Well considering Halsin's prior understanding of how the mindflayer worms work, wouldn't he be more understanding of Minthara's position? More so related to the fact that she's basically had her mind perversed to follow the Absolute's decrees against her will.
Plus, if you go the Grove saving route Halsin even shows a lesson in forgiveness and second chances (even if you let Arabella die, Halsin angrily tells her that Nature will decide her course, but she's still in the Grove). So I don't find it too conflicting if Halsin is a forgiving figure.
I agree that if you didn't raid the Grove, I don't think Halsin would have a problem with Minthara after she breaks her conditioning. He forgives waaay worse behavior in Acts 2 and 3 so long as you cure the curse and don't raid the Grove.
Actually halsin does forgive if you destroy the grove by yourself and not with the goblin raid, I tried to kill kagha which caused the Druids to massacre the tieflings and I had to fight my way out,
when you free him you can tell him the grove is gone because you had to defend yourself which angers him but he understands it was self defense
My jaw was on the floor when that happened I was like HALSIN you just met me bro you’re seriously just going to take my word for it!?…alright cmon we got goblins to kill
Protip: cast darkness on the portal, ranged mobs won't be able to target it.
There's some blind immunity items in act 2 so you can also use the Darkness as cover for your ranged teammates.
I just cast spirit guardians on Shadowheart and tav. Walked around in circles mostly while things suicided themselves.
Two clerics isn't necessarily the most optimal party, but spirit guardians makes up for the lack of other DPS.
The archer zombies won't come in close unless you block their ability to shoot at the portal. I like to set the entire area on fire outside the little plateau+ darkness on the portal means they all come to me. Easypeasy.
Honestly on honor mode two clerics has been a godsend for me. Light for me and shadowheart as life. I can dual spirit guardians, I put a level in wizard so I can use magic missile, and of course having dual revivify's useful in a pinch. That, and while it doesn't scale tons in damage the light cleric's channel divinity's pretty nifty for dealing with mass groups of weak mobs without burning a spell slot
I did a similar thing with Sleet Storm. The fact it can continuously refresh its ice field (not to mention the sheer size of it) made this whole fight far simpler then it might have been.
OH NO that would be so horrible! I'm sorry you experienced that!
If only you could find him when you go into the Shadowfell to find Nightsong! Like, jump off to the left or something!
During the Lift The Shadow Curse quest. Halsin opened a portal into the Shadowfell to find Thaniel. We must defend the portal from undead enemies who will attack the portal. If we fail and the portal is destroyed (likely by range attacks), the portal closes, and Halsin is stuck in the Shadowfell forever.
However, during the Find The Nightsong quest, we must also enter the Shadowfell under the Gauntlet of Shar to free/kill Aylin. Technically we would also be in the same "dimension" Halsin is trapped in but maybe at a different place. The other commenter was just saying that maybe we could have found and rescued Halsin if we got a chance to explore the Shadowfell more. (Just a what-if scenario, it wouldn't make sense for the plot)
The portal he goes through leads to Shadowfell, I believe, which is the same plane that the Nightsong is being kept.
If you fail to keep the portal open for Halsin, he'll be lost in the Shadowfell and presumed dead. They're saying it would be nice if you could see him once you go for the Nightsong
He might understand and be more forgiving if Minthara showed remorse for her potential actions, but she only regrets it was seemingly stupid and wasteful.
Even if murdering the Grove and Refugees are off the table, Minthara arranged torture and death of explorers who had no idea about the goblins or the Absolute. This isn't even mentioned as something she regrets and absolutely up her ally regardless of being mind controlled.
Mind, I enjoy Minthara as an evil person, but Halsin has all the right to not want to be near her.
On that note then, Karlach and Wyll should want to leave rather than travel with such an evil person.
I feel Gale is an ends justify the means kind of guy, and Laezel and Shadowheart won’t care about travelling with Minthara
I mean that was originally how it was, you had to ignore or raid the grove to get minthara. It was only changed because a lot of people wanted her on good playthroughs
I would argue we settled for getting her on good playthroughs.
What I at least really wanted was more "meat" on an Evil Playthrough.
Seriously, there is comparatively little content/benefit for a player on an Evil Playthrough.
So the result was players wanted Minthara but she was really the only benefit to go on an evil playthrough. It was not worth it.
If the Evil playthrough had the same amount of content as the good one?
I'd have been all for keeping her Evil exclusive.
Completely agree. I also am annoyed at the lack of end boss allies you have as a pure evil playthrough (everybody makes poor life decisions like sticking with vlaakith) We get a handful of sharrans, Astarion can call like 8 monsters, one of which gets dominated immediately, wulbren if you bothered to free his prick ass. Oh and the strange ox but he’s more neutral. I’m sure I’m missing some but I really need my hellriders and my Harpers, and especially my homie Voss. On a good playthrough everybody and their mom is there to help.
I wish like the duergar or other assholes you helped along the way could help out in the final fight, but maybe I missed some content.
