DnD Hag Covens - results from last night Strahd (upd. Feb. 2, 2025)

What's a Hag Egg? Ask the kiddo. Shakespear mentioned someone who was a Hagseed, but Hag-egg is a lot funnier to say. 

Hagseed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou ’rt best,
To answer other business. Shrugg’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

 Hag Covens

When hags must work together, they form covens, in spite

of their selfish natures. A coven is made up of hags of any

type, all of whom are equals within the group. However,

each of the hags continues to desire more personal power.

A coven consists of three hags so that any arguments

between two hags can be settled by the third. If more than

three hags ever come together, as might happen if two

covens come into conflict, the result is usually chaos.

Shared Spellcasting. While all three members of a hag

coven are within 30 feet of one another, they can each cast

the following spells from the wizard’s spell list but must

share the spell slots among themselves:

1st level (4 slots): identify, ray of sickness

2nd level (3 slots): hold person, locate object

3rd level (3 slots): bestow curse, counterspell, lightning bolt

4th level (3 slots): phantasmal killer, polymorph

5th level (2 slots): contact other plane, scrying

6th level (1 slot): eyebite

For casting these spells, each hag is a 12th-level

spellcaster that uses Intelligence as her spellcasting

ability. The spell save DC is 12 + the hag’s Intelligence

modifier, and the spell attack bonus is 4 + the hag’s

Intelligence modifier.

Hag Eye. A hag coven can craft a magic item called a

hag eye, which is made from a real eye coated in varnish

and often fitted to a pendant or other wearable item. The

hag eye is usually entrusted to a minion for safekeeping

and transport. A hag in the coven can take an action to

see what the hag eye sees if the hag eye is on the same

plane of existence. A hag eye has AC 10, 1 hit point, and

darkvision with a radius of 60 feet. If it is destroyed, each

coven member takes 3d10 psychic damage and is blinded

for 24 hours.

A hag coven can have only one hag eye at a time, and

creating a new one requires all three members of the coven

to perform a ritual. The ritual takes 1 hour, and the hags

can’t perform it while blinded. During the ritual, if the

hags take any action other than performing the ritual, they

must start over

Night hags were once creatures of the Feywild, but their foulness saw them exiled to Hades long ago, where they degenerated into fiends. The night hags have long since spread across the Lower Planes. (((so were they just fey creatures a couple of versions back, like 3.5e?)))

UPDATE: RESULTS FROM LAST NIGHT"S SESSION

It was intense but fun. The kid learned from the wereravens that the coven existed... they knew these ladies/demons were up to no good, but weren't powerful enough to oppose them. Found out b/c Strahd appeared at night at the Bluewater Inn and killed the wife/owner. The husband was distraught... pretty sure there was a raise-dead type item at the nighthag's place. Two of the wereraven "guards" volunteered to go with us, knowing our party was strong enough to at least partially fend off Strahd, maybe had a chance against the hags. 

So the kid sneaked in. With one wereraven in bird form spying inside the windows of the Old Bonegrinder windmill (totally works... there was a raven sitting on their door per the RAW module, so no suspicion), they found out the ladies were on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The party sneaked in slowly, go semi close with some nearby trees. 

BAM FIREBALL through the window... surprise round/hidden in trees. Well the ladies are so anti-magic, rolling with advantage and resistant to fire and all, didn't do much damage. But it did set things on fire and freak them out. 

Roll for init. Main hag 1st, then most of the good guys. 

She (main hag, Muranda... Morgantha, whatever) runs and gets to the front door, trying to figure out what is going on. Warlock casts Sickening thingie, the 30 radius sphere of radiant damage (the kid picked that spell almost randomly, super duper useful in these Barovian places with so many resistant mobs)... she FAILS her at advantage roll. Hah, now she's Exhausted and has to roll normal (no advantage) on future stuff. Taken like 25-30ish damage so far. 

