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

Perhaps the negligence partly also falls on badly mismanaged direction with these characters in particular between all the key people working behind them, cant all just purely be about lack of care only and I see this pattern all the time with large projects that involve tons of people working remotely, I just hope this is something they've learned to take into consideration into future projects on how to avoid leaving characters in mid development before jumping to another aspect.

Would not surprise me if someone's working on a mod that keeps the game vanilla + purely focusing on getting Minthara fixed.

Would definitely not take years to fix her if there was a driving force behind it.

Isn't Minthara's recruitment/character in general not a little Meta Gamy? 🤔

Many players only learn that Minthara can be recruited through Reddit or other Internet sites. Or through YouTube videos. How often have you not read from players: I'm now on my 4th run and didn't know until now that Minthara could be a companion. And only thanks.....to Reddit..... 🙄
Should a game really work like this when it comes to "Companions"?🤔 I don't like it.

Whether you destroy the Druid Grove, ignore the Grove. Or recruit her through knockout. Isn't it all a bit "meta gamy"?
Does it even make a difference how you recruit her? 🙄

Yeah her recruitment is unnecessarily obscure, even a massive disrespect to the cast member by being flaunted as nothing but mere unfinished compensation for deviating from their intended story path. But not really metagamey because the player has plenty of story reasons to approach, interact and join with Minthara, as recruting her legitimately by raiding the Grove is just a regular story choice of good vs evil.

KO recruitment on the other hand used to be extremely metagamey only because it got poorly implemented, as she needed to be temporarily hostile within the Goblin Camp for it to work. But today it is fixed, so it involves zero metagaming to recruit her since it is the same form of recruitment as Minsc's by just bonking them on the head.

My first ever playthrough came with a natural reaction to knock out every True Soul, since the story in ACT 1 quickly establishes that they are just victims mind controlled against their own will, so I intentionally tried to avoid killing them by knocking them all out. Naturally it led nowhere back then because Larian had no such implementations in place, but there are lore reasons to do so despite the game not saying to do it, if people pay attention to what's happening in the story.

There is even an Acolyte at Moonrise Tower Docks who has an entire scene built around this dilemma, where the player can completely break the tadpole's influence over the poor man and then he ends up panicking so much once he becomes aware of the parasite in his head.

So there are plenty of lore reasons not to be murdering True Souls as long as the player's paying attention to the story, since they're just victims. But naturally those who don't will end up missing out. Many people also lost out on Minsc too that way because they weren't paying attention to Jaheira pleading not to kill him.

As for the question assuming it's not rhetorical; yes, how she is recruited makes a huge difference, not for her character but game's overall content.

• Recruiting her legitimately by raiding the Grove kills the content of over 60 NPCS, several companions and takes away Shadowheart's romance... but enables the player to have sex with Minthara's dominated body (I say body intentionally here because that is not Minthara in ACT I).
• Knocking her out instead takes away her one and only camp scene in the entire game, but saves the content of over 60 NPCs and all companions so ACTs II and III are significantly more fulfilled.
• Outside of that Minthara herself reacts just a tiny bit differently in ACT II depending on her recruitment, but that's about it (I don't mean just the post-Ketheric dialogue, but also when entering her mind while she's being erased).

Unfortunately, yes. Unlike BG1/BG2 where “evil” was implemented perfectly, I recall another player's account of his playthrough of BG2 and yes, there was a lot of content, and such content that you just wonder, “Come on! Can you really do that?” I found it somewhat ironic to myself that it was BG3 that gave me a “taste” for evil walkthroughs, in BG2, and even more so in soulful games like the Pathfinder series, I just had the pity to “do evil” in a greater degree than was necessary for the well-being of “evil” companions. And here - I want to, but, alas... At the same time, the evil characters turned out by Larian more interesting, intelligent, attractive and much more touch the soul than the favorites of their “good way”. I came to BG3 as a fan of the BG series and seeing my old friend Viconia like that was certainly depressing, which is why, among other things, I thought it would have been better if Larian hadn't touched the characters of BG2 at all and had properly dealt with their own instead. Jaheira's character was changed quite a bit compared to the original. Minsc succeeded much better, he differs from the original Minsc only by the greater concentration of the word “ass” in speech (in BG2 it was less frequent, more appropriate and funnier, while interacting with Minsc in BG3 I involuntarily regularly think of Grandpa Freud, otherwise he is the same).