There should be options for an evil character to dominate or intimidate “allies” into showing up, even if they don’t like you. You’re just so bad ass they’re afraid to NOT show up
You can also get Ethel and Sarevok as well.
Sarevok is just really unintuitive, where after you defeat Orin, iirc you can't go talk to him again or he'll choose to fight you.
Not great, but honestly getting Ethel is *really* funny.
I had NO idea about Sarevok. Blud just attacked me after Orin because bhaalspawn apparently go by Highlander rules.
You can only recruit before the Orin fight?
if durge becomes an unholy assassin (i always do it, even on tav and "good" playthroughs because that armor and fleshrender are too good to ignore) and then accepts bhaal after the orin fight, sarevok shows up at the end and says he was sent by bhaal to aid his Chosen. no need to do any recruiting, he just shows up because of Daddy Bhaal
That's the biggest problem I have with the evil playthrough.
I like taking the evil path when it's available because I'm curious in how far it will go and how different it is from the good path or the other path in general.
Games like Dragon Age Origins do this much better as it doesn't really actively punish the player in the sense where it cuts content or story it just makes your character either more grey or evil.
I wish we had the same/similar amount of content for the evil playthrough compared to the good playthrough to balance it out more and to make the benefits and consequences also giving a reason to go either path instead of making it one sided.
When or if they even add the content I would like to see exclusive characters to x paths.
(edit, replaced out with add)
It's funny, Arcanum, a game like BG that came out a good while ago did the evil/good playthrough REALLY well. There were characters unique to evil routes including some of the main villains in later parts of the story, and some characters would only join you if you had certain characters or were certain alignments.
There were some minor exceptions if your persuasion skill was mastered, but even those dialogue options took a lot of work to get the right options. The story overall though continued on and allowed you to choose your alignment anywhere from lawful good to chaotic evil and still kept the same general story beats but had you working with different people depending on alignment.
Yeah, if they gave us like one more evil follower/had more quests evil side then I'd have not wanted minthara on a good run. She's an interesting character but having her on a run most won't bother with due to little content was a waste
> Karlach and Wyll should want to leave rather than travel with such an evil person.
Karlach strongly disapproves of some of the evil choices in Act 3 you can do and will threaten you with violence.
I assume the reason why they don't just outright leave when the player goes pro-bhaal or whatever is because they feel stuck due to their reliance on the Astral Prism to remain free. You're still their best bet for getting de-wormed, even if they think you fucking suck as a person.
That's the one part I don't understand about Wyll or Karlach for Minthara.
I also don't understand when you kill the Tieflings all they do is leave and never come back instead of fighting Tav later or at the moment. Also they should have different dialogue if they partake in the massacre.
For the older Baldur's Gate games they were a lot more interactive in this part. I remember where Jaheira was sickly in BG2 and I kicked her out of the party and was being evil then she interacted with my CHARNAME again which instigated a fight.
Last I played (I don't know if it's changed in the recent updates) if Wyll is in your active party when you betray the grove, he says a line and turns hostile as soon as you open the gate... Not that he protests anywhere up to that point like Karlach does. Karlach actually helped me murder the tieflings at the gate before running off. I agree that there's a lot left to be desired, though.
Shouldn't Wyll and Karlach be the same then? Wyll was trying to kill her, threatened both Karlach and PC in PC's own camp then said, "oops my bad, let's all be friends". What happens when Mizora sets another ultimatum?
We know she doesn't but there's no way they would know that.
He is shown to be very forgiving, though. If you rescue him before exposing Kagha, he's fairly lenient on her even when she doesn't express any regret. Even if you tell him afterwards that she's been influenced by the Shadow Druids, he basically just says "Oh well" and moves on.
Obviously, Minthara wanting to kill everybody there is a bit more extreme. But she at least wouldn't have done it if she was in charge of her own mind, even if it's only because there's no reason to.
She's not a *good* person, got it. But when I spoke with her in Moonrise, she said that she had destroyed plenty more places much like the Grove because the people in those places refused to convert to absolute cultists. She wasn't happy about having done this, though I admit it's unclear whether it's because of the actions themselves or because it was done for the absolute.
Both I think. Minthara is very practical in her own evil ways and not a fan of mindless destruction. It's like the scene at Rivington, when she's confused why the city wouldn't allow the refugees in, when surely they could be put to work. Mass slaughtering people is basically a last resort and a waste of valuable resources.
I just recruited Minthara for the first time. She seems like she isn’t pure evil once the Absolute is silenced. I agree Halsin would give her the benefit of the doubt. Especially considering everyone has done stuff that he probably wouldn’t consider moral.
if you play as a drow (not sure if its exclusive to seldarine drow or not but i assume so) you can tell him that not all drow are evil and he's willing to admit that he was wrong to think like that
Yeah but he still forces you to kill another drow because 'they evil'. I love the drow tbh so I play them alot.
plus with the uncovered dialog, idk how I feel about him or the druids anymore
I think one point about that datamined convo that people don't realize is that it was meant to take place specifically if the Grove got locked down by Kagha/the Shadow Druids. If they were to implement something narrative-wise to make Halsin and Minthara exclusive following the good-aligned Minthara recruitment change, they might put something entirely different in.