The two hags upstairs are running around. Eventually they are putting out fires and trying to avoid the creeping green light coming in from the 2nd Warlock spell, the Sickening thingie. Basically half of the tower is getting hit by the spell, so they are forced to the two windows south (I made the tower have 3 windows on each floor basically... thank god I set that up at the start so we could have some tactics, it mattered A LOT). 

Sidenote: the kid really didn't want the wereravens to die. First i had given them guard stats, but quickly realized default wereraven stats are really good... ~level 3 characters. They have immunity to non-silvered attacks (cool, that would protect them from the dretches I bet), I think 31 HP, ranged and melee attacks... i assumed they had silvered weapons in their world, b/c obviously they know about that stuff before going to this coven. Well at the end, one wereraven was down and sort of forgotten... but when the kid won, he realized he might not be dead. Rolled d20, got a 1 (OH NO), then got save save save so he lived from being unconscious! 

Sidenote 2, TO DO: the wereravens will give a TON of silvered arrows to our team since they helped save their main lady. 

From https://www.mindtaker.org/product-category/miniatures-games/fantasy-table-top-games/dungeons-dragons-miniatures/page/3/

So the party sneaked around the "south" side of the tower during the fireball leftover confusion. Fighter was spotted though, I think he rolled a 1. Fighter and Barb were right next to the tower. The rest of the crew were about 50 feet south in the trees hiding pretty well. 

Party tried to wait them out, but the hags basically ran back inside and 

• red hag mini started casting stuff from 2nd floor (she spotted everybody eventually). 
• tried to level 3 CURSE the fighter immediately, no curse (phew).
• main hag (grey hag mini) summoned 9 dretches over the course of 2 rounds, half of the dreteches died in the green light. A couple made it out, jumped through the window but did zero damage. 
• The kid felt relief once he killed some dretches... he was getting decision freeze sieging this tower, not knowing what they were up to, and not doing any real damage. 
• ghost hag mini used the coven heartstone to go ethereal and pass through the wall to line up for a nice lightning bolt
• fighter, barb, one wereraven were in the path of the lightning bolt. 
• I assume she could become ethereal and cast all in the same round (is this right?)
• bam, the wereraven went down, I did the exact HP needed (31 eh?)

Now what?

• Main hag Morgantha went through window eventually to avoid more green stuff and got herself in trouble, in too close to our main ppl. They started wailing on her.
• I was half thinking the hags could all go ethereal and go in and out easily, but reading the details, only the Heartstone really lets them do those tricks. 
• Basic hag abilty is planeshift twice a day, so they are saving that for emergencies only
• Near the end, when she was down to not many HP, she turned the Barb into a frog. The fighter had been Eye-bitten by the red hag at that point and was going to run away. So the main grey hag was safe-ish... but she quickly got down to 6 HP and looking at the final wereraven staring at her (who had just done 6 dmg earlier) she plane-shifted out by bye. 
• Reg hag EYE-BITE - stayed up top and was doing eye-bite on anybody she could. 
• Magic Missile - Way before eye-bite, a Magic Missle I think, which partly is what drew some of the party out of hiding. 
• Near end a magic missle hit the druid ending his Call Lightning (altho had another slot could use). Hags dont resistance vs. lightning. 
• First fighter had to run south, reached 60 ft and recovered, had to run 60 back (so 2 rounds wasted for him). 
• I think next she put the warlock to sleep.
• I think put barb to sleep later. I think after the wereraven (through druid instructions, being expert on polymorph, told wereraven to do so) poked the Frog-Barbarian to make him human again... after that she made him fail again I think. Barbarian wasted (all?) his rages/frenzies as I recall. 
• Sidenote: we do homebrew barb-frenzy so he can use 2 rages to make one frenzy, no worries with exhaustion (slightly OP?). 
• Ghost hag - was over on my right side/call it east of tower. Had to say 30 feet close to other hags to maintain coven so, she was vulnerable too, except had Ethereal heartstone option so she wasn't that scared. 
• when gray had left, all she could do was magic missile, basically. I think she or the grey hag had tried another spell and it failed also, before coven broken. 
• Once gray hag gone, she shrugged her shoulders up to her red sister, and plane shifted out of there. Was below half HP and didn't see how they'd survive without coven powers. 
• Conclusion: The kid wants to find them later and FINISH THEM. Rarrrrhh!

