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Hags are a great early-game encounter inDungeons & Dragons. They’re solitary, have lairs and eat children. These features are all great for setting up an isolated adventure that can then lead to further escapades. They aren’t without challenges, however.
The stat sheet and lore of the hags injects more complexity than most creatures of the same level. Even a powerful bandit is straightforwardly a person with a sword and a crossbow who shouts “stand and deliver.” The hag instead has more spells than a caster of the same level and enough tricks outside their sheet to require extensive planning by a Dungeon Master.
Best Hag Type For A Low-Level Encounter
While there are less than a dozen unique hag types, there is some flexibility to their design that allows them to be used at a wider range of challenges than you might initially expect.
3
The most by-the-books hag,they’re good at trickery and illusions.
2
Coasts
Theseamphibious hags can be used for nautical adventuresor brought inland via large rivers.
4
Extraplanar
Prophecies given by these hags can be great foreshadowingfor longer campaigns.
5
Ethereal
The only hag to be classed as a fiend and not a fey. Theirability to haunt nightmares is a great adventure hook.
The most suitable for anearly game encounter are the sea and green hag. They appear in common enough regions that an adventurer doesn’t need to venture far. Similarly, these low level hags are more plausibly involved in mortal affairs.
These more grounded hags are also easier touse narratively because of their regional effects. The existence of a hag poisons the countryside for a mile in every direction. Not only is this a built in motivation for sending adventurers after them, itgives the players descriptive indicators of what they can expect.
Negotiation Is An Option With Hags
An early game hag encounter is a good chance to have acombat-ready enemy who is also able to confront the party via diplomacy. This plays differently from intimidating bandits or deceiving kobolds.
There are a few different ways to make hags interesting as a social encounter:
Effects
Unequal Information
Hags have a lot ofinformation gathering magic that allows them to know things about the PCsbefore meeting them. Using disguises, divination, and minions, they’re able to scout most parties before they are close enough to pose a threat.
They cantailor their words and combat strategy to matchtheir insight into the cast. Make false promises related to a characters' backstory,prepare spells that strongly counter the players' normal strategy.
Bargaining Power
Hags have access to powerful spells that are far stronger than their level. These gibe the hag a lot to offer a party willing to negotiate.
More specific to your campaign setting,hags are long-lived creatures that study the worldand magic in great detail. They will almost always hold some relevant information they can promise the party,or drip feed out as part of a larger bargain.
A party seeking a caster for Legend Loremight be forced to barter with a Fate Hag. The Bheur hag is able to Control Weather at nearly half the level that an equivalent PC could cast the same spell.
Hags Are Allowed To Lie
A player whose knowledge of fey lore comes entirely from the Witcher books and SCP-4000 is going to walk into a hag encounter thinking they follow a strict code of conduct, believinga hag’s oath the same way they’d believe the word of a devilunder contract. What this misses is thathags are gleefully able to break any oaths, except to other hags.
A hag can lean into the mysticism and misinformation that surrounds them,lying that they’re unable to break their promises.
Keeping Track Of Exotic Abilities
Hags are quite unusual in D&D’s monster design as even the low level variants have access to powerful lair abilities normally reserved for end game content like dragons. This can make piloting one difficult for a new DM. Here are the things to keep track of that you might not be used to:
How To Manage It As A DM
Lair Actions
Hags have special abilities thatonly activate if the players fight the hag in its nexus of power.
There are a mixture of specific and general lair actions:Most hags can walk through wallsand magically slam doors while in their lair. Green hags can displace themselves with an illusory duplicate, and sea hags can duplicate other people.
Lair Actions don’t obey normal initiative: They typically activate at the start of a round.When writing down initiatives, put the lair actions at the top(or at 20 if one character is faster).
Have the hag make use of lair actions that don’t directly influence combat.A hag walking through walls can attack the party from below the floor, swiping at an unprotected spellcaster and then retreating.
Fear Aura
The CR two sea hag has the horrific appearance trait: Any creature to see it needs to make a wisdom saving throw or become frightened.A character who succeeds becomes temporarily immune, which you’ll need to keep track of.
Have some counters set aside for this purpose.When a character passes their save, give them a counterto represent that they’re immune to further fear saves when you call for them.
At the start ofeach player’s turn, check if they have a counter. If not, they either need to roll a save or become frightened.
Legendary Resistance
The level four fate hag is one of the earlier creatures to have legendary resistance. Twice per day, it can choose tosucceed on a saving throw that it would have failed.
Save uses of legendary resistance for saving throws that could single-handedly swing the fight.Stunning, blinding or silencing effectsare the best uses.
Make a note whenever legendary resistance is used, totrack the remaining uses.
Legendary Actions
Some hags have access to legendary actions,special moves that allow it to break the normal turn order of combat.If you aren’t used to using these, they can be difficult to remember to use and also canconfuse your memory of the initiative order.
Legendary actions take place at the end of another creature’s turn. Typically a bossfight has three legendary actions per round, and moves thatconsume one or two of those actions.
If you’re liable to forget about them, use them early and often.With practise you’ll be able to use them with good timingthat disrupts and counters the players' strategy. The initial goal is toget into the habit of using them at all.
Coven Spellcasting
A trio of hags working together can access much stronger magics andposes a greater threat than three hags back-to-back.
A trio of hags can can spells far above their level,but share charges on those spells. Describe the spellcasting in a way that encourages players to play around the coven spells andbreak concentration on spells like eyebite.
When using an encounter builder, keep in mind thatcoven hags are on average two or three CR levels higher.
Covens Are A Built-In Sequel Hook
One of the most entertaining plot hooks you can dangle in front of a low level party after killing their first hag is the Hag Eye.This clearly evil relic is crafted by a covenof three hags working together. The hags can see through the eye at will, meaningthe players have been witnessed killing a member of the coven.
This can set up a few different stories: Perhaps the other coven members are okay with the death of their sibling: hags are competitive and antisocial creatures,so a group of adventurers might be manipulated for internal power jockeying.
They might also seek vengeance, sendingminions to chase down and attack the party. After killing one hag they are now being chased by two more, creating a nice but manageable escalation of threat.
Lastly there’s the question of what the players should do with the eye they have looted:
Consequences
Destroy The Eye
The eye is easily destroyed, harming andblinding the connected hags temporarily. This gives the coven a grudge to settle and a need to recruit a new member before crafting a new eye. Hags reproduce by eating children, sothe party have a ticking clock to defeat the remaining hagsbefore this can happen.
Steal The Eye
Some players will loot anything magical, even magical eyes that watch them sleep and seek to kill them. The eye is the hags' weakness, so they’ll likelysend minions rather than expose themselves.
Leave The Eye
If the players refuse to engage with it, you can have the hags reclaim it without difficulty. Without the players exploiting this weakness,the coven might more quickly recoverfrom the death of a member.
A savvy player might decide to hang onto the hag eye, so they candestroy it right before fighting the other coven members and weaken them. This comes at the cost of the hags always being able to watch them.