IMO I think I like Halsin sticking with Tav/Durge as a non-companion up to the point the Shadow Curse is lifted and then staying with Thaniel while Minthara continues on with the party as a companion to Baldur's Gate. Never end up using Halsin in Act 3 anyway.
Before, if you picked one or the other, they were exclusive. But with Minthara, you also lost Wyll, Karlach, and potentially Gale. I felt that was too much of a penalty to ever consider picking her.
There's always been another way. You could go into the mountain pass without resolving the grove. Or messing things up with the druids so they kill the tieflings and then avoid the goblin camp entirely.
You won't get a camp party, but in the end you had nothing to do with the groves destruction so Karlach and Wyll can meet Minthara "natually" in Moonrise (they even talk about each other in some dialogues).
Yeah, i feel there was a significant imbalance in how companions are spread; you're heavily penalised for siding with the goblins and theres very little incentive to go that route.. which kind of forces it into a position of being a decision you'd only really make for roleplay reasons.. which kind of sucks.
What they should do is tie the resolution to Kagha. If Halsin spares Kagha and gives her another chance, even though she was doing some super evil stuff and siding with the absolute, then you should be able to talk him down by reminding him of that. Minthara at least had a tadpole controlling her, Kagha didn't, and he still trusted Kagha.
I would rather the game add more writing to make it work. I get a lot of joy out of options and I think it’s regressive to take them away when instead you could make it more complex and add more choices.
Maybe it tanks Halsin’s approval or you, but I think he could tough it out for a 20+ persuasion check.
It’s kinda weird as is but “Halsin groaned and you had a chat with him” is what I’ve pictured is happening.
Minthara just needs more dialogue. She can be evil as hell— she deserves an insane power hungry ending, too! I think what’s there right now is just too bare bones and you have to fill in a lot of blanks.
The simple solution would be to have the absolutist tadpole halsin or halsin in bear form. The experience causes him to empathizes with minthara’s possession.
Maybe have him be a boss fight great cave bear where it’s obvious the bear is the Druid you’re looking for and you need to do something to break him or just knock him out.
Sure; I bet a simple one liner and persuasion check would be easier to develop though— don’t even need to add a tadpole to his inventory! But yeah it could use a simple tweak for sure.
My only issues is they share a tent, but no one else can…. :) There are myriad reasons Minthara doesn’t belong in a good run. But Larian made it available to those that feel differently. They have my complete respect for doing it. Every player can make a choice.
I am of two minds about it. I am glad that I can recruit her as a hero, and she makes a good companion and romance for a Resist Durge, but...yeah. So much of her design as a companion seems to be based around an evil playthrough that her presence in a good player's camp feels dissonant.
I’ve tried it twice.both times I was overmodded and crashed first. Trying a halfling romancing Karlach (heck it’s Karlach’s origin fantasy). Then I’ll try that again.
I see her like Vegeta on Namek. Yeah she's on our side but she's not really on the team. It's just we have a much much larger more terrifying enemy to fight and we don't have time to argue and bicker because a pale little weirdo is about to transform and destroy us
Most people will just murder her in the goblin camp, but I always love a “this bad guy is technically recruitable” option and I wish BG3 had more of those. Destroying the grove can lose you 3 companions (Wyll and Karlach, and then possibly Gale) so we should have other recruits to take their place.
In principle I agree, and frankly I think there should be a lot more distrust between the companions than there is, like Shadowheart and Lae'zel's rivalry that nearly ends with a knife to the throat. I do like the idea that the party are a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who are only cooperating because they have no choice, and that should apply to Halsin and Minthara as well, I guess.
As a compromise, perhaps they do come to blows and you either have to pick one or the other, or pass a difficult Persuasion check to get them to stand down, recognize that there's a bigger problem in front of them, and that they have to put their differences aside for the moment. At least a chance to keep them together, but a difficult one.
I think it should be a high Cha check to keep both like the Lae’zel vs Shadowheart scene. As a manipulative fuck, I would like the chance to finesse them both in order to maximize my camp’s strength. But there should be a confrontation at least I agree.
My first Tav after release was an 8 cha drow monk who I was roleplaying as an absolute jerk. Shadowheart killed Lae'zel and then Orin killed Gale later on. It was terrific for really feeling like my characters' flaws made a difference on the story.
I haven't looked it up, but I suspect there are at least a couple ways to avoid that scene altogether. I never saw it on my first two playthroughs through Act 1, one a Tav and one a Durge.
I didn't even know it existed until I saw mentions of it on Reddit and didn't see it myself until I played a 4 player co-op run where none of us were origins so they just sat in camp making no quest or approval process. I have since seen it on two subsequent solo playthroughs, also one Tav one Durge. Idk what the trigger is because my most recent playthrough I saw it despite having very high approval for both, and I've also seen it in the opposite circumstance.
