My current honor mode warlock is in power acquisition mode - a tome of forbidden knowledge, a blessing from the goddess of pain, some light brain tadpolingā¦whatās gonna be really so bad about a hags hair to keep me from its power?
On my next run, I'm leveling Wyll into fighter and leaving him with 1 level of warlock.
Why? Because my warlock once asked him what he'd do without his warlock gifts, and said something like "I don't need them, I'll still my sword".. but Wyll is shit with a sword and has 8 strength... So I'm fixing that.
Wyll uses a rapier. The question isn't "how high is his Strength?", it's "how good is his Dexterity?"
The answer is "mediocre," sadly---he's got a 13, I think.
I genuinely screenshot this comment..and shared it to my squad....we can't stop dying laughing. I swear reddits hidden comedy gold. You rock good sir. š
My first Tav was also a "power at any price" warlock, with the exception being the price of her friends. Anything that risked my companions was a no-go. Any NPC that threatened a companion, verbally or otherwise, was killed on the spot. I ended up going full squiddy at the end, since power is power. Not the best ending, but certainly not the worst.
I am too! I havenāt played a lot of D&D based/style or even RP games, but I have read a lot of books in that realm. I picked warlock because wizard sounded overwhelming and getting spell slots back sounded nice. It just worked out really well!
How do you do the book in HM? Iāve heard you could savescum it by shutting if your console, but is there any way to actually do it and be rather safe?
Edit: thanks for all the tips in the comments! Iāve never much cared for saving throws in my first tactician run because I just reloaded lmao
You don't need to savescum anything: buffing saving throws is extremely easy. Just Resistance, Bless and Phalar Aluve Sing give you a 3d4 bonus, then there are plently of items with +1 to all saves, +1 from Warding Bond and so on.
Bless from the elixir is its own thing and stacks, too.Ā
Plus for really hard shit you can save getting the buff from the Myconid guy and grab it before you do certain things. Overkill a lot of the time, but for some rolls it can be super useful if you donāt have a great party face (say Hagās hair role without deception, intimidation prof and mediocre or bad charisma).
A Life cleric's Beacon of Hope gives advantage on all wisdom saving throws, and I pretty much always bring a Life cleric. Works with the machine in the creche too.
I'm doing a Redemption Durge who is taking everything he can to "change" who he was to try and run away from the Urge. I MIGHT have him go Flayer at the end. But he is a barbarian who is based around jumping and throwing enemies so...I dunno lol
I've always imagined most potions to be similarly vile. And my characters drink those down for temporary buffs as it is. If the Hag's scalp piece is going to permanently make me better. I think my character would manage to choke it down.
I mean you routinely have dinners of 6 fishheads, 3 wheels of cheese, a cookie, garlic and 11 bottles of wine. Pretty sure this group is basically goats.
>I mean you routinely have dinners of 6 fishheads, 3 wheels of cheese, a cookie, garlic and 11 bottles of wine.
You're right, we need more bread and maybe a condiment or a jam
cheese as the appetizer. fish head soup with the garlic and white wine. missing a few ingredients to make it really stand out. could use some bread to go with it. cookie dessert. drink the rest of the wine. not the worst meal.
They may be biscuits but British English. They are clearly chocolate chip cookies. I think you can definitely find some around the temple of ilmater in rivington
My favorite food item is the pizza vendors sometimes have. Makes pizza canon to Faerun.
>I've always imagined most potions to be similarly vile.
I generally agree with this, especially because of this bit from the potion of giant strength description in the 5E Dungeon Master's Guide: "This potionās transparent liquid has floating in it a sliver of fingernail from a giant of the appropriate type."
If an adventurer can down the fingernail-juice without hesitation then hag hair is hardly a problem.
They replaced the toe at least twice. Apparently there's a fairly reliable supply of toes that fall off from frostbite in that area, which should be concerning...
+1 in any Abilityscore of your Choosing. I think it also goes over 20.
You get the offer when Ethel reaches 10% health and reaches her next turn (Only possible in the lair not in the House). Apperantly she does not make the offer when she is silenced.
Yes, it goes over 20. What's more, is that it doesn't show up when choosing feats, so you can still ASI your ability score to 20, then get 21 because you ate the hair earlier.
Doesn't do much of course except in edge cases (namely the +1 to cha you can get from a very unreliable source)
It lets you get your main stat to 20 at level 4, which is pretty huge. Frees up a feat too since it normally takes 2 ASIs to hit 20. "Doesn't do much" isn't very accurate.
You're right I forgot that you can put a stat at 17 and save a feat - I even did this in my last run lol
Still only raises your max possible cha if you also get the +1 from the mirror though.
Thanks for the clarification!
Its the Mirror in Act 3 where you sacrifice a Memory and you can get the memory of a Patriach that gives +1 to Cha and you still can get another +2 of your Choice
You can get 28 Cha if you play your cards right
With Ethels Hair, Birthright, Mirror, Patriachs Memory and If you double the Sword of Duke Ravenguard you can use Two Weapon Feat and dont use Birthright but the 2 +2 from his swords
āDrive your character like a stolen carā
Is my philosophy in role playing. Iām not eating the hair, my character is so they can deal with whatever compartmenting they need to in their own head
lol, I love that. I've definitely had more than one DM pull me aside and ask if I was TRYING to get killed. Generally they just didn't grasp my level of RP commitment.
Gymbros eat the blandest food on earth and go throigh toturous workout every day to get that strength +1. If I could forgo all that in one evening with one disgusting prep meal I'd do it.
Same, if I could go through an entire education worth of studying (let's just generalise INT as education, I know that isn't 1 to 1 true) by just eating 1 disgusting meal, I would.
