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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2023
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+1 would also be amazing if she was an origin character. Id love to play through her story before she joined the Absolute! Please Larian make it happen! Minthara is my favourite.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2023
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I don't really see Minthara as having a redemption arc like Shadowheart. If there were two BG3 games so she had more time to change, a tentative maybe on that. If people want a nuanced romanceable drow lady, Viconia in BG2 is the gold standard.
My understanding from what I've seen of Minthara is even though she expresses some potential remorse for the raid, she is still pretty evil? Like she has a code of honor, but she doesn't have much empathy for anyone who isn't the PC. I love her character, but I'm not sure that putting in a "good path" for her really fits the character. (Though I admit it's hard to want to recruit her when the goblins are so unlikeable and you miss out on so much other content. IMO the evil path just needs some more content if that's ever possible to implement).
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
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I don't understand the logic of gating companion characters behind a particular path. It's like somebody forgot that it might actually be entertaining to have an Evil character in a Good party, or a Good character in an Evil party? Companion conflicts should play out while adventuring in-party, not precluding the possibility before you ever get the chance. All the companion recruitment quests are overly involved right now. It's too easy to lock yourself out, and the party comps (particularly for the Durge run) are very limited. There just aren't enough full companions in this game to be doing all these party breaks, and it shouldn't require so much meta on the player's part. The first thing Larian asked EA players to do was evaluate and provide feedback on the "Evil" path. That was day 1, patch 1 of the EA in 2020. This had the effect of making players think that our 5 original Origin companions were basically the Evil Party in this game, and that the Good companions would be coming later on. But other than Karlach, our "Good" origin companions never materialized. Instead the 5 fab all had to be given a 'talking to' about playing nicer and putting their most agreeable foot forward. Their verbal barbs were traded out for 'thank yous' and their grimaces turned into smiles. Now of course people are on about Minthara as an afterthought, but honestly they asked, and got an answer on that one. But then they proceeded to put these companion conflicts everywhere, making it an "Either/Or" instead of an "And" right from the getgo. Reducing the available party comps to such a degree limits overall replay, cause you only have to do that path once to realize that it's not really worth it. There's no, 'I wonder what would happen with Minthara and Wyll or Minthara or Jaheira doing the evil Durge route?' You know, strange bedfellows having to work together. No funny banter or hidden paths there, cause we know the good guys are just going to quit if we don't pick them first in dodgeball. Nevermind keeping your enemies close, or going deep undercover, or anything like that. It's just a miss in my view. There's a whole charm to playing a villain that comes from pushing your "good" or "neutral" companions down the darker path, reigning in the more willful companions to maintain a powderkeg crew etc. You lose that when it's up-ended by initial party locks. Right now it's like every companion in the game has the spell "Know Alignment" as a passive, even though this edition of D&D ostensibly did away with that concept. Somehow everyone is always already in the know on this stuff, even our companions who don't have tadpoles. They're all clairvoyant I guess? we can't even use our illithid wisdom to muddy the waters? What's the point of taking the Charlatan background? hehe. It's as if we all had the word "Evil" tattooed on our foreheads, (which I guess is the case if you get the brand from Gut) but still! lol It's just a bizarre way to set it up. ![[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]](https://i.ibb.co/Vm4BzZ3/Screenshot-2023-08-18-161613.png)
Last edited by Black_Elk; 03/10/23 05:08 PM.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
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There's a secret simple way to recruit Minthara without Genocide and without losing both Wyll and Karlach,
1. Send her to the Emerald Grove
2. Then go into Act 2 without going to the Grove, you'll later recruit her at Moonrise Towers.
There's literally no need for a petition for something you could already do in game.
Last edited by Sai the Elf; 03/10/23 05:32 PM.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2023
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There's a secret simple way to recruit Minthara without Genocide and without losing both Wyll and Karlach,
1. Send her to the Emerald Grove
2. Then go into Act 2 without going to the Grove, you'll later recruit her at Moonrise Towers.
There's literally no need for a petition for something you could already do in game. I honestly don't know the answer to this, but don't you miss a ton of XP this way? Also the tieflings and their related quests are still dead, so you miss out on even more xp. Not that I think Minthara should magically be happy to turn on the goblins and join you, it just seems like this "neutral" path doesn't have anything to make up for the loss of xp and equipment (or even Minthara's romance scene, right?).