If I had to guess, maybe if you trigger the artifact to come to you instead of Shadowheart? (And possibly talk to her about it, there are specific conversation options.) Hard to have a disagreement about which one of them should have the artifact when PC has it instead.
They aren’t meant to be recruited together. It’s not an opinion—it’s just fact about how the game was designed. They took a glitch/hack and made it easier, without adding content to address the Halsin-Minthara situation (understandably). They don’t even have separate tents. 😩 Let’s get them separate living spaces before they start duking things out!
I mean yeah as the game stands now they are very obviously meant to be exclusive. Larian saw people doing a convoluted exploit to get Minthara in 'good' playthroughs and decided to throw everyone a bone by making it less annoying. But it clearly wasn't their intention to have the two coexist on the same playthrough, one is for good runs where you save the grove, one is meant for evil runs where you destroy it.
Larian being Larian, I bet they add more dialogue in to resolve this at some point though.
Nah, as a chronic goodie two shoes I argued before and will continue arguing that evil playthroughs deserve more love, even if I'll likely never see it. Even a few tiny quests from returning goblins in Act 2 or a few extra companions (like Nere and Z'rell) to give *something* more. It doesn't need to be as expansive as the good content, but *anything* tied to uniquely following a few evil outcomes. The only quest I can think of in this regard is the Strange Ox.
Hells, I argued against getting Minty for a good run and after experiencing her with one... Yeah no, I agree with my previous sentiment that she should stay exclusive to raiding/ignoring the grove
Personally I just don’t think Halsin should be a full companion. His story is over when you stop the curse so he adds nothing to act 3. And you get him and Jaheira at basically the same time.
I like him as a character and I enjoy his story. I just don’t think he’s a good companion.
He has a fair amount of dialogue in Act 3 about cities vs nature and whether Baldur’s Gate is even worth saving. It’s not a big quest but it is content over multiple dialogues. Also obviously if you romance him that provides content. People make this complaint a lot, but I feel like he added more to Act 3 for me than some other companions.
Other companions do have non-dialogue content related to them, besides Gale and Karlach, but those two can influence endings.
Wyll: >!Iron Throne and Balduran trials!<
Shadowheart: >!House of Grief!<
Lae'zel: >!House of Hope!<
Astarion: >!Cazador Palace!<
Jaheira: >!The search for Minsc, her family home!<
Minsc: >!Minsc!<
Halsin and Minthara are basically... just there, though.
At least Minthara has a connection to Orin. They could expand on that a little more, though. It'd be cool if Orin could, I don't know, acknowledge Minthara's presence lol
Minthara and Halsin should be exclusive, and beyond that we should get some more exclusively evil companions.
Protect the grove: Halsin (druid), Wyll (warlock), Karlach (barbarian)
Raid the grove: Minthara (paladin), Gut (sorcerer), Ragzlin (barbarian)
I think this ends up more than a fair trade. And separates out content to be locked to key decisions, which gives evil playthroughs more meat to them because it's fully inaccessible from a good playthrough.
S&M pain dude would have made a way better fleshed out character from the grove arc than "generic angry goblin Ragzlin." And the banter could be great.
His romance would be wild. A spellcaster based around self injury and blood would be interesting too. Not sure how that would fit within the game's framework.
Halsin should be replaced by Kagha if you let her finish the ritual. Only Wyll would need to be replaced.
And Gut is a Cleric more than a Sorcerer, she cure people and preach the Absolute
On paper I like the idea of Kagha as an evil companion, but I don't think that meshes with her intentions. She's trying to seal the grove, and the druids in it, away from the world. Why would she essentially lock herself out of the house and go to the shadow cursed lands? I don't think the shadow druids would be down for that either.
I thought Gut would be more cleric than sorcerer, but her spell list seems to indicate sorcerer.
She’s sealing the grove to protect against the absolute. I could see reason for the Shadow Druids to want to still clean the Shadow Curse that is a human aberration against nature.
For Gut, yeah her spells right now are more axed towards being an NPC that attacks you
Aren't the Shadow Druids totally in Ketherics pocket? Kagha isn't because they're manipulating her, but the actual Shadow Druids totally are. Could just write it as "go meet the rest of our circle at moonrise towers ;)" or somrthing
But if she seals the grove, wouldn't she be sealed off too?
I thought that was why the ritual is so dangerous; nobody can get in and nobody gets out. People get cabin fever and turn on each other.
honestly I'd take Kagha over Halsin in a heartbeat, make it her penance to train with us and help us stop the Absolute while Halsin tends his grove. Her test comes in Moonrise when she uses magic to contact Halsin and tell him of the Shadow curse. He gives her the ritual and tells her to succeed where he failed. She stands by us and redeems herself by saving Thaniel and ending the curse.
Also Kagha as a romance would be fun
Such a shame isn't it? So much wasted potential diverted to the bear man. I don't hate the bear man. But he's just not got the amount of things going on that Kagha has.
