I can't agree with those who want to get all the companions in one replay (with flowers,cotton candy and kittens in the end). Minthara's choice is very adequate since getting closer to the Absolute (and her underwear optionally) is a good option of finding a cure. Tieflings and druids are useless for you, so if you are not playing a hero it is a 100% adequate choice.
BUT! Even after all fixes you will not get that amount of quests and dialogues from Minthara comparing to how much you lose. It's like losing 70% for getting 30% at the VERY LEAST.
So the is either a way of making more Minthara related content (quests, locations, even companions like DLC), which we might get in the future, or a more possible way of making her recruitable with others (which would be kinda dissapointing choice for me personally, but still viable).
Oh I am fully okay with Halsin still being allergic to Minthara from a recruitment perspective. It's just disappointing that the reason for the recruitment limitations for them is so wildly inconsistent. Halsin in spite of his dedication to the grove is okay with
fully murderhobo-ing every living thing in the grove as long as you didn't lead Minthara and the goblins to do it.
and meanwhile Minthara has no such contingency or consideration for circumstance. You either help her murder children, or ignore her long enough that the game moves on from the conflict and breaks a bunch of content contingent on killing the goblin leaders quest in spite of anything else you've achieved to ensure the safety of the Tieflings and the game's own narrative telling you explicitly the goblins aren't an organized threat without Minthara at the helm. And this huge discrepancy is especially wild because she was planned as a potential companion way before Halsin as far as anyone not on the dev team is aware.
Ideally recruiting her as a character that still wants to complete the quest to beat the goblin leaders doesn't even require much in the way of visible changes to the game (though I can't know for sure how much actual scripting work it would take). Knock out status just has to not render her dead according to the programming so that the game carries her forward even with the quest complete. Alternatively with more work she can be given a surrender condition perhaps after dealing with Gut and Ragzlin first and weakening her to half health, after which she escapes, maybe even with an opportunity to catch her with a dialogue skill check and finish her off anyway. You can still get Halsin, do his Act 2 stuff if you feel like, and if you save Minthara he leaves in disgust or something. On paper none of this conflicts with anything the game already does (though they might have to remove the line of code that instantly kills Halsin if they're both in camp so that he can be alive to let you know about his disgust and see himself out), and the Knock Out approach requires the absolute minimum of extra work to accomodate. And importantly, it stays true to them being impossible to have in the same party.
If the evil path in Act 1 was better considered and offered actual unique content (doesn't have to be rewards) or approaches of any kind to help balance out the immense losses for choosing it this wouldn't be a problem. But as is actively choosing evil in Act 1 is JUST flipping the off switch on a truly staggering amount of other content throughout the rest of the game (except maybe for Dark Urge? I'm not familiar with that playthrough yet but it would suck if they're the only Origin to get interesting and unique consequences for Act 1 evil).