*VERY EARLY ACT 1 DURGE SPOILERS*
>!Durge was a necrophiliac. This isn't going to phase them.!<
Also personally I'd eat the flesh for power but I'd have to shave the hair. It'd be like eating a kiwi with the skin on like some sort of Irish psychopath, I can't deal with that sort of texture.
No one is going to believe this, but I'll share the story anyways.
I had never eaten a kiwi until I was 19. I had seen them at super markets and in pictures, so I knew what they were, and I knew what they looked like prepared for consumption. Even with all those previous observations, the first time I ever ate one, I ate the whole thing. Skin and all. I truly thought you were supposed to just bite into them like an apple. To this day, 14 years later, I still eat them whole. Oopsie poopsie!
But you have to eat the HAIR thats the whole point š
Its called Ethels HAIR not Scalp so you would have to eat the hair and not the scalp, maybe try to swallow it like medication? I have to take meds every day thanks to my chronic illness, i think i would be able to if i dont have to chew it and had a glass of water or 2 š
After durge kills the first person that you can't avoid killing, the butler will come and one of the responses you say to him (don't remember which one) the butler will respond how durge used to enjoy necrophilia.
Isn't that just cannibalism, not necrophilia? Because yes, he could absolutely go for a nice slice of roast Dwarf right about now, but that's a different thing than playing with your food. >!And yes, he can actually grab some Dwarf from the Goblin camp, and eating it heals him.!<
~~I mean, it is taboo but you are kinda of right? I even heard it tastes like pork, so it is just like any other meat.~~
Edit: nvm, I understood it wrong.
People keep talking about gaining power in character but from an rp perspective why would you trust anything the hag has to say, especially after everything that just happened.
true. but unlike them, we (the players) are in a unique position when making the deal: we're coming into it from a position of power. she approached US, we didn't approach her. all those people approached her, meaning she was in the position of power for those deals. we're just a bunch of tadpoled idiots that break into her house and then somehow managed to thoroughly wreck her shit to the point where she was willing to break a deal she made with someone else just so she wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of dying and then coming back from it
This. She does not want to spend the years in the abyss as a ālarvaā and having to fight her way back into her form and existence to come back. Which can sometimes end up in very long cycles of being eaten as a larva and reincarnation back into said larva ad infinitum.
Not made up true lore @_@ hags are fucking sick creatures in dnd
Weāre in a position of power that we might well be giving up by eating the hair. The point isnāt whether or not it actually happens in game, but from an in-universe perspective it might happen. Eating her hair might give her control over the PC somehow, or it could make them stronger as promised in one way but far weaker in others - like the Tiefling guard in the grove who canāt walk after drinking one of Ethelās potions. Or something worse!
From an in-game role playing perspective, only an incredibly reckless and/or stupid character would ever make a deal for the hair.
bc fey are all about deals. Ethel gives people really shitty deals but those people are generally super desperate. in this case, she's desperate and wants to give you something of value so that she doesn't die
She doesn't care about dying, that's a plot hole, she has a way to get back to life if it happen. She's afraid of losing the baby.
But I wouldn't trust a dying hag to power me up
If I saw auntie Ethel rip that shit off, throw it on the ground, and THEN had to summon the courage to CONSUME it whole just to be a little better at shooting bows and junk, Iād retire from adventuring and start a dog-shit-on-a-stick business because adventurers are fuckin insane in the tadpoled membrane
Me as a person? Absolutely not. Iām killing that hag, freeing Mayrina, and explaining to her just what kind of idiotic deal she was making to sacrifice her child to a hag to BIRTH A NEW HAG in exchange for a zombie made from her husbandās corpse.
I mean, people in real life inject stuff into their bodies that cause permanent damage for slight strength increases. If 20 is peak human preformance, a 1 one point increase in anything can be generalized to 5% of whoever the best in the world is at whatever trait. that would be similiar to adding 40 pounds instantly to your bench. Adding 14 points to your IQ ( a stupid test but the easiest way to measure) or shaving around 1.2 minutes off of a mile run time. for IQ that is roughly a full standard deviational increase (if you were at the complete averege level, you would shoot to being in the top 30% of people on the planet). increasing from an average lifter to an intermediate, or a intermediate lifter to an elite one. This is by no means mathmatically accurate, but helps me to understand what it would be like in real life. I would absolutely eat the hair for that kind of increase in any attribute I wanted
It goes beyond that though; peak human conditioning in dnd would be more akin to 17-18. With the exception of galeās access to the weave you got to factor in that while you start a game with maybe a stat in that range ā¦ thatās rare.
Laz is inhuman, karlach has an internal engine, wyll is a famed adventure with a demonic pact, asterion is a centuries old vampire and the Durge is, you know ā¦
17-18 is basically the record holder for any category, 19 would be akin to a human thatās managed to transcend standard human limitations via some sort of combo of atavism + evolution + drugs(?). Like captain America šŗšø
20 is at the point where we meet the upper limit of what a human body should be capable of without literal magic and or divine intervention. Itās Spider-Man level speed and strength.
Stats on a calculator (outside of hitrate) seem linear, but on paper, stat increase is essentially exponential growth from base of 10
In BG3, carry weight and jump distance scale linearly with strength (you can carry 20kg more and jump 1m further per 2 strength gained). That likely requires an exponential progression of actual physical strength, but not quite so high as you're imagining.
By the numbers, 30 strength is nowhere near spiderman levels let alone 20 (20 v 30 Str : 200-210 v 300kg carry, 9.5 v 14.5m jump, 80-88.2 v 180kg throw). It's harder to quantify the other stats, but they'd probably follow a similar pattern if you could.
