Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Minthara Companion Questline

Now I know I'm not the only person that enjoys Minthara, but one criticism I have for this companion is the sheer amount of sacrifices that must be made to get her, and how much content is lost going this route.

It'd be different if there was enough content to replace it, but as it stands the only reward you get going this route is one companion (that you don't even fully get until the end of Act 2) and a shorter story at the cost of all the Tieflings and their questlines, three companions (potentially 4), and it just seems unbalanced and unnecessary to make this one cool character locked behind this route.

There's just not a lot going for this route nor is there content replacing this decision. There's no new more dark aligned companions to replace the ones lost, nor new questlines to replace the ones you just locked yourself out of. I get wanting to make your decisions have consequences but normally there would be content that'd showcase those consequences instead of lots of cuts to the story.

What I propose is a reward for craftiness. During Part 1, in the event you don't go and save the Goblin Sazza, talking to Minthara makes her seek information from your mind, and there's an option that allows you to cloud your mind with various locations to obscure the location of the grove. But why not take this a step further, and fool her by having your character think of a completely seperate location from the grove, where she'd be fooled into taking her troops, and leaving the camp with confidence, only to be led to a dead end and humiliated, which works very well for her part in Act 2 during a certain scene in a certain tower if she's still alive.

It can be a high skill check to fool her but nonetheless an option for players to avoid killing her without killing the everyone in the Grove and losing out on so much content and works better for her story arc. A confident commander humiliated and abandoned later for her overconfidence and subsequent failures, convinced to join our cause. We can still miss out on Halsin since we technically didn't kill all the leaders of the camp (and in this proposed arc we only killed the two that remained) and miss out on that potential follower for Minthara later, but without the sheer losses that today's arc offers (3 or 4 Companions, several questlines and a huge chunk of the story, all for one individual Companion we get late game). It's an equal sacrifice in my proposed arc.

I dunno, I'm no writer, but I'm sure there's plenty of us that'd enjoy this route.

This one needs a bump.

Also just simply using non-lethal dmg should have her spawn in moonrise in act 2 because she got outplayed/failed her task (lorewise). Why the need to "mark her" as dead from a non-lethal approach... it's... stupid and/or lazy design in a game which is more or less flawless...

The non-lethal attack toggle is a very inconsistent feature that seems like a half-baked idea Larian stopped developing mid way through.

You can knock out vendors and steal their ENTIRE inventory at no cost to yourself, but only some vendors

You can knock out enemies which serves no purpose.



Use non-lethal on Minthara would be the perfect tool for recruiting her to the party without all the nonsensical bullshit and wouldn't necessitate changing the pace of Act 1 or 2 very much, if at all. She's clearly a well thought out character that only suffers from rushed, cut content.

Not true! Look up Sheep Minthara for how glitch the game into giving her to you on a good playthrough

We shouldn't have to glitch the game for her though. Legio_dg and PhoenicianHydra were completely right, they should just let us use non-lethal to recruit her in Moonrise like when you ignore the grove. It literally wouldn't be difficult to implement this at all either. That's what make it so frustrating

The sad thing is modders have already made her recruitable even if you side with the grove on PC, but since I'm a PS5 andy, I'm out of luck

Shameless BUMP @larian

Y'all got your wish. Larian is planning to implement that non-lethal attack as a way to recruit her, but Minthara is not pleased. At all. Also it's metagamey af, so it's horrible roleplay-wise. Wish we could've gotten a better recruitment path but I guess this is what happens when they listen to fans.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH MINTHARANATION WINNING

Also the solutions are simple:

Make all the bosses incapacitate-able.

Full on sabotage moves not assassination.

The goblins stay alive, plus point we solve goblin being dehumanized problem.

Instead of poisoning them, you'd be given a potion that make them sleep, long enough to make the tiefling able to leave.


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Also Minthara can says those thing, it bother me none. Viconia trained me for this.

I am personally not a fan of everything has to be for everyone. Sometimes endings can be bad, sometimes you have to be evil to gain favor with someone. This is just variety in the game giving you new options to explore.

I am doing a Drow play through right now and while some of it seems overly dark to me, the game does feel very different in how I am playing it. I like that everything is not for everyone on every playthrough.

I feel like this is an easy fix, though. All you need is some information in the game of how she was being brain washed and you spared her for that reason. The same way Minsc can be saved, you know?