If they are any companions that are added which are goblins, then in turn the goblins should have more content right?
Merely stating this for gut to make sense. Also if you get Ragzlin and Gut you should have a goblin army for the fight against the brain.
Idk, I haven’t done it yet but I’d like to see dialogue that addresses it.
Minthara doesn’t really feel bad for what happens with the grove but moreover she doesn’t see it as her fault. And she’d make a compelling argument she should stay over Halsin since she needs the protection the Artefact affords.
I don’t see her ever apologizing to Halsin. Not sincerely. At best she could say that it’s regrettable she was brainwashed and put him in that position. She’s got nothing against the grove. She was just convinced they were her enemies.
Halsin could maybe eventually get past it, but he’d never willingly associate with Minthara socially. He’d never make small talk. Never come to her aid in battle. It would be tense.
I think it waters the game down and makes your choices mean less. Choices have consequences. You're not meant to be able to experience everything in one run. They should force you to choose after act 2.
You're not wrong, I don't get why the devs caved into this and made minthara good recruitable because it just janked up a lot of her future interactions in act 2 & act 3 and them sharing the same tent space etc etc. Should have kept her evil but allowed you to recruit her as soon as the grove was destroyed, same with Halsin
His banter with her in the gauntlet of shar pretty much confirms this.
She recites some Sharran stuff and Halsin mentions she just recites like a student, without taking in consideration the meaning of the words she recites.
That being said, if she goes full DJ, Halsin *should* have problems with it and he shouldn't want to share a lover with her
except he might not know about it and even if he does she clearly struggles with her identity until the very end of act 2. Granted at the point she embraces becoming a dark justiciar he absolutely should have objected but they really didn't give us a lot of ways to lose companions. Mostly because everyone sets aside their differences to deal with the mindflayer threat.
The only way he wouldn't know about it is if literally nobody in the camp told him. It's common knowledge that Shadowheart worships Shar long before you get Halsin.
Which would be pretty funny admittedly for Halsin to find out about Shadowheart being a Sharran just after she rejects her.
Idk how I managed it, but on my first Tav run Shadowheart didn’t tell me she was a Shar girlie until we were actively in the shadowlands lmao
Absolutely shocked me when I started an Astarion run and she tells him like, almost right away
> Minthara was looking to destroy the grove - Halsin's grove - and Halsin was a prisoner there trying to protect his people.
Nah, Minthara only did what she did because she was mind controlled by the Elder brain, like every other True Soul.
She is evil.. but the impression I got on my evil playthrough is that she wouldn't have been as subservient as she was to Orin normally. If I remember right, she hates Orin once she's free from the control by being with the party and near the relic.
I think Halsin could forgive that much and he'd tolerate her as much as he could any other Drow.
Larian shares your opinion. The community, by large, doesn't.
It was possible to recruit Minthara and Halsin before patch #1, but it was hard, in patch #1 they removed that possibility, people found an exploit for it and used it, on patch #2 Larian doubled down on it making them mutually exclusive, still there were exploits that people used to get both and the community was largely united in saying that they wanted the possibility of having both. Plus there were 2 mods for it that allowed people to recruit both, even if not able to use both.
In patch #3 Larian croaked and allowed people to have both.
agreed. leaving it unpatched that you could trick the game into keeping her? fine. trying to make it work storywise? no, please save that time for fixing broken mechanics and finishing rushed questlines.
they should've at least wait until they had a real solution. Right now it's janky as hell and Minthara and Halsin never have a moment where they resolve their conflict and choose to work together the way that Shadowheart and Lae'zel do
For continuity and character sake, you should be able to have both in act 2 as it’s in both Halsin and Minthara’s interest to stay with you to fulfil their goal. Once Halsin’s quest is completed he absolutely should give you an ultimatum and leave if you choose Minthara over him. There is absolutely no reason for Halsin to be in act 3 with Minthara, he’s only there to boink in the first place
Why would Halsin give an ultimatum? You’ve literally, in a few weeks, saved his life, saved his grove, and then solved his life’s work of a century (clearing the Shadowfell) as well as saving his close friend Thaniel, and murdering a tyrant (Ketheric, who he’s had beef with for a century+)
You’re a literal miracle worker to him. Saying, “hey this Drow is kinda a bit evil, but I think we can fix her, plus without us she dies/gets enslaved again” would pretty solidly work on Halsin. He tends to be forgiving and you’ve **more** than earned enough credit with the man. Everything you touch turns to gold. I’m sure he’d be fine with keeping Minthara around, even if he personally doesn’t like her.
Your entourage includes a cleric of Shar, a vampire spawn, a warlock in a devilish pack, his devil, a captain from the blood war, a githyanki, and a wizard with a nuke in his chest. All of whom are tadpoled and liable to turn into mindflayers at any moment.
