Baldur's Gate 3 - How to EASILY not KILL AUNTIE ETHEL and get +1 PERMANENT STAT increase! 

Just to append a correction. It was brought to my attention that you can just "walk thru the doors here" Hitting z to jump seems to be the best way to force move through them due to fog of war. I am not ashamed to say that Larian Tricked me, and neither should you.

Quick tip: If you want to know which Mayrina is hag and which is normal - Look at their levels. One is level 1 and the other one lvl 5 :)

You can long rest right before you fight the hag. If you don't approach the orb but instead go to her room in the bright there is a portal in the back right of that room. It will take you outside and you can long rest. Re-enter the portal and continue where you left off.

You don't need the mask to get through the door, after the "hag walks through door" cutscene simply click behind the door in the darkness and it will let you through.

the easiest way through the gas cloud area is to cast featherfall and just jump from the top to the end in one go, (cast jump or similar if you can't jump far enough) and if you cast sleep on the hag when she's transformed into mayrina, it breaks concentration and undoes her spell so you can target her easily

For Ethel's masks, you can cast Protection from Good and Evil (lasts until long rest; available via scrolls, too) on a character to negate the Wisdom checks and prevent Ethel from taking over. Wearing the masks will also reveal the traps, whereon you can throw large objects (e.g. a shield) to cover the vents and stop the noxious gas.

The easiest way to tell the hag from mayrina is looking at their level. Hag is 5, mayrina is 1. Also a really easy way to beat her if you don't care about the +1 increase When she tries the double Mayrina trick she is very vulnerable to being pushed around. I threw one of those void bombs that pull people and killed the hag instantly by knocking her of the platform

You can also just use a featherfall scroll or potion to jump all the way down past the gas clouds. Pick up the potions at the end as you can load them all up in a sachel, throw it far enough it breaks open in/prior to combat, spilling out all the potions. You can do it on a boss with some explosive and debuff potions mixed in then ignite them for an easy kill/debuff on a tough fight.

There's actually 4 ways into the Underdark. Thru the Goblin fort, the hole in the spider cave, the way mentioned in this video from the teahouse and lastly an elevator in the Zhentarim hideout in Waukeen's Rest.

2 extra things: 1. if you cast sanctuary on marina before ethel swaps with her you can tell which one is the hag 2. you can use the magic hand cantrip and fly over to the control orb while invisible to lower marina before the fight

If you click close enough to the tree, after realizing it’s transparent, it will let you simply walk through without the use of the mask

DO NOT use the "create water" spell here; water bottles work just as well, don't take a spell slot, and will still give Mayrina the Wet condition. Karlach has 7 water bottles to use in her inventory in this video, I always carry some for this reason. Volo's Eye might let you see through the door as well, or I just clicked anyway without the mask as the other commenters have, not sure exactly.

One of the potions is "A Mother's Curse" or something like that. It is NOT a debuff. It is a bite enhancer. Give it to Astarion to make his Bite attacks extra powerful.

If anyone misunderstood the title, then here is a way how to both kill her and take +1 stat: separate one party member (it was Astarion in my case), beat her up and after the successful dice roll on deception/intimidation swap to that character and finish her. I also reccomend stealing her inventory before that, because her body will dissapear. The game acknowledge she's dead via combat log and journal.

I found that Protect form Good and Evil will stop you from being possessed. This way you can wear the mask, also, while you are wearing the mask, you will see that the poison clouds are an illusion and you can just walk through then with the mask on. :) only one character needs to wear the mask. Hope this helps.

Tip: Shadow monks are ridiculously powerful for this fight. You're supposed to have to deal with the hag actually casting spells, but if you just cast Darkness and then have your whole team hide in it, Ethel really can't do anything but just try to claw you to death.

Here is some info regarding if you want kill Aunt Ethel before she goes down into her hidden basement. The game does not allow you to do that. Had her silenced, used hold person, and all my companions blockade the passage down. She tries to go by slightly to the edge to get down. But I quickly surrounded her so she cant get past you into the passage, she (Without magic because she is still silenced) does not move or cast magic and yet the screen turn black and we see healing numbers appear. Then the game lags for a bit, before returning to your characters. So literally, the game does not allow you to stop her, does not matter how impossible for her to get down there, the game lets her get down no matter what you do. It pissed me off

I'm glad i'm already looking forwards to another playthrough. Act 1 is going to be very different when I side with the goblins and auntie Ethel. A dark urge double agent bard seems like an interesting playthrough

Yeah i never wore the mask. I forget what i did but basically everyone "captive" in that room is held by an illusion, which the door itself also is. Also, for the main fight,, my main character was a rogue, plus asterion, gale and shadowheart. Used sneak the go down the right side of the arena. Posted my main and asterion on the highpoint next to the door, had shadowheart hit the cage lever the start the battle. used gales magic missile to take care of clones, and then my main and asterion stayed hidden through all the fight using bow sneak attacks on her. I know this wont work for every team build but there is always a way around any encounter. Good vid though!

Couple of things as I just played this yesterday. When the Hag imitates Mayrina, not only does Mayrina show up as "wet" if you doused her cage fire, but when you mouse over each one lights up as Mayrina and the other the Hag in the Initiative order up at the top of the screen. I ran into a problem where I had all 4 party members ungrouped and spread out, and when the Hag suddenly gave up to make the offer, instead of talking to my lead character (the one with the very high Charisma) she talked to whomever's turn it was for initiative...in my case that was Karlach. So instead of having a very high Charisma character try to persuade her to give up the Hag Hair and release Mayrina, instead I had very low Charisma Karlach FAIL miserably. Despite trying to make this a "good" playthru, I wanted the Hag Hair more than Mayrina so sorry to say Mayrina was not saved.

It’s possible to get the buff and kill the hag! I convinced the hag to give the buff and free the girl. Once I had the consumable I stopped dialogue and changed to a party member that I left out of combat. This keeps them from being warped to the conversation background and open to deliver a killing blow with a crossbow! Hope this helps someone else have their cake and eat it too 😁

After you've passed the door, in the room where Ethel's 4 thralls are, you can send a stealthed rogue alone (like Asterion) to sneak their way up to the platform on the left side of the chamber. If you time your movement right, you won't be detected. Once up there, you can engage the thralls with ranged attacks - I recommend hitting the fellow with the warhammer and highest HP pool first. If you're lucky the cleric thrall will resist the mask's influence and won't move nor heal the target you just damaged. As the other NPCs move toward your rogue, send in your other characters and make short work of them. I wanted to try and save them from Ethel so I used non-lethal attacks to knock them all out. It took a few tries but it is possible. You can loot them, but make sure you don't remove their masks as that will kill them outright. If you kill Ethel however, you can then remove their masks safely. If you kill Ethel you unfortunately don't get the +1 attribute point, but she carries some valuable loot and a lot of gold. One other thing to note from your video: you don't need to throw objects to trigger the flower traps, you can simply hit them directly with ranged attacks or cantrips.

An alternative i used in tactician mode is to cast silence on the area she will reveal herself from since she won’t fight you until you get near the button. So, when you initiate the fight, she is silenced so she can’t do anything on her turn except move and throw the fire. On your turn, have one of your party members hit the button, which will release the girl on the next turn and save you a spell slot. Then you can attack the hag with your remaining members. When she is damaged, she will always have less Hp than her clones so you can just focus on killing her. Also at least 2 of her clones will spawn in the silence spell and won’t be able to do anything. Then by round three, you’ll bring her low enough for the cutscene. I’m playing a vengeance paladin so I just killed her instead of take it the item lol.

I passed a skill check and identified the door as an illusion and just walked through. You can also throw a bottle of water on the burning cage vs wasting a spell slot. Then just burn the hag down. I acivated the surrender scene in one round, I was level 5.

I found that you don’t have to use the mass to get through. If you speak with him long enough, you can figure out that you can just walk through the illusion.

This was such a helpful video, especially from all the helpful comments. Got my Sorlock build to Charisma 20 at only LvL 6. Thanks y'all.

Ever since the update yesterday, I keep commencing in to a fight when the hag goes through the fireplace and aggro-ing the redcaps from WAY out in the swamp.

She never engaged with me on low HP strangely, she just died with no dialog. A few fun facts about the fight: You can determine which illusion is real by which has Fae life, as her clones don't inherit it. The real Mayrina has 10 HP, the hag while transformed has 8. I never even thought about the wet debuff.

Thanks for the tips here. I would also like to add that that she seems to speak to the nearest party member when you're about to kill her, so make sure to have someone with the best charisma/intimidation close to increase the chance of winning the roll. I was unlucky on my first attempt and randomly had someone with -1 intimidation get in the cutscene, so I had no chance of winning the roll.

protection from good and evil will make the user resistant to the mask curse, and you can bypass the masked guardians. but it's one spell of your cleric or paladin less for each member of your team, the hag will summon the guardians if you haven't kill them so you need to silence her, and melt her in the bubble, this is recommended for higher levels in act 1

6:06 "There are potions there that give you debuffs - I don't even bother with them." - Well I know what I'm going to throw at the enemy in my next fight, thank you.

*EDIT: Found a solution to not getting hair below* Just hit the noxious clouds with a fire spell... you don't have to hit the flowers (especially as you have to use perception to be able to hit them first). When the flowers are gone just place a crate on the vent. I came here because Ethel is so damn bugged for me. I've spent the entire day to try get the hair but she never seem to want to fight and even with non-lethal attacks she just dies and there's never a dialogue. No dialogue option from the initial hut encounter seem to matter. ------------ Edit here: So, turns out you have to wait a full round with her at low HP before she'll try to bargain. If you were lvl 5 before this encounter like I was (and the party setup I guess), you'll have a tougher time *NOT* killing her than actually doing it. Remove melee weapons (do unarmed) or be very careful. I managed to leave her at 9 HP and pressed skip turn on all my characters, and *THEN* she went to bargain, on her second or third round. Also, she never set fire to the cage, although I just went to the Orb with Gale and lowered the cage regardless, so that was never a problem. Also you don't need a spell for that, just throw a water flask... (if it did get set on fire)

Few pointers I wasn’t aware of when she surrenders the closest of your party members will lead the dialogue with the hag which was annoying as it made the speech check with shadowheart impossible for me so had to reload and stand my Barb next to hear near death also when you get the hair on ps5 it doesn’t say which +1 item is which and the symbols are very small so make sure you chooses the correct one

For the door, I used Fire Bolt on it and the wavy magic effect appeared everywhere except where the path to go through was, so you can see where to enter

You don't need to wear the mask to pass the door. Just talk to it until it shows you an image of Auntie Ethel walking through it. Tell it that it is transparent and you could just walk through. Then, after its last image, just click on the darkness behind it and you will walk through.

You can also use the function on PC where if you place the cursor in the direction you want your character to walk and hold it you can just walk through the door without the mask….

cast protection from good and evil on every member, then put on the masks. walk trough the door, the npcs wont attack you. approach the gas SLOWLY they will vanish and you can walk down there. once you reach the boss room, take the masks off. IMPORTANT, the npcs from earlier will join the fight. knock them out non lethal if you want to be nice. the npcs LOVE to push your party into the abyss. my advice, use karlach or astarion to take the npcs down with high burst dmg. use magic missle against fake hags. familliars are super useful.

You can also attack the door and it will let you through. To kill the Hag I threw a grease bottle on her and she kept making noises the others wouldn't. One chromatic orb and a spike throw with Shadowheart later, she dead and the illusions disappear.

Fought her three different times and she never initiated dialogue while low on health, is this dependent on a previous dialogue choice?

Strangely there is no cage in my hag fight. She just appears and calls her minions, who attack us even though we are all wearing the masks with the protection spells. She will do her illusion spell, but never puts the girl in the cage.

I found that putting the camera "in" the door and through the other side, have your character jump towards the camera. You pass through the door. The other wooden door ONLY works with the mask.

I just walked through he door after talking to it without the mask. Aand I might have just pushed disguised "granny" into the chasm to make it easier for myself. But hey, its still one of the ways to defeat her. Also tossing water bottle at the cage works too.

funnily, Ethel was the easiest boss fight for me. In the first round I used Karlach and pushed Ethel into the Abyss

Failure follies ! So, im on my 4th retry on the auntie hag fight/rescue. 1) First time i overshot on damage and killed her (thrown water bottle, plus a maxed lightning bolt from my L5 Evoker/Lightning Specialist that hit the puddle and doubled to something like 70+ pts. 2) The next attempt I managed to score a "knocked out" status, with the hag prone with 1 HP. So i waited for her to wake up ... and waited, and waited, and even tried some minor healing (back up to 7hp) ... still nothing. I checked the tool tip on the knocked out status, which basically says they remain prone and immobile with 1 hp until a long rest, after which they disappear. No mention of revival. Apparently, the devs seem to think "knocked out" means the same as "morbidly irreversibly comatose". Gee, youd think the 'help' button we use to revive incapacitated followers would work on incapacitated npcs, but apparently not. 😖 3) 3rd time I plinked her HP down into the 1-9 range needed to trigger the nego dialog ... but blew the unexpectedly challenging roll needed to keep the girl alive AND get the magic hairs (difficulty: you need a modified 20 or better). 4) Same thing again, with the added snafu of having the wrong follower actively selected when some burning DOT dropped her below the 10hp mark ... the follower with the lowest CHA in the party (Lae'zel, with cha 8). The unbuffed -1 penalty guaranteed she'd fail the difficulty 20 check, even if she rolled a natural 20. D'oh. I exited the game. I'll try again in a bit, but this is getting old in a hurry.

You don't need to put on the masks. Zoom in as much as you can, move your camera INTO the door, press to move and your characters enters the door

Is it possible to throw water bottle on fire so it stops burning?

If you have a level 3 warlock (or even better 2x warlocks) they can each invoke imps which are super fast and can move around easily to strike the Ethel clones

A way to get your party through the gas is to have a rogue get to the bottom, sneak through the door and out through the mushroom circle, and then have your party teleport back through it to the bottom floor of the dungeon.

As a bard, i was able to persuade the tree door to let me through and I'll be able to break the curse by killing auntie ethel. The tree shows me a vision and how auntie ethel walks through

You can just walk through the door, you don’t have to acknowledge it. 😂

found out you can sneak then ethel dont show up and the door scene didnt trigger. And when one of your party has the ethel mask on it he didnt see you either and just now found out mask ignores gas and traps

Yep, as someone said, talk to the door (by clicking the shield next to it) paladin gets an easy way through, other classes can roll persuasion or intimidation to make it open.

you can just walk thru the first door without the mask *i think* if you win the conversation roll

You dont technically need the mask to go through. If you roll good enough while talking the door will show you, that you can just walk through.

If you're an Oath of Ancients Paladin you can pick a unique dialogue option that lets your party pass through the door without a mask

Just click past the door, it's an illusion!

The hag will always show "level 5". Mayrina will show "level 1"

if u want to know which one is marina, you can just click on the greyed out marina just after the hag casts her spell and then the camera will highlight the hag marina. Works also for her clones.

Those de buff potions are good for throwing at enemies

I got through the false door with perception I guess, I didn't need the mask.

Me and my two brothers knocked out Mayrina. When we long-rested afterwards, her body was gone.

Guys im so confused, when ethel said "last warning" i actually left, thinking i could easily do the saving mayrina quest later but when i came back to confront her, she will only argue with me but not let me chase her down the fireplace. what to do?

there is easiest way to find real hag vs Mayrina. when you right click examine on both, Hag will have the "Alert" feat while Mayrine have no feat at all.

She never stopped to talk to me. She just kept fighting to she died. Marina was still in the cage, it's that why?

What a terrible section of the game. Honestly dont know why they think it was good

+1 buff is lost when you're respeccing btw.

I accidentally had non-lethal damage turned on for this battle, not sure if that helped or not.

Reading all these clever ways to figure out which one is Ethel when I justed shoved one of them

You can persuade the door to show you how to get in. Which is you just walk through, like aunti ethel.

You don’t need to put out the cage fire. You can sneak a character around to the right and get right next to the control orb, or even touch it, before the fight starts.

Idk why but Mayrina was still pissed at me after the hags dialogue. Couldn’t talk to her

She never gives me a pre-death dialogue. She just dies.

I have literally done this seven times!! Did everything exactly as you did every time she just dies 😭 I can't get the cut scene

If you get her hp low enough and have her burning you can get her hair and she dies afterwards giving you xp (corpse vanished though) you also free some of her cursed victims.

Never got to her conversation point. Got her below 20hp and she still attacked me and then she died.

The area with the flowers and the vent is circumvented with featherfall.

Another tip on the mask part, put it on one person. Walk through and thr second u touch the door take it off. Everyone's allowed in and no one is possessed

You can just walk through the door with the face on it without the mask. just click on the other side of it.

You can actually intimidate the door and it'll reveal you can just walk through.

I just stealthed through the door solo with my rogue tried the dialogue but it didn't work, might be bugged on my end if there is supposed to be a dialogue with the door because i tried and got nothing. So I went past it with no mask and past the possessed mask guards too. Rest of party is watching to make sure Ethel doesn't teleport the girl out of the room. They are all stealthed out of her view in turn based mode. Auntie Ethel hasn't moved at all but she did transform. I think she will move and teleport that girl if I end turn in that room. So I'm exploring solo with my rogue to disarm all the traps and get to the end then go back

Did not use mask to get past wall I used wizard his perception we just walked through

you can just sneak out of the lair at the back side, take a rest, walk back in - position your party scattered through the "boss room" save - and start the fight.

You don't need a mask to get through the door. I shoot it with Fire Bolt and it goes fuzzy and I walk through. Easy life.

Yeah I am level 4 and I have no chance to bypass Auntie's minion in the masks in her first room. I have at least 1 dead character by turn 2 and usually 2 dead by turn 4, and I've used up most my spell slots. My attacks seem to do 2-4 damage IF I can hit, but I am pretty much immobile, terrified, on turn 1, so am a sitting duck and their attacks do like 12-18 damage - so 2 hits, 3 tops kills 1 of my characters. They seem to be able to cast spells and projectiles through the stone pillars, and I get a "blocked" message on about half my ranged weapon attempts. One of the enemy characters has a 20+ damage counter on any melee attack - so is pretty much an autokill vs any of my characters. I tried sneaking in, even with using a level 2 "Pass without trace" spell on my party, but it's impossible to get Astarion to launch a sneak attack before I am seen. At this rate, it feels like I need to be more like level 8 or 10 before trying this area.

I just convinced the wall to let me through and then I just walked through, plain and simple.

an alternative way of getting through the door is to hit it with fire and walk through it quickly

I didnt use the mask at the door i didn't even know about it til now. Cant remember but somehow through dialogue options it was revealed I could just walk through

If you get hag down below 5 hp you get both with one check. You'll know because a dialog will come up. hair and mayrina

my fight all bugged out. she wouldn't even move a finger, easy enough

Ok so im assuming i messed up some prompt cause she doesn't start begging when she's low on health for me.

I tried two time with whole group and only got to kill her, no begging for her life was offered. I tried a third time with one member separated from the group and did get the option.

she never gave me the option, took her down to 10 hp before i realized she wouldnt

I simply snuck into the house through the back and positioned my character accordingly and then began attacking ehtel in a surprised round, she drank a potion of invisibility but I used faerie fire to reveal where she was and the when the round finally began we killed her without even having ethel do any sort of attack action. She literally had no chance, but girl however was distraught at the events and blamed me for her misfortune and ruination of her plan to resurrect her husband, to which I did not care one bit. So watch this video really makes me happy I didn't have to go through all that haah but I shall explore the place. Thank you

spellcaster my behind, I just got my char shoved to the stratosphere with her 18 Strength

My party was fairly under leveled and I didn't have a 4th party member. What I did was use lumps horn and the ogres dealt with the main hag and i had my party take out her clones as they popped up. Only Issue is that one of the ogres killed the real Mayrina when the hag cloned herself as Mayrina.

The door can be just walked through if you move the camera in through the door an select a position in there. Had no idea about masks.

i just pushed the hag down the hole in start of the fight and was totally baffled :D

She had 1 health and did not start a cutscene for me, then a did a last hit and she just died.. How do i trigger the scene?

If you've been to the underdark previously, keep a susser bloom in your camps chest, before you meet auntie pop back to camp and stuff one in a pouch, if you know where auntie pops up throw a grease bottle then a susser bloom and wait for the slapstick to happen. To add insult to injury I had a Barbarian who has Chimpanzee aspect and barroom brawler blind and kill her by throwing various fruit and root vegetables, it was super effective, like a deadly vegan assassin.

I just killed her in the tea house before she could get a turn in, and I never got the stat increase. I wish I'd done the fight the proper way now.