I got the feeling that Larian just don't like their own evil characters. They don't want to let the player love them, or not that they don't want to let the player love them on purpose, but rather they don't take us into account, believing that players should be delighted with “good” companions and “good” paths, and that “evil” is just “for the sake of roleplay”, like watching the story. Other, serious and deep attitude of the player to his evil LI, is not noticed or perceived as something significant in the development of the game. The new evil endings clearly demonstrate this - they are suitable only for those who play the “evil” for fun, as a “cartoon to watch”, without any immersion and certainly without love. Or like to play a bloody maniacal loner, as it seems that in the authors' perception “evil-isolation” should look like. Although I saw this “evil isolation” more as an excuse, an attempt to put some kind of “philosophy” on top of a trivial desire to save money and not make content, but maybe it really is a kind of “philosophy”. The only positive thing about all this is the gaming community itself and the fans, and the modding tools. The modders sometimes do just magic, and I can't imagine BG3 for me without mods anymore. I think mods can give Minthara a full interesting game life too, and I also hope in time to see and download a mod that will focus on fixing her.


I also liked the option of giving Minthara the Silvanus idol stolen from the druids on the Mol quest. You have to deceive her by telling her it's what she's looking for (you have to pass a Deception check). She will go to Moonrise Towers. The end result is the same as knocking her out, but it all looks a bit more interesting in terms of story and roleplay.

Sad to see it came to people hoping for mods to fix Larian's mess, instead of Larian themselves - a company that prides itself on story details and reactivity. Not sure which desperate hope is worse, at this point Raphael will be paying a visit to us all



But yeah... the reason why everything feels the way you mentioned is because they're not interested in telling an evil story in the first place, which is why they treat any failure and evil choice as just a minor deviation of the good path, to entertain as mere eye-candy and nothing more. When in actuality evil choices should lead to opposite fully-developed story branches that offer fully unique story content, through a different perspective and path.

Naturally they don't offer any of that, which is why even these merely extended evil endings also follow their same atrocious attitude towards evil as they're just trying to visually impress while providing no content as usual. 0% story substance, 100% cool visuals. And while the general public is easily impressed, the genuine roleplayers invested in the evil story with Minthara/Astarion are watching in utter disgust as the game is defecating upon their 100 hour of playtime by disregarding the established lore, character motives, player agency and seeing their love interest discarded like trash.

This same atrocious attitude towards evil is also why Minthara got designed in the first place and as is evident ended up ultimately murdering the character. They didn't create her because they truly wanted to tell an intricate story of a companion as an Absolute's victim and in doing so provide an insightful experience and unique journey for the player to explore, but to merely create a compensation for deviation, flaunting her as some sort of secret bonus companion to impress the general public who couldn't care less. So naturally they abandoned the character created for all the wrong reasons.

"Hideous... all of it!" -

Larian's aversion to evil became so extreme with BG3 they also rewrote their entire Early Access cast from neutral evil to neutral/good and in doing so murdered the essences of those characters. Even lazily threw Minthara into the good path mix eventually because they still can't bother themselves to do her justice. This exact atrocious attitude of theirs is also why any time the player tries to deviate from the intended story path they're met with 10 minutes of exposition LECTURING the deviating player.

• 5 minutes of freaking exposition lecturing the player trying to side with Minthara at the Goblin Camp.
• 2 minutes of freaking exposition lecturing the player trying to get to Moonrise with Kar'niss.
• 10 minutes of freaking exposition lecturing the player in front of Nightsong trying to join Baltazar with Shadowheart in the party

Unless the player sticks to the intended role of a heroic, honorable, virtuous, valorous, noble, good, kindhearted, selfless, paragon hero... they will be lectured about it. And if they choose to deviate from it then their character will be portrayed as prime evil incarnate, the ultimate douche. Won't get any unique content whatsoever, in fact the player will lose content but hey... cool gory cutscenes, right?



