Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Petition: Let us have Minthara without mass genocide

You described it perfectly, I like the example with Karlach!
Imagine saying you don't want others to have a happy ending for her because you prefer the sad one.
Can you imagine telling a Karlach fan to just don't recruit her if you don't like her ending. And by knowing her situation, your choice of recruiting Karlach should have consequences?

I did recruit Minthara in my first playthrough, I LOVED Minthara even more after getting to know her, but hated the act1 decision I had to make to get her.
Originally I planned to get the game a second time on console because I prefer to play on that platform, but since I have to rely on a mod to recruit her on a good playthrough ( thank you Rukongai ),I don't have that option on console and therefore I don't have any intention right now to play BG3 again because I don't want to play this long journey without my favourite character (like a Karlach fan would not want to play without Karlach, or even worse being forced to kill her).

Minthara and Halsin could have really interesting banter, Shadowheart and Lae zel managed to share a camp after some "confrontations" as well.

We don't have a full Upper City, Act 3 is a storm of cut content, Act 2 starts to sputter by the end, but you want a whole mirrored game experience with new companions and voice lines and quests because you feel the good guys who don't get the permanent stat boosts, the unique DU themed gear, or a Drow Paladin who's just had significant updates are getting something you chose to give up by siding with the fanatical murderers. And it's not even a desert in content because you only miss out on the storylines of good people you chose to murder and alienate to begin with. The main storyline is still there. You still explore the Underdark, still explore the Creche and follow the Vlaakith/Orpheus storyline, you still do the Ketheric main story with the Nightsong and Mausoleum, except you rescue Minthara, and then Act 3 is still largely the story of the Chosen and Absolute, and the best and most finished quests including Shadowheart, Raphael, Bhaal/Murder tribunals, Gortash, and the Netherbrain are still there. Missing out on Karlach and Wyll is not a desert of content. Those are the two companions besides Halsin with the least content in the game to begin with.

I'd settle for better hair *shrug*

She was prettier in EA

No. Actions need to have consequences, different playthroughs need to play different and you're free to make other choices further down the line. This isn't even in the spirit of BG1/2, where companions would just leave when they had enough of your behaviour (both evil companions and good companions).

There's so much more XP available in this game than what you need for level 12, it's not even funny. Please tell me you didn't actually pretend that XP is a even close to a factor in going for a fast evil playthrough.

No. I agree with the others who say there should be differences between going with the goblins or the druids/tieflings.

This!

Now that's just an outright lie

I never wrote that, please fix that quote asap. This isn't even funny because I don't care about that drow at all, I just want her armor and I advocated for her only being recruitable in an eval playthrough.

You don't care about this character and her story, and yet you don't want other people who do care to have an option to save her on a not-evil playthrough?
Because she has a lot of different layers to her character which doesn't make her plain evil and would be perfect for a neutral run as well.

+1 mil
I don't think they will change it much, it's a lot of work, but I'm glad they listen to the fans and work on improving the game I would like to see the revised endings first

I'll be perfectly honest, I completely botched that quote because I'm on my phone at work. The first part going "This!" wasn't even me lol

Apologies!

I'm sorry, but your precious drow was a Lolth sworn before was made into a tadpoled Absolutist. She is as evil, as it gets. And an evil playthrough should have special companions and stuff too. They already set the drow up as that, which makes sense.
Getting everything in one playthrough doesn't make sense.
But I don't really care, have the cake and eat it, I only wrote here because some user assigned a quote to me, I have never said and quite frankly is the opposite of my opinion.

Accepted, but please modify your post. Or delete it and redo it.

As much as I would love to recruit Minthara without dooming the Tieflings (Druids can go to hell), I think it is the right decision to keep her exclusive to a neutral/evil playthrough.

And yes, it would take something away from the evil route if you make her accessible for a good playthrough and that is the consequence and reward for their decision.

Making everything accessible for everyone never worked out well for an RPG and where are choices, there must be consequenses and rewards.

I admit that its a bit unbalanced that you lose a whole lot of content in order to recruit her.

its a game-y arbitrary reward that doesn't make sense internally, just in the meta though. Consequences and outcomes are important, IF they make sense, not if they're hollow and just there for outside of game/story reasons.

...and yet you could have kept all of them with enough charisma and some creativity. I can kill a squirrel for Minthara. Maybe. Or kick a beggar. Maybe.

