As much as I like Mintharas character, there's just not enough to justify an evil playthrough to get her. You lose 3 companions outright, a 4th is possible if you fail the rolls. You miss out on a TON of questlines and magic items because of vendors that don't make it to Act 2 and Act 3. It's just... bad. They give you a dollar, but you have to give them 20 in return. Not to mention if you were doing it to romance Minthara, her romance questline is broken and nothing happens after rescuing her from Moonrise. I don't think it was fixed with Patch 1 since the bug was her romance triggers wouldn't happen if you even so much as flirted with another companion.
Kill sazza and dont tell minthara of the druid camp. You can even kill halsin and no one would care. just remember to expose kagha's ritual to allow them inside the grove. read the note from behind her room to redeem her. remember to not allow kagha to kill the child for her to not anger as much tiefling. When you talk to minthara fool her as much as possible. Multiclass to rogue and bard if needed, this gives more choices. Also free the prisoners(volo and adventurer guy). Poison the drinking party outside secretly. Basically kill all other goblins possible far from minthara without triggering the alarm. They wont be able to attack the druids and the tieflings are safe inside the grove and the druids are reformed when you expose kagha and then redeem her.
@@artemsheen8064 Not entirely evil for me but yeah he is "evil path" guy, you can play a hero but don't play hero all the time(he gonna dislike ya), astarion is kind of "i love power" guy, if you won't take or share that power with him. Well his kinda mad at me but over all not a bad guy entirely but instead the in between in my experience unlike Mintharas that will costs you losing some companions. They just comment and say about astarion "why" instead of "well shet im out." 😂
I kinda wish I could still get her and save the grove but I really just can't go through with killing the grove so I just watch videos of her on RU-vid. 🤣🤣
If you delete the patch #1, you CAN do that. It was a cheese, you simply entered the goblins camp killed the two other leaders, talked with Halsin and made him agree to stay in the prision. Then you go to em druids grove and undercover Khaga's shadow druid affiliation and resolve that mess, causing her to cancel the ritual. After all that jazz, just go to moonrise towers and rescue her just like this. Then just go back to em goblins camp and get helsin.
what if you go to the camp. talk with halsin and he stays behind. you dont kill any of the goblin leaders and go to moonrise. resuce her and then go back to halsin? ...you know what i will try it out right now on patch 1.
A dagger to the throat seems to be the parties way of calmly addressing concerns. Lae'zel and Shadowheart managed to work things out while I'm poly with both of them. Just makes how Minthara nearly does it more ironic.
I really wish there was a way to save the tieflings and her, I would be fine with having her and Halsin still be mutually exclusive she’s much more interesting then Halsin
yeah its so dumb that you cant even fix shadowlands without halsin the stupid bandaged guy who tells about the shadowcurse kid refuses to talk to you without halsin ffs
Did you tried to knock her down none lethally instead of killing her ? If she is not dead, she still fail and probably need to show up in front of ketheric
Desagree lightly. Halsin being the complete otherwise of minthara still a great personality, a man that speak for his tribe and is there to try to help, and will help. And minthara is very much the much more vivid part of something that she is trying to build and lead, for herself, for her people. Both are amazing characters on my book
I have a question for the experts, I saved Minthara, she's in the camp I can talk to her BUT, SHE COMPLETELY DOES NOT SPEAK THE WHOLE TRIP AND HAS NOTHING TO SAY. Is this a bug? will she actually say nothing until the end of the game? It's exactly that Karlach, Shadowheart and Gith women, I get along, talk, cut in all the time when something doesn't suit them, and Minthara doesn't say anything and acts like a boot.
@solaris4019 it was a bug, it was fixed in patch 1. She should be more talkative now but idk if the fix will work if you had already recruited her before the patch
Minthara is too good of a character to be only recruitable by going the evil route in Act 1. She was brainwashed by the Absolute and her nature of being a drow is what causes her to act the way she does. Larian should have provided a path to recruit her AND not kill the druids/tieflings in Act.
I'm fine with killing the druids, they're aholes. Half the time, I wanna kill the druids for the Tieflings XD But....I can't bring myself to kill the Tieflings.... It'd be cool if Larian offered an option where you could convince the goblins to spare the tieflings and only kill the druids. Perhaps making it a choice of Minthara vs Halsin, Instead of Minthara vs half your freaking party....
