OOTA encounter with a Night Hag

[coalmaine]

Hi all I'm am the DM for my group and we are currently running Out of the Abyss. Group consists of, all 6th lvl, Gloomstalker Ranger, thief rogue, wild sorcerer, and blade bard, they also have two Spy npcs friendly.
Now previously the group ran afoul of 2 hags (green and sea) but one at a time so they where able to handle it fine. Now I have decided to round out this little subplot with the remaining hag from this coven. A night hag.
I have one area of concern however. As far as CR goes she is not a challenge for them alone. However I don't believe they can deal with her or stop her from using her ethereal nightmare inducing ability to basically kill them all. Now her ideal goal obviously is to turn then evil before she kills them so she can collect their souls.
So to the question. How would you deal with a Night Hag with this party?

Ps. If I can't figure out how they can stop her I may just change her to a green or sea hag. But the nightmares as they rest is just so perfect for OOTA that I think it will fit perfectly.

[Wildarm]

Night Hag is a slow burn type effect. Just keep draining spell casters HP and disrupting their SR/LR until they die. I can totally see a night hag slowly and torturously kill the whole group for killing her sisters if they were a coven. If you target the cleric first you can prevent them from gaining spells back to protect them. Now there are still many ways the PCs can avoid this if they are smart. They need too figure out the attacks are coming from an ethereal night hag. Main one being - Run away. Sight on the ethereal plane is 60'. Pretty easy for the group to jump on mounts and ride off leaving the hag in their dust. She could try and find them again but if they move a good distance it's unlikely. Night hags only have a +2 Wis bonus to try and track them.

[sophontteks]

This is perfect for Oota. Let them worry about the nightmares and come up with solutions. When a player can't long rest, the party will come up with a plan. Just let it unfold from there. This definately should not be a tpk. For one, it'd take literally months for the hag to kill the party like this.

[Dungeon-noob]

If she can't follow them, she can't attack them. She needs to rest herself, she can get tired. So she doesn't travel faster then they do, can't track well, and has a 30ft speed. Not to mention, how is she eating, when and where does she rest, and how does she take care of all the other biological needs (nature calls come to mind). All of these factors either give chances to find here and find out what's going on, or just straight up lose her, ending the threat.

[Man_Over_Game]

This is perfect for Oota. Let them worry about the nightmares and come up with solutions. When a player can't long rest, the party will come up with a plan. Just let it unfold from there. This definately should not be a tpk. For one, it'd take literally months for the hag to kill the party like this.

Creating Exhaustion each day results in death on day 6. Just saying. If Exhaustion was somehow afflicted, I'd definitely put this at the top of my priority list.

Princess caught a plague? Sorry, can't help you, I gotta take a nap.

[sophontteks]

Oooh, yeah if the hag hits the same target interrupted it would only take a month to TPK.

[tieren]

I'd give the night hag an invisible imp familiar that carries the Hag Eye and is how she tracks the party. If the party can learn of the imp and get the eye from it they will be able to bargain with the hag (or just stop her ability to track them).

Would probably make some oil of etherealness available to the party in some way (maybe find the formula and go on a side quest for some rare ingredient, etc...). Or perhaps a scroll with a reverse Blink spell that would let them attack on the ethereal plain.

[coalmaine]

Thanks for the replies.

As a clarification one thing I forgot to mention was that she will attempt to infiltrate the group as NPC in disguise.

The running away option seems to be valid even in the Underdark. The Ranger has Fiends as a favoured enemy so he can detect her.

And the have on oil of etherealness so they have a option to turn on her.

Who in your opinion has best chance solo against her? Group consists of, all 6th lvl, Gloomstalker Ranger, thief rogue, wild sorcerer, and blade bard, they also have two Spy npcs friendly.

Thank you all again.

[Dungeon-noob]

Well, the gloomstalker can see in the dark no matter what race, has her as a favored enemy so does bonus damage, and has the largest hit dice and regular DPS. My money would be on the Ranger taking her out before she can do too much. The sorc might be able to blast her to bits as well if he can nova. The other two aren't bad, but don't work too great on their own, and dislike her solid AC.

[coalmaine]

Hi all. A quick update.

During our last session was when the Night Hag found the party.

She choose the halfling Sorceress as her first target. (Random). The bard responded with see invisibility. Side note the whole party is still very paranoid after the Duergur city of Grackulstugh. (All Duergur can turn invisible.)
He sees the hag and then responded in a very clever way. He tried to drag the Sorceress away. Hag followed so he threw the hafling sorceress in her bag of holding.

Thus the hags once per day use of nightmare is disrupted. So she walked away.

The next night will be the bards turn. The Hag is not pleased with him.

I just wanted to post this as it Was a really clever way to deal with the attack.

Either way stay tuned if you care to.

[Ganymede]

How did the bard even know the hag was there in order to know to cast See Invisibility?

[sophontteks]

How did the bard even know the hag was there in order to know to cast See Invisibility?
In OotA the deurgar city is riddled with invisible entities spying and messing with the party, and they just left that city.

[NRSASD]

Brilliant! Kudos to your bard for that solution.

[Dungeon-noob]

Welp, that hag is screwed. Now that the PCs know she exists and is after them, and they have see invisible available, she shouldn't be able to do much to them anymore. Any time she uses her haunt she gets caught at the end of the rest at the latest, and has to dodge an angry party trying to nova her into oblivion. A party including a Gloomstalker above CR, with her among his favored enemies. I give her another try or two before she's dead, or decides to start playing it smarter. Going at this party alone is no longer viable.

[coalmaine]

How did the bard even know the hag was there in order to know to cast See Invisibility?

As per sophontteks's post the biggest reason he went for see invisibility was because of paranoia after Grackulstugh. I did descripe the Sorceress's struggles in her sleep. When it persisted past 10 min he got suspicious.

Also I did foreshadow this hag somewhat. Most recently.. The Bard had been using a bag of holding found in the green hags lair. Made from the skin of dwarfs. He now has the Dawnbringer. as a attempt to be more "good" he destroyed this bag of holding. But in emptying it out he took out the hag eye which had been in there since before they took it. The eye turned and look at him and two party members prior to them destroying it.

As for the Hag she will try again. She will exclusively go after the bard now however. So got to see how party handles it without him. I suspect the ranger will rope trick and pull him in.
I will definitely look into the hag getting some allies if she fails against the bard.

She is not letting them go!

Thanks again all.