat until dead). I would recommend making it a bit less durable (say, remove resistance to normal weapons, which will reduce it to around CR 3 equivalent; say it's a side effect of the heartstone theft or w/e) and adding minions to the fight -- say, 3-5 CR 1/2 monsters.
yeah this is probably more in line for what i was imagining. finding a way to get back at the attack economy would probably make the fight much more ineteresting
We faced a night hag at level 3...and it wasn't easy, and when it got low on HP...it because ethereal and got away.
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