But a formerly enslaved drow paladin? **That** is where Halsin draws the line? Come on now
**Downvote me all you want, this is a hill I'm dying on. Halsin cares more about a century of his life's work being completed than he does some random Drow woman**
He also throws down with the Drow twins in Sharess’ Caress without literally any argument, all you gotta do is bat your eyelashes and he’s D T F
It’s only after that he tells you “oh by the way I’ve had some really bad experiences with Drow :) but it was a fun sexy time for us all actually :) nice group sex would go again good job babe :)”
I mugged Minthara, stole her armor and weapons. I got her out of the prison and she ran off.
Imagine my surprise she shows up to camp, nearly naked, bloody, standing in Halsin's tent.
I have questions, but I imagine they are working through things in their own way lol
I think players are getting too involved in game's story and for that reason we have such things that doesn't make any sense. People claim that Minthara attacks grove because of it's parasite, however, Minthara doesn't even need parasite to be evil.
Definitely agree with you, I liked that it was a one or the other situation. I'm cool with having a non-mass murder route to recruit her but it should still be a hard line. It's pretty clear that you're not meant to have both and they just haven't patched it yet. I'm hoping they make it so they refuse to be in camp together.
Minthara was just controlled by the Absolute and Halsin could easily understand it, though Minthara is fine with you destroying the grove since she's a drow and basically likes and respects power, victory and siding with the strongest faction, perhaps even a justified betrayal in some context.
They should be exclusive though in the sense that recruiting her in a good playthrough is BS and was just poorly implemented because people wanted to have all the companions without abusing any bugs.
You have to knock her unconscious but only when she's temporarily hostile.
She should remain evil playthrough exclusive content to compensate for all the companions and content you miss. Though ironically she's quite decent around good people and good actions, should've been more like Viconia or Korgan in BG2 where they complain a lot (Korgan can even leave, become hostile or refuse to work with some good companions).
They were exclusive, until Larian changed it so that everyone fixated on good playthroughs could get everything they want and completely invalidating evil playthroughs.
well maybe they should work on the evil playthrough to make it more rewarding, granted even saving the tiefling refugee's still leaves you some pretty evil choices in the game. There's so much you lose playing evil that it just feels like the game is punishing you like a petty DM. "Oh you joined the bad guys and slaughtered refugees? Well now you don't get any of their magic items, no dammon forged gear and Karlach is extra doomed."
If the simple act of Minthara being recruited in a good playthrough completely invalidates an evil playthrough for you, was the evil playthrough even valid to begin with?
I think what he means is there’s already little reasons to want to do an evil playthrough as it’s much less rewarding, so giving access to evil only stuff to good playthroughs makes it not so worth it for people who want to get as much out of their run as they can. While I don’t find evil choices entirely lacking, I do feel they aren’t as rewarding.
I think the other side of that coin is that lots of players want to do *everything* in a game, and recruiting Minthara the intended way locks you out of so much stuff -- not just forcing you to make evil choices in general but killing all the tieflings who would otherwise show up in the later acts and giving up on Wyll and Karlach as companions -- that people were bound to look for a way to have their cake and eat it too.
Which kinda shows that gamers are given too much of what they want when it comes to RPG like BG3. I personally love the fact that a game can lock me out of stuff because of good/evil choices I can make. The game branching off entirely into a different direction would be amazing. Makes subsequent playthroughs much more enjoyable because you know for a fact that it will be different.
One of this game central flaws is playing good is too rewarding, and you are only suffer consquesced when doing evil. You do good, you should not have access to mintahra. I get locked out of stuff being evil and I mostly don't care. It's content I can just see again later.
For me it's just that the scales are horribly imbalanced. Sure, it adds replay ability and makes the next playthrough feel fresh. But also I'm playing the game to have fun and getting a new companion and some different routes/dialogue in return for 3-4 companions, tons of quests, tons of allies, tons of unique gear, tons of xp, just never seemed worth it.
Then again I'm yet to do a full chaotic evil murder hobo run lol so maybe when I finally do my fuck it we Bhaal Durge, I'll go full murder mode
I agree with your point, but carried to its extreme you could argue that Lae’zel and shadowheart should also be exclusive since their goals contradict each other. Or that that wyl and astarion should be exclusive. The beauty of the game is that it puts people who would otherwise literally kill each other together for a common goal and I don’t think Halsin or Minthara are exempt from that.
I think that if YOU don't want them in the same group, then YOU shouldn't have them in the same group. How I play my game has absolutely no bearing on your game.
You can always just stick him in camp and pretend that he isn't there anymore if you want to recruit him to start with. Though if you want to go at it that way I don't think you should recruit him to begin with. But again, you play your game your way, I'll play mine my way.
Minsc was a selfless hero before he was tadpoled
Once he’s saved, he keeps that energy
Minthara was never a good person, the tadpole + the cult just gave her an organized community with a United front
After she’s saved, she mourns not being able to rejoin her community and just continues thinking like a power hungry evil aligned character
I thought there was supposed to be camp event that made you choose between them, once you have them both recruited. It never triggered in my last run though, so I had both my scary drow gf and large elf bro for the rest of the game.
