Innate Spellcasting. The hag's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks). She can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: detect magic, magic missile
2/day each: plane shift (self only), ray of enfeeblement, sleep
Magic Resistance. The hag has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Claws.(Hag Form Only). Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) slashing damage.
Change Shape. The hag magically polymorphs into a Small or Medium female humanoid, or back into her true form. Her statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment she is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. She reverts to her true form if she dies.
Etherealness. The hag magically enters the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, or vice versa. To do so, the hag must have a heartstone in her possession.
Nightmare Haunting (1/Day). While on the Ethereal Plane, the hag magically touches a sleeping humanoid on the Material Plane. A protection from evil and good spell cast on the target prevents this contact, as does a magic circle. As long as the contact persists, the target has dreadful visions. If these visions last for at least 1 hour, the target gains no benefit from its rest, and its hit point maximum is reduced by 5 (1d10). If this effect reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and if the target was evil, its soul is trapped in the hag's soul bag. The reduction to the target's hit point maximum lasts until removed by the greater restoration spell or similar magic.
See the “Hag Covens” sidebar right here.
Mvp
Totes MVP
Does Nightmare Haunting cause a permanent loss of that 1d10 Max HP? The tool tip doesn't say whether it is regained or not after a long rest. Any other DMs got any input on that?
Edit: Ah, yes. It appears that I am blind... @Ziggomatic I forgot to reply to your answer earlier, thanks!
"The reduction to the target's hit point maximum lasts until removed by the greater restoration spell or similar magic."
The night hag skills bonuses are calculated incorrectly. To explain, the proficiency bonus for a CR 5 monster is +3.
With a Charisma bonus of +3, Deception should either be +6 (normal) or +9 (expertise). It is incorrectly printed as +7.
With a Wisdom bonus of +2, Insight and Perception should either be +5 (normal) or +8 (expertise). They are incorrectly printed as +6.
With a Dexterity bonus of +2, Stealth should either be +5 (normal) or +8 (expertise). It is incorrectly printed as +6.
The statistics for this monster are correct, as published in the official Monster Manual by Wizards of the Coast.
The statistics for such monsters do not have to follow a formula of proficiency + stat in the same way that characters do.
Is it possible to obtain the heartstone as a player? If so wouldn't it be useful to create an item for it?
Yes, they just need to meet a Night Hag and trade for it, defeat them or steal it. I could definitely see it being a component in a potion of cure disease or etherealness.
Regarding the Hag's ability to cast magic missile, how many does she cast at a given time? One? I'm trying to determine what level of spellcaster a Night Hag should be treated to get an idea how many magic missiles she has on each casting. Both the numbers of hit dice (15) and the "+45" from the CONSTITUTION bonus seem to indicate the Night Hag is level 15 but the challenge rating indicates 5 (I realize the challenge rating is an amalgamation of multiple factors so not necessarily indicative of a creature's level). If I can determine the creature's level then I can determine what spell levels the creature has to play with and I can make a decision up to what level the Hag can cast.
Wish the narrative would simply state "The Night Hag's spell casting ability is Charisma and should be treated as a X level spellcaster".
In general, when a monster can cast a spell innately, and when anything can cast a spell without mention of spell level, it's always at the lowest level possible. So night hags can cast 1st level magic missile (3 darts) at will, and cannot upcast it.
Personally I might house rule that when a coven is together and they effectively have the spell slots of a 12th level wizard, they can use those to upcast MM or Sleep, but rules as written I don't think it's possible for them to ever use Magic Missile at higher than 1st level.
Question do Hags have access to any spells, other than the ones listed for them in the MM. I recently was involved in the Curse of Strahd and the DM cast Fire Wall when the Night Hag was completely by herself in combat with the party.
It is kind of annoying that WotC doesn't follow their own rules/advice for creating monsters.
@ez2teach I think a DM can do anything they want.
Every written rules only serve as a guideline. The DM has full discretion on how they want to change things in their game. You should be grateful he didn't throw all 3 night hag against you with up to level 6 spells. I believe he was trying to reduce the difficulty without making the fight boring.
Nightmare haunting is just broken. All a hag has to do is follow the party and they will inevitable wipe them out. Fighting things on the ethereal is way past the abilities of a level 5 character, and they wont have access to greater restoration for quite a while as well. Unless you chew through 113 HP before the hag can act the whole party dies, fun design.
Depends on the DM, But in Volo’s Guide To Monsters there’s a optional rule called “Weird Magic” the rule is that a Hag may have a magical weird trinket that can be used to cast a spell (appropriated to her CR, so nothing of a sea hag casting Meteor Swarm). But these trinkets are extremely rare, things like the third breath of a elf in love with a dwarf before he died, a scale of a good green dragon, the brain of a intelligent orc, etc... so the hag is going to be careful about the use of them.
Ex: the green hag broke a flask full of smoke, and it’s like she had cast Darkness.
I had to battle one
how did it go
All the listed skill bonuses are equal to 4+[Attribute Bonus], so at least it is internally consistent.