Considering its a bit of a solo game. I do not see why there is not a dominator path. I could see Gale betraying you, and others be highly reluctant to obediently serve as your minions. Especially someone as proud as Lae'zel. Although, she likes people being blunt, lacking in empathy. Perhaps she could be made to like serving. Especially as you kind of have an ideal way to drag the rest to become your obedient dogs though the parasite. Making even the good Wyll kneel before you even as you slaughter a village of innocent villagers after you forced his previous owner to let transfer the contract. Karlach is kinda the same. Being such a good person, but just after getting away from serving a devil it should be possible to press her into a corner where she very much unwillingly so, is still forced to submit and go from a slave in hell to a slave outside hell. Although being so forceful can in no way be said to make you a good person, especially if its down to practically enslaving or brainwashing your companions. Its not as if such a path would require you to play as a truly evil character. Especially if the nock out option in combat could be given some value. Lower the damage or perhaps make attacks happen with disadvantage. But give me something good for not murdering people.
@@proxmitikgames Don't need mods. Just don't complete the druid/goblin questline and move on to the next area. It's Entirely doable to recruit her without ever having a single mod.
there really should be more options to resolve the grove, make a deal for the refugees to pass and let the goblins kill the druids or KO Minthara and she still ends up dragged to answer for her failures. I am happy replacing Halsin for her but you loose wyll and Karlach which is just to much. Worse still she seems against the absolute in this which would fit her in the regular party, we really need some pure evil characters like Dorn
Wyll is really boring, and come on, there are so many males IRL, don't want more of them in my games as well. Karlach is written like a closeted teenage boy's expectation of what a woman is. Minthara, on the other hand, seems like a real person.
If you're gonna be evil, your selection of allies is limited, so should definitely save her XD Astarion, Lae'zel are easily convinced. Shadowheart needs a touch of sway, but taking her down the route of a Dark Justicar makes her pure evil and finally Minthara, though if you can't convince Shadowheart, you SERIOUSLY better get Minthara. Wyll, Gale, and Karlach will ditch ya for siding with the Goblins, if you didn't already kill them for whatever reason.... whether it be hand chomping, falling for a devils tricks, etc etc. The non-origin allies you can recruit later, also are pure goodie two-shoes. Though, and this is pure speculation, if you follow the Absolutist sorta, you might be able to keep the brainwashed one going as a thrall... who knows.
actually i convinced karlach to stay. i just murdered wyll in the slaughter of the grove, and i dark urge killed gale. ngl my evil playthrough has been kinda fun since im a sadistic bard making my way up in power to rule the world and i cant wait to see how it ends
I immediately pushed minthara into a ravine in the goblin castle, and immediately exterminated all of the lackeys of moonrise towers and yet there's still so much i missed.
I wish there was a way to get Thieflings out of Grove, then I would have no problem destroying it - the druids were aholes, and I would really love to have that drow in my party...
This. Minthara's white whale is the grove, not the refugees. One could easily see a scenario where you make arrangements. Like, the refugees turn on the druids and Minthara allows them safe passage. Or the refugees just leave before the raid can take place. Hell, the druids aren't even protecting their own haven. They have the refugees manning the gate and getting killed on occasion. They deserve a scenario where the refugees make way for the goblins.
@@silverblade357 In my opinion it's the worst part of the game. The game has so many choices that are sort of just grey, but the first really big choice you get is just either good or bad. You are picking an evil playthrough or a good playthrough. But afterwards you can be the nicest fucking person and not be evil, or be an absolute bastard despite saving the grove. Like as a Tiefling you could save other Tieflings but hate everyone else, why's that just not something you can do. I know they had a lot to do but first acts been "out" for years how did they and all the other players not see this problem. Another thing picking the "evil" option is way to punishing. You lose Karlach, Wyll, and Halsin. I assume Jaheira doesn't fall into this group if so it's even worse of a choice. The easiest thing they could do to make it slightly better of a choice is to let us talk to Karlach like we do Gale. It just makes it much less punishing without adding to much complication. The only extra thing they'd really have to add is giving Karlach a new way to fix her heart. So we can still get a good ending for Karlach. This would be the bare minimum they could do to make this a more fair choice. There is an argument to be made against this . "Your actions have consequences." This is true a player's choices should have consequences, but the problem is it's a game. The player has to win, their choices have to feel good. The player is already making a morally poor choice, but can serve a purpose. So punishing them for making a hard decision isn't the right thing to do.