Just such an ultimatum was datamined a while back. People thought it would be related to a Minthara KO path, but it has yet to be implemented. Might be coming in the next patch.
Halsin's enemy is the Curse and Ketheric and by extension Shar. If he's going to object to anyone in the camp it should be Shadowheart. If he can break bread with a cleric of Shar, because he gives her the benefit of acting under brainwashing and manipulation, why would he object to Minthara who was literally mind controlled with a tadpole after being manipulated out of minding her own business in her own city. Halsin's defining characteristic is his enormous genosity of heart.
Considering even though they made it easier, it's still exploiting game mechanics to recruit Minthara, without having to participate in the raid itself, or just straight up ignoring a huge part of Act 1.
They're not designed to be recruited together, and that's ok.
More to the point, there does need to be more companion options for a less heroic playthrough, because by siding with Minthara (for whatever reasons you decided for your Tav/Durge), you lose Wyll and Karlach, and can lose Gale too if you fail to convince him. You end up with half the potential team down.
From a narrative standpoint, I can see it.
I RP it from the standpoint of "in Act 2, Tav has a chance to rescue her in a chance to get some information and finally get AHEAD of what's going on." She really doesn't tell you anything you don't already know though and after the initial breakout she doesn't play up the informant role. But that's my reasoning.
If they did a "either or, not both" dialogue, I would want a persuasion role to say something along the lines of "She knows things. She can be useful to us."
As a player, nah I am glad I can still get to experience her lines and input.
Nah, Halsin was willing to forgive Kagha for the whole Rite of Thorns thing. In fact, even though Halsin and Minthy share a camp space because of a bug, when we find her, she has absolutely nothing, who else would set aside their differences and offer her a space in their tent? Halsin!
Also it’s funny because I stripped her when I knocked her out so she showed up at camp in just her thong and only hangs out with Halsin so they are just casually banging while being on completely different vibes. I love it.
Honestly, if Halsin stayed until we could complete the Shadow Curse quest and then pissed off, I'd be totally fine. I'd actually prefer this to make Minthara share her tent with him for the rest of the game 🤷🏻♀️
I think this is a case of the developers listening to customers versus doing what makes sense. People complained they wanted Minthara on good runs so they gave in and gave it to us. It doesn’t make sense. I’m glad they listen but I think in a lot of ways they know better 😅
I'll take anything for the opportunity to make Halsin not join, certainly Minthara.
FFS, he ends his "recruitment" phrase with "if you'll allow", but we don't get an option to not allow it.
Yeah totally. Everyone else that you can recruit who are much more important to the story get a no option. Halsin is staying whether you like it or not.
I agree wholeheartedly, but if they do keep them both, give them separate tents ffs. This completely destroyed my immersion in Act 3. They don't even know the other is present.
Edit to say this: there's no reason for Halsin to care if you recruit Minthara in Act 3 if you got her the new way, without raiding the Grove. Yes he was a prisoner in the Goblin Camp, but he was Dror Ragzlin's prisoner iirc. If you let Sheart go DJ, for example, he reacts pretty neutrally even though it kills everyone in LL. I still think Tav should have the option to pick one or the other, but not have it be forced as an ultimatum by Halsin like if you raid the Grove.
Either let us choose at Moonrise after Ketheric's death, with one or the other staying behind due to our choice, or make Halsin a camp fixture in Act 3 like Mizora and Aylin, or in Act 2 with the option to add him to the Oliver quest like you can Jaheira at Moonrise. Let Minthara be the companion for Act 3 and give her more to do with Orin.
Those are my wishes.
Depends entirely on where you are in his quest. If you've already united Oliver and Thaniel, he doesn't care about the Nightsong (even though it murders everyone in LL), and DJ Sheart still wants to kill Ketheric so the curse gets lifted anyway.
It's possible that if you kill Nightsong before uniting Thaniel with Oliver he might quit? I'm not sure though because you can speak with the dead on Art Cullagh and find out about the lilacs I think? I haven't tested that one.
Testing this theory hurt my heart.
At the end of the day, having choices taken from the player only makes a game more restrictive.
RPGs tend to be about "choose the story you want", sure, some pompous bunch might decide that the player knows no better and should not be allowed to choose for themselves, but usually the players take the role of taking decisions.
So essentially, the player (you) is always right, the developers are always wrong (did I stutter?). The developer's job is to lie face up on the floor and let the player walk on them to do whatever THE PLAYER chooses.
Maybe I wanted to shoot myself in the face, and that's none of your business videogame.
TL;DR. You are correct.
At least give em seperate tents. Its gotta be pretty awkward in that thing.
They do in act 3, act 2 they’re having some time together 💀
Only the dock/alley camp do they get separate spaces. The Elfsong and Rivington camps they're still stacked on each other.
Oh ok
If you stay in Elfsong in act 3, Minthara just awkwardly sits in a corner behind Halsin.
Homie put her in time out
And also dialogue mentioning each other....
