Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Justice for Minthara

I think you did a very nice write-up about her fears! Even the strongest character can break under enough emotional pressure (and she is not at her best after everything that has happened to her since Act II). But I agree with you that this is not a view that might be shared by most fans and in the end it would be easier to just cut the scene out again as I don't think Larian wants to put in the resources to make this work properly (and I prefer that they fix her bugs).


Yeah, I was a bit cynical. I still think though that a few of the newer bugs are correlated to her implementation alongside Halsin (that she has no bed camp in the Elfsong tavern for example).

I feel exactly the same way that most bugs I feel are correlated to her inplementation, this is why I always recommend someone should go the evil playthrough for their first time experience with Minthara, feels like there is no structure behind them when compared to origin characters but this is a big assumption of mine.

The one big if of mine is, just maybe there would be a better structuve to them in some manner of absolute edition of the game., IF ... might be at bare minimum 2-3 years away from release IF such an update is in the long term plans..

Never had any romance banter outside of companions flirting with each other, I'd know when I hear it. I've had 4 + 2 multiplayer playthroughs, romanced Astarion, Karlach, Minthara, Lae'zel for MP, and Gale is currently ongoing (but on pause for Minthara). No banter at all regarding who I romanced. I would say that part is cut content, but if not, I'm honestly confused as I do switch around party compositions often.


Fully agree with you here. And yes, Emma Gregory deserves all the love and attention she's been getting and so much more. Her performance actually carried the character for me and many others I've talked to about Minthara, I honestly believe Minthy would not be as well-loved as she is now if not for Emma as she was also very closely involved with writing her <3

I intend to keep discussion of other characters at a minimum, but I find your point with Gale very interesting, I am still romancing him now in late Act 2, but it's clear power is also a central theme of his story. For Astarion, power is the means for him to achieve freedom. For Gale, power is the means for him to prove to everyone and himself that he is worthy. For Minthara, power is the means for her to be safe and find a place to belong. It's just that Minthara has the highest drive/ambition for power out of everyone imo, which makes sense for someone of her background.

Minthara and Gale do share an interesting dynamic together, with her also being wholesome and encouraging to Gale when he had doubts about himself. This exchange below is something I very much hold dear :'3

Origin Gale spoilers:

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Thank you! I'm glad we share this perspective. I also doubt Larian wants to improve this dialogue especially when we consider their track record with her, but it was nice to think about. Plus I'm mentally preparing myself for this GoT-season 8-like breakup being real lol.


Of course. As with any new implementation, bugs are bound to follow, but their inability to fix her bugs in a timely manner, to prevent these bugs from even appearing, and seemingly ignoring them for months is a completely separate issue.

For the record, my very first experience with Minthara was through a somewhat neutral/good playthrough. I used the "Good Recruitment" mod and I grew to love her with this path; yep, with the scarce content and no romance scene whatsoever. Then I decided to experience the evil playthrough with DU, went full evil this time but still rejected Bhaal. I was more fond of the first playthrough simply because it had more substance and I was given the opportunity to challenge Minthara to see how she reacts. This, again, is not an opinion shared by many but ultimately I see a lot of value in adding the knockout recruitment, even with all of its glaring flaws.

I am of the firm belief that if the knockout recruitment wasn't added, Larian would pay less attention to Minthara than they do now. Why? Because I saw how alienated Minthara was compared to everyone whether in fanworks/discussion, etc. She was barely ever seen as a companion by the majority of players, she was just the random NPC with cool-looking armor in the Goblin Camp. I saw concrete difference in how people were treating her after this addition. Having it be locked to a path that requires you to massacre innocents is also very limiting in terms of gameplay and roleplaying purposes.

Mind you, Larian took the easiest route with implementing this possibility. People had many detailed, more coherent ideas on how to improve Minthara's recruitment. If they took the easy way out (and this is assuming they're not currently developing a more coherent recruitment for her), I highly doubt they'd add more content to her even with the KO method never existing - what with the small amount of people playing evil too.

Just wanted to add a different perspective here. I've seen way too many people say "they should've never added KO to recruit Minthara" while not taking into account the work Larian put into it and the effect it had for other players.