@@prozac5314 "stupidass groove" which saved those tieflinggs in the first place and only wanted them out when it was clear the situation is not sustainable. Those tieflings by the way, who wanted to left some other unfortunates to die in front of the gate before your party arrived to save the day, and who established thief network in previously crimeless place shortly after beiing saved by that place. If somebody is stupidass here, it is tieflings.
I suspected she could be a companion when she dropped the bags, but, come on, she is leading an assault towards the only safe place with good people you have known so far. I literally just went in and kill everything.
I couldnt believe goblins were the big bad enemy at first, it made me laugh that everyone was scared of little 3 foot tall goofy goblins so I outright slaughtered everything like you did
Me (1st DU playthrough): I have Minthara as a companion gamers in a discord VC playing their own game of BG3: What did it cost? Me: the entire Druids grove with great characters, Dammon the only blacksmith to use infernal iron, a warlock with a interesting backstory and a cute wholesome bard who cannot give me the best item for warlocks and sorcerers. VC: *roars of laughter*
I wish there was a way to pull Minthara into a good playthrough. But she seems so eager to kill the innocent, that I just had to kill her when I first talked to her.
You know, if the bad guys were reasonable, accepted their losses, studied those losses to learn from them, and kept their leaders in place to leverage the experience they've gained, and had fewer moving parts to their plans, they'd be a much more daunting enemy. Like seriously, why would they bother having Ketheric's forces attack Baldur's Gate to deliberately be repelled by the Steel Watch? If the Steel Watch were part of the invasion in the first place, then there would have been essentially no resistance. And they tadpoled Duke Ravengard. He could have returned to Baldur's Gate and withdrawn most of the Flaming Fist as part of a phony strategy. Once the patriars and politicians of Baldur's Gate all got tadpoled, there'd be no resistance left, and there'd be minimal destruction in the process. Even if you're a power hungry disciple of an evil god, you still need infrastructure and resources. War is extremely wasteful. But noooooo, they just had to spread themselves thin, come up with winding and convoluted plans with too many moving parts, kill off their best and most loyal officers in acts of unnecessarily brutal disciple, and end up fighting amongst themselves. Or, alternatively, if they just stayed in the shadows and slowly infiltrated the religious bodies of Ilmater and Silvanus, conflated those two deities as one after enough leaders were tadpoled, and snuck in the Absolute as the one true god returning to bring together everyone, they might have been able to tadpole the whole Sword Coast before anyone had a chance to notice. The people in the city would be promised the bounty of nature and the people out in the sticks would be promised the prosperity of civilization. People like Halsin and Father Lorgan would have been all over that kind of thing. They could have even invented a baptismal rite to get people tadpoled willingly, without even realizing it.
with having the steel watch join the forces, baldurs gate will immediatly fall. but the ppl will feel betrayed instead of rallying and celebrating their "savior". in the long run, a massive victorious invasion alone isn't worth much. look at afghanistan. or, in the 90s so much conspiracy movies were about plots to make ppl accept oppression... local politicians let crime run rampant in, for example D.C. and now former strong defund police supporters demand to deploy the national guard to restore order. make them WANT to put you in control of you and it will go much smoother in the long run.
Well, I think part of the strategy involves the service to their gods. War is very good at causing death and murder and provides just the right conditions for tyranny.
the main point of the thing is to cause death (Myrkul), murder (Bhaal), tyranny (Bane) as much as possible to empower those three gods, tadpole and the brain is just a tool in the grand scheme of the Dead three
@regigrenski8434 no she won't, you either pass a speech check and she won't attack you or fail it and she'll attack you, even if she's in your team, if you attack the grove then she'll leave your team permanently, the only way to do it is keep both of them alive in your team is to choose the neutral side
@@Holentyrtake them and just do nothing with goblins and druids, just forget about this questline. Wyll and karlach won't judge you for massacre and minthara is still alive because she simply didn't attack grove (if I understood correctly) Probably you can even have halsin alongside with her, but I don't know for sure, maybe you should kill some goblins
Baldurs Gate 3 is the only game that is this heavily RPG based that I consider replaying it all over again with different classes and roles. Might be the dark urge and well, tap into my urges into the role more. My first palythrough I ended Minthara existancd through a direct attack on the goblins, and wanted the good ending first. So many times, this game tempt me to do a bad thing but held it off so I can have a second playthrough.