I don't know if there are several mods, I tried one but removed it again once Minthara got into the party, because the dialogs made no sense. Suddenly you talked about Ketheric Thorm as if you had already met him before ever getting to Moonrise towers. So it was very anti-immersive. I restarted on the evil path. Telling myself that killing the Tieflings in the grove was less gruesome than having them venture into the shadow cursed lands and become shadows themselves.

Have you thought past how "easy" it is, and actually put yourself in her shoes? Being "knocked out" by someone randomly and then they claim they're doing it to save your life because you've been mind-controlled - as if there were no better alternatives, like swaying her with the Prism. Knocking her out to spare her is a stupid way to recruit her regardless, even Minthara agrees.

I mean, that was the only way to recruit Minsc too, since he was so far gone mentally. But if that's not good enough, maybe passing a persuasion check for her to realize she's being controlled, like with Nere?

You said it yourself. Minsc is too far gone mentally. Why bother comparing the two when their circumstances are so different? Minsc also has someone to actually vouch for him, Jaheira, which gives our choice a real incentive. Reminder that Minsc cannot be recruited without her.

There are a lot of things that could be done aside from knocking her out. But people here refuse to see that and continue to whine about the KO option being removed. I'd take a persuasion check any day, or just make it so she's able to flee from the Grove fight. Anything but this.

You know, you bring up a lot of good points. Honestly, I agree with you. The KO option is just the easiest to implement, though, since the events of the game wouldn't have to change at all. So, that's probably what we're gonna get. Still, at least we don't have to be evil to get her, which is wonderful because that's something I don't have the heart for. I'd rather be called an idiot by her than let the sweet tieflings die

My personal desire for Minthara is not to change how she can be recruited, but to give the evil route a lot more content to make it truly worthwhile, beyond getting a single companion while losing countless others. Going evil locks the player out of so much content, and Minthara does not feel like enough to make it a truly fun gameplay experience.

I've been playing BG1 and BG2 for the first time after getting into BG3, and I really wish BG3 had given as much time and attention to evil playthroughs as those two games. I think moreso BG2, BG1's options are not as fleshed out but it still feels more fun than BG3, for me. There's a reputation system, and if you make too many morally horrible choices it tanks. Good-aligned companions will refuse to work with you/attack you, but there are still plenty of companions who are either evil-aligned or neutral with no moral compunctions. Most quests in BG2 have an evil-aligned way to complete them, that isn't just "kill everyone" and actually changes up the story for that quest and affects how everyone views your character. Your character's storyline is changed quite a bit by going down an evil alignment.

I won't say BG2 is the DEEPEST game out there, and BG1 feels less so, but I still found making the choice to tank my characters rep and play evil fun, not like a loss. I didn't feel locked out of content the way I do in BG3 where you lose way more companions and story beats than you gain. It'd be really great if updates/possible definitive edition gave us more companions than Minthara (Sazza, Nere, the duergar NPCs whose names escape me?) and also added to quests so you have more options than turning them down, or just cutting them super short without much payoff/ending them by killing everyone with little to no fanfare.

(Though, there's also the fact BG1/2 both have a bhaalspawn protagonist by default so the entire narrative is about them uncovering their heritage and resisting it or not. Obviously Dark Urge has that, but then we have Tav and companion origins in BG3...)

I've seen arguments like yours a dozen times since launch, but what most people don't realize is expanding the 'evil' route (which doesn't really exist because the game isn't clearly divided by something so binary as 'good' and 'evil') would require even more effort. There is a reason why Larian isn't adding more to the 'evil' route and has gone on to plan the KO option for Minthara. You're free to hope, of course, but I personally have already given up on that one.

Because it's the "easiest to implement" that somehow makes it okay and leaves no room for improvement? There is actually a lot that can be done without changing the course of the game, but I understand some people lack the imagination to suggest something worthwhile. I just expected better of the writers at Larian.

It's not a companion problem, it's an evil path problem. Larian needs to improve the evil path and add content there, instead of giving our only treasure (Minthara) to the good path.

It is 100% a companion problem when said companion is the only one locked behind an unrewarding path. If Larian had added another 'evil' companion besides Minthara, this wouldn't even be an issue. People need to start accepting the 'evil' path was an afterthought during development. If they add another companion now, this late after release, imagine how half-baked their story is going to be.