Which (witch?) hag to use?

[GreyBlack]

So I'm currently in the process of refluffing Against the Cult of the Reptile God to use for some players to be a more Fey themed adventure (basically, the townsfolk made a Pact with a local hag for protection and, after the PC's inadvertently stop a ritual, they now have to rescue the town, free the villagers, and kill the hag).

So while I'm going through it, I'm trying to figure out an appropriate final boss for them to fight. On one hand, the Green Hag would probably be an even and somewhat creepy fight for the PC's, as I'm planning on having them fight the Hag at level 3. However, I'll admit I'm somewhat underwhelmed by the green hag and have been thinking about using the Annis hag instead as their final fight. The Annis would be more in line with the final boss actually present in Against the Cult in terms of power scale, and is actually scaled back a bit in terms of power.

That said... a CR6 against a group of 5-6 level 3 PC's seems a little bit overwhelming. However, like I said, it's a final boss of the adventure and the Annis hag doesn't seem totally overwhelming. So... opinions from the playground: should I pit them against an Annis or a Green hag?

[Xihirli]

As long as they're able to get lots of information about her they should have a fair shot.

What's the party like?

[JackPhoenix]

A lone CR 6 creature is deadly fight against 5 level 3 PCs and medium fight against 6. They should be fine.

[Cerefel]

A green hag could definitely work if she has a couple of things:

1. A way to not immediately die to focus fire from the party

2. Some kind of action that's more interesting and/or challenging than a claw attack

There are ways to achieve this. Notably, hags can do really well with magic items like wands, staves, weird wondrous items, etc. and it tends to make sense for hags to have such items in-universe.

[Galithar]

Either Annis or Green Hag is going to bed something to keep it alive long enough to be interesting.
If you subscribe to the 'Combat is expected to be over in 3 rounds or less' you're fine. If you want an actual fight, use a green hag with a minion or two, but boost all of their HPs. If you do this make sure the minions are basically meat sacks with low damage and/or hit bonus. Creature HP doesn't normally last long enough to give a good fight in my opinion so I tend to boost it. (I run a game for a party of 7 though so damage output is high)