Medium Fey, Chaotic Evil
- AC
- 14
- Initiative
- +1 (11)
- HP
- 52 (7d8+21)
- Speed
- 30 ft., Swim 40 ft.
| Score | Mod | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 16 | +3 | +3 |
| DEX | 13 | +1 | +1 |
| CON | 16 | +3 | +3 |
| INT | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| WIS | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| CHA | 13 | +1 | +1 |
Traits
Amphibious. The hag can breathe air and water.
Coven Magic. While within 30 feet of at least two hag allies, the hag can cast one of the following spells, requiring no Material components, using the spell's normal casting time, and using Intelligence as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 11): Augury, Find Familiar, Identify, Locate Object, Scrying, or Unseen Servant. The hag must finish a Long Rest before using this trait to cast that spell again.
Vile Appearance. Wisdom Saving Throw: DC 11, any Beast or Humanoid that starts its turn within 30 feet of the hag and can see the hag's true form. Failure: The target has the Frightened condition until the start of its next turn. Success: The target is immune to this hag's Vile Appearance for 24 hours.
Actions
Claw. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) Slashing damage.
Death Glare (Recharge 5-6). Wisdom Saving Throw: DC 11, one Frightened creature the hag can see within 30 feet. Failure: If the target has 20 Hit Points or fewer, it drops to 0 Hit Points. Otherwise, the target takes 13 (3d8) Psychic damage.
Illusory Appearance. The hag casts Disguise Self, using Constitution as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 13). The spell's duration is 24 hours.
How to run Sea Hag
A sea hag as ally is a transaction, never a friendship, and the price is always something you have to write down. She wants a memory, a name, a curse on someone else, the firstborn's first tooth, a reflection. Pay it and she helps for one specific thing. Refuse and she's an enemy who knows where the party sleeps. The framing that sells best is the party seeking her out for information: she's the only one who knows the route through the drowned tunnels, or who poisoned the harbor, or where the kraken nests.
In a fight, the sea hag is an ambush partner rather than a battle line. She drops Illusory Appearance, walks past the guards as a dock-worker, and triggers Vile Appearance the moment the party engages. The Frightened the enemies eat is the party's window. Death Glare on a low-HP enemy mage is the assassination she was hired for. After the kill, she expects the party to handle the rest, since she has 52 HP at AC 14 and is not a tank.
She will not coordinate, will not heal, will not take risks for free. If the deal is one head, she takes one head and leaves. If the party tries to extend the contract mid-job, she renegotiates at gunpoint and the price doubles. Coven Magic via two hag sisters is a lever you can offer the party once: pay extra, get Scrying intel on the next stop. The sisters never appear on screen.
Have the hag take her payment in a small physical gesture (a lock of hair, a kiss, a drop of blood). Players remember the gesture for sessions afterward, and that's the haunting you want.
A sea hag is a CR 2 that runs above its weight class because of one combo: Vile Appearance into Death Glare. Drop the Illusory Appearance the moment the party crosses a threshold she controls, show the true form, force the DC 11 Wis save against Frightened, then on a subsequent turn use Death Glare on whichever Frightened PC is below 20 HP. That's a kill. A wizard with 18 HP who blew her save against the appearance is dead on the hag's next turn, with no attack roll involved.
Open by holding the disguise. The hag spends 24 hours a day as a fishwife, an old hermit, a kelp-gathering crone, a drowned woman shivering on a beach. The first round of combat is reveal: she drops Disguise Self, anyone in 30 ft. who can see her makes a DC 11 Wis save or is Frightened until the start of their next turn. Then Claw at +5 for 10 slashing on whoever is in melee, or Death Glare (Recharge 5-6) on a Frightened target with low HP. Death Glare is the win condition; everything else is filler that keeps it loaded.
Position in water if you possibly can. Amphibious plus 40 ft. swim turns a coastal ambush into a fight where the hag controls range and elevation by submerging and surfacing wherever she likes. Land combat is the hag's worst case, so a smart party that drags her ashore should be rewarded.
If she has two hag allies within 30 feet, Coven Magic gives her one spell per long rest from a list that includes Scrying, which means she has already watched the party before they ever reach her cove. With 52 HP and AC 14, she folds to a focused round once the saves are out, so she fights in the second exchange and flees in the third. Sea hags do not die on principle.
Set up Death Glare with a body. Have her drop a previous victim, dead-eyed and untouched, on the beach where the party finds her. The save is scarier when they know what's at stake.
Stat block from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 © Wizards of the Coast LLC, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.