The party won, woohoo!, although it was hard, despite getting the jump. 

Things learned:

1. Eyebite is dangerous when other hags can do damage. Takes 2 rounds away from party (the wereraven being able to un-polymorph and maybe even wake someone later was a big deal). 
1. Wereraven NPC helpers were key b/c they distracted hags, scouted (druid could have but hey), and most importantly(?) were there to help wake up or unpolymorph guys. 
2. Magic missile, infinite hag style, from a tower is pretty great.
1. The kid had considered using the Energy Bow to make a ladder and climb up. Or maybe even turning off the green light sickening spell, since his guys were sort of stuck waiting for so long. 
3. Ethereal thru walls is awesome, but maybe not totally broken b/c it probably
1. takes an action to activate (right?) to leave material plane ? 
2. I still assume they can come out of ethereal and cast a spell... but that logically might not make sense, need to read up. 
1. Homebrew LAIR ACTION MAYBE? 
3. It's not totally broken b/c u gotta stay 30 ft near other witches, so you can't go nuts. Somebody is getting attacked at all times probably. 
4. If not for the green spell being so huge and going around corners (through door/windows broken or left open by fireball situation)... the witches woulda just sat on 3rd or 2nd floor and tossed a billion magic missiles at our guys.
1. Oh, we found old char sheets and Warlock had a magic missile wand. We made it 10 charges and recharge ~6 per night). So he started using that b/c kept missing with Eldritch blast.
1. Warlock Used the "auto roll 10" magic charm item, but 16 was not enough to hit their 17 AC. So magic missle wand was good. 
2. *** https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/140158/does-cover-help-against-spells-effects-that-spread-around-corners-like-fireball
1. Need to keep reading up on Spreads Around Corners. I think I did it 99% right for the green Sickening Radiance spell at least... but maybe not fast enough, it shoulda covered that first floor immediately. 
1. Since it is a sphere shape, I assume when he cast it on the ground, it didn't totally cover the 2nd and 3rd floors since they were on the far far end. And spreading... it had to go into the door (I guess she left door open)... then up the stairs, the spread out. 
5. The kid wants to find them later and FINISH THEM. =] 

SOME THINGS COULD DONE DIFFERENTLY, based on Dragna's https://docs.google.com/document/d/1riz5-dBzJpwVrqC7wIeIUr-WEK_W2fo972UdaCoiJ1Y/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0

[note: our game, I basically broke the coven when they used their normal plane-shift-self feature. But really they'd have gone to ethereal... and probably super near by via a magic teleportation circle maybe... see details:

... transported to a different plane of existence. You can specify a target destination in general terms, such as the City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire or the palace of Dispater on the second level of the Nine Hells, and you appear in or near that destination. If you are trying to reach the City of Brass, for example, you might arrive in its Street of Steel, before its Gate of Ashes, or looking at the city from across the Sea of Fire, at the GM's discretion.

Alternatively, if you know the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle on another plane of existence, this spell can take you to that circle. If the teleportation circle is too small to hold all the creatures you transported, they appear in the closest unoccupied spaces next to the circle.].

• Going into Ethereal plane doesn't break the coven. B/c physical and ethereal are close enough proximity-wise (yeah I think so, yeah). 
•  He says (probably homebrew rule) if 2 hags dip below 30 HP, then coven broken. 
• I dunno about this 30 HP thing... I mean they don't want to die or their coven to die so maybe~~~ it's a signal back to coven to GTFO. 
•