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That's fair. I see you have a very strong opinion about this, and I respect that :3

I've also seen many people say that her anger is valid but this being a breakup is too extreme. I can understand this too. I don't think she would be questioning your decision like, for example, the way she did if you destroyed the Last Light Inn. You did die (almost recklessly so) and was brought back by sheer luck, so this scenario with Bhaal is clearly more severe. Having her give you a harsh scolding but then eventually seeing the value in your freedom would definitely make sense.

It's better to remove this, both to save their time and to regain what semblance of consistency she has left, though I can't help but mourn the loss of content and its potential for Minthara with how scarce it already is. Fingers crossed they do add more for her, whatever it may be, just make it make sense Larian pls.

When Orin is finally dealt with; despite Minthara saying she wants to talk about Orin later, she will in fact not have her camp dialogue about Orin available to the main character due to yet another sneaky bug.

I want to show my support for all Minthara fans, I think Minthara is the most interesting, undiscovered and undeservedly overlooked female character in the game. How much better and more appealing she is as a friend and companion compared to the horny Halsin justifies even having to destroy the druid grove for the sake of it. But personally, I'm excited about the possibility of attaching her by knockout method, since the animals are pitiful, and Orin needs to be given some kind of bear-shaped rattle to walk around in peace in the third act and not worry about anything. Though if they implement a variant where Halsin finally blatantly shows all his shitty "good and noble druid" nature and demands Minthara be kicked out, then I could finally kick his ass in a storyline-driven, roleplay-aware way without any metagame.

Also, after reading this thread, I learned how deep and beautiful her romance line is, and I would like to reveal Minthara from that side as well in the Astarion origin walkthrough, and I sincerely wish that by now, the developers will finally give proper attention to this beautiful and deep romance (just not attention like our Astarion romance, please, I mean normal, human attention).


To be honest, it amazes me how "attentive" the developers are not only to the wishes of the players, but also to fixing real bugs and errors. At the same time they don't forget to add some nonsense that nobody asked for, or fix something that was better before and didn't need fixing. Ignoring Minthara's mistakes on the background of adding unimportant content to "kind" companions, while the players themselves write to the developers about all these problems in detail - just read and do, you don't even need to test anything yourself, it's all done for you! This seems like a deliberate ignoring of the character and the players who love her.


Regarding the scene where Minthara breaks up with the DU - I see it, frankly, as a specific intentional insult to the player, by breaking the plot, completely disregarding Mintara's character and her relationship with the DU. And also a bit of deja vu... It feels like someone somewhere has an unhealthy predilection for "showcasing toxic relationships" (or rather, dragging "toxicity" into deep and sincere monogamous relationships with "evil" companions without any correlation to the plot).

It feels like we are left with no freedom of choice. There is "evil" and wrong unhealthy deep monogamous relationships ("ew, don't touch her/him, now quickly realize your moral failings, accept the "catharsis of separation" and do things the "right" way, like those for whom we are not sorry to add normal content"). And "goodness" and "healthy free relationships" with bears, illithids, incubus/succubus, brothels, threesomes, and other delightful joys of life for the beautiful and infallible hero who brings light and the joy of fixing all living things in their path. Honestly, in no game yet has "goodness" been shown/imposed with such force to cause such deep disgust.

I wish Minty the best, decent treatment, fixing what needs fixing, and adding those scenes that fit the character!

I get you feel strongly about this but I think you need to take it down a notch.

This is the most heart-breaking scene, I couldn't stand this, it's a whole hurricane of pain that washes over you. And reading your post, I just want to assure you, I feel with you and you are not alone. I just want to tell you this: Don't despair, our heart can bear the pain even if we die a thousand deaths. I hope and wish, Larian will recognize your hard work and repair Minthara!

You certainly ain't wrong, although I would've preferred if you said which part exactly

• If it's about the video; I just shared it in case anyone is interested, as I had to remake the whole thing properly for my feedback compendium that I am in the process of finishing, just like I've been sharing all other issues here so far.
  
  It is not meant to further push my thoughts about the break up scene as I respect everyone's thoughts here about it and have already moved on from it as I posted a new bug today. I am simply passionately thorough when it comes to providing feedback, regardless of what I am providing feedback for. It is what I've always been doing here, if there is an issue I will thoroughly and properly cover it.
• If it's about what I said to Marielle; I read everyone's posts about Astarion on the forums and sympathize with them because when personal roleplay is being butchered by poorly thought-out changes to existing content, it severely breaks player immersion and by doing so their enjoyment. I saw the terrible Astarion kissing animation for the main character and that's just awful, god awful change.
  