Not to mention they constantly keep branding her in all their interviews as EVIL, when ironically enough she does not commit a single evil deed in the entire game! She's so unfinished that there's not a single moment in the entire game where Minthara even gets a chance to do something evil. She's all bark and no bite, who are they trying to convince here?

Lae'zel tries to murder me several times throughout the game for doing the right thing, she literally ended my first ever Honour run at the very finale and doomed the entire world thanks to her stubbornness. What is she, a saint? Shadowheart tries to murder Lae'zel several times and is a massive disrespectful douchebag towards the dead (her EA leftovers), Astarion constantly keeps trying to murder people and has to be held back... oh but sure, Minthara our 'ride or die' gal is evil evil evil just because they say so.

Blows my mind that they had actual great written evil companions... like the amazing Sebille. A sweet elf abducted and dominated, turned into a slave to be used as a weapon by her Master, broke free seeking revenge upon all those who wronged her. Starts off extremely rude and distant with so many barriers up, even threatens to kill the player (just like Astarion) and ends up murdering several people without the player's say so. She's brutal. But then the barriers slowly start to come down and the roaring tigress eventually becomes a purring loving kitten by the end of the game. Such a beautifully written character with such a sweet ending. Along with the Red Prince, she is the best damn character they ever wrote.

I can't fathom they fell so embarrassingly low. From Sebille and Red Prince to... this... broken, unfinished, uncared-for companions like Minthara, Halsin and Wyll.

The game/Minthara is so broken after patch 7. I play on Xbox. Knocked Minthara out in the Goblin Camp.

After the cut scene with Ketherick in the throne room. Where she is judged. She just stays silent in the room. You can't talk to her. She's not in the torture chamber. Nothing. She doesn't work! 🤬

Now I tried to skip the cut scene by attacking Z'rell directly. Hoping that I win the fight and can escort Minthara outside. But she dies all the time! 😤

And i wanted to see the KO dialog for my self.

It's completely impossible to recruit her!
That's really annoying! 😤🫣🙄

Try to go into her cell within the prison and initiate a conversation with questioners Sumera and Jasin. I had a similar issue with Z'rell where she just got stuck at Ketheric's throne and wouldn't move, but when I went up the stairs her cutscene still triggered properly and then she went on with her regular routine.

Or try to move her with Minor Illusion or by playing music to her. Unfortunately Patch #7 broke some pathfinding for NPCs, so they tend to get completely stuck and need to be moved with spells or music.

- In the cut scene with Ketherick/Z'rell I started a fight via Dialog. Minthara is teleported to the torture chamber. She joins the fight against the gnomes yes. But after the fight she doesn't respond to anything. It doesn't work.
- I played music after the cut scene and used a Minor Illusion Spell. She doesn't respond to anything.
- after the cut scene I talked to Z'rell and the gnomes. Nothing happens. Related to Minthara.
- after the cut scene I killed all the enemies on the ground floor and pushed Minthara out of Moonrise. You can't talk to her. She doesn't respond to anything.

She is completely broken on Xbox if you KO her in the Goblin Camp 🙄😤🫣
Maybe i try to Ko her at the Grove. 🙄

Truly to the heart of the matter. Minthara's story could overwhelm Viconia's story from BG2 precisely because of her history as a victim of the Absolute, which gives opportunities for drama even more than just the story of a drow escaping to the surface. Nere could also be a companion with an interesting story (his manic narcissism looks funny at first glance, but kind of hints at the serious psychological trauma that could be behind it). Honestly, if Halsin, Jaheira and Minsc are on one scale, the other should have had Minthara, Nere and Viconia at least a little bit like herself. But okay, god with them, with Nere and Viconia, one Minthara if normally finalized, but no... The game resembles (and in many ways is) a “dating simulator”, but, unfortunately, designed to the general public so that the general public “tried everything and everyone”.