She was Lolth sworn, doesn't take away her self reflection and neutral character traits after freeing her. She has great "redemption arc" qualities. She is not good, neither is Astarion.
A lot of people don't like they don't have an option to save her while being good.
You can alse save Khaga, and she is pretty evil.

The people who want to play evil do it for the sake of playing evil, Minthara is just a bonus. Many play evil only to get Minthara and would love to have more options in an rpg to safe her. You can see it by the many comments in the internet, reddit posts, discord etc.
Consequences are great if you are given an amount of options, but in this case it's just black and white while you have a lot more options to decide the fate of other characters. This feels forced.

Right now the evil path is like a sidekick experience compared to the way the game was supposed to be played (not being stupid evil)
It's great for those who want that experience, bitter for those who like her character.

So you are always forced to go evil if you want her, but you can immediately jump on the good path after recruiting her and she doesn't mind (it feels very natural to have her on a neutral run). If Wyll and Karlach leave you after doing something really evil, why doesn't Minthara leave you when you do something really good? Atypical for an exclusive evil character.
So it would make sense to have her on a neutral playthrough as well. Sadly the community seems to be really split on this topic because of the way she is portrayed. Most will keep seeing her as the crazy evil goblin leader, not her beautiful character which is locked behind this path.

If you like consequences and exclusivity so much, then Karlach and Wyll should be exclusive as well. His Patron wants to kill her, so there should be consequences if you choose either side. But you have the option to save both.
Shadowheart and Lae zel should be exclusive as well, no? They even try to kill each other if you dont convince them. But you have the option to save both.

I do feel like a lot of people in this thread have either forgotten or never noticed that you do not need to help her attack the grove to recruit her.
You *only* have to not kill her. (Knockout still counts as kill because game.)
The tieflings still die off screen, sure, but not by your hand, and the grove survives.
Which also means you can have Minthara alongside Karlach and Wyll.
....I still agree you should be able to spare and recruit her while saving the tieflings though.
Because if you kill enough of the goblins that should save the tieflings by virtue of their not being a goblin army left to attack them, regardless of whether or not you deal with the leaders.

Would love for an actual option to recruit her. I don't care about her romance but I wanna actually get to know the character, but I refuse to kill the Tieflings in the grove, I love them too much.

IMO the main issue with locking Minthara behind a stupid evil decision to massacre a bunch of innocents for dubious personal gain is that *she* is very much not that character. Minthara is definitely still evil after you recruit her, but she's extremely practical *lawful* evil, and she even calls you out on slaughtering the tieflings, implying that in your position (absent a compelling reason) she wouldn't have done the same. If we got someone like Korgan for killing the tieflings, it would make a lot more sense, because the companion you get lines up with choice you made, but there's a clear disjunct there with Minthara - and gating her behind THIS choice seems arbitrary when there are many ways she could survive your encounter and still end up in her 'starting position' in Act 2.

Slight digression: A lot of people are talking about the lack of content for an evil playthrough, and I actually think it's less a lack of content and more a failure to properly gate content behind actually evil choices, such that it's only readily available to evil characters. For instance, it's easy to see an evil-aligned character infliltrating the cult for answers/potentially seeking to take control of it, and working with the cult for that purpose. The problem is that all of this content is easily available to a good character - everyone assumes you're a genuine True Soul at the outset, so you get the run of the goblin camp and moonrise towers without even trying, and no-one actually requires you to do anything particularly evil until the end of each respective Act. IMO, both of these areas should have been gated behind some pretty morally dubious actions (and/or actually difficult skill checks) such that this content is significantly curtailed unless you're willing to get your hands dirty. At minimum, Moonrise should not be fully open to you if you side with the Harpers against the Drider at the start of the act, PARTICULARLY as you find out later that the Chosen are aware that there is a rogue true soul running around with the Astral Prism.

It's also a bit jarring that none of the Absolute's minions seem to communicate...like, at all. You can slaughter every true soul you come across in Act 1, kill the Drider in Act 2, and generally make it clear to anyone with functioning eyes that you are *not a friend* to the cult, but no one ever really seems to call you on it until you openly declare war on them. These are high level characters with access to powerful scrying magic, and even failing that, it's unlikely that you've slaughtered your way through the absolute's forces without leaving any survivors to report back. The cult should at least be aware of the major highlights of your previous actions, but they just...aren't.