Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Give option to save Minthara & grove in Act 1

and kill the grove. But reddit is filled with people who really want her as a companion, but do not want to kill the grove, since they want Wyll and Karlach.

I understand this game is all about choices and sometimes characters will go against each other. But don't underestimate that an awful lot of players are constantly searching for a "golden route". They want Minthara and all other companions to work together. The fact you show Shadowheart and Lae'zel at each others' throats (literally) is proof you can have them working together AND still have disagreements between characters (to preserve companion authenticity). Why can't we find a way to do this for Minthara as well? Especially since she was a slave to the absolute, which is entirely undoable. In other words, a LOT of people really really love redemption arcs with characters.

So ideally, a player could:
- side with the grove and kill the goblins, but spare Minthara (either knock her out but that WON'T kill her, or ignore her) and have her show up at Moonrise. You could kill ALL other goblins, which should make the roads significantly safer for the Tieflings. The quest could change to say "Kill or incapacitate all Goblin leaders" instead of "Kill all Goblin leaders".
- recruit Karlach and Wyll
- rescue Minthara from Moonrise and break the gnomes and Tieflings out of prison
- rescuing Minthara means you are helping her reform and since she was a slave to the Absolute, once she realizes this, she has no problem with Halsin anymore
- recruit Halsin, or at least let him help you lift the Shadowlands curse
- ensure Dammon makes it to the Inn so can continue with Karlach's quests
- have a Minthara romance even if you don't kill the grove (she doesn't need to be an origin character -- which is probably better since that means you can still pursue an origin character). An idea for the sex scene would fit perfectly with her rescue from Moonrise. She's so grateful to be saved (she said herself she thought no one would come for her), so that would naturally lead to the sex scene. That way you can have the sex scene if you side with or against the grove.

Thanks for giving this some thought! Minthara's personal struggles and story make her such a joy to have around, it's so nice connecting with her, but for players who really want to go the good path, there just doesn't seem to be a way to do that currently and keep Minthara. I hope you will consider adding this feature, she really is worth it!

They fought to the death and I had to side with one of them, and I had no clue of the trigger that caused it until it happened at camp unexpectedly. This caused me to loose one of them on this playthrough.

It is entirely possible to have Minthara and Wyll + Karlach.
You do not need to side with Minthara to recruit her, you just have to not kill her.
Wyll and Karlach are only lost if you actually attack the grove.
Just don't do the grove vs goblins quest at all, and all three of them will be in your party together. They don't even hate each other like Shadow and 'Zel.
Only Min and Hal are conflicting companion choices, though there was a sequence bug that allowed getting both. I think it was patched. Clearly unintended, seeing as they shared a tent.
The tiefling npcs still die though, just not to you. That's my gripe with it. As far as I'm concerned, if I kill enough goblins, the roads should be considered safe and the tieflings should be fine.

killing the druids

There is no "eclusive evil playthrough".

Larian failed massively with the idea of dangling Minthara as an exclusive grand prize and presenting the choice of joining her as an evil playthrough, when in reality there is no such thing. A story should be an intricate dance between the lines of good and evil that creates fascinating nuances, but never massively tipping on one side or the other until the game actually builds upon it and is ready to unleash the massively branching paths in its final act, which is precisely where Larian failed by presenting an exclusivity choice so early on without any build up prior nor after.

Minthara's exclusivity is not justified and and here's why;

• We can kill MInthara, yet side with Nere later.
• We can kill Nere, yet side with the Drider later.
• We can kill the Drider, yet still enter Moonrise.
• We don't even have to side with Moonrise, yet we can butcher the entire Last Light Inn and no companions will leave.
• But siding with Minthara... WHOOPSIE! Say goodbye to 4 companions and about 60 NPCs along with their stories.

A choice that actually defines an exclusively good or bad playthrough would look like this;

• Side with Minthara - We gain access to Moonrise, but are immediately attacked at Last Light Inn
• Side with the Grove - We gain access to Last Light Inn, but are immediately attacked at Moonrise Towers

Unfortunately there is no such definement nor payoff in the game so it's the reason why Minthara's exclusivity carries no legitimate weight. There is no nuance, there is no walking the line between good and bad. It's just a dumb choice she's locked behind which deletes 4 companions and 60 NPCs for absolutely no reason. Larian needs to simply toss this garbage Minthara exclusivity idea out the window and treat it as just another nuance choice between good and bad so that the story would no longer suffer from the criticism of "evil playthrough sucks balls", because as is evident above there is no exclusively evil playthrough in the game.

There is just one really dumb decision which deletes 4 of our companions and 60 NPCs with meaningful stories. As I have pointed out even during Early Access, this one choice is terribly lackluster and imbalanced precisely because Larian thinks they have to dangle Minthara as some sort of grand prize for an evil playthrough which does not even exist because siding with or against her plays out the story afterwards exactly the same.

For retrospect this is the comparison between good and evil as it was in Early Access and nothing has changed;

By the way, you know if you side with Minthara, and have the Goblins Celebration.
There's a Cage here, during Celebration Cinematic where Volo is emprisonned...
(so the cage CAN be present at camp, and is "already there" in a way)

Sooooo...
Can't we Defend the Grove ? Put Minthara in that bloody cage ! Force her to witness our celebration and deal with her fate next morning ? (Volo out of the cage ofc, celebrating his freedom since we saved him)
She'll have the night to think about everything that has happened.

And then again, another compelling fact that already fits with the story :
Since she's captured at camp with us, she's de-facto protected from the absolute by the prism. (just like she says during her romance, without knowing why)
So you CAN convince her from that point, that the absolute sucks, reveal the artifact to her, show her how wrong she was, and therefore recruit her ! (Gatekeep it with dice rolls if you want, big disapprovement from some party members, etc)

It would just make sense to be able to :
- Defend the Grove.
- Spare/Capture Minthara after battle.

She has info on what's next for the party, knows the shadowlands, once convinced would probably want to infiltrate moonrise tower with the team and bring down the absolute out of revenge, (Vengeance Paladin remember ?) for all the things it made her do.
She has all the arguments to get saved and be recruitable.

I don't know, if you wanna spice it up, she could manage to escape her cage during the night while everyone is drunk, and so her trial can still happen at Moonrise, as it supposed to happen the regular way.
Save her from Prison > Meet at Camp > Have her Romance start here instead.
There are so many ways it could be done. (although I would personally love to travel earlier than act 2 with her, feels late, but that's just me)

I think Larian's gonna do it, no matter how, you just lose wayyy too much on every fronts, just by recruiting her right now. Just losing the tiefflings makes you lose sooo much content in itself.
I'm okay, and I love choice and consequences, but losing 4* party members to gain a member that has 1500 lines of her dialogue currently bugged right now is not fulfilling, I can't play my run right now :\


*(and by the way if you do go the true evil route, beginning to end... you have then lost : Gale (unless persuaded), Wyll, Karlach, Halsin. And then you WILL LOSE Jaheira because you kill "x" story cleric character spoiler. And therefore Minsc since Jaheira not here. That's 6 for 1 man...)

They don't really have to do anything so elaborate for Minthara, she just needs to be a special exception to being knocked out during the battle or inside of the Goblin Camp. Afterwards she disappears for failing the Absolute and we find her again in ACT II.

That easy really. For example Fezzerk in Early Access was a special exception for getting knocked out, in fact he still is in full release as it's a leftover. So there is no reason for them not to simply do the same for Minthara and finally get rid of this "evil exclusivity" idea that only creates criticism against it because of one silly choice.