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member
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member
Joined: Aug 2023
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There's a secret simple way to recruit Minthara without Genocide and without losing both Wyll and Karlach,
1. Send her to the Emerald Grove
2. Then go into Act 2 without going to the Grove, you'll later recruit her at Moonrise Towers.
There's literally no need for a petition for something you could already do in game. I honestly don't know the answer to this, but don't you miss a ton of XP this way? Also the tieflings and their related quests are still dead, so you miss out on even more xp. Not that I think Minthara should magically be happy to turn on the goblins and join you, it just seems like this "neutral" path doesn't have anything to make up for the loss of xp and equipment (or even Minthara's romance scene, right?). You miss out on a lot more than XP yeah. There's that, you can't romance her this way, you still turn off all the tiefling content (the entire point of the thread is a request to circumvent that because of all the collateral quest damage recruiting her causes with their deaths), as a result Karlach's quest breaks entirely, etc. Getting her the evil way makes it even worse and the ONLY thing you get out of the evil path is XP and the possibility of pursuing her barely functioning romance. It's downright silly.
Last edited by Auric; 03/10/23 09:41 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
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It's not just the XP, you also lose out on a meaningful resolution to the first Act, with a nice camp scene and that satisfying pause before the next leg of the journey. So basically giving up a pretty good chunk of the story there, along with the romance option for Minthara.
I feel like taking the steps outlined above would have been a cool route to recruiting Kagha though! hehe
Instead of a fun party with the Tiefs, or roasting Dwarf with the Goblins, maybe she appears for a whole separate Shadowdruid resolution to the first Act, complete with creepy viper rituals. Perhaps some nods to how we distracted Halsin and so deftly orchestrated a big battle between the Tiefs and Goblins at the gate. You know by going with flow and winding our way to the finish line all the same. Obviously buying her enough time to complete the Rite of Thorns and get rid of anyone who might challenge her promotion to Arch Druid, which was her main objective right? Later, after we find out that Minthara somehow survived, perhaps it comes up again in conversation. Minthara can't let it go, Kagha barks back and they argue about periodically it to keep things lively. Sometimes we have to put them both in check with persuasion, or intimidation, or various sticks and carrots. I'd trade Halsin and any 3 Tiefs for Minthara probably, but all of em? I mean they do get replaced with Flaming Fist characters I guess, so you still get something, but it doesn't feel like parity.
Anyway, what people want I think, or what I want at least, is mainly more options on the party comps. If we had like 3 or 4 Mintharas to choose from, then it wouldn't seem as rough if there are going to be hard locks that come early, but we only got the 1 Minthara here. I just keep imaging all the great banter that we'll never get because too many of the companions aren't set up to be cross compatible along a given path. If the companions are like totally grating against each other, always working at cross purposes, that's a gold mine for material. Look how great the Lae'zel vs Shadowheart stuff is! I mean that's what it's all about right there, that's the good stuff that keeps one coming back and trying all the various combinations.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
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I didnt read all 9 pages ... But i thought there should be a way to get Minthara without killing the Groove. If... you just manage to help Kagha to seal the Groove ... Halsin (even if he survives) no longer cares (or at least he didnt, in EA, not sure if this wasnt changed ... didnt check myself yet) if Goblin leaders die ...
So ... logicaly, if you leave her alive ... she should be in Moonrise Towers, failing in her task just as normaly ... right?
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings.  Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Sep 2023
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You actually can still romance her, you just don’t get the sex scene. Second playthrough I avoided the grove quest to avoid losing companions and still got the romance trigger before going into act 3
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member
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member
Joined: Aug 2023
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You actually can still romance her, you just don’t get the sex scene. Second playthrough I avoided the grove quest to avoid losing companions and still got the romance trigger before going into act 3 Huh, this is news to me. I wonder if it's more of her being finnicky with the approval rating.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Oct 2023
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@Necrofkz (OP) (Major Spoilers - I realize you have already done at least one playthrough, but just in case) So I had resisted a Dark Urge playthrough for quite awhile. In short (even though it's just a game) the great script, voice acting and most importantly MOCAP brought characters to life in a way that few games have (Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origin etc). So there was a certain reality to the druid grove for me that made it difficult to contemplate running them through having saved them and befriended them previously.
Nonetheless I gave it a shot. And while this isn't a Durge conversation, so far it's very well executed. But to the point, Minthara. And as others have said, as long as you're okay missing the sex scene (probably the more graphically depicted of all of them save Halsin), you can just wait until Act 2 to romance her. But if you want that sex scene, read on.
As you explore the Minthara character's motivations following her rescue in Moonrise Towers, you realize that she is complex, just like 'your' character in the Durge. Except with Durge you have this other persona if you will that you can't control without a lot of hard work, in Minthara's case the Absolute basically intoxicated her, and brought to the surface 'her' urges that she otherwise 'is' able to control. While Minthara hasn't taken accountability for the lives she snuffed out while in the Absolute's thrall, (she's not a moral person even without the Absolute), she's not a genocidal maniac at the core.
