If you played Baldur’s Gate 3 in Early Access, then you know that Auntie Ethel can be one of the hardest boss fights in Act 1. Auntie Ethel or The Hag is an optional boss fight. She is hidden in plain sight. If you don’t have the right Perception and game sense, you may not even realize she is a threat, and you may leave her to her own devices.
While Auntie Ethel is optional, it’s best to gather every experience and loot you can before heading to Moonrise Towers once and for all. This guide will detail everything you need to know about traversing through Auntie Ethel’s territory, finding Mayrina, and defeating Auntie Ethel once and for all. There is some pretty good loot to acquire if you can best this foe.
7 Meeting Auntie Ethel
You can meet Auntie Ethel in a different location before the events at her house. You may find her in the Druid Grove. There is a lady mixing a big cauldron near the locked house near the training grounds. In the hut next to this lady, Auntie Ethel is preparing potions.
Auntie Ethel is a trader here, and will offer her help to deal with the parasite and asks you to meet her at her home. Auntie Ethel sells a bunch of resistance and healing potions. She will also sell two Uncommon weapons, Corellon’s Grace and Spellthief.
Corellon’s Grace is a staff. If the person using it is not wearing armor, they have a +1d4 bonus to Saving Throws.
Spellthief is a bow. Users gain a Spell Slot if they land a critical hit.
6 How To Get Through The Sunlit Plateau/Fetid Bog
If you pass a Perception check while entering the Sunlit Plateau, you will notice the entire biome is an illusion, and it is actually a Fetid Bog for a twisted old hag.
Regardless of what version you see, you should not touch anything. There are traps in the water, and every edible item you find will kill you.
Any creature you see will be deadly, as well. If you are in the Fetid Bog, you will see Redcaps walking around. They actually will not harm you because they think you still see an illusion. They are pretending to be sheep. Allow the Redcaps to pretend.
The only thing you should interact with before entering Auntie Ethel’s house is her well just outside her teahouse. Interacting with the well will actuallygive you the buff Refreshed, which gives you a maximum addition of ten hit points until Long Rest.
5 Auntie Ethel’s Teahouse
While speaking with Auntie Ethel in her home, you can choose to be aggressive and point fingers, or you can choose to play along with her.
Whatever you do, do not agree to let her help you with your eye. Auntie Ethel cannot cure you.
By allowing her to take your eye, she will grant you a decrease in Perception and Disadvantage on any attack against her. This will make fighting her later on even harder.
If you anger Auntie Ethel in her teahouse, she will transform into the Hag, but you cannot defeat her and save Mayrina here. The Redcaps outside will come running to her aid and Mayrina will be teleported to a cage.
You could potentially kill the Hag in the teahouse by making her go prone or unconscious before she has time to act.
If you initiate combat with her in the teahouse, she will teleport away to her lair; that is why you must prevent her from acting or moving if you do want to kill her there.
Otherwise, you must enter the illusory wall behind her fireplace to reach Auntie Ethel’s lair. You can turn off the fire and sneak into the lair even if she is still in the teahouse as Auntie Ethel.
4 How To Get Through Auntie Ethel’s Lair
Upon entering her lair, the Hag will show herself, threaten you, and then disappear again. There are tortured souls in this area, but all you can do is keep walking. At the end of the room, there is a Gnarled Door.
There are also four Whispering Masks on a table near the door. One for each party member. You can use these masks to see through Auntie Ethel’s illusions, including the door.
You should not put on these masks unless you have no other option. Putting on the Whispering Masks will make you a slave to the Hag and cause you to fight your party members.
If you convince the door to let you through by Intimidation or Persuasion, you will be able to walk through the door without a mask. The door won’t open; you just have to walk into it.
Up past the door, there will be four masked dummies who are being controlled by Auntie Ethel. They will initiate combat with you. For each turn, the enemies will roll a Wisdom check in an attempt to fight against the Hag’s control. If they pass, they won’t attack you for that turn.
You can sneak forward and use Silence or something to Blind them in order to surprise them and prevent them from acting soon. If the odds are in your favor, they will succeed Wisdom checks often and not attack.
The Masked enemies will heal each other, so make sure to prevent the spellcasters from acting by putting them in Prone or Hold Person. If your concern is their healing, target one person at a time while incapacitating the others.
After defeating the enemies, you may have found Heavystones on one of the bodies. These are important for the next part of the lair. Past the enemies is a poisonous gas maze. The area ahead is full of gas.
If you hover your cursor over the gas, you will notice a ditch highlighted. You can use your Throw ability to throw a Heavystone at the vent in the ditch in order to block the poisonous gas from spewing.
You may not have enough Heavystone. You can use other items, but they will not hold the poison forever if they are not heavy enough.
