Interesting Auntie Ethel situation (Spoilers)

[xantious]

This whole post is spoilers for an early quest/fight.



So, I fought Auntie Ethel in EA and knew what to expect with the fight going in. However, when I got to the room before with the four masked people, I received the tutorial for non-lethal damage. I thought that this might be an indication you could know those four out and remove their masks to save them. So I put my team on non-lethal damage and gave it a shot. Sadly, even when knocked out, if you remove the mask they die.

Then I went on to fight Auntie Ethel herself. I got pretty lucky early on and quickly took out her mirror images and chunked her health down with the barbarian chick. Shadowheart missed a swing (what else is new) while she was wielding that mace from the drow pally and Ethel got some faerie fire on her. She then did the illusion with Mayrina and it was easy to tell them apart because of the faerie fire. Astarion was able to get a sneak attack off that took Ethel down to around 7hp.

This is where things got interesting. Ethel started bargaining for her life. She offered me power (AKA, an ability point) if I let her live and gave her Mayrina. I could negotiate and offer just Mayrina's unborn child, or persuade Ethel to give me the ability point and Mayrina while being happy I let her live. I failed that DC check (DC 20 persuade btw) and decided to kill her. I never got this option during my EA fight and assumed it was new.

However, (and the sharp eyed people paying attention may have caught this) I quickly realized what I think happened. I had left non-lethal damage on for the entire fight and basically pummeled her butt into submission, lol. So, the question to any of you is: Did you fight her without using non-lethal damage and also get her trying to bargain with you? If not, this is a really cool easy to miss option that you get for just beating her into submission instead of killing her.

[Grimmsch]

Yes it works with lethal force.
My theory is that she has to be in the single digit hit point numbers when it is her turn.

[xantious]

Originally posted by Grimmsch:

Yes it works with lethal force.
My theory is that she has to be in the single digit hit point numbers when it is her turn.

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I thought I had discovered something neat if you used non-lethal, but it is good to know she offers it to everyone.

[fenrik07]

I murdered her before she could offer me anything or even before she tried to make herself look like Mayrina. Think I was a bit overleveled for the fight maybe.

[Grimmsch]

Originally posted by xantious:

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I thought I had discovered something neat if you used non-lethal, but it is good to know she offers it to everyone.

Your strategy is actually the safe one. I will switch next time.
I love your approach with the masked people. That is a good mindset to play this game.

[Maitrepof]

I had her submit during EA, but in my playthrough i might have hit her too hard she just die without any talk.

I also non letal 2 of the four masked heroes and after you kill ethel you can remove their mask but they just stay stun with 1 hp forever.

[Quillithe]

I knocked out the masked people and took their masks off too.

Does anyone know what happens if you just sneak past them? I realized I could have done that too late, but since you can save two people earlier...

[xantious]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

I knocked out the masked people and took their masks off too.

Does anyone know what happens if you just sneak past them? I realized I could have done that too late, but since you can save two people earlier...

If you sneak past and let them live, Ethel summons them to help her in that fight. Makes it much more challenging, lol.

[Smask]

Burned some spells, and she should have died, but she yielded, and I got the options you are mentioning. but the knockout on Mayrina killed Mayrina ????

[Overeagerdragon]

Got the bargain too and basically told her to leave the chick AND het statpoint and GTFO of dodge...

EDIT: you can put those masks on yourself and fall under the same spell as those 4 guys in the chamber; that's why you got the non-lethal tutorial

[Mr_Pennywise]

i herd (don't know for sure) that you knock them out kill the hag then take the masks off
(but not sure if that is true)

[Edelgris]

What bugs me is that when you knock out the masked guys, they just disappear after you kill the hag.