Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Minthara Story & Character Discussion

I'm going to be honest, it sounds like they rewrote her specifically to avoid having to write a full romance for her. She's very explicitly interested in you in a romantic way in Early Access. potentially losing a third of your party to chasse after the 'spicy drow romance' only for her to say 'I'm sorry, I don't feel too romantic anymore, maybe off-screen after the game ends' sounds like a real bait and switch.

I finished the game after 90 hours or so, and I did aaaall the content I possibly could with Minthara without breaking the game / passing through things without me realising reaching max approval with her, and come to this conclusion

1º Minthara should have not been advertised with such fanfare because:


So I need someone that can give reliable answers about why she has such nuanced and great dialogue but it leads to nowhere but knowing her past and telling platonic things between each other?

The only difference with you (but i dont finish yet), i've got cool dialogue with the dryad and Minthara recognize me as her love.
But nothing matters after...

The question is if this is a bug or if Minthara really doesn't have companion content in the later parts of the game.

It seems like there are other romance bugs, I've seen a couple posters say that every single companion (even ones they weren't romancing) broke up with them at the same time in Baldur's Gate.

I hope it's a bug, because you have to sacrifice a lot to get her into the party!

I too got the scene with the master of love in the circus where she ask me things about her and said

When talking to a dryad in the circus, she agrees, and then there is a romantic scene - I had it. But at the same time there was no romance with her

It is reasonable to conclude that Minthara would have less content than other, more visible characters, because they are available right from the beginning of the story. We know she's an optional character resulting from the "evil" Act 1 path...but it's a matter of degrees.

Right now, we're not even sure about whether we've seen all the MInthara content or if there are bugs or glitches involved preventing us from finding more conversations with her that are relevant for players who chose to have a relationship with her.

Otherwise, it seems you can invest a lot in making her join your party and only get a partial reward for that.

I know, i did that too with the questions and all xd, at least her dialogues are really good and im not even that mad xd

Can you post that link?

Can you post that link? Regarding someone recruited both Minthara and Halsin on Reddit?

That's fantastic, which is why it's never going to be functionally in the game. Going by the trend, her new endings are 1) revert to evil, 2) die in an unavoidable accident should you redeem her. Just because. No reason. You'll never see it coming which is EXACTLY what makes good writing, obviously /sarcasm. I'd like it better if we can never recruit her than for Larian to fuck her over double

She's very explicitly mind controlled when you meet her in act 1/EA
Then the story she has, when she's your companion, is recovering and seeking vengeance over the trauma of having been mind controlled. It's a good and appropriate story for her character. By getting her you're not chasing a 'spicy drow romance', but a well written and powerful, drow companion. Just sadly one without quests and the layers of content the other companions get.

If she was made available to all players, through being recruitable even if you side with the grove, which would make more story sense and make her story beat of liberation and vengeance more impactful if she was saved not by a former ally buy by the one who defeated her, there'd be that 'justification' for further investment to flesh her out with companion quests and etc, if we as the supportive of Minthara forum community push for that, not focus on her current romantic deficits it'd be a better way to make a case to the devs for improvement, and benefit all players not just romance players.

No, sorry I can't agree with you there. Not just because of how she was written in Early Access, which was explicitly based upon romantic feelings, but because of her writing in the release version (where she specifically says she slept with you 'for her' not the absolute), and Larian's own words over the panel from hell.

Mitnhara was *the* sex scene everyone was talking about in EA, and Larian specifically called her out as the 'reward' for sticking through all the Teifling murder. She still has lines and scenes in the game as mentioned above indicating your relationship is a 'romance'. They called her a 'lover' during the Release Day PFH.

It's borderline gaslighting to say that she wasn't/isn't a romance option, and wasn't presented to players as one at this point.

Her bare-bones 'romance' is a bait and switch. There's no getting around that.

Wait, so Minthara not only doesn't have a proper romance, but also almost no content?
She was the only reason anyone would even consider attacking the druids!

Good guys:
+ Halsim with romance

Evil guys:
+ Mithara (which is said to be barely better than hireling) without romance
- Wyll
- Karlach
- Shadowheart romance
- Loads of characters you'd normally meet in the third act.

So what's the point of playing evil?
You will gain practically nothing and lose a lot of things.

It's like voluntarily shooting yourself in the foot!

I had a feeling this would happen. Larian says you won’t miss out on content because the playthrough are so different, but the difference is just that one playthrough has more content than the other.

Yes... I didn't have Minsk, Jaheira, Isabelle, and a bunch of other NPCs. Because of Minthara, I also did not start a romance with other companions, and in the end I was alone, because it also turned out to be impossible to continue with her.

I would argue about the "hireling", the content is there, but it is buggy, and there is no most important part - romantic and sex content.

Minthara has the best dialogue and voice acting in the game, but she lacks companion quests and the depth of content.
You can recruit Jaheira and Minsc with her, they're dependent on your choice about the Nightsong in act 2, nothing to do with act 1 choice.
Also you can romance Shadowheart with her in the party if you want, I'm guessing that is act 2 based as well? Massacring the druids/teeflings has surprising little effect on the story actually.

Isabelle is a companion?

I said this in another thread, but it's very clear Minthara was never intended to be a companion. They seemed to add it after everyone liked her so much (which is a good thing), but they never bothered to actually finish her or go back and fix her recruitment (which is a bad thing). I don't think it was a lack of trying, but I think they likely didn't have enough time.

What they really should have done is, when you reduce her health to zero, she is "knocked out" instead of killed, and a cut scene plays where she has been weakened enough that the Guardian is able to reach out and break the Absolute's hold on her. She realizes what's been happening, swears vengeance against it and everyone that is responsible for it, then asks to let her join you in pursuit of that. At THAT point you should be given the option of "no, please die" or "yes, come along."

In the end, I suppose we have to hope there will be an Enhanced Edition that fixes a lot of the problems that still exist. It's certainly clear Act 1 had A LOT more work done on it than the remainder of the game.

Then again, considering the absolute hack job they did on I'm not really surprised.

I really like the way you recruit her, I agee we need a path to recruit her with a good Act 1 choice ending, I even started a thread about it in suggestions but it was moved so I guess we can't make suggestions about characters? But I'd like it to remain the same act 2 recruitment we have now.

Have her escape near the end of the fight, shaken and having experienced silence during the fight creating the seed of doubt that when combined with her being punished and tortured for your defeating her, allows you to recruit her. The way you currently recruit her having sided with her, is already perfect as a means to recruit her having sided against her.
And if she was available in both act 1 resolutions, they'd have the incentive to finish her character.

I would hope for this to be patched here, not hinged on a single enhanced edition that fixes everything. An update to make her recruitable in both paths, given she already has voiced dialogue for characters she is currently mutually exclusive with, is something a general patch could include, no need for the remaster?

Also wildcard idea here,
If Larian wasn't so anti-DLC I'd even suggesting adding her as a DLC origin character, where you'd have a different intro that starts with you under the absolute and breaking free after killing tav and taking and prism or something?