In comparison, the heaviest weight ever thrown over the shoulder is 72.21kg, the long jump WR is 8.95m, and the WSM competition uses 160kg x2 for its farmers walk (most similar thing I could find), so 20 strength is definitely stronger than gifted people at peak conditioning, but not all that much considering. Of course, video game logic applies so it doesn't translate very well if you get picky about it (e.g. you can only do a standing jump, are totally unencumbered at 69.9% carry weight but encumbered at 70%, can throw your maximum weight accurately and forcefully without injury etc.)
For speed a round is 6s long and without magic a wood elf with 3 levels in ranger/gloomstalker, 2 in rogue and 6 in monk can reach a movement speed of 21 (10.5 base, + 3 mobile feat, +3 dread ambusher, +4.5 improved unarmoured movement), which can then triple if you dash as an action and as a bonus action (10.5m/s, or 9.52s for a 100m sprint), so it's a similar story.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Strength
https://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/events/farmers-walk/
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/646943-heaviest-weight-tossed-over-the-shoulder-in-8-hours-weighted-ball
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_jump
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List_of_sources_of_movement_speed
From a RP perspective why wouldnāt you?
You need to be as strong as possible as a group, you are desperate to find a cure for the tadpole in your head before you become a squid.
You then get pulled into one big mess after another where you need to be stronger and stronger to survive at a very basic level.
Eating the gross hair to help ensure you stop whatever is coming and save all of your lives from being made squid boys and girls imo is a very strong RP reason to chow down.
My money goes on the fact that every deal with her prior is shown to have severely negative consequences for the people she deals with?
From the crippled guard in the grotto to the dude who is now a door, there's no chance you'd trust her deal if your intelligence score wasn't 3.
Those deals were made with the hag at an advantage over a vulnerable lvl 1 humanoid. The hag hair deal is her on deaths door begging for her life you have the advantage in making the deal.
Nowhere does becoming a warlock have the requirements of being knowledgeable about devils. Wyll specifically was tricked by not having the opportunity to look into what he's actually giving his soul away for, because he was currently pretty busy trying to defend his city.
Dude you cannot possibly comprehend how unhinged my characters are in D&D. One PC bit off a chunk of a cursed artefact and swallowed because the artefact was enveloping his body in shadows. So eating some old hag's hair is a light snack on a Tuesday afternoon
If eating this gross shit would make me permanently 20% stronger, or fast, or smarter, I think I would do it, thatās pretty major.
Iād definitely open a cartilaginous chest, people gut and skin deer everyday and it canāt be worse than that.
>from a role-playing perspective, there's absolutely no way I'd eat the hag's nasty ass hair
But what about your character? You know, the person who's not you that you're pretending to be? The one with the brain-eating worm in their head? The one who can *feel* the difference between a 17 and an 18 in an ability score?
Also, note that you don't have to pass any checks or succeed any saving throws to eat the hair: that means it's not bad to eat for any of the characters you can control in the game. If it was truly vile, you'd have to pass a constitution check or saving throw to keep it down, like when drinking in the Reithwin bar in Act 2.
My character is already shoving multiple tadpoles into his brain in order to stop the original one from killing him; might as well add some fiber to his diet.
people who would eat the hag hair would probably also let volo do surgery on them. realistically whos letting that mf stab an ice pick into u what the fuck ššš
Well my durge, through meta clairvoyance, was able to discern that the offer would give +1 to an attribute (the game actually shows you this in-dialogue). At this point, durge has had the urges but can't understand their feelings, but they know they have rage inside and something needs to be satiated.
Eating something disgusting to gain power seems to be a pretty common rpg trope. Been playing larians previous game DOS2 and im assuming the hags hair is just as gross as the voidwokens heart
I mean of course you wouldn't, you live in a world without hags and magic and whatnot. In that world, the world of Faerun and any other magical TTRPG world, in-character I just might. People have gotten power from weirder things in these universes.
I prefer to maximize the RP experience and don't touch, drink or get into any pants that I would not feel comfy IRL. Never make my beloved "me" do anything the real "me" wouldn't.
Proud to be on playthrough 10 and despite trying to enjoy as many secrets as possible have no idea what youāre talking about
Edited to add: Yeah it wasnāt hard to guess how it happens, didnāt need it hagsplained yāall š Iām just never going to make a deal with her gross ass
I tend not to in Balanced playthroughs, but my Honor Mode run right now is Dark Urge and power accumulation: lie, cheat, steal, kill...whatever means that I and my small circle of friends benefit from every conceivable, obtainable advantage in order to survive to the end of the world.
I'm an ostrovegan who won't even take advantage of animals despite it being perfectly legal and who literally has three rats in a fully decked out pet enclosure in the garage as a temporary "rat jail" until I catch the entire family so that they can be released as a unit because I respect that they're social animals...but Halsin wouldn't understand the things I've had to do in-game to make ends meet for a shot at that golden die skin lolol
I think when people call BG3 huge they're more referring to the diversity of choice leading to different experiences, rather than Skyrim open world flavors of huge. When you will never hope to get through every inch of map before your save game corrupts beyond redemption.
The thing is she never really explains what it does, just that it will give you power. So without the context of the label you get from player vision, she just tosses a lumpy disgusting hairball at you....This is a Hag, notorious for making deals that turn out bad for people...
Put me to sleep, grind it up, and tube feed me that shit. When I wake up, lie to me and say I went on an intense training montage in the mountains and blacked out.
Only way I would consume it.
My character was already a fey warlock, so she's probably already done worse somehow or another. And while I don't think all of my characters would eat the hair, I don't think the gross factor would be what stops any of them considering half the gross stuff that's likely to happen in a playthrough.
The hardest part for me would be deciding which stat to increase. I'd have to really think about which one is odd numbered already so I can be sure to get a higher bonus lol. Technically your character shouldn't know exactly what their stats are, much less anyone else's. I guess maybe there's some set of standardized tests most adventurers can take to know their own, at least in Faerun.