I really wish (and I’m kind of disturbed making this point several times on vids like this but I’ve got a good point 😅) the game would let us knock her out, tie her up (rope is an in game item after all) and drag her along with us for the rest of our little adventure. After all, it’s not her fault she never had the protection of the artifact. If she traveled with the group for a while, she’d probably finally be able to break free. Of course, on a non-Druid grove destruction run, she would be as inclined to, hence the rope, hence why she’d probably be howling every insult possible while still brainwashed.
I think Minthara is sort of a "consolation prize" companion. You lose so much if you let her live beyond act 1 and while she's a really cool character, especially the backstory she presents, there's almost no development past act 2 aside from her revenge on Orin which is anti-climactic and lowkey. I really wish the devs would add a patch allowing you to save the grove without killing her. I doubt they have much dialogue interaction for her with Halsin though.
@@richardshiflett5181 How about you stop telling people how to play the game? After about 10+ full playthroughs it becomes difficult to not think about the game like that. Sorry my enjoyment bothers you so. Also, no reason? She's a cool companion to have around. Not that it matters now, there's a mod to keep her alive after killing all the goblin leaders so you can get her later. Sorry we can't all be ultimate roleplayers every second of 400 hours of playtime.
They're not wrong though. Minthara is supposed to brought an indepth to the game if you explore a "not so good" path. If you change her purpose, what is the meaning of exploring an evil path then ? I understand that there can be a frustration to not have all the companions at your side but it is also what make them meaningless if you do. As Shar would probably approves (lol), there's meaning in sacrifice and on what the story tells about it.The game has a big replayability potential. You just need to restart a new journey on the other side of the camp and enjoy her.
Lol my favorite part is how I helped slaughter an entire band of refugee tielflings and druids to get Minthy fresh, and later she asks you what your excuse for doing that was...😂
Honestly I think making her exclusive was a bad move. A lot of people say that “she and Halsin could never get along” but anyone who has played act 2 with her alive knows her motivation isnt what it seemed. And what about karlach/wyll? Lae’zel/Shadowheart? You cant tell me that Minthara, whose actions were beyond her control are somehow more incompatible than the other pairs who literally are set out to murder eachother.
I wonder if it's possible to save the Emerald Grove without killing her at all, and then getting to the point where she's a romanced exile from the Absolute. Or do we HAVE to kill her in order to save the Emerald Grove?
The grove? Yes. Tieflings no. Just skip the entire grove quest line. Go to the crèche. The game treats this as the druids sealed the grove so they’re all alive, but the tieflings get expelled and murdered on the roads by goblins.
@@christophercolasurdo919 Which again is bad, because if you lose the tieflings you lose so many important NPCs and their questlines that extend into Act 3. Hell, just losing Rolan the wizard apprentice and Dammon the smith alone is already a terrible result, because without Rolan you don't get him as ally who takes over the Ramazith's Tower after you kill Lorroakan and thus dont get access to the siege engine at the top of the tower in the Endbattle. Without Dammon, you can't fix Karlach's engine (however temporary that is, as fixing her engine completely is impossible due to the Upper City being cut content) and lose her to death in fire early (and can never romance her), if she doesnt leave your camp outright because you let the tieflings die. Without Dammon as a vendor in Act 3 you lose a ton of great items he creates, and also your owlbear cub gets no armour. Losing Mol the tiefling child rogue as well means you lose her thieves guild as allies. You also lose Zeflor and Alfira.
I wonder if it is/was possible to have Minthara break and also then in the party - this would possibly lead to extremely interesting dialogue and interactions with the rest of the party if possible.
