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

^If there was ever a dev here, Never ever listen to this guy.

There's plenty of ways already available to achieve what we want, just having to enable it as so.
Of course we can always talk about the what ifs etc and creating newer stuff...

If nothing else using non lethal to knock her out and the her unconscious body blowing up when you loot it is just plain goofy and immersion breaking

I feel like a good way to do this would be to have her try to escape after losing the battle at the Grove

As it is currently, she sits on her perch and watches the fight only joining in once all her troops are dead and there's no chance of victory. It feels a bit OOC for her to do an idiot death charge like that. Why wouldn't she be more pragmatic about it and try to escape the bounds of the combat area instead?

She'd make her escape and return to Ketheric to petition for more troops only to be reprimanded for her failure leading to her usual Act 2 introduction

Pretty good, but how do you make it so she doesn't instantly blow your cover away, since it was you who betrayed her in the first place? Do you want them to just skip that Ketheric cutscene entirly?

I’d like to chip in if you don't mind. This question has been on my mind too and I find it very interesting to think about

Skipping an entire cutscene wouldn't be ideal, and this one is particularly important to establish Ketheric's role in the story. When Tav enters the room, I think they could add a warning about how Minthara might reveal your identity. This is similar to how it went with Dror Ragzlin and the Mind Flayer interrogation in Act 1. Make it so an [ILLITHID] or [WISDOM] check is possible so you can either force Minthara to stay silent or announce her failure to Ketheric. Of course, in every scenario, Larian has to think about what happens in case of failure. A fight could ensue in the trial room if you fail, but I don't think Ketheric would want to waste his time so he could just disappear as he usually would after Minthara's trial. The scale of the fight is another matter entirely, but I'd like to think the enemies could be limited to those who are currently in the trial room. Either that, or Tav could also be taken to the prison to be repurposed along with Minthara, and this would be the scene where they see her with the two torturers. These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many other alternatives.

I think it'd be really cool to be able to get her in Act 1, partly for the other parts interactions with her, Underdark and Mt. Pass...
Slightly off-topic but I certainly wished the party size was 5 not 4 sometimes...

The populatity of the Minthara - Daughter of Lolth mod should be a testament to Larian's woeful decision to change her recruitment storyline. She fits PERFECTLY in my redemption arc playthrough with Karlach, Wyll, Halsin, Arabella and all of the Grove Tieflings all present. I detest the poor narrative choices robbing players of content and experience. If you Larian have confidence in your game, you shouldn't have to resort to 'creative choices' to force players to play the game multiple times to experience different storylines, because everyone has their own 'perfect' storyline that suits their playstyles and moral compass, and you rob us of such an avenue.

Minthara with a redemption arc and be between the other companions is Comedic/Gold.

Ah yes, Halsin towering next to her in camp was funny, especially knowing his propensity for animal fetish and polyamory.

Halsin should be excommunicated from being a companion.

There was also a Reddit thread with nearly 3k upvotes about Chinese players figuring out one hell of a convoluted way to recruit Minthara in Act 2 (involving turning her into a sheep in Act 1) and save the refugees without using any mod. Another proof of dedication to the Drow mommy right there

On a tangent, the Chinese modder that gives us the Polyamory mod actually figured out just how broken Minthara still is in the game. Goes to show how bad of a choice Larian made, and still couldn't do it right to support that choice.

There are two places in that conversation where you can pipe up and have her notice you.

The first time is right after she's asked whose to blame for her failure in which case her trying to shift the blame could be read as an act of desperation since True Souls aren't supposed to have the level of autonomy the party does. Her accusation would seem ludicrous

The second time is after Ketheric has sentenced her to death. If you select an option that supports the verdict she might lash out and accuse you but, again, it could come across as sheer desperation especially as she's being dragged away

And if you select an option to defend her she might be confused by it but I doubt she'd accuse you while you were negotiating for her life. At that point she's despairing and begging for a stay of execution and your character is handing her a lifeline

"Minthara is actually good" is perhaps the stupidest fan view I've seen out of the BG3 community, or at least it is up there with "Daddy Halsin" and the terrible fanservice writing we got out of that.

I agree with this. But let’s not say she’s entirely evil or vile either. I’ve seen people talk like she’s evil incarnate but she’s roughly on the same level as Astarion and Lae’zel IMO.

I see people saying she's "good, actually" and being serious about it so rarely I truly don't understand where the post came from unless it was just the one person on page 9. Wanting her to be recruitable on the "good" path isn't quite the same as calling her a good person. I'd agree she's roughly as evil as Lae'Zel is, but with more personal ambition where Lae'Zel is more devoted to a cause.

Regardless her strength of character is extremely compelling for a party member and it'd be reallllll nice for her not to be a walking double-standard of recruitment conditions. Can't even save the tiefling content (without some pretty extreme game behavior exploitation which takes a lot more work than anyone should have to do, and could be patched out at any time just like the method to recruit both was), meanwhile Halsin just casually accepts you being a mass-murderer if you say "self defense" about it.

Yeah. Honestly I don’t even want to say she should be recruitable in a ‘good’ path. Let her be recruitable in any path without having to mass murder innocents.

Exclusivity is often good if the benefits outweigh the costs, but that’s clearly not the case for this. I don’t even know why they made the effort to patch out the recruit both method. Just seems like a waste.

I like to think that having Halsin drop dead in camp after that patch was a nod to the older Baldur's Gate games where incompatible characters would just merc each other. It would've been AWESOME if that was just how they designed it from the ground up rather than how it currently is.

I'd like to see an opportunity to recruit her in act 1 after when you can say that Absolute is not what she's thinking. Some persuade check with advantage or else. Don't have anything against a neutral way to recruit her but I want evil way be more rewarded in her case.

I heard of that and I kinda want that to be added in with more reactivity lol. If maybe less severe, like a Shadowheart vs Lae’zel 2.0. It would be hilarious to see Minthara try to fight someone as big as Halsin in the middle of the night.

Same. I want her to be recruited in Act 1 too, but the amount of dialogue they would have to add for Underdark, Grymforge, the Monastery, and other Act 1 areas would be a lot of work. Maybe hope for Definitive Edition.

Alot of work or not, it should be able to happen. There's alot of things wrong with this game, so doing the fixing in a patch is most unlikely but welcome ld if able but yes the/a Definitive Edition is probably where it'll happen.

Also, "Minthara isn't a good person." I wanna call a little BS, and as others have said she's just as bad/evil as Astarion and Lae'zel, so why make an argument that she isn't "good"? Just feels like semantics.