Yes, when I decided that I'd had enough of “good-heartedness” and in the next playthrough I'd be happy to show my character evil enough so that no one would have any desire to “teach”, then... That's the freaking exposition, yeah... Kar'niss I wanted to keep alive and in the first playthrough, I “sat on two chairs” by going with him and making the poor guy wait for hours, exploring almost the entire map, including the tavern “The Last Light”. But he's doomed anyway, because he's evil.


Yeah, never. Viconia in BG2 literally killed another companion, her antagonist, under my nose, no matter how I tried to “ separate them in different corners ', I just found a corpse, and drow with a cute look and nothing to do with it, although everything is clear to everyone ... And no one stigmatized, companions in BG2 could kill each other, betray you, ambush you, and no ‘morality’, and certainly no infringement in the content. Not only does Minthara do nothing wrong, I can't even call her “evil” by her lines (given drow culture and drow behavior in general). She is rather a person who is intelligent, rational, at first distrustful (of course), who has “seen life”, if I may say so. A person who has been through hard times, gained relevant life experience and attitude in the world, but not “evil, evil”. The “good” Wyll and Gale have some pretty nasty lines at times and that's okay, it's fine, they're allowed.


Yes, I remember Sebille, a wonderful character. It's a special pleasure to achieve friendship with a character with a complex character and a hard fate. And I understand the frustration of those who played EA (I was given an EA build, I was able to see how promising the game looked), afterwards they went completely in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

I wish they at least had given her her own tent. I can't really imagine a scenario where Minthara and Halsin would be fine with sharing a bunk like they seemingly are now. Especially when they just met.

In my last game, Minthara joined the party while Halsin was sitting by Art's bedside, so Minthara moved into his tent and wouldn't give it back, and then grabbed the last good bunk at the Elfsong, leaving poor Halsin standing around like a lemon in the middle of the camp But the point stands and I agree: now that we can recruit them both it feels as though they should get a tent each or at least the last one to join should get a better spot to hang around than just some random-seeming place.

just for the record she has not bugged out on me yet

GOG Galaxy PC no mods

i knocked her out at the goblin camp without talking
at moonrise i picked my best wisdom option to try and save her... general still sent her away


then i misclicked and aggroed the halforc, winning this fight got me level 8 but i can't return to the tower... mistakes where made which is why honour runs are so fun


i sold items to the vendor, dismissed Karlach expecting Minthara to take her place [opps]

then i decided to fight the sicko torturers which makes Minthara a pet but i still needed to bust the gnomes out


i offereed the guards and warden a fare fight, tossed a few eyes into the void and busted the gnomes out without lossing anyone but i used every single spell doing it

arrived at the inn, took Minthara to camp where she agreed to be my new body guard... pretty arms is staying at the inn for now so she took his tent

Hah, I did notice Minthara had redecorated his tent with bloody skulls. I wonder if Halsin will stand around randomly in Act 3 for me too. It is my first play where I have both in camp. I finished Halsins and Thaniels quest before recruiting Minthara so as to be sure it wouldn't bug out. I heard some players had problems with Halsin not coming back to camp.

Edit: Halsin has officially moved out of the tent. Or Minthara took it and kicked him out, which I can imagine she would do. Still a bit wierd that Thaniel hangs out with her.


Haha, I love how your Tav looks like they have their hands on their hips looking disapprovingly at her.

I had Halsin coming back to camp, but he bugged out big time - he wasn't clickable for anything, then Olivers quest bugged out and then Halsin just vanished from the game completely. It was an HM run, so no reload and trying again. In my next HM run, everything worked: recruited MInthi, Halsin gave her his tent and both had normal interactions in act 3 (I guess, Halsin spent most of act 3 in Orins hospitality, but he reacted normally when rescued).