Apparently, you can recruit her, Karlach and Wyll by simply avoiding most of the grove conflict altogether. Dont side with either the grove or goblins and immediatley leave for act 2 (mountains being the easiest method) then you can fast travel back to act 1. Grove will be destroyed but you get to keep Karlach and Wyll. Halsin, Minsc and Jaheira are still lost of course
@@GattsBerserkArmor Technically Karlach can live if you make her into a (spoiler) Mindflayer or send her into hell. Which sadly even in a proper playthrough are really your only options
My group of players just killed her as soon as they saw her because according to our rouge "was abused by Drow as a child" so had a hatred for every single one he saw. Very funny but caused us no end of problems
11:29 As much as I've loved this playthrough so far, this is the most egregious moment of smearing the character's motivations so that they join you. Of course we've mind-melded with every companion so far, but none of them were just brought up to date on the plot like this. Minthara already had *plenty* of reason to join us, this just makes the whole thing seem cheap.
Respectfully, I'd have to disagree based on super late act 2 spoilers. for real don't read unless you're in act 3 Remember, the artifact houses someone. Someone that both controls who the prism protects and *is* a mindflayer. The game literally says that the prism pulls the two minds together. That is The Emperor deciding that *now* is the perfect time. Minthara has been betrayed and scorned by a false god, broken by their followers, and now realizes she has been controlled and made to commit genocides in the Absolute's name. The game is right, she has no choice.
That's the thing that it seems impossible to gather a party of 3 evil companions out of which one wouldn't be someone from your first good playthrough, generally Laziel is very neutral evil but she influences the game way too much and I had enough of her influence on first playthrough 😂
Halsin and Minthara's routes are mutually exclusive: you either save the grove and open Halsin's route, or you destroy it and open Minthara's. Only way to get both is by using mods/cheat tools
What you can do is kill the goblins but don’t go to her and do the mini mission to get karga to not want to do the ritual and then just leave it. She will show up here in act two
i love her sm but i recommend people to not recruit minthara yet. she is currently broken ingame and missing a lot of dialogue and scenes. we need it patched in. larian hasn't been transparent about this unfortunately
There's still a level cap of 12, & you are swimming in money by the end of the game, so stop worrying about what you lose by getting her & treat yourself. She's great in Act III.
I was hoping to get tough ,but do-able rolls to break the absolutes hold on her in act 1 or use the "artifact" to do so. As on an evil playthrough I still despise goblins and wipe em out for sh!ts and giggles. Maybe modders can help out in the near future.
It's a funny story how I got her to become my party member. My pal and I don't save scum. Our campaign name became "Fuck it, we ball" because of all of the ridiculous shit we get into by improvising. We get to the Druid's Grove, we do some talking and we get to the part where they are keeping the Tieflings from entering the area with the Idol of Silvanus. My pal is doing the cutscene, so I click on the NPC he's talking to to listen and he just so happened to finish the cutscene. My character didn't stop moving, so he went past the guard line and started a fight. That triggered every single druid to become hostile towards us and the Tieflings, leading to a slaughter starring the Grove citizens. Everyone is dead, including Wyll (I can resurrect Wyll, but he's non-interactive now). So we keep playing and get to the goblin camp, stick with that questline and find Minthara. Immediately, I say "I'm killing this bitch straight up" and my pal replies "let's convince her to meet up somewhere and kill her there so we don't aggro everyone". We go along with that plan, get her to the grove and she comments on how I've already murdered everyone and she's going to throw a party. Party scene happens, I miraculously convince everyone in the party to stay (except Karlach, but we'll get there) and Minthara sleeps with my character. The conversation after that scene swayed my thoughts of her and I felt as if she was a possible party member, even though I didn't know at the time. Fast forward to Moonrise, this whole video happens and I recruit her. And I don't regret it one bit, because all of her lines are fantastic. Even though she was a religious zealot, she's not exactly what she seemed to be in Act 1, but a very complex person, as well as hilarious, although I could say that for most of the cast. So far for me, she's tied with Astarion for most intriguing character overall. As for what happened to Karlach, this whole thing happened before I interacted with her. My friend's character talked to her and she was mad for the Tieflings being killed, becoming non-interactive. He's played that far before without me and knew damn well who she was, and he let me side with the "Tyr Paladins" to kill her. I turned on them for XP. I still have her head. I put it on the campfire every night to remind myself what could have been.
