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

I think you can still get her by resolving Kagah's quest then ignoring the conflict. You still miss out on Halsin, but you haven't committed genocide either

Genos - birth, race, kind. 'Mass' is implicit.

One that which does confuse me about this: isn't Minthara after the druids? But it is the tieflings who you are supposed to protect and who defend the Grove/Hollow.

Yeah, teh Tiefs are also in charge of the gate when you first get there. You'd suspect the Druids to man that wall, but, no.

Exactly!

Pretty much was going to say all of this.

I just don't get people who want to deny others some enjoyment because they'd rather enjoy things their way.
It's like people who are asking for a happy ending for Karlach, but other people chime in that they prefer her current endings for any number of reasons.

So what? How does having more options suddenly make your preferred options less in anyway?

No one is asking to remove what's in the game now. Adding a "good guy" option to Minthara does not impact an evil playthrough at all.

I suspect people are looking at this as a zero sum problem, that adding to the game means something is removed. Or that it will somehow diminish their choices. That's not really the case though.
One thing that would make a good compromise here? Make the "good guy" Minthara recruitment extra difficult, which it should be given the circumstances. It will add value to evil playthroughs since Minthara's recruitment would be significantly easier, but still give other players options if they want to go the extra mile for them. That's what people are asking for after all, an option, something more, which will only make the game better. No one is trying to take away from your game here.

No, we'd better have a full-fledged path of evil.

Aaaaand the tieflings die because of your inaction. And you miss on the story. And XP. And loot.

Nah. It's a true RPG-- your choice in the Grove should have consequences one way or another. Losing a good or bad character depending on your choices makes.

Right, but you only lose one if you choose good, and you lose three if you choose evil. And as has been pointed out many times prior-you lose out on a *lot* of content with no evil-exclusive equivalent content present to make up for it.

I don't think we'd be seeing threads like as much this if killing the tieflings resulted in a unique experience with it's own npcs, quest lines, story content etc that continues on over the next two acts, or if killing the goblins held *any* significant negative consequence in the game besides being unable to recruit Minthara.

The fact that Larian put so little comparative effort into fleshing out a major story branch that a third of their players took is pretty damning, IMHO.

In my opoinion its good like its. Minthara joins to evil and neutral character. Similar situation to Wyll and Karlah, they are only stay with you if you choose good or neutral patch.

Also when you meet her first or even second time she is evil, so why evil person should join to good group...

It's wild that so many people are just so adamant about evil being equally rewarded as good beyond experiencing a different respective. They are not interchangeable narratives. If your narrative is about murdering, selfishness and domination, expect to be surrounded by less people. It's bad enough you get all the stat boosts like hag hair, tadpole power use RP without consequence, Slayer Form access, the most OP item and tadpole tree in dark urge playthrough with a cape that drops combat after assassination for repeat surprise attacks and invisibility. Good gets nothing but the extra companions and NPC's.

If you want you can play as good DU, you can resist to kill ppl and you get that cape anyway. You can refuse gifts from Bhaal. And if you play evil character no DU orgin you wont get it too as good one and still miss companions and very good items from vendors

yeah and let us keep karlach and wyll for being a psycho betrayer so there's no consequence at all for course of action taken then , keep in mind most character companions you can help have some sort of redemption , but you cannot truly corrupt them so is not like is equal for both types of playthrough and that is fine with me,sometimes evil means less people around overall as a product of it , did not try to restart the moment Karlach or wyll left since it was a consequence of choice,or are those not good enough characters to feel locked out of and is there something I'm missing ? cause if not its fine either way and that goes for regular evil or DU character.

The Tieflings die being ambushed on the road, same as if you'd killed the leaders of the goblins. Except the leaders aren't dead, and you can recruit Minthara at Moonrise

It' wild how so many people are adamant that players should be punished for playing evil, like it's some sort of moral obligation that the devs make sure they have a worse experience. I don't know how many people can lack the self awareness and empathy to realize that yes, people asking to be 'equally rewarded' for playing a path that they themselves personally aren't interested in is a reasonable expectation.

Seriously, the way I keep hearing 'evil players' painted is pretty patronizing. We aren't children who don't understand that if they don't play nice, they'll get grounded and the finger wagging isn't doing anyone any favors. The whole 'you are just experiencing the consequences of your actions' attitude is just so willfully ignorant of the grievances in discussion it's baffling.

Here's a thought: How about evil players get some actual multi-act sidequests and reappearing npcs? How about as 'consequences' there was some unique storyline involving, IDK the fallout of those dead tieflings following you act-to act? Volo stirring shit up like he threatened to do, do-gooders seek you out as antagonists in later acts, while evil-doers hear of your reputation and seek you out to make you a part of their plans? What if you could actually side with the Shadow Druids and do nefarious missions for them in Act II & III? what if Nere and the Militant Mycholar weren't cut content, and you had drow allies to work with later in the game? How about some memorable evil npcs from Act I returned later like Abdirak, etc. What if evil players had exclusive party members like good players did? or if there were returning evil party members from the Original games that were actually recruitable?

It really doesn't take much imagination to think of ways that the evil path could be anything other than a disappointing desert of content.

There aren’t any other consequences to this choice that I can tell outside of losing the companions. It would make sense for wyll or Karla h to leave if you kill tieflings, but at a minimum evacuating the tieflings should allow you to keep those companions. Personally Minthara is the main companion that really felt interesting to me and that I liked so I can’t see myself doing a playthrough without recruiting her (plus dual wield paladin is pretty strong later on) and that shouldn’t lock out two companions with major quests

Even if she was available in a good playthough, improving her approval...well, you'd better have Lae'zel and Astarion as your other two party members, or 'everyone else disapproves.'

100%, this needs to happen. There's not much to say which hasn't been said athousand times.
Her story for how you recruit her, makes just as much if not more sense if you opposed the absolute in act 1 than if you went undercover in it through attacking the grove. The game already has a line about how what you did to the grove doesn't make sense and you need to justify it to her.
That you have to lose half your party to recruit her is ridiculous when no other companion or situation requires that. And given her entire character post-recruitment is not compatible with the act 1 choice you have to make to recruit her! and she plays extremely well with post-act 1 good choices and already has content for it. That she has banter and dialogue for Karlach, a character you can only recruit at the same time as her through a game-y exploit, everything about her works better and has more potential if she is recruitable after BOTH act 1 choices.
Even before you get, she was bugged and broken and so many people have already played the lock yourself out of half the games content path just for her and not experienced most of her content because the game was broken, factor!



The she's evil so of course, she's anti-absolute, that's the main thing about her character so you can only recruit her by being pro-absolute doesn't check out, especially as TO recruit her, you have to break the going undercover premise that siding with absolute in act 1 requires as breaking her out ruins that. So it doesn't make sense, Evil is not just evil=yes no more motives or positions. It wouldn't undo choices, this is an arbitrary consequence not one that follows from the choice. You don't 'side wiht evil and get evil companion.
Would the evil choice do nothing if she was recruiitable in both paths? No, it'd still remove the teefs, it'd still effect your whole game and have effects on all your characters. It'd just not lock half the players out of her, and mean to experience her content you had to act against her narrative, cognitively dissonance not for in-game but solely for meta to recruit Minthara reasons, and lost out on ALL the extensive teef content and half your party!

you know you can be evil without going in for the stupid genocide murderhobo like right?

... You do know the tieflings survive and have story in all 3 acts if the goblins leaders are killed, right?