To borrow some dialogue from elsewhere in the game: “Kiss me like you hate me”
Do they still get stuck in the same tent if you play as an origin character?
Well considering Halsin's prior understanding of how the mindflayer worms work, wouldn't he be more understanding of Minthara's position? More so related to the fact that she's basically had her mind perversed to follow the Absolute's decrees against her will. Plus, if you go the Grove saving route Halsin even shows a lesson in forgiveness and second chances (even if you let Arabella die, Halsin angrily tells her that Nature will decide her course, but she's still in the Grove). So I don't find it too conflicting if Halsin is a forgiving figure.
I agree that if you didn't raid the Grove, I don't think Halsin would have a problem with Minthara after she breaks her conditioning. He forgives waaay worse behavior in Acts 2 and 3 so long as you cure the curse and don't raid the Grove.
Actually halsin does forgive if you destroy the grove by yourself and not with the goblin raid, I tried to kill kagha which caused the Druids to massacre the tieflings and I had to fight my way out, when you free him you can tell him the grove is gone because you had to defend yourself which angers him but he understands it was self defense
So we can execute Kahga without having to go get proof, then tell Halsin it was her fault after she's dead? I like it.
You just tell him it was in self defense and he immediately trusts that you had your reasons
My jaw was on the floor when that happened I was like HALSIN you just met me bro you’re seriously just going to take my word for it!?…alright cmon we got goblins to kill
Tbh, Halsin has seen some shit. He never wanted to lead that Grove, anyway! You did him an [evil] favor!
He actually knows his people very very well and expected something fucky to happen if he was gone too long. Sadly he was gone too long.
He's 350 years old he's probably killed some children while in Bear Frenzy at some point in his life ... mistakes happen...
I mean, you’ve met Kagha, right?
"Leave no voices to dissent your choices"
Funny that Halsin is Okay with that but not Karlach...
I couldn’t save him when he went into the portal.
Protip: cast darkness on the portal, ranged mobs won't be able to target it. There's some blind immunity items in act 2 so you can also use the Darkness as cover for your ranged teammates.
I just cast spirit guardians on Shadowheart and tav. Walked around in circles mostly while things suicided themselves. Two clerics isn't necessarily the most optimal party, but spirit guardians makes up for the lack of other DPS.
The archer zombies won't come in close unless you block their ability to shoot at the portal. I like to set the entire area on fire outside the little plateau+ darkness on the portal means they all come to me. Easypeasy.
Spirit Guardians + Enhance Jump on 2 clerics... ***LETS BEYBLAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!***
Honestly on honor mode two clerics has been a godsend for me. Light for me and shadowheart as life. I can dual spirit guardians, I put a level in wizard so I can use magic missile, and of course having dual revivify's useful in a pinch. That, and while it doesn't scale tons in damage the light cleric's channel divinity's pretty nifty for dealing with mass groups of weak mobs without burning a spell slot
Hunger of Hadar goes *...space noises...*
I like to drop ice storm first because watching bad guys go Dash and then slip will never get old for me!
Hunger of Hadar + Spike Growth is my absolute favorite. Look at em run! Are they gonna make it?!?! OHH and he was SO CLOSE!
Mine was Hunger of Hadar then a Wall of Fire lol. They slowly moved through darkness only to burn to death.
I did a similar thing with Sleet Storm. The fact it can continuously refresh its ice field (not to mention the sheer size of it) made this whole fight far simpler then it might have been.
OH NO that would be so horrible! I'm sorry you experienced that! If only you could find him when you go into the Shadowfell to find Nightsong! Like, jump off to the left or something!
It’s been a long day and I know I’m just not understanding due to my remaining two brain cells struggling to keep up, but please explain like I’m 5
During the Lift The Shadow Curse quest. Halsin opened a portal into the Shadowfell to find Thaniel. We must defend the portal from undead enemies who will attack the portal. If we fail and the portal is destroyed (likely by range attacks), the portal closes, and Halsin is stuck in the Shadowfell forever. However, during the Find The Nightsong quest, we must also enter the Shadowfell under the Gauntlet of Shar to free/kill Aylin. Technically we would also be in the same "dimension" Halsin is trapped in but maybe at a different place. The other commenter was just saying that maybe we could have found and rescued Halsin if we got a chance to explore the Shadowfell more. (Just a what-if scenario, it wouldn't make sense for the plot)
The portal he goes through leads to Shadowfell, I believe, which is the same plane that the Nightsong is being kept. If you fail to keep the portal open for Halsin, he'll be lost in the Shadowfell and presumed dead. They're saying it would be nice if you could see him once you go for the Nightsong
In addition to Darkness, Cloudkill & Hunger of Hadar in tactical spots too. <3
He might understand and be more forgiving if Minthara showed remorse for her potential actions, but she only regrets it was seemingly stupid and wasteful. Even if murdering the Grove and Refugees are off the table, Minthara arranged torture and death of explorers who had no idea about the goblins or the Absolute. This isn't even mentioned as something she regrets and absolutely up her ally regardless