Rescuing the Gnomes isn't dependent on the Tieflings, it doesn't even require Barcus or the other Underdark Gnomes to survive either. Wulbren and the two other gnomes will be in that cell regardless.
Wait . . . I thought that the player is able to recruit Minthara as soon as they help her to destroy the Grove. But at 10:50, she asks the player about a camp nearby, that's something followers do once you "unlock" them. So I'm a bit confused whether you have unlocked her just now and taken some different approach or was it just me overthinking the camp note.
@@Laniakea_Super Nom, even if you side witrh the Absolute cult and the goblin camp leaders and help slaughter the druids and tieflings, Minthara only becomes fully recruitable in Act 2. She is like Halsin in that regard.... you can sleep with her during the goblin camp party after destroying the Emerald Grove (just like Halsin is available for one night at the tiefling celebration party but then wants to go to Moonrise Towers and Last Light Inn to break the Shadow Curse), but then Minthara leaves for Moonrise Towers, where she is captured by her own allies and sentences to death and you have to free her before she can be fully recruited as a camp companion. Halsin only becomes a full companion after the curse is broken.
Damn, straight spoilers on the title of the video huh? I was excited to find out if I could free her in my next playthrough, guess scrolling RU-vid gave me my answer.
the question was couldn't be a third? where you take over her mind after all your parasite is disconnected from the absolute? she becomes your mind slave thus she will accept anything?
i never tryed to defend(not open the gate) against the goblin attack on the grove.. Will Minthara retreat and than in act 2 be on trial by thorm, or must i kill her to end siege on the grove? I want her as companian but not for the price of karlach, wyll, halsin and jahera
@@Ghorir You don't even have to save Isobel, so long as she survives the fight after the light bubble fails you can move her to your camp and then have her in your party once you're done with the Gauntlet. I only learned this because Markus got some absolutely godly Crit RNG and KO'd Isobel in a single turn, ending the fight before I even got to do anything.
Currently playing the game, already know I don't want Minthara, I would much rather the dev's give Karlach the best ending possible (without romancing her) than even go anywhere near that!
I'd compare Minthara as being like an exclusive game for a specific console because like any exclusive game, her being locked behind an evil playthrough is done artificially. There's no real logical reason for her to be unavailable in a good playthrough but the player needed some sort of reason to attempt an evil playthrough and Larian decided that Minthara is going to be that reason.
I enjoy killing drow elves, so any chance to slaughter these evil elves is the path I'm always going to take. Only people who enjoy playing depraved and evil characters in D&D would keep Minthara as a party member.
Main thing that keeps me from being interested in Minthara is that somehow, her looks and her voice actress just don't gel for me. No offense against the VA, but to me and my personal tastes, she's not a good match.
Oh weehhh wehh waaaahhhh i wish i could get her and halsin and not kill any of the goblins in the camp and get thorm gortash and orin as companions and make friends with the absolute waaaahhhhhh why do i have to make choices in an rpg why can't i just have everything given to me. Your dream protector is a mind flayer called the emperor the absolute is a nether brain that manipulated three people into "controlling" it so they could spread its influence and you need turn yourself into a mind flayer to beat it and you should find the tallest building near you with roof access and do what comes naturally
This sounds messed up but I wish there was more racism in the game. The drow would NEVER accept an orc leading over them. Ever, they are slaves to drow. I just cannot see that happening.
You completely ignore what has happened to Minthara and her story by saying that. If you actually knew what was going on, you would have realised that while far from wrong, is not applicable here.
@aaronclapp400 I haven't used her, but I mean MY drow that I played as. As a loth sworn. There's no way that drow would let an orc speak to him/her in that manner. Yet a lone the orc mage saying "I thought you would be another notch in my bed post" To a drow!? No way in hell that would fly lol
I have a question for the experts, I saved Minthara, she's in the camp I can talk to her BUT, SHE COMPLETELY DOES NOT SPEAK THE WHOLE TRIP AND HAS NOTHING TO SAY. Is this a bug? will she actually say nothing until the end of the game? It's exactly that Karlach, Shadowheart and Gith women, I get along, talk, cut in all the time when something doesn't suit them, and Minthara doesn't say anything and acts like a boot.
I’m in my first play through and I’m doing a drow rogue run and I literally slaughtered so many people for minthara, I just wish there was more to her.