  The same situation happened here with a character being butchered, so it is only natural I'll mention my feelings since Minthara and Astarion fans are kinda in the same basket right now.
• If it's about the frequency of my posts here; I am in the process of writing a massive compendium as constructive feedback for Minthara. Which is no secret as I've publicly shared a raw form of it already in this very thread a few pages back and it has evolved and grown significantly since then, so people are aware I'm working on it.
  
  And the reason why I'm posting is to not only keep the discussion alive, but also to see if anyone else has any suggestions or wishes to chime in about any of these issues in case anything extra needs documenting. Such as Rendemption pointing out a few issues too which I personally went to confirm and document as well.
  
  Once it is published I will no longer be active in this thread, highly likely not even on the forum anymore.

I really love it myself, it's so full of raw emotions that puts into perspective just how much of a burden one can carry throughout their whole life. Beautifully well made.

But thank you for your kind words, nice to know at least some appreciate or at least see what we're trying to accomplish not just for Minthara, but all the players too who never have experienced her yet ^^

Making statements like this makes people take you less seriously.
Does Minthara need work? Yes.
Is Larian abusing you? No.

Oh that. Just poorly worded is all.


So lets stick to the topic of lovely Minthara and how we can improve her instead. If you have any suggestions, something that needs to be brought up that hasn't been, something that you personally feel like she should have but doesn't, feel free to share.

I am also stealthily testing everyone's reports here despite not commenting on them, such as Anska mentioning that Minthara blocks party member commentaries during Yurgir's scene, however that is a bug with his scene specifically and not Minthara. Sometimes companions won't comment randomly, as I tested this with Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Gale extensively for an hour too, and with Minthara.

Interesting! Good to know, it only happened with Minthy for me.

Venturing on to Act 3, I noticed that when you meet the Strange Ox in the barn, Minthara thinks that she saw it run away while you slaughtered people at the Grove, even if the Grove wasn't attacked. This probably needs a new line for the "good" and neutral route.

Having her eat the Astral tadpole (so it's gone) does not remove the persuasion lines from the dialogues of the other companions, though I assume this is a general tadpole problem.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Zlorb.

Thanks for reminding me and about the tadpole, I'll be sure to check both issues.

(Off-topic, mostly for Crimsomrider)


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Glad to see an Astarion fan stop by, and yes, I also hope Minthara gets the attention she deserves. I’m usually eager when it comes to criticizing Larian about Minthara, but I don’t think this breakup is a deliberate insult at all tbh. It’s easy to say that, what with how little they’ve paid attention to her and what I’ve seen about AA (though people's interpretations do vary for this), but we really don’t know anything yet.

This is why I said this particular scene is “leaning towards” character assassination, I refrained from blasting this scene to the Hells with my full opinion because it’s in such a raw and bizarre state. For the sake of discussion (and our sanity), we need to remember this game is still being developed guys. This is especially true for Minthara herself so, while it may seem a certain way to us, let's try not to jump to conclusions too much.

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The breakup doesn’t even work, literally. As Xenonian said a couple pages back, there is no code string (whatever you call it) for setting the “Partnered” flag to “False” so it has no effect whatsoever. Plus it’s listed as a topical greeting, not as an important event which are usually indicated with ! above her head. This means it’s missable. We can compare this to Astarion's breakup when you decide to free Yurgir after killing the last Dark Justiciar, where he does have a ! pop-up and the scene triggers automatically.

I actually just tested this today (P.S. Crimsomrider, feel free to correct me as you said you extensively tested this before) but apparently if you don’t talk to Minthara at all after resisting Bhaal and then go to a place where she would have a new reaction, the breakup would simply be overwritten.

I took Minthara through Cazador’s Palace with Astarion and Jaheira in tow. Here's what happened when I talked to her before using the dais/elevator:



As you can see, she still wanted to break up with DU here and at any point before this that I can remember. Then I decided to reload this save, went down, and talked to her near the dungeons. Here's what happened:




No breakup. I wanted to make sure it's gone, so I talked to her again:



I ended up defeating Cazador and, guess what? She just talks about Gale again XD

I long rested afterwards and she goes back to asking "You wish to consult me?" as usual. No breakup to be found, we're just making out in front of Wyll. I tested this multiple times, including not talking to her at all until after I defeated Cazador. It just reverts back to her talking about Gale. If I talk to her before using the dais, the breakup will always trigger. This is very likely not tied to Cazador at all, but just about any new reaction that can replace her greeting post-resisting Bhaal.