At the time of the Druid Grove massacre, she's very much under the sway of the Absolute. While you were attacking the grove, she definitely wanted the carnage, the real Minthara (protected by the Prism and free of the Absolute's influence) does not value wanton killing and even goes so far as to say the Drow Goddess Lolth will purge Chaotic Evil murderers from the drow ranks because they are liabilities. So our storylines sort of move in tandem, she just got free of her urges first because hers were driven by an external force whereas my character's are internal.
Minthara is not a good person. She has a very limited moral compass, but she does have a strong ethical compass if that makes sense. I don't believe the character story is as deep as say Lae'zel or Shadowheart, but her character (who she is) would preclude the possibility of avoiding that genocide unless you were able to insulate her from the Absolute's influence right away (which Larian won't let you do in the game's current state). It would not be authentic to her personality. And while I understand that it would be really cool to have cake and eat it too by not snuffing out the grove & romancing Minthara, the story would break in believability. So if Larian does anything to change this, it would have to be 'that.'
As a side note, the Durge character has a code. No harming kids, no harming animals, and no lying. So telling the brutal truth in dialogues has gotten me some fights I could have otherwise avoided. But I deliberately (at the grove) told all the Fletcher kids to stay underground and they agreed. I stayed away from there in the attack. The next day I go down to check on them and saw two goblins in there bragging about decimating the lot. And from an RP standpoint, a durge character faced with a cult that slaughters children, my character's guiding light? You can imagine the justification that will ensue for pretty much any heinous act against the cult or their allies that occurs for the rest of the game.
Last edited by Vegor; 09/10/23 03:31 PM.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
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Just here to leave a note of support! Because you should be able to just knock her out.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2023
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Just seconding that! After my first run, I didn't even thought that we could recruit Minthara into our party! She resembles me one of the most memorable characters I've ever had in any RPG: Viconia DeVir in BG2. Ruthless, fiery drow, that had one of the most intresting and surprising character developments in a long run. It required a lot of patience and empathy, but it paid off in the end  So, let us recruit her without commiting genocide!
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jun 2022
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Then Larian just cut and pasted evil boss number 5 into the game with Viconia as the name which totally shows their disrespect for beloved evil characters
Just put the cut content back in please
Luke Skywalker: I don't, I don't believe it.
Yoda: That is why you failed.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2023
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Imo, the problem with Minthara is part of a bigger problem with evil paths in this game. If you try to play a neutral evil character, something of a pragmatic villain who does whatever benefits them the most, you'll end up picking almost all of the good choices. Like, what do you get for killing Nightsong? A cooler spear? If Shar at least gave you and your companions permanent resistance to the shadows, or maybe ordered her shadows to help you assault Towers, then killing Nightsong would make some sense.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2023
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I really don't get this just leave it as it is. Just go get that whiney modern tiefling karlach.
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member
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member
Joined: Aug 2023
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I really don't get this just leave it as it is. Just go get that whiney modern tiefling karlach. I disagree, they should not leave it as it is.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Aug 2023
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Yes! Minthara should be an Origin character with an interesting personal goal to conclude. The player should be able to guide her down a good path. Most of what was interesting about Minthara is that she was tired of backstabbing and feared winding up backstabbed. It still makes little sense that all of her endings send her back towards the path that ensnared her initially. Shadowheart has the Selunite/Shar option of light versus dark.
Laezel has a noble warrior purpose and will murder anything for her queen. Unless she doesn't, and then she is an outcast beyond the red and black. The player can impact Faerun in a very real way. I would love to see a better path laid out for her endings, and playthrough in general. The player can still perform all the evil actions they like, but I don’t agree that the character is evil at this point after the things that have occurred in the story.
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member
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member
Joined: Aug 2023
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I don’t agree that the character is evil at this point after the things that have occurred in the story. Doing good deeds is not the same as the content of your beliefs, values, and goals being good. She has beliefs about life, values about power, and goals about spoilers I don't wanna interrupt this line with that all trend toward very real evil. By the end of the game a lot of that hasn't changed. If you romance her she gets some very poignant development that could be a sort of first step in the direction you're talking about. But unless she gets a truly wild amount of content added, making her see the light so to speak just isn't actually in the cards in this game.
Last edited by Auric; 11/10/23 05:41 AM.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2020
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Good side has already more than evil side i think, minthara should stay as a carrot in a stick to make all the heroes join the dark side too.
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