Curse of Strahd Bonegrinder help

[Bel-Torac]

Hi all, just started playing Curse of Strahd recently and after 2 sessions in, one of our party members is being haunted by a night hag.

We saw Morgantha taking a child from a house and the Eldrich Knight decided to surprise attack her. She shifted to the ethereal plane and ran away. But that night at the Gypsy camp she came back and haunted his dreams giving him one exhaustion and -1 max hp. We are at the Tsol pool gypsy camp right now after tying up the Vampire Spawn in the church and bringing Ireena with us.

We are debating whether or not to go to Bonegrinder to confront the hags or to go to Vallaki and then Kresk to get the priest there to help our party member remove the effects. Not sure if I want to face night hags or a coven of them at our level. The only thing I could think of is luring them out with a silent image or the child we saved in the cart. Our E knight will be getting recurring nightmares unless we do something.

In character I would choose to go to Kresk or bargain with the hags, but my party seems like they want to kill them.


Any suggestions? You can drop spoilers if you want as I kinda know what goes on. Just need a second opinion.

Party (we are all level 4 right now)

Dwarf Battlemaster
High elf Eldrich Knight
Dark elf Light Cleric
Dark elf Fiend Warlock
Human Life Cleric 1/Divination Wizard x (me)
Human Devotion Paladin
Half Orc Fighter

[Unoriginal]

The easiest way to fight any hag coven is to separate one from the others and kill her, weakening the others significantly.

Is there any way for you guys to get into the Ethereal Plane?

[Twigwit]

Every time I've run CoS the party ends up talking down Morgantha, and a few party members even buy the dream pies despite their immediate suspicions. I think this is the first time I've seen a party piss off Morgantha this early. Given your party's sheer numbers I think a full out assault isn't too bad of an option, just be mindful of resistances and immunities.

[Ganymede]

It would behoove your group to do some research on hags, especially regarding the relics they create.

You could then use that information along with some snooping in order to secure the location of said relic and use it to your advantage.

[EvilAnagram]

When I played, we just set the coven's home on fire. They all came out, we nearly had a total party wipe, and then someone said, "Where are all those kids they kidnapped?" Oh, right. That's why you don't set buildings on fire willy nilly.

So not that.

[Unoriginal]

When I played, we just set the coven's home on fire. They all came out, we nearly had a total party wipe, and then someone said, "Where are all those kids they kidnapped?" Oh, right. That's why you don't set buildings on fire willy nilly.

So not that.

Reminds me of :

https://memestatic.fjcdn.com/pictures/Anon+saves+the+day+in+shadowrun_0b2e52_6363480.jpg

[EvilAnagram]

It's not far off.

[GTNE90]

As I remember, we took on the Bonegrinder with 4 at 9th Level:
Dwarf Battlerager Barbarian (with Magic Axe)
High Elf Circle of Moon Druid (with Magic Staff)
Halfling Arcane Trickster Rogue (with Magic Sword)
Dragonborn (Silver) Oath of Vengeance Paladin (with Magic Spear)

We researched hags before to get vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities plus favored tactics. We expected fade in from ethereal ambushes and weren't disappointed. Our general tactic was to try to block/stop the charms (Paladin feature that granted saving throw and Protection from Evil scroll), take the first "surprise" hit, then all dogpile the first hag to make an appearance. Melee folks early in initiative waited to let the Druid use a lightning staff to take the first shot (she caught two of them with the first bolt) and then the Barbarian engaged with's raged powered blows to damage and distract for the Rogue's Sunsword powered sneak attack, and then the Paladin's Smite powered blows dropped the first one. Repeat on the second. Third kept range for a while, snipping ineffectively, but faded away before we could finish her when we closed. We had something with True sight to track/chases her for a couple rounds. The place caught fire (can't remember if she did it or our spells, but we rescued the kids before it went up completely.

[Bel-Torac]

The easiest way to fight any hag coven is to separate one from the others and kill her, weakening the others significantly.

Is there any way for you guys to get into the Ethereal Plane?