You do not need to remove the poisonous gas to get through this area. Using your Jump ability will allow you to journey through the gas unharmed. There are invisible traps around on top of the poisonous gas, though.
There is another Gnarled door to the West of the poisonous gas. You’ll likely need the Jump spell in order to reach it. Behind the door lies a portal that will lead you to The Underdark.
You need the Whispering Mask in order to get through this door. It is best to kill Auntie Ethel first so that she can’t control you when you do so.
Once you reach the bottom of the lair, you will see Mayrina in a cage above a pit. Walking into this area will initiate a fight with Auntie Ethel.
3 How To Defeat Auntie Ethel
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The first thing you should do is sneak. Do not walk into Mayrina’s line of sight. If you just waltz into this area, your team will be Surprised by Auntie Ethel, and you will be at a disadvantage.
Put all of your party members into Crouch and keep to the right wall, going around Mayrina and behind her.
There is a glowing yellow orb near Mayrina’s cage. This Control Orb will lower Mayrina’s cage and free her. Auntie Ethel is invisible and near to this Control Orb, so don’t do it until you are ready to start fighting.
You should place most of your team on the top ledge behind the Control Orb. This will give your Ranged characters advantage.
If you do not reach the Control Orb to free Mayrina, Auntie Ethel will set her cage on fire. In that case, it is important to have a water item on hand (to Throw) or someone with the Create Water spell to put the fire out.
If you save Mayrina during the fight, Auntie Ethel will begin duplicating her as well. She will disguise herself as Mayrina so that you do not know who the real one is. This could risk you killing Mayrina.
Keeping debuffs or Hexes on Auntie Ethel will allow you to determine which duplicate is the real her. Focus on the real her.
Auntie Ethel is hard because she uses multiple spells in battle. She will duplicate herself, and then each version will cast Hold Person onto your teammates.
Hold Person prevents a character from moving or performing any attack, so your turn will be skipped. Even if you could attack, you don’t know which one is the real Hag. This makes the fight very difficult.
The key to this fight is to prevent duplication and prevent Hold Person. You need to stop Auntie Ethel from being able to act by placing her in Prone and interrupting her Concentration.
Silence and Magic Missle will remove any active Hold Person spells.
Throwing Grease or using Topple will cause Prone to Auntie Ethel if successful.
Keeping her inactive for a couple of rounds will allow your party to gain the upper hand and deal damage quick.
If you have the Counterspell Reaction on a Warlock, Sorcerer, or Wizard, you can stop Auntie Ethel from casting Hold Person or duplicating.
Disabling Auntie Ethel is the only way to make this fight short and sweet without losing people quickly.
Alternatively, you can simply Shove or Void Bulb her into the pit to kill her instantly, but shoving Auntie Ethel down the hole will not allow you to loot her body.
2 Auntie Ethel Rewards
If you get the Hag down to low health, she will plead for her life. She will offer you a deal, she gives you power, and you let her keep Mayrina. You can use Intimidation or Deception to convince Ethel to give you both the power and Mayrina.
The power Auntie Ethel speaks of Auntie Ethel’s Hair. Upon consumption of the item, you will get a permanent +1 boost to a stat of your choice. You must select the Hair with the stat you want.
Alternatively, you can just kill her, but you won’t get access to a piece of her hair. Her corpse will contain Corellon’s Grace and some potions.
Her secret room adjacent to Mayrina’s cage will contain even more loot. You will find the wand Bitter Divorce, some valuable rings in a Heavy Chest, and the Staff of Crones.
Do not use any potions from her back room on the East side table. They all will give you a different type of debuff until next Long Rest. You could use them, though, in future battles – throwing them at enemies will inflict those debuffs.
1 How To Save Mayrina
During the fight, the only way to keep her alive is to extinguish the flames on her cage and/or lower her cage by interacting with the Control Orb.
You can mark the real Hag with a Hex or Witch Bolt before she duplicates so that you do not accidentally kill Mayrina.
Mayrina’s attitude towards you will depend on your honesty.
If you told her that Ethel killed her brothers while in the teahouse, she will hate the Hag and thank you. If you do not tell her anything, she will hate you for killing the Hag.
You can find Mayrina at the back of the teahouse after the fight. Head through the South doors in the lair and interact with the mushroom portal at the back of the Hag’s secret room. This portal will lead you to some shores near Ethel’s house. Before heading out, you will want to loot this room.
There is a wand on the table called Bitter Divorce that is needed for Mayrina’s quest.
With the wand, you have the option to resurrect Connor or leave Mayrina to mourn. If you resurrect him, he comes back as a zombie, but Mayrina will not mind all that much.