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

We will have to agree to disagree. I think siding with her over the grove is both mechanically stupid and so narratively dissonant it basically is a meta-gaming route.

Cool, now read the rest of that sentence. What I meant, quite clearly, is that recruiting her by SAVING HER FROM THE TORTURERS works perfectly whether you side with her or against her in act 1.
That meeting her in act 2 having sided with the grove, and rescuing her from the torturers would work perfectly.
Quite often complete sentences have a different meaning than individual words within them, it's wild.

We will have to agree to disagree. I think not only is siding with her over the grove is both mechanically stupid and so narratively dissonant it basically is a meta-gaming route, but getting her so deep into Act 2 (I don't think you can even reach her without at least getting the Moonlantern/Pixie) removes any chance for her to have great incites on so many Act 1 events (and apparently many Act 2 ones as well, if I'm understanding things correctly). Her recruitment should be from Act 1.


There. Better for you, Mr. Semantics?

Given how important Orin is to Minthara's paladin oath, it's weird how silent she is in the confrontation dialogue as well

Well, Minthara and Halsin were both very popular during EA.

But it looks like only one of them got full content.
It's a shame that it was Halsin, because they literally deprived us of the only reason to play as evil.
As I mentioned earlier, aside from Minthar, there isn't a single logical reason to play as evil.

Evil should be cunning and immoral. Focused on gaining profit and increasing power.
Not an idiot who kills just for the sake of killing and doesn't care about the consequences.

Hello there,

I hope this doesn't come across as a rant. I just need to write my thoughts somewhere, or to share some copium among Minthara fans.

The game is amazing, and I'm so thankful Larian created this unique character which quickly became one of my favourites when I played the EA a week before release. And I was curious to see her character progression.
This resulted in me dedicating my first playthrough to Minth and going full Anakin.
I don't even like doing evil runs in games, but I did what was necessary to recruit her.


I think a lot of things have already been said about her romance options just disappearing after the camp party/act1 and the lack of dialogue/banter after recruiting her.
She doesn't even appear in the Journal log at all once she is in your party.


I'm really happy for the community that the other companions have so much depth, but I get kind of sad when I look at Minthara.

I really like edgy/evil (not crazy evil) characters with a redemption arc, or the option to soften/(fix?) them during a playthrough. That's also why Sebille is my favourite character in DOS2. But Minthara feels like a character with so much wasted potential.

Because
Most of the players won't even see that. Because the game kind of pushes you to fight her. Following her plan while she is still being manipulated seems crazy after helping the grove and building connections with the tieflings and druids .


The voice and thoughts we hear when first meeting Minthara aren't even hers, but those of a crazy cult that is demanding us to go on a hunt. Let's go on a hunt!

What.
I just got here, now I'm supposed to switch sides and going full murderhobo?

Which leads to her being shoved into the abyss by the majority of players as a result of being introduced as an ENEMY and not as the possible companion she really is or can become.



I'm sorry if this text makes no sense, or if I'm getting too passionate. I just needed to get this "feedback" out because the current state of this character feels unsatisfying, and she seems to have a lot of wasted potential, which sadly results in her being left behind in a roster of really cool playable characters.
Otherwise, I loved the part when she opened up and trusted the player after we freed her and got her involved with the party. But it just stalled afterwards.

It would be great to have the option to make her join the player's party for the sake of experiencing her amazing character, not for the sake of being evil.
Maybe she was never really supposed to grow as a character, which would be a shame.

Her voice acting, appearance and design, attitude, and story are superb, in my opinion.


I really don't want to talk bad about this game, I love Larian studios and their work of love. I'm really thankful for this experience but Minthara feels like she could be so much more than she is right now.

Looks like you were faster than me because I was planning to write something similar today.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said and I'll even add a few more things you forgot.

1) Not only will you lose 3 companions if you want to recruit Minthar, but you'll also lose a bunch of characters you'd normally meet in Baldurs Gate.
That's a lost of tons of extra content, quests, rewards, conversations...

2) Due to the fact that your decision to destroy the druid grove is not important for act 2, you get no reward for it and you can immediately switch sides, Mithara is literally your only reward.

3) Minthara is only a shadow of a companion. No romance, no personal quests, minimal amount of conversations and comments.

4) It just doesn't pay to be evil. It's actually ironic, because immoral and profit- and power-oriented evil should actually receive greater rewards.
You'll just lose too much and you'll only get Minthar, who probably wouldn't weigh your loss even if she was a full-fledged companion.

Just another game where it's simply not beneficial to play as evil.
I miss games like Tyranny. Its authors are probably the only ones who really understood what playing as evil guys should look like.

I think it would be a good idea to make Minthara DLC to make her a fully fledged Origin character with a unique backstory and a completely unique first act.

We also need to improve her romance, personal quest, more sex scenes, and make recruitment available for both sides in the conflict in the grove.

I agree with your post.