But it is true, Minthara and Halsin are both prone to bugging out completely. In that first HM run, Minthara bugged out on me mid act 3 and said nothing anymore.
I'm not sure, if recruiting Minthara on a good playthrough is the reason for both of them bugging out sometimes, but both could do with more content. As of right now, I prefer to have the other companions in the party since they have more to do and say in act 3. I use a mod that lets you customize party size just so I can have them with me in my current playthroughs without sacrificing companions with stories and inetractions for it. I heard, that Minthara has some funny interactions in BG (I got the clown one with the beautiful webbing, which was really cute)

Just quickly as I know this thread is about Minthara and not Halsin, but for me I had no problems with recruiting them both after knocking Minthara out at the camp after attacking her during dialog and then rescuing her from Moonrise Towers while Halsin was keeping vigil at Art's bedside. Halsin returned to camp just fine after saving Thaniel/Oliver, he just stood around near the Traverller's Chest in the Last Light camp. I'm not sure how he felt about the fact that Thaniel seemed to prefer hanging out with Minthara over at his usurped tent

Pretty much yup.

Constant prattling about her being irredeemably evil. Meanwhile... their "irredeemably evil" Drow.

For someone so "irredeemably evil" she sure is terribly compassionate, caring, loving, understanding, comforting, uplifting, loyal, selfless, devoted. Wait a minute... I thought they said she's evil.

The existing story (and Minthara) would've been drastically so much better treated if Larian didn't become so biased trying to lecture and moralize players, but just told a realistically intricate fantasy story for the player to roleplay in (which Early Access was all about until they Disney-fied the story with rewrites). Because if we put aside for a moment their terribly obsessive aversion towards evil (and ignore character assassinations of Viconia and Sarevok); them two for example would've been Jaheira and Minsc counterparts for an evil path. Imagine the amount of awesome intricate insight and wisdom these two could have imparted on us if they were properly treated and written without bias.

This is how an actual unbiased BG3 story would look like;

• Join the Grove - keep Halsin, Wyll and Karlach, but Moonrise Towers becomes inaccessible due to Marcus acting as Ketheric's spy.
• Raid the Grove - gain Minthara, Nere and Marcus, but Last Light Inn becomes inaccessible due to Cerys acting as Zevlor's scout.
• Free Dame Aylin to fight against the Cult - gain Jaheira and Minsc as companions, but Wyrm's Rock's Fortress becomes inaccessible due to Gortash's scrying eyes in Moonrise.
• Imprison Dame Aylin to infiltrate the Cult - gain Viconia DeVir and Sarevok Anchev as companions, along with access to Wyrm's Rock Fortress due to Marcus being a Flaming Fist.
• Reject Gortash's alliance - keep Karlach as a companion.
• Accept Gortash's alliance - gain Gortash as an ally with a unique ending (and as an ultimate final boss-fight as an Avatar of Bane if he's betrayed after dominating the Absolute - like Lohse's Adramahlihk in DOS II).
• Destroy the Absolute - gain the full epilogue as it currently is with all its intricacies.
• Dominate the Absolute - Either become the Absolute by initiating the Grand Design. Or become Bane's Chosen by conquering the world. Or become Bhaal's Chosen by slaughtering the world. Or become Myrkul's Chosen by enveloping the world in chaos. Or embrace the ultimate divine power for yourself to reshape the world in an Origin ending in which you choose to become benevolent or evil divinity.

*Becoming the Chosen of Lord Bane*


Do also note the very first response as well, the reason why our main character seeks power in the first place.

Evil choices would not be treated as mere minor deviations to moralize and lecture players as useless eye-candy that leads absolutely nowhere and takes away content, but just regular choices that lead to the other half of the story worth exploring. That's why I adored Early Access so much, because they had a wonderfully intricate realistic fantasy setting (as raw as Game Of Thrones Season 1). There were no blatantly forced good or evil characters and choices, there were simply REALISTIC CHARACTERS. Mere desperate people with realistic dilemmas acting as any person realistically would in such dire circumstances (like Gale and Astarion making a deal with Raphael out of desperation behind our back, or nobody trusting anyone's intentions at camp as complete strangers, or the party accepting the Dreamer's help because they're way out of their league).

That's unfortunately what Larian forgot, they forgot to realistically write a roleplaying story and instead wrote a 100h idealistic lecture about moral decisions... power is evil, ambition is evil, self-preservation is evil, divinity is evil, murder is evil (unless it's Viconia/gobo-kids), vengeance is evil (unless you're Aylin/Karlach), mindflayers have no souls (unless you do the right thing)... like a parent lecturing a child about evil through some children's book in which the hero defeats the villain, saves the princess and they live happily ever after.