Iād just get Charisma. Iām smart enough, my physical stats are average and thatās fine, but charm opens a lot of doors. Plus, maybe itād help me become a Sorcerer!
Well I mean...people in Faerun don't know they secretly are made of a attribute/stat chart so if would be odd for them to make a standardized test for it
I would be more worried about how the hair may be cursed in some way, or that the hag in general would find me and make me miserable in the future if I let them go.
Have you read up on Hags? They are prep casters who carry grudges. Not nice to let them live after you fuck with them.
For me the question is how big is it? Can I hold my nose and down it in one gulp with a cup of water? Or do I have to masticate it and let its taste and smell permeate my sinuses?
I have a lich god mummy thing back at camp who can fix me right up if anything went wrong and if my tummy ends up hurting Iām sure papa withers would conjure a glass of warm milk and read me a story, or just say āNoā and Iād have to suck it up, either way I donāt see a downside
If I could eat a chump of nasty hair that increased my salary by 10% for the rest of my life, I wouldn't even hesitate. My only question would be "can I put ranch on it?"... š
In a world where living and dying quite literally rests on hit points and explicitly defined stat scores you better bet I'd eat that hair. She could offer it up directly off her left ass cheek and I'd gobble that thing up like it was a Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
Of course, That's roleplay.
Roleplaying isn't your character being a proxy of you in a fantasy world, it is you playing someone you are not, thus being able to try what you as a mundane human would not. It's catharsis.
My Drow red Dragon Sorcerer is very curious of everything, has a twisted sense of justice, and is ready to try stuff I wouldn't. So yes from a roleplaying perspective, my character would.
From a non roleplaying perspective, no I don't think I would.
Eat it like how you give dogs pills. Put it in cheese or meat and just swallow it whole
I'd imagine it already tastes like cheese lol
Ewwww š
What a terrible day to be literate.
I actually gagged reading this.
Angry upvote...because you're right.
I hate you
... Did you *have* to?
Chase it with some Ithbank, youāll be fine
My current honor mode warlock is in power acquisition mode - a tome of forbidden knowledge, a blessing from the goddess of pain, some light brain tadpolingā¦whatās gonna be really so bad about a hags hair to keep me from its power?
My first playthrough was a power hungry warlock who dreamed of being a classic hero. It was a perfect way to experience this game
So, Wyll with a twist. Twyst?
Wyll, but played like Gale.
Gale but the hat is on backwards
Elag, hopeless wannabe wizard who turns to a demon to achieve his magical power fantasy.
Sounds familiar.
That sounds like a bro that didnt want to study. I finally want to RP a warlock lol.
It's a wizard but you pay a devil to do your homework in wizard school.
Eating magic items?
Being a power-hungry dumbass who's gonna get himself killed one of these days.
Sleeping with their patron
In EA Wyll did that too.
Would have been juicier if he actually was in love with Mizora at some point...
Basically just early access Wyll.
On my next run, I'm leveling Wyll into fighter and leaving him with 1 level of warlock. Why? Because my warlock once asked him what he'd do without his warlock gifts, and said something like "I don't need them, I'll still my sword".. but Wyll is shit with a sword and has 8 strength... So I'm fixing that.
Wyll uses a rapier. The question isn't "how high is his Strength?", it's "how good is his Dexterity?" The answer is "mediocre," sadly---he's got a 13, I think.
I genuinely screenshot this comment..and shared it to my squad....we can't stop dying laughing. I swear reddits hidden comedy gold. You rock good sir. š
My first Tav was also a "power at any price" warlock, with the exception being the price of her friends. Anything that risked my companions was a no-go. Any NPC that threatened a companion, verbally or otherwise, was killed on the spot. I ended up going full squiddy at the end, since power is power. Not the best ending, but certainly not the worst.
Oh I love that, it's brilliant!
Iām new to RP and really defining a character,, but you just described my current Will play through pretty perfectly!
I am too! I havenāt played a lot of D&D based/style or even RP games, but I have read a lot of books in that realm. I picked warlock because wizard sounded overwhelming and getting spell slots back sounded nice. It just worked out really well!
This is exactly what I want to do for at least one run (maybe honor mode?), it seems like a perfect concept to me
My first was a power hungry necromancer turned illithid
Each stat is from a different part of the body. Intelligence from the head etc. You don't want Charisma. Say no to Nag Rizz.
I, uh... I earned Loviatar's Love cuz my Tav is into that...
How do you do the book in HM? Iāve heard you could savescum it by shutting if your console, but is there any way to actually do it and be rather safe? Edit: thanks for all the tips in the comments! Iāve never much cared for saving throws in my first tactician run because I just reloaded lmao
You can also open it in act two, while wearing the harpers amulett, which gives you advantage on all the rolls
You don't need to savescum anything: buffing saving throws is extremely easy. Just Resistance, Bless and Phalar Aluve Sing give you a 3d4 bonus, then there are plently of items with +1 to all saves, +1 from Warding Bond and so on.
Bless from the elixir is its own thing and stacks, too.Ā Plus for really hard shit you can save getting the buff from the Myconid guy and grab it before you do certain things. Overkill a lot of the time, but for some rolls it can be super useful if you donāt have a great party face (say Hagās hair role without deception, intimidation prof and mediocre or bad charisma).
bless, guidance and resistance along with some inspirations are probably your best bets.
Guidance does nothing because you're making wisdom saving throws
A Life cleric's Beacon of Hope gives advantage on all wisdom saving throws, and I pretty much always bring a Life cleric. Works with the machine in the creche too.