I returned to this forum, specifically to advocate for making Minthara recruitable in either Act 1 resolution (she is in prison for failing when you help her succeed, if she survived Act 1 by code, she would be in prison for failing if you defeated her too, the only change would be good path act 1 wouldn't get you the why did you kill the druids convo, but a why did you side with them convo instead. She literally already has good-bad choices for every choice you can take after, it's essentially null change. Making her recruitable to either Act 1 choice is so small a mod could probably do it without it hardly being noticeable!), with that as a first step towards fleshing her character out with full companion quests. In what dialogue, voice acting and writing she has she is exceptional. I find no fault in her characterisation or need for her to be change, just deepend and expanded with more context as she is sadly lacking despite (in my mind) being the best written and voice acted companion, all her lines are great and they bring a great amount of life, humour and perspective to the game, she just has so few.
It's good she is evil, about power and preserving her world view, not about edginess and murder. She is a great character in embodying the Drow perspective, while also through the vengence aspect and her experiences being unique and outside of it. It was a great balancing act they pulled off. For a 'redemption', something along the lines of getting her to lean towards the more legit/acceptable paths to power, something she already open to in the game, would be preferable over, she renounces desiring power or anything? as otherwise she wouldn't be Minthara ?


I would sort of suggest, if any mod reads this or if anyone knows how to contact them, that the various Minthara threads be merged?
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=877386#Post877386
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=875734#Post875734
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=877230#Post877230

Honestly, I think that sooner rather than later the number of similar topics will increase.
She is a very likable character.

I personally love her VA and would have no problem swapping her out for any of the original companions.
But given the fact that your decision at the end of Act 1 is irrelevant in the long run, I wonder how long it will take for someone to make a mod that allows her to be recruited in Act 2 even if you killed her in Act 1.

What is her base class and subclass? Vengance Paladin?

Yes

Astarion is better for a full blown evil for the sake of evil playthrough

She has for me the best character development and great dialogues, more so if you play a Dark Urge run (which i did in my first playthrough) and her VA does a great job, i whish there was more of her

I can attest that recruting her as a good character in Act 2 works wonders, cause that's what i did by cheating the game's variables through the unlocked console command...lol.

Other than that, she really did receive the "Imoen Treatment" in the original BG2, anything past her initial Act2-related plot offers nothing that she can interact with.

I wonder if she was really just an aborted idea of a NPC that still managed to get into the game.

Am I understanding correctly that you convinced the game that Mithara was still alive and then met her normally in the tower?
If so, can you please share the details? I would LOVE to do the same.


I think the developers were shocked at how popular the character is, that they decided to at least give her some extra dialogue and started referring to her as a companion.

I really like the idea of her getting captured by the druids after failing the raid. While her connection to the absolute is weakened because of the artefact, you maybe can start asking her questions so she gets back her free will like in act 2.
It doesn't feel like the main path to fight for the goblins, especially since you loose a LOT of content in return.
And I would rather choose to experience the main content WITH her in my party.

She gets overshadowed by all the other companions, also by Halsin. Especially by him, because you meet both in the goblin camp. It starts with the game giving you the quest of rescuing the druid and killing the 3 goblin leaders.
I completely understandt why you would rather help out the bear who is held captive and being tortured by goblins.
And when he transformes into a tall daddy with pecs which look like they are chiseled out of stone to rival the mightiest gods, and on top of that he also speeks with animals, and THEN also asks you to kill the goblin leaders - It's a pretty easy choice for the majority.

Why would you want to join the goblins after all of that. Minthara shouldn't even be there due to everything speaking against joining her at this moment.
It just feels like the game wants you to fight against her, instead of showing you her real character, or at least giving you a second introduction of her after the raid when she comes to her senses.

Someone who doesn't consume BG3 media outside of the game would assume she is just an npc you should get rid of, because the game tells you so. You can also tell by reading a lot of surprised reddit comments where the player assumed she was just an enemy.

I think it's also different from meeting Karlach when getting introduced to her. You can choose to either help Karlach or fight her, but she tells you her story and you already start to like her.
You don't get a proper introduction with Minthara in my opinion.

It feels like Larian just didn't give her enough love/time in the oven. So much potential there and it's all wasted. At least for the time being I consider her to be the games biggest disappointment. Hopefully they hear this feedback and do something about it for an enhanced/improved edition of the game later on.

Not sure if its ok to post info here, but googling "Baldur's Gate 3 Unlocked Console Fearless" should point you in the right direction. But yeah, i basically tricked the game into thinking both act 1 "endings" were completed at the same time, so she was alive in act 2, despite be killing her in act 1.

I wouldn't recommend doing this as a serious playthrough, as things get really wonky with story progression later on, with matters unrelated to Minthara. I was just testing to see how her character recruitment would work and i didn't want to redo act 1 in a evil way... lol

But it really fits, if we get some sort of dialogue option to spare Minthara instead of killing her in act 1, her act 2 dialogue BARELY requires any edits at all.

As for the developers being shocked, maybe i missed something in the Early Access period, but i feel they prioritized Companions that really don't have much of a fanbase?

I mean, i barely have come across people who think Wyll or Gale are interesting companions, even Lae'zel doesn't seems that popular in forums, reddit, twitch streams or such.

Halsin... most seem to only know him because of the "bear sex" scene, but i have not met ANYONE yet that romanced him.

It's the same for me.
I was hoping to take my Drow Warlock and together with Mithara we would rule the galaxy like father and son!
The fact of how little content they gave her and what you have to lose because of her completely disgusted me.


Keep dreaming.
The game is no longer in EA and this is not a bug, this is just bad writing and implementation of the character.
I have never heard of any game studio making such changes to a game just because the fans were unhappy with character.

You might as well demand that Larian hire Jim Cummings to re-voice Minsc.
(There isn't a single logical reason why they didn't, but that's a debate for another time and place.)