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After all this, I’m convinced this breakup dialogue was simply never meant to be added into the game at this point in time. This has huge potential to be removed, changed, or developed further especially because 1) it's bugged as hell, 2) they didn't say anything about this in the patch notes, 3) this particular dialogue was written very early in development and we know Minthara had several changes made to her writing before release. I'm ready to clown if I get proven wrong, but this is my opinion for now and I stand by it lol.

If anyone wants to follow the method I used above, please let me know. I want to confirm if the breakup can be skipped for other people too.

P.P.S. I can confirm the dialogue for Minthara after killing Orin is bugged for a lot of players. It used to work for some time, but now Disguise Self is indeed required for it to trigger again. I will add this to the bug list and bring it to their attention >:3

Thank you for testing and I have more to share, it is entirely missable after killing Orin if you take Minthara with you to..

Morphic Pool Docks which is right outside Bhaals Temple and she will instead have this to say.


In Cloister of Sombre Embrace she will instead have this to say, this is the place right outside Shar's temple area.

An added bonus, if you take the sentient amulet with you to the big stone door right outside Viconia, apparently the sentient has its own vocal topical greeting to utter.
I can see it go under the radar and get completely missed by a great many first-time players as Act 3 is riddled with dozens of topical greetings in various zones, I'm already knee deep down to clown regarding this so we are sharing the same exact sentiment about this Redemption.

If changes brought to a game is not documented in the patch logs, it should be treated as an unintended change given how bugged it is with the lack of functionality the break-up dialogue leans towards.

That is good that it can at least somehow be avoided, though I fear what else it might be breaking by doing so. I did not personally try to avoid it so extensively, as all my tests were focused exclusively around the period related to it. So basically the period before the Temple and several long rests after it.

I was mostly trying to figure out why she is missing her Orin dialogue (since it is actually my favorite dialogue with Minthara in the entire game), so I found out she also has that dialogue if she herself gets abducted (because the infamous scene does not get in the way). But unfortunately then all her pop up dialogues just break. It is a big broken mess at the moment.

And there really is no way to get her legitimately abducted because I believe Orin kidnaps specific highest approving companions from the camp, which is usually Gale if he isn't in the party. So will have to use the disguise until it is fixed.

Regarding the kidnap scene.

So if you keep them all as active party members there is also a failsafe NPC for the whole scene, so after speaking to Gortash just avoid going into sewers to get the camp event organically triggered from a long rest, they work for all different camp instances too and given the condition it is quite easy to miss out on this as nothing prevents you from going to sewers very early and thankfully so as I love the players freedom in this game.

I basically created the account to say that, while I wholeheartedly agree that Minthara needs more love, care, and attention from Larian, that I really wish we wouldn't analogize that to the changes made to ascended Astarion; these are different characters with different motivations with different natures. They are really nothing alike and what has happened to both of these characters aren't comparable.

Even to someone who had no romance with Minthara, after watching your video everything becomes clear and understandable. I just hope that those who are working on the game, and should, in theory, understand much more, will see and listen to you.


I understand you completely and share your feelings. The only thing we can do now for our favorite characters is to keep doing what we're doing.

I am truly amazed at the amount of work you and other players have done to improve Minthara's content.


Code error information (!) This is an after-hours job. Just a big


Yes, thank you! You're really helping others to better understand and experience Minthara, as unfortunately the game has some barriers to introducing players to her. Her "Alurlssrin" is one of the most beautiful words out of the mouths of romantic companions in the game!

I haven't had the time to catch up properly reading this thread, but when skimming through it I've seen a lot of great pictures, videos and analyses. I will definitely check everything thoroughly in the upcoming days.

Crimsonrider, you've been doing the proverbial "God's work" in this thread fighting for Minthara, making everything clear, visual and well-grounded. Kudos to you! I sincerely hope Larian listens to you and implements your suggestions and fixes her so we can all finally enjoy the amazing character of Minthara in her full glory!

The abhorrent neglect of Minthy and the awful change in the latest hotfix aside, was it ever explained why they removed the "dominate Minthara instead" option during her goblin party romance scene?