Auntie Ethel/Combat: Difference between revisions

Ethel can be attacked in her human form in the Riverside Teahouse, though she will try to make this encounter as brief as possible. Alert gives her a high chance of going first and prevents preemptive strikes, and she will flee through her fireplace using Break Illusion in the first two turns; if out of range, she will defend herself with Protection from Evil and Good and Vicious Mockery. Attempting to destroy her here, then, requires bringing her hit points to zero often before she can take a single action – all while hostile Redcaps are coming through her front door.  

The first turns of the Auntie Ethel fight are deterministic. Unless the player launches a preemptive strike while hidden, Auntie Ethel will initiate combat through dialogue when approaching in her lair. Her first turn in combat, when started this way, will always be throwing a flammable slime bomb on [[Mayrina|Mayrina's]] suspended cage.

If the player had previously killed or incapacitated her Mask servants (i.e. [[Mask of Regret]]), she spends a turn summoning them to her side as allies. If they were already dealt with, she casts Auntie's Trickery instead. Following these opening moves, the midgame of the fight begins.

Each clone of Auntie Ethel functions as a duplicate of the hag, having all of her magical abilities but lacking the bombs in her inventory and capable of being dispelled in a single blow. Necessarily, they also cannot summon additional clones of themselves. If they are all defeated, Ethel can refresh their supply with [[A Coven of Hags]] - this time, however, the original hag will be invisible rather than in the mix of illusions, and the number of illusions summoned can vary.

Next on the smorgasbord of trickery is [[Damsel in Distress]], a wily illusion where she teleports Mayrina into her proximity and adopts her appearance. Distinguishing between the two requires a careful examination of the two's statistics, looking for key differences that reveal the true victim.

When not playing mind games, she barrages the party with poison damage via Ray of Sickness and her limited supply of poisonous slime bombs. She mixes in melee attacks and Vicious Mockery - two attacks she falls back on when out of grenades and spell slots.

When brought down to 30 health or lower, when she takes her next turn, Auntie Ethel will bargain for her life in exchange for a piece of [[Auntie Ethel's Hair]]. She will not do anything else on this turn; if the party declines her offer or fails a conversation ability check, the turn will immediately pass to the next character, allowing the hag to be rapidly dispatched. Any surviving Masks become docile on her death.

Auntie Ethel gains [[Legendary Action: Weird Magic Surge]] on [[Honour mode]], punishing the player for casting spells by multiplying Ethel's presence with more illusory copies.

=== Silence ===

Auntie Ethel is very vulnerable to being [[Silenced (Condition)|silenced]], limiting her moveset to just melee attacks and grenades when under its effect. Striking her with silencing weapons, like the [[Sussur Dagger]], is the best way to inflict this condition, preferable to the spell [[Silence]], which she can rather easily walk away from. Preemptively attacking her in the teahouse flips the equation, as the much smaller arena gives the hag little room to maneuver. Of note, she will not bargain for her life when silenced.