Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Minthara should flee from the Emerald Grove raid when she can't win

It seems strange that when defending the Grove against Minthara, she will never run from the fight, instead always choosing to fight to the death. I had killed her entire attacking force and prevented them from even breaching the gate, but she was still up on her hill screaming at her dead goblins to kill us. For a character who seems so inclined toward deceit, it feels like she should flee from the fight when it becomes apparent that she can't win. Whether it's when her sappers are all dead and the gate is still up, most of her troops have been killed, or her own health just goes low enough, there should be a point where she recognizes that she's lost and just flees to try another day. Particularly where there's now the ability to defeat her with nonlethal damage and have her appear again later, this would feel like a significantly more natural way to invoke that outcome, as opposed to just letting her live for no real reason other than metaknowledge. I made a related post where I mentioned this a couple days ago as part of it, but someone recommended I make it its own thread.

She probably knows what awaits her at Moonrise tower if she returns defeated and prefers an honorable death over torture in the dungeons.

Maybe, but it would also make it significantly easier to naturally access her survival of the conflict instead of leaving her alive for no reason. Also, I'd say you could probably rationalise it as trying to flee into the woods just for survival but getting found and captured.

I knocked her out but she never appeared at moonrise.

You have to knock her out while she's "temporarily hostile" in the goblin area. Once she's at the raid on the grove it's too late.

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I find the idea of Minthara fleeing combat to be a more elegant solution to finding her later at Moonrise.

The idea that she doesn't retreat because she knows what will happen to her at Moonrise doesn't make any sense to me. For some reason, she goes back to Moonrise after being knocked out, but won[t retreat? At some point we're just throwing wild interpretations against the wall regardless of inconsistencies.

If the goal is to allow Minthara to be at Moonrise even if the player didn't ally with her, then the method of doing so should make as much sense as possible. Her retreating from a lost cause makes more sense than just randomly bonking her on the head and knocking her unconscious, which is oddly one of the only times a player probably knocks an enemy unconscious instead of dealing a death blow.

My justification on why she doesn’t just run. The absolute will not allow her to consider it. She has a martyr app programmed in her brain.

Well it's not just Minthara. Everyone fights to the death in BG3.

I wish they would have included at least one returning nemesis who would have the sense to flee and plot their revenge. Lorroakan fits the bill pretty well as a powerful mage who could teleport away. Then again he's not a well crafted character, more like a childish cartoon villain or a caricature of a fancy evil person. It's hard to imagine a person like that who clearly lacks any kind of serious conviction would become a powerful enough Wizard to kidnap a demi-god. Potentially a fun enemy, but a really weak character overall in his current form.

The "knoick out" scenario is a late addition, and additions like that easily cause some leaps of faith if you introduce them without adapting the main story.

I did the evil route and though we gloriously massacred the false-god believers, Minthara was still imprisoned on return to moonrise towers, and given to the inquisitors for torture. Just because she had failed to find the artefact. The goblins that accompanied her were unceremoniously murdered in the throne room. (Actually it was "us" who murdered the poor goblins, who thought we were their friends and allies, to gain the trust of the MT absolutes)

So yes if she loses the battle, she should know that a gruesome fate awaits her. But where else can she go ? She's still under the influence of the absolute. No way out for her but death.

I think I would also prefer a swift death on the battlefield than become a playtoy for Myrkul fanatics.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think it's an amazing idea and definitely should be a thing for Minthara.

Even under the Absolute's influence she's an intelligent commander who is quite calculating and pragmatical because she refuses to raid the Grove unless the player helps her with the gates, even yells herself at the player that she is not expendable and won't lead a suicidal charge, so her retreating makes sense after seeing the battle definitely lost because she is not some suicidal maniac and does not see the raid as her failure which is why she does not expect punishment whatsoever at Moonrise.

Her being cautious is further proven by entering her mind to save her in Moonrise Prison; if the player tells her to fake obedience she'll tell the player "I'd prefer to make these bastards bleed, but I trust that you speak from caution rather than cowardice."


Everything fits perfectly with the established lore so in my opinion this would be a far more natural and interesting way to ensure she is in ACT 2 which also plays into her personality and character. And more importantly the player would get to experience the raid itself which is the biggest moment of ACT 1, which currently the player has to avoid if they want Minthara in ACT 2.

I've actually seen it once, I believe. After killing Lump when he turned on me, his surviving minion ran out of range and despawned. It was replicable across two different runs of that fight so it seems that there may be at least one instance of enemy flight in the game.

The leader of the goblin group who torture a gnome in the village always tries to flee, once his health is dropped to 0 (not 1, unless I was mistaken). If he's allowed to flee, everyone else flees too, which makes me really hate him because I don't get XP for watching them unstoppably run away. So, whenever I'm here, I make sure I'll kill everyone else first before chopping down their leader. However, this makes the battle much harder for a party of level 3, who wish to fight them fair and square. That's because this leader is by far the most vicious among the group. Keeping him alive means letting him attack/slaughter my party members with no consequences until all other goblins are dead.

In WW2, Japanese military commanders and soldiers would not flee/surrender upon defeat in battles. Upon knowing they had been defeated in a battle, almost all of them would not hesitate to die or die attacking, unless expressly ordered to retreat. Very, very few would flee from a battle or surrender. That has nothing to do with how inclined they were toward deceit. We all know, Japanese imperial navy in WW2 were really good at deceit.

I would have lost any interest in recruiting her as a companion, should she have the character/personality that enabled her to flee upon defeat.

While the Japanese were indeed reluctant to surrender, they would most certainly retreat.

I think this is a really interesting idea! It feels really natural to her character and the story. It also would reward exploring different choices on separate playthroughs since most people just kill all the leaders in the sanctum and call it a day. Imagine if someone didn't know any of this and decided to trick her to have the advantage of having the high ground and more allies against the goblins only for her to flee and then find her again in Moonrise. On a morally good run, a lot of people would spare her when they see what she was going through. So many more people would recruit her in a completely organic and non-metagamey way and that's wonderful

I want to give my support to this thread because I suggested this idea too on Larian's discord server, like around 4 months ago when I first got Minthara. The current knockout method works more like an exploit or an underdeveloped mod, not a legitimate recruitment. Fleeing would make sense as Minthara is supposed to be have a high survival instinct (based on what I've heard from her dialogues so far) so I hope Larian will consider this :3

Even when she was still brainwashed by the Absolute, she also said this: "I do not intend to lead a suicidal charge. The goblins are expendable; I am not." I actually thought she would flee when I first fought her at the Grove.

This would get me to recruit her in all my playthroughs so yes please.. They could easily add in an cutscene