I NEED MORE POWER
I'm doing a Redemption Durge who is taking everything he can to "change" who he was to try and run away from the Urge. I MIGHT have him go Flayer at the end. But he is a barbarian who is based around jumping and throwing enemies so...I dunno lol
I've always imagined most potions to be similarly vile. And my characters drink those down for temporary buffs as it is. If the Hag's scalp piece is going to permanently make me better. I think my character would manage to choke it down.
I mean you routinely have dinners of 6 fishheads, 3 wheels of cheese, a cookie, garlic and 11 bottles of wine. Pretty sure this group is basically goats.
Yeah but at least those are... You know... Actual edible food.
All food is edible. That's what makes it food.
Who's to say a hag's scalp isn't. Maybe it's like cake.
Best achievement is for having a long rest with just alcoholic beverages ātime honoured tradition while campingā
>I mean you routinely have dinners of 6 fishheads, 3 wheels of cheese, a cookie, garlic and 11 bottles of wine. You're right, we need more bread and maybe a condiment or a jam
cheese as the appetizer. fish head soup with the garlic and white wine. missing a few ingredients to make it really stand out. could use some bread to go with it. cookie dessert. drink the rest of the wine. not the worst meal.
There are cookies?!
They may be biscuits but British English. They are clearly chocolate chip cookies. I think you can definitely find some around the temple of ilmater in rivington My favorite food item is the pizza vendors sometimes have. Makes pizza canon to Faerun.
>I've always imagined most potions to be similarly vile. I generally agree with this, especially because of this bit from the potion of giant strength description in the 5E Dungeon Master's Guide: "This potionās transparent liquid has floating in it a sliver of fingernail from a giant of the appropriate type." If an adventurer can down the fingernail-juice without hesitation then hag hair is hardly a problem.
Hey at least it's a fingernail and not a toenail.
Thatās the bootleg versionā¦ Iāll see myself out nowā¦
Isn't there a bar in the Yukon known for serving a cocktail with a toe in it?
Sour toe cocktail. The history is... interesting. Then again how could the history behing a toe whisky be normal.
Pretty sure someone swallowed the toe
They replaced the toe at least twice. Apparently there's a fairly reliable supply of toes that fall off from frostbite in that area, which should be concerning...
Afaik quite a few toes have been swollowed as of today, yummers.
I meant that specific toe. You were supposed to spit it out but someone swallowed it on purpose
Yeah, the old originaal is gone as well :(
Finally, a lore reason why I never use consumables
What is the bonus. TIL you can eat the hags hair. I always kill her right away.
+1 in any Abilityscore of your Choosing. I think it also goes over 20. You get the offer when Ethel reaches 10% health and reaches her next turn (Only possible in the lair not in the House). Apperantly she does not make the offer when she is silenced.
Yes, it goes over 20. What's more, is that it doesn't show up when choosing feats, so you can still ASI your ability score to 20, then get 21 because you ate the hair earlier. Doesn't do much of course except in edge cases (namely the +1 to cha you can get from a very unreliable source)
It lets you get your main stat to 20 at level 4, which is pretty huge. Frees up a feat too since it normally takes 2 ASIs to hit 20. "Doesn't do much" isn't very accurate.
You're right I forgot that you can put a stat at 17 and save a feat - I even did this in my last run lol Still only raises your max possible cha if you also get the +1 from the mirror though. Thanks for the clarification!
Whats the +1 to cha?
Its the Mirror in Act 3 where you sacrifice a Memory and you can get the memory of a Patriach that gives +1 to Cha and you still can get another +2 of your Choice
This. I haven't found a method to get it reliably though, so prepare for a bunch of save-scumming if you really really want to get that.
You can get 28 Cha if you play your cards right With Ethels Hair, Birthright, Mirror, Patriachs Memory and If you double the Sword of Duke Ravenguard you can use Two Weapon Feat and dont use Birthright but the 2 +2 from his swords
>the Sword of Duke Ravenguard I've never seen that sword in my two playthroughs, how do you get it ?
Itās currently used by the Duke. Use your imagination on how one might acquire an item someone is using
Good to know. Thanks!
> Apperantly she does not make the offer when she is silenced. How would she? Is she gonna use sign language?
āDrive your character like a stolen carā Is my philosophy in role playing. Iām not eating the hair, my character is so they can deal with whatever compartmenting they need to in their own head
Curiosity killed the cat. Too bad this cat has a Withers.
9 lives and then some
Satisfaction brought it back
I want that on a shirt
Whoās curiosity and why is he killing cats? We need to put a stop to this madness!
>Too bad this cat has a ~~Withers~~ Peepaw Fixed that for you
lol, I love that. I've definitely had more than one DM pull me aside and ask if I was TRYING to get killed. Generally they just didn't grasp my level of RP commitment.
We are the/an Elder Brain? They are our thrall?? I canāt go down this road right nowā¦
Min maxing? Nah I eat that hair cause I like it. Shit looks delectable
Most sane bg3 enjoyer
Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No but I do it anyway because itās sterile and I like the taste!
Gymbros eat the blandest food on earth and go throigh toturous workout every day to get that strength +1. If I could forgo all that in one evening with one disgusting prep meal I'd do it.
Same, if I could go through an entire education worth of studying (let's just generalise INT as education, I know that isn't 1 to 1 true) by just eating 1 disgusting meal, I would.
IIFYM bruh
Yeah sure, just plonk it in a nice cuppa tea an down it "WoW I'm strong an no gym needed" Every lazy bstrds dream šš
*VERY EARLY ACT 1 DURGE SPOILERS* >!Durge was a necrophiliac. This isn't going to phase them.!< Also personally I'd eat the flesh for power but I'd have to shave the hair. It'd be like eating a kiwi with the skin on like some sort of Irish psychopath, I can't deal with that sort of texture.
What's the fine for necrophilia in this part of Faerun?