Had they any sense then for example dominating the Absolute would not be a Disney-fied exclusively evil choice trying to portray our main character as the most imbecilic psychopath imaginable, but just a simple choice about taking divine power to do something meaningful with it. Just like in Divinity Original Sin 2 where the player had a choice to either leave good enough alone or seize divinity for themselves, share it to all beings in Rivellon, sacrifice it to seal the rift or simply let the God-king into the world. Alas BG3's story is not so intricate... evil evil evil... so rest-in-unfinished pieces Minthara, Sazza, Nere, Kar'niss, Marcus, Ketheric, Gortash, Orin, Viconia, Sarevok and all the choices not following Larian's biased story.

It just turns the soul upside down. And what an acting job... You can feel the tears and grief and deep feelings in the voice... It's a rare scene - you have to play as Karlach Origin for it, have a romance with Minthara and yet also choose death. It's a shame that very few players will see it. I too was surprised by some of Larian's interviews and was surprised by some incredibly superficial attitudes towards the characters. At the same time in the game itself there are such strong moments, really deep and heartbreaking moments, excellent play of actors, conveying with their voices and facial expressions real emotions, which are impossible not to feel. And on the other hand - in the same game primitive moralizing, a lot of incomprehensible sex content - I mean not romance with LI, which, on the contrary, is in short supply, the same Mintkhara has a beautiful romance, but few replicas and scenes, but all sorts of content “for amateurs” like illithid, bear, “ threesomes” and “love triangles” in Act 1 (2 hours of additional content on all these triangles, cheating and reactions to them). What for? For “laughs?” And to finish the story properly, to refine the characters, after all, to create a true romance, not a crazy psychopath from DU who accepted Bhaal? And the attitude towards their own “officially recognized as evil out of court” characters as well...


I want to play this game. Yes, indeed, the perfect solution to create in the player the desire to replay the game in different ways (at least twice), to get as a result a complete picture of the world, history and characters. This is what it is - to interest the player, when, having started playing “good”, you are interested, you want to go to the end, but there is already curiosity and desire to try the “evil” way next time, because Moonrise Towers are not available, and you want to know what is there. And further variation only fuels the interest. In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous the authors managed to realize something similar with their 6 different paths.


Yes, “intelligent evil.” A character with motivation, logic, and intelligence. Just the kind of “evil” or “gray” roleplay variant I'd like to see. Not squirrel crushing. The EA build I'm playing right now with great interest, which is overshadowed by the realization that this game won't get a sequel. And how many scenes that somehow never made it into the main game...


+100. Even feel sorry for this imaginary child and wish they could learn something else on their own. The same self-preservation, for starters. It's interesting that blindly following the “good” in BG3 leads to defeat (well, or what looks or feels like defeat). In doing so, we get lectures that try to “enforce” that this is the way to go. Pretty ironic.

Has anyone been able to trigger Minthara's poisoned kiss scene this patch?

• Been throwing in a kiss whenever she was approached throughout ACT III hoping to trigger it naturally - nothing.
• Tried to forcefully trigger it now before ending the playthrough by spamming over 150 kisses, still nothing.
• Gave her poisons, removed all my saving throws, disguised myself... absolutely nothing.

Ridiculous how nigh impossible it is to trigger this scene.

In my current Run (runs on patch 7) i kissed Minthara around 630 times. Yes i count them. For her statistic. And i got her poison kiss only 2× i think.

When Larian released the companion kiss statistic in August i started a Minthara kiss count Run. To improve her statistic a little. In 1163 kisses i got the poison kiss maybe like 8-10×. And this was in Patch 6.

This scene is veeeerrrryy rare

On top of it being just very rare and random, also make sure you're not using a race that has proficiency in saving throws.

Have not played yet since introduction of patch 7 myself yet but I had it triggered only once prior to it and seemingly out of blue when least expected and that was when I used a wood elf.