Originally Posted by Crimsomrider
A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT regarding Update #5 enabling Minthara to be recruited while siding with Halsin and Zevlor;

Quote
cheerMinthara will still appear in ACT II if she was knocked out in Act Icheer

  • When you are ready to wipe out the entire Goblin camp; in order to recruit Minthara you have to first make her Temporarily Hostile by committing a crime next to her and then non-lethally knock her out. Despite the journal mentioning she died, continue to slaughter everyone in the Goblin camp in order to save the Tieflings and the Grove.
  • Once you eventually reach ACT II with everyone saved; Minthara can be found in Moonrise Towers being judged by General Ketheric Thorm where you can recruit her. She and Halsin will both be chilling at camp after she's been rescued.
  • DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES knock Minthara out without the TEMPORARILY HOSTILE tag, otherwise she will not spawn in ACT II.

Am so happy Larian listened and made wonderful Minthara available to everyone now. Despite the currently raw and basic implementation of her recruitment, having her in ACT 2 makes the overall experience so much more fulfilling and content packed and here's hoping to future improvements which would seamlessly integrate her with everyone, along with her having her own spot in camp so it's not shared with Halsin ^^

1) I am not yet convinced of Minthara's full recruitability.

I have yet to see proof to be convinced that Minthara has been made fully recruitable with Patch #5. In order to be fully recruitable, she'll have to be just like any Origin character recruited as an active companion. As you know, once a companion, always a companion - BG1,2,3 all work this way - until or unless the game takes them away from you due to your certain action or inaction (for example: you can kill companion Shadowheart a million times and she's still there ready to actively greet you - until someday you do something that triggers the game into thinking it's time for her to vanish forever or fight you to death or otherwise get permanently removed from the remaining part of the game).

2) Minthara is always recruitable to all player parties.

This may come as a surprise to many players. But it is true: she is always recruitable in the full release of this game - from before patch #1 to patch #5. No, you don't have to turn her into a goat or sheep or use any such weird tricks. Also, it doesn't matter whether or not you knock her out. As long as you don't fight/kill her (which makes perfect sense if you plan to recruit a living person, rather than a dead/undead cold body), she will show up in Act 2 and can be convinced with your actions + words to permanently join you.

Technically, the only change made with Patch #5 in this matter is that Halsin will not automatically die if Minthara is alive at the very first instant the player party sets foot beyond the boundaries of Act 1. With patch #5, as long as Minthara has been knocked out once, the script that is meant to auto-kill Halsin will not run. Prior to Patch #5, the sheep trick was essentially meant just to fool this script, as it turns out that a polymorphed version of Minthara does not trigger the script. With patch #5, a knocked out version of Minthara (which is much easier to deal with than a polymorphed version of her) can also deactivate the script. Without the auto-kill script being triggered, Halsin and Minthara can be both alive in Act 2/3.


== Some extra comments ==

3) I personally hate the knocking out method for recruiting her due to lack of any story-based hint on her recruitability this way. She reveals her potential recruitability if you have gone purely evil as she commands. If you don't, the only sign that hints at her potential recruitability is when you loot her dead corpse: Oops, have I just unknowingly killed a potential companion?!

4) The biggest Minthara bug known to me: unable to talk to her.

My Karlach party (only level 6) killed about two dozen level 8 guards to rescue Minthara (an unusually large-scale, challenging battle for a level 6 party on Tactician difficulty). After all 4 party members unanimously liked/approved her joining and she pledged her newly found loyalty to Karlach, nobody can talk to her any more. I reported this as a bug to Larian but don't know if or when this may be addressed. Patch #5 does not have a fix to this bug. I have wasted dozens of hours to figure out a workaround and wasn't able to.

5) Minthara is not pure evil (or at least not as evil as Viconia).

Minthara is only as evil as her Drow origin dictates. Once she becomes a permanent companion, she'll be a lot different (similar to Viconia in BG2 and Lae'zel in BG3 after you have raised their approval ratings). Technically, Minthara fits a "good" party much more than the pure evil BG2:SOA version of Viconia does.



== To every player ==

I'd appreciate it (and surely many others would too) if you would share some experiences after you have successfully recruited Minthara using the knock out method - especially in Tactician/Honor mode - confirming here that you have got a fully working companion using this method.

Thank you in advance!