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

people haven't forogtten the meta gamey exploit and no one would do thought a wiki page or guide telling them, we just ARE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY and can people stop 'um actually'ing with this game-y exploit as a solution to this problem in every thread it comes up in as it has ZERO to do with this conversation and isn't a solution.

+1 Good point.

Every time I encountered new Absolute cultists after saving the Grove, I expected someone to recognize me or at least be decently suspicious of me. But no, everyone in Act 2 is perfectly happy to believe that I'm a loyal Absolutist - even though, as @StormUndying mentions, "the Chosen are aware that there is a rogue true soul running around with the Astral Prism." This got more and more unbelievable each time, after I had taken more and more public actions against the cult in previous encounters.

So yes, good characters essentially get much of the Evil Playthrough for free without having to do anything bad. And what does this leave for the dedicated "Evil Path"? Chaotic Evil Genocide of refugees.

I am not talking about an exploit.
You are SUPPOSED to be able to recurit Minthara without helping her attack the Grove. It is entirely intended.
She even has dialogue with both Karlach and Wyll, because it is completely intended to be able to have them in the party together.

The only thing that was an exploit, is screwing with Halsin's dialogue/quest and sequence breaking to get him and Minthara. That's the only combination of characters that isn't supposed to happen.

If you proceed to the mountain/act 2 without killing the leaders, it completes the "help the tieflings quest" with "you didn't help the tieflings and they died in an ambush" and Minthara moves on to be recruitable in Act 2.
Neither Karlach nor Wyll leaves the party, because you didn't do anything to make them see you as an enemy. You just didn't do a particular side quest. You stayed out of it, and the story moves forwards with the results of you staying out of it.

Really don’t understand the argument about your choices matter when more options mean that your choices are actually more impactful. Hell even make it more difficult, if you free her in the goblin camp make it so you have to fight your way out through the whole camp.

It doesn't actually make a lot of continuity sense, you can travel back to the goblin camp with Minthara, and no one really acknowledges it, but there you go.

OP - MInthara is Evul! and will not care for you if you don't kill the Tieflings. She will kill YOU.

I've just reached Act 3 on a Dark Urge/evil playthrough and honestly? There's absolutely no reason for Minthara to be tied to the destruction of The Grove. If we were able to knock her unconcious or talk her down at the Goblin Camp, her recruitment at Moonrise and the subsequent story would not be any different (and what a great story she has!).

There are other characters in our party that are...not great people, and folks have no issue with them being available to recruit. Minthara would also be another good character to work alongside Astarion trying to convince the player on the merits of tadpoling and domination.

That's true of True Soul Minthara. Once she's free of her tadpole, she's a much more practical brand of evil, and calls you out for killing the tieflings (unless you had a good reason for doing so). While it makes sense that Act 1 Minthara wouldn't want anything to do with you unless you exterminate the Tieflings (hence no goblin party and no Act 1 romance), Act 2-3 Minthara is motivated by her oath of vengeance against Orin and the Cult of the Absolute. If anything she should be MORE motivated to join you if you've been in opposition to the cult up to that point.

Is that a repost from the subreddit? Without any additional commentary?

I'm the creator of this meme, but maybe I should have clarified that sooner.
I made this meme to emphasize that you have more options for other companions which ensure a lot more people can enjoy them together in a party and don't lock you into an "either-or" decision.

Using memes to garnish your argument is liable to backfire around here. At least it did for me.

I know I'm echoing others, but

I do think it's not a great choice to have her clocked away behind the act 1 choice like the is. It doesn't make enough sense with her character, or her 'story arcs' etc.

So yeah, +1 all the way.

I'm in Act 3 with her, and at least if you play as Durge, I think it makes total sense with her character that she is only available for an evil group. I don't want to spoil anything, but afaik as I can tell you can't lead her into a good/bad direction like with origin characters (if I didn't unintentionally lock her into the evil road at some point, or there is a surprise ending).

She isn't a "mindless butcher" kind of evil, but what she wants is just not possible to do with a good group in my view. If you go down the evil road though, she is a great adviser and cheerleader. : )

Play with her as a character who makes all the good options post-recruiting her, and after seeing the dialogue and perspectives she has then see if you can say the same. She sees power in doing the right thing, she fits better in a 'good' party than Astarion and no one would back an argument to have him leave the group if you don't kill the teefs and deny the entire teef content for the rest of the game.

I think I tried to do that (I wanted to see what happens, taking different options so did a lot of savings, both good/evil, there is a limit of course though what you can do in one playthrough) and her own story is of course harsh and all (she explains that whether you take a good or evil road), but even when she is not controlled by the Absolute anymore, besides loyalty to you, she always is on the side of the pro-evil option (Shadowheart going Shar, La-zael siding with Vlaakith, Durge going full on his path and so forth). Her ultimate goal seems to be becoming the best tyrant there is (or co-tyrant). Astarion is different, at least for me (you have a much wider range where you can take him).

She isn't portrait as a mindless killer who just kills for fun, like an Orin character, but still ultimately has evil goals through and through. Which isn't bad either. Not all characters have to be in a grey area, and in my view they made her proper evil without being a mustache twirling psycho.

As I mentioned, I didn't play with Minthara on a Tav character, that could be totally different.

RPG fans so obsessed with 'more options!!!11' that they don't realize that having an objective best ending invalidates any choice aside from that which leads to said ending; imagine wanting difficult situations that actually require hard choices that require thought about what your character values or would do, instead of just being able to look up 'ideal solutions flowchart' online and turn off your brain.

First things first I never got the kill bill showdown between Laezel and Shadowheart. Yes they banter a lot, trying to get on annoy one another but for me it always was more like in DA Origins with Alistair and Morrigan. So you really had to ignore one of them to come to that point.

Second. I agree that Minthara should get the chance to join without starting war crimes but under certain conditions. I think the best way would be to make more out of the grove location situation. It bugged me playing hunter and wanting to use my knowledge to lure them into a trap and get called out for betraying the grove. Because there is no option for winking at your allies making them understand we'll use it to our advantage. The progress of this scenario would be pretty similar but this time with the clear intend to "devide and conquer" for better chances of the grove survival. Instead of I betray the grove only to walk to Zelvor to say I changed my mind let's defend.

Compagnion Quest Unexpected Alliance:

- find Minthara and tell her about the grove (dialog option: lie you help her to lure into trap)
- prepare the trap with Zelvor
- fight the battle against the army
- when winning you see Minthara fleeing the battlefield or in combination by giving her the joice to live
- because of her failure, she'll be send to moonrise tower
- rest of the leader can be killed for Halsin (optional)
- Moonrisetower you can recruit her as usual (Halsin will oppose high dialogue check to win him over)
- Minthara still no good goodshoes but sees you as the best chance for payback on the absolute (the enemy of my enemy is my friend)


Concerning Wyll and Karlach I would love this to have more consequences. Wyll in total should have more hard decisions prepared by Mizora to make. For example everytime he goes against her will, he gets more deformed maybe a buff to fire resistance but a debuff to ice and holy damage. Wyll in that regard should also be available for an evil playthrough. It's quite easy just let Mizora set the stage for that, maybe she wants the Refugees dead cause she made a deal with Zariel getting their souls back to Avernus. Wyll has to decide what to do. Following her mistress order gives him more boons to his abilities but he also looses more and more his humanity on the road. In the end even trying to betray you for pushing him to this.