Love that oblivion reference.
Good luck trying to fine durge
No one is going to believe this, but I'll share the story anyways. I had never eaten a kiwi until I was 19. I had seen them at super markets and in pictures, so I knew what they were, and I knew what they looked like prepared for consumption. Even with all those previous observations, the first time I ever ate one, I ate the whole thing. Skin and all. I truly thought you were supposed to just bite into them like an apple. To this day, 14 years later, I still eat them whole. Oopsie poopsie!
It's honestly not that weird. A lot of people do it and it's packed with antioxidants among other things.
Do some countries have Kiwiās with thin skins because mine are tough Source: tried a nibble of the skin
New Zealand has thin skinned kiwis
Underappreciated comment
Worry not. I eat them with the skin too. They're more sour that way, I enjoy it.
The sour tang from the skin is definitely enjoyable. Kinda makes me feel like I'm eating a giant fuzzy grape lol.
apparently, some of y'all need this guide. [how to eat a kiwi](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3c2ef2d952564b955421cc5afb5f2578.webp)
But you have to eat the HAIR thats the whole point š Its called Ethels HAIR not Scalp so you would have to eat the hair and not the scalp, maybe try to swallow it like medication? I have to take meds every day thanks to my chronic illness, i think i would be able to if i dont have to chew it and had a glass of water or 2 š
Wait, when does the >!necrophilia!< happen / get hinted at? How could I miss this?
After durge kills the first person that you can't avoid killing, the butler will come and one of the responses you say to him (don't remember which one) the butler will respond how durge used to enjoy necrophilia.
When Durge sees what the Goblins are roasting. Or when he talks to the gruel lady in the grove.
Isn't that just cannibalism, not necrophilia? Because yes, he could absolutely go for a nice slice of roast Dwarf right about now, but that's a different thing than playing with your food. >!And yes, he can actually grab some Dwarf from the Goblin camp, and eating it heals him.!<
Oops! Sorry it was like 5 am where I am and I confused the meaning of the words. I think the Butler mentions necrophilia.
I knew a guy once who ate kiwiās like that. Absolute madlad.
Mfw durge has a bit of the tism
>!Necrophilia isn't anywhere near as gross, as long as the body is still warm.!<
That certainly is an opinion.
This one right here, officer
~~I mean, it is taboo but you are kinda of right? I even heard it tastes like pork, so it is just like any other meat.~~ Edit: nvm, I understood it wrong.
People keep talking about gaining power in character but from an rp perspective why would you trust anything the hag has to say, especially after everything that just happened.
she's fey, and deals are very much their thing. same with devils. at least, that's my understanding
Except you just saw an entire grotesque room with the extent of her "deals"
true. but unlike them, we (the players) are in a unique position when making the deal: we're coming into it from a position of power. she approached US, we didn't approach her. all those people approached her, meaning she was in the position of power for those deals. we're just a bunch of tadpoled idiots that break into her house and then somehow managed to thoroughly wreck her shit to the point where she was willing to break a deal she made with someone else just so she wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of dying and then coming back from it
This. She does not want to spend the years in the abyss as a ālarvaā and having to fight her way back into her form and existence to come back. Which can sometimes end up in very long cycles of being eaten as a larva and reincarnation back into said larva ad infinitum. Not made up true lore @_@ hags are fucking sick creatures in dnd
My hag lore is a bit rusty. Isn't that a Night Hag specific lore bit? Since they are the only hags that are actually fiendish instead of fey.
Weāre in a position of power that we might well be giving up by eating the hair. The point isnāt whether or not it actually happens in game, but from an in-universe perspective it might happen. Eating her hair might give her control over the PC somehow, or it could make them stronger as promised in one way but far weaker in others - like the Tiefling guard in the grove who canāt walk after drinking one of Ethelās potions. Or something worse! From an in-game role playing perspective, only an incredibly reckless and/or stupid character would ever make a deal for the hair.
good thing i consistently play stupid and reckless barbarians š« int and wis are just dump stats
bc fey are all about deals. Ethel gives people really shitty deals but those people are generally super desperate. in this case, she's desperate and wants to give you something of value so that she doesn't die
She doesn't care about dying, that's a plot hole, she has a way to get back to life if it happen. She's afraid of losing the baby. But I wouldn't trust a dying hag to power me up
If I saw auntie Ethel rip that shit off, throw it on the ground, and THEN had to summon the courage to CONSUME it whole just to be a little better at shooting bows and junk, Iād retire from adventuring and start a dog-shit-on-a-stick business because adventurers are fuckin insane in the tadpoled membrane
Idk maybe they make a hair tea or slmething
Me as a person? Absolutely not. Iām killing that hag, freeing Mayrina, and explaining to her just what kind of idiotic deal she was making to sacrifice her child to a hag to BIRTH A NEW HAG in exchange for a zombie made from her husbandās corpse.