I have see invisibility and magic missile. The warlock has eldrich blast. Don't know if that will work. Separating one was my plan.


It would behoove your group to do some research on hags, especially regarding the relics they create.

You could then use that information along with some snooping in order to secure the location of said relic and use it to your advantage.

I could do a little bit more, but I didn't hear anything about the hearthstone to pickpocket yet.


As I remember, we took on the Bonegrinder with 4 at 9th Level:
Dwarf Battlerager Barbarian (with Magic Axe)
High Elf Circle of Moon Druid (with Magic Staff)
Halfling Arcane Trickster Rogue (with Magic Sword)
Dragonborn (Silver) Oath of Vengeance Paladin (with Magic Spear)

We researched hags before to get vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities plus favored tactics. We expected fade in from ethereal ambushes and weren't disappointed. Our general tactic was to try to block/stop the charms (Paladin feature that granted saving throw and Protection from Evil scroll), take the first "surprise" hit, then all dogpile the first hag to make an appearance. Melee folks early in initiative waited to let the Druid use a lightning staff to take the first shot (she caught two of them with the first bolt) and then the Barbarian engaged with's raged powered blows to damage and distract for the Rogue's Sunsword powered sneak attack, and then the Paladin's Smite powered blows dropped the first one. Repeat on the second. Third kept range for a while, snipping ineffectively, but faded away before we could finish her when we closed. We had something with True sight to track/chases her for a couple rounds. The place caught fire (can't remember if she did it or our spells, but we rescued the kids before it went up completely.

I've looked up the resistances and it sounds like magic weapons help greatly. I'll talk to my group and see if they are down to postpone their assault until we get some or separate the hags.

[Bel-Torac]

Here is what happened if you are interested. Thanks for the help guys, even though it didn't quite go according to plan.

Plan was to go to Krezk, but we encountered some bandits twice on the road and captured a Vistani one who said she could aid us with defeating the hags in exchange for her life. The party then decided to head to Bonegrinder after taking at long rest at the bandit cave. I wanted to wait until we got some magic weapons, but to hell with that plan. So we talked strategy and decided that we were setting up a polish ambush outside bonegrinder to get the hags. We didn't have our half orc fighter that night so just 6 of us. Our goal was to use the Vistani and a minor illusion of a baby to trick the hags into trading dream pastries with her then jumping her. So we waited in the morning until about 6pm with no hags.

Then at 6pm they came out of the woods and ambushed us. I got phantasmal killered so I couldn't fog cloud the area and escape. The paladin and two fighters focus fired on one hags and I used my rolled 20 divination dice to give the paladin a crit. He did 50 radiant damage to that one hag. The cleric, warlock, and I were tied up with the other hags and in 3 rounds the one hag went down after we got lightning bolted multiple times. The cleric healing worded me after I went down and I managed to fog cloud the hag in front of me delaying hag 2 for 2 rounds. I cast magic weapon on the E Knight and then focused on Morgantha. The warlock kept trying to use his drow poisoned dagger and kept missing. After being magic missiled a lot we managed to take her down then finish off the last hag before she could run off. Then the session ended with wolves howling in the distance and we hit level 5.

Out of game the dm said that no one checked for divination magic and the hags were actually watching us and attacked when we started to argue about strategy and the ethereal plane at about 6pm. He showed us the map he made of bonegrinder and said that it would have been really tight quarters and we would have been dead if we attacked inside. He actually thought we were going to tpk that session and didn't plan on us going in there that night.


Tarokka Card Reading I forgot to mention for the magic items, but oh well.
1. Wizard
2. Anarchist
3. Druid
4. Horseman
5. Donjon

[Ganymede]

I could do a little bit more, but I didn't hear anything about the hearthstone to pickpocket yet.


Well you're past the point of spoilers now since they're dead.

The hags created a Hag's Eye and gave it to a specific minion. If you were able to secure the Hag's Eye (which is not actually near the windmill, but elsewhere), you would have been able to blind them all, which would have made them much easier to handle.