In this decision, the game gives you short & long term reward for being GOOD.
- Some characters leave you permanently
+ MOST IMPORTANT implicitly losing on contents from tieflings on long term
These are some big ones for me. For example, lose Minthara by siding with grove, lose Wyll if you side with the Minthara. I can accept that sort of balanced tradeoff. But it's more complicated than that, a much less even trade. For one Minthara is not a companion. Maybe she is down the line, maybe not, but she isn't right now, so 'losing' her right after we meet her doesn't have the same impact as Wyll, someone you likely meet much earlier and have been adventuring for quite a while by the time you make your choice. On the other end, she goes away right after the party, so the amount of Wyll content vs Minthara content is just not comparable. And furthermore, it isn't just a Wyll vs Minthara situation. It also brings you into conflict with other companions. It looks like a total of at least five of the eight companions will object to siding with Minthara. Everyone knows that Gale has to be talked out of leaving, and of course the choice seems to break your romance path with any of the companions who object to siding with the goblins. Even if it's possible to persuade
Minsc & Karlach (who knows where Helia stands)
to stay like Gale, you are looking at a very unbalanced set of scales there. I for one am not crazy about the possibility of losing access to half my companions+romance options because I sided with the goblins and Minthara.
And the promise of future npc interaction is in a similar vein. We know from the datamined voice files that the 'stories' of a great many of the Tieflings continue in the next section, but there's nothing found for *any* of the goblin camp npcs bar
past the section we have playable so far. So even if you do develop a fondness for Abdirak- the priest of Loviatar, or Volo's admirer Gribbo, or you want to see Sazza again...there's no indication whatsoever you'll see them again. There's the Zhents, but that's a quest detached from the main quest so IDK if I'd count that. Nere. I think he's the only one, and currently if you want him as an ally *against* the absolute you have to
Not great IMO.
In a similar vein, there are no evil camp followers yet. I'm sure a lot of folks would like to take some of the above with them, or have other favorites among the evil npcs, but none of them are available (so far). In-fact, the ones you can get seem to universally conflict with the 'good' camp followers. Volo (as mentioned previously) will promise to tell everyone of your evil deeds (idr if he leaves afterwards, he might) Your dog will shame you at the party saying that he 'hopes the goblins aren't your friends' (don't recall the owlbear's reaction, I imagine it's not great either, considering circumstances) Halsin of course will either be dead or try to kill you after the party, & iirc the gnome will leave after the party if you sided with the goblins. So again, not great.
Ah yes, if you save Sazza then the little blabbermouth will spill the location and basically force you into the raid path and you lose out on so much dialogue because of it. Part of a reason why I leave her in the cage at the grove ^^
I love Sazza, but rescuing her is kinda
the 'big' sidequest for the goblin camp and completing it jumpstarts the grove siege, likely causing you to lose out on a lot of the rest of the content in the goblin camp.