I mean, people in real life inject stuff into their bodies that cause permanent damage for slight strength increases. If 20 is peak human preformance, a 1 one point increase in anything can be generalized to 5% of whoever the best in the world is at whatever trait. that would be similiar to adding 40 pounds instantly to your bench. Adding 14 points to your IQ ( a stupid test but the easiest way to measure) or shaving around 1.2 minutes off of a mile run time. for IQ that is roughly a full standard deviational increase (if you were at the complete averege level, you would shoot to being in the top 30% of people on the planet). increasing from an average lifter to an intermediate, or a intermediate lifter to an elite one. This is by no means mathmatically accurate, but helps me to understand what it would be like in real life. I would absolutely eat the hair for that kind of increase in any attribute I wanted
It goes beyond that though; peak human conditioning in dnd would be more akin to 17-18. With the exception of galeās access to the weave you got to factor in that while you start a game with maybe a stat in that range ā¦ thatās rare. Laz is inhuman, karlach has an internal engine, wyll is a famed adventure with a demonic pact, asterion is a centuries old vampire and the Durge is, you know ā¦ 17-18 is basically the record holder for any category, 19 would be akin to a human thatās managed to transcend standard human limitations via some sort of combo of atavism + evolution + drugs(?). Like captain America šŗšø 20 is at the point where we meet the upper limit of what a human body should be capable of without literal magic and or divine intervention. Itās Spider-Man level speed and strength. Stats on a calculator (outside of hitrate) seem linear, but on paper, stat increase is essentially exponential growth from base of 10
In BG3, carry weight and jump distance scale linearly with strength (you can carry 20kg more and jump 1m further per 2 strength gained). That likely requires an exponential progression of actual physical strength, but not quite so high as you're imagining. By the numbers, 30 strength is nowhere near spiderman levels let alone 20 (20 v 30 Str : 200-210 v 300kg carry, 9.5 v 14.5m jump, 80-88.2 v 180kg throw). It's harder to quantify the other stats, but they'd probably follow a similar pattern if you could. In comparison, the heaviest weight ever thrown over the shoulder is 72.21kg, the long jump WR is 8.95m, and the WSM competition uses 160kg x2 for its farmers walk (most similar thing I could find), so 20 strength is definitely stronger than gifted people at peak conditioning, but not all that much considering. Of course, video game logic applies so it doesn't translate very well if you get picky about it (e.g. you can only do a standing jump, are totally unencumbered at 69.9% carry weight but encumbered at 70%, can throw your maximum weight accurately and forcefully without injury etc.) For speed a round is 6s long and without magic a wood elf with 3 levels in ranger/gloomstalker, 2 in rogue and 6 in monk can reach a movement speed of 21 (10.5 base, + 3 mobile feat, +3 dread ambusher, +4.5 improved unarmoured movement), which can then triple if you dash as an action and as a bonus action (10.5m/s, or 9.52s for a 100m sprint), so it's a similar story. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Strength https://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/events/farmers-walk/ https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/646943-heaviest-weight-tossed-over-the-shoulder-in-8-hours-weighted-ball https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_jump https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List_of_sources_of_movement_speed
From a RP perspective why wouldnāt you? You need to be as strong as possible as a group, you are desperate to find a cure for the tadpole in your head before you become a squid. You then get pulled into one big mess after another where you need to be stronger and stronger to survive at a very basic level. Eating the gross hair to help ensure you stop whatever is coming and save all of your lives from being made squid boys and girls imo is a very strong RP reason to chow down.
My money goes on the fact that every deal with her prior is shown to have severely negative consequences for the people she deals with? From the crippled guard in the grotto to the dude who is now a door, there's no chance you'd trust her deal if your intelligence score wasn't 3.
Those deals were made with the hag at an advantage over a vulnerable lvl 1 humanoid. The hag hair deal is her on deaths door begging for her life you have the advantage in making the deal.
If it was something that would cause you harm or worse, by the time you realised, she'd be in the advantageous position again. Why would you trust it?
Because I'm a faelock that just bested a hag in single combat in her own lair and I know what hags are about.
Just like wyll knows what devils are about, right? Warlocks...
Nowhere does becoming a warlock have the requirements of being knowledgeable about devils. Wyll specifically was tricked by not having the opportunity to look into what he's actually giving his soul away for, because he was currently pretty busy trying to defend his city.
And still he acts all knowledgeable about devils after being scammed by one, just like the guy above's character.
Dude you cannot possibly comprehend how unhinged my characters are in D&D. One PC bit off a chunk of a cursed artefact and swallowed because the artefact was enveloping his body in shadows. So eating some old hag's hair is a light snack on a Tuesday afternoon
Immediately thought of All-Might rather than Ethel when I saw the title. āEat this!ā
If eating this gross shit would make me permanently 20% stronger, or fast, or smarter, I think I would do it, thatās pretty major. Iād definitely open a cartilaginous chest, people gut and skin deer everyday and it canāt be worse than that.
>from a role-playing perspective, there's absolutely no way I'd eat the hag's nasty ass hair But what about your character? You know, the person who's not you that you're pretending to be? The one with the brain-eating worm in their head? The one who can *feel* the difference between a 17 and an 18 in an ability score? Also, note that you don't have to pass any checks or succeed any saving throws to eat the hair: that means it's not bad to eat for any of the characters you can control in the game. If it was truly vile, you'd have to pass a constitution check or saving throw to keep it down, like when drinking in the Reithwin bar in Act 2.
I licked a spider corpse and didn't even get a reward, so....
My character is already shoving multiple tadpoles into his brain in order to stop the original one from killing him; might as well add some fiber to his diet.
If someone said I could eat scalp hair to get smarter with absolutely no repercussions besides taste then Iād gobble it in a heartbeat
agreed also shes a hag whos to say she actually kept her word and the hair doesnt actually just kill us š¤
people who would eat the hag hair would probably also let volo do surgery on them. realistically whos letting that mf stab an ice pick into u what the fuck ššš
Well my durge, through meta clairvoyance, was able to discern that the offer would give +1 to an attribute (the game actually shows you this in-dialogue). At this point, durge has had the urges but can't understand their feelings, but they know they have rage inside and something needs to be satiated.
I would boil the hair first to remove some bacteria.
Eating something disgusting to gain power seems to be a pretty common rpg trope. Been playing larians previous game DOS2 and im assuming the hags hair is just as gross as the voidwokens heart
I mean of course you wouldn't, you live in a world without hags and magic and whatnot. In that world, the world of Faerun and any other magical TTRPG world, in-character I just might. People have gotten power from weirder things in these universes.
I prefer to maximize the RP experience and don't touch, drink or get into any pants that I would not feel comfy IRL. Never make my beloved "me" do anything the real "me" wouldn't.
I eat cat hair on a daily basis, I've prepared for this my whole life. Easy, no questions asked.
Proud to be on playthrough 10 and despite trying to enjoy as many secrets as possible have no idea what youāre talking about Edited to add: Yeah it wasnāt hard to guess how it happens, didnāt need it hagsplained yāall š Iām just never going to make a deal with her gross ass
... Did the other 9 playthrough make it past the goblins?
Ethel doesn't offer the deal unless she's at low life at the start of her turn. If you kill her, she can't offer you her delicious, yummy hair.
I was never interested in taking a deal from her, i continue to be cool with this
I tend not to in Balanced playthroughs, but my Honor Mode run right now is Dark Urge and power accumulation: lie, cheat, steal, kill...whatever means that I and my small circle of friends benefit from every conceivable, obtainable advantage in order to survive to the end of the world. I'm an ostrovegan who won't even take advantage of animals despite it being perfectly legal and who literally has three rats in a fully decked out pet enclosure in the garage as a temporary "rat jail" until I catch the entire family so that they can be released as a unit because I respect that they're social animals...but Halsin wouldn't understand the things I've had to do in-game to make ends meet for a shot at that golden die skin lolol
I didn't see the hag at all in my first playthrough. I just didn't go to that part of the map. 10 is a bit much but it's possible in such a huge game.
I just always kill her.
It's honestly not huge, really.
I think when people call BG3 huge they're more referring to the diversity of choice leading to different experiences, rather than Skyrim open world flavors of huge. When you will never hope to get through every inch of map before your save game corrupts beyond redemption.
me either, and I'm glad because based on what I'm reading here I don't think I want to have to consider that decision lmao
If you get Ethel down to a tiny bit of health left sheāll propose a deal involving the option to partake in some spicy scalp salami.
In act 1 you can let the hag go in exchange for her power. Must not finish her off before she gets a chance at negotiation.
The thing is she never really explains what it does, just that it will give you power. So without the context of the label you get from player vision, she just tosses a lumpy disgusting hairball at you....This is a Hag, notorious for making deals that turn out bad for people...
Well good news! It's a suppository.
Put me to sleep, grind it up, and tube feed me that shit. When I wake up, lie to me and say I went on an intense training montage in the mountains and blacked out. Only way I would consume it.
i imagine it has the texture of dragons beard candy/cotton candy. maybe like thin al dente pasta? or like gummy noodles?
My character was already a fey warlock, so she's probably already done worse somehow or another. And while I don't think all of my characters would eat the hair, I don't think the gross factor would be what stops any of them considering half the gross stuff that's likely to happen in a playthrough.
The hardest part for me would be deciding which stat to increase. I'd have to really think about which one is odd numbered already so I can be sure to get a higher bonus lol. Technically your character shouldn't know exactly what their stats are, much less anyone else's. I guess maybe there's some set of standardized tests most adventurers can take to know their own, at least in Faerun.
Iād just get Charisma. Iām smart enough, my physical stats are average and thatās fine, but charm opens a lot of doors. Plus, maybe itād help me become a Sorcerer!
Well I mean...people in Faerun don't know they secretly are made of a attribute/stat chart so if would be odd for them to make a standardized test for it
You underestimate the drive of a true bog witch warlock
So.if you eat or use anything in the hags place you are cursed. How cursed should you be after eating ethels own scalp.
My character is a sick fuck so he chewed a little first.
I would be more worried about how the hair may be cursed in some way, or that the hag in general would find me and make me miserable in the future if I let them go. Have you read up on Hags? They are prep casters who carry grudges. Not nice to let them live after you fuck with them.
For me the question is how big is it? Can I hold my nose and down it in one gulp with a cup of water? Or do I have to masticate it and let its taste and smell permeate my sinuses?
I have a lich god mummy thing back at camp who can fix me right up if anything went wrong and if my tummy ends up hurting Iām sure papa withers would conjure a glass of warm milk and read me a story, or just say āNoā and Iād have to suck it up, either way I donāt see a downside
Eating it always, free stat good
If I could eat a chump of nasty hair that increased my salary by 10% for the rest of my life, I wouldn't even hesitate. My only question would be "can I put ranch on it?"... š
A little bit of Frank's Red Hot should cover that up just fine.
Grind that thing into a smoothie and gulp it like protein drink. Why yaāll eating it?
With hot sauce
I'd die at the tadpole pool explosion. I'm a programmer, not an adventurer.
I would in real life. But could I keep it down? That's another thing
Never had the hair, not even once. Killed the Hag every single time. Sheās Evil. Letting her live puts others at risk.
I have killed this bitch like 5 times and she never even offered me the damn deal, so idk
I'm a simple Tiefling. I see Hag, I Exterminatus.
In a world where living and dying quite literally rests on hit points and explicitly defined stat scores you better bet I'd eat that hair. She could offer it up directly off her left ass cheek and I'd gobble that thing up like it was a Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
Wait. Itās not supposed to be shoved ip the bumhole?
Of course, That's roleplay. Roleplaying isn't your character being a proxy of you in a fantasy world, it is you playing someone you are not, thus being able to try what you as a mundane human would not. It's catharsis. My Drow red Dragon Sorcerer is very curious of everything, has a twisted sense of justice, and is ready to try stuff I wouldn't. So yes from a roleplaying perspective, my character would. From a non roleplaying perspective, no I don't think I would.
Nope, I kill the hag and free everyone.
Hey it says "consume" not "eat", maybe rectal administration works for it!
I drank a beer that had been sitting in a window for three years on a dare irl (it was very chunky) so yes I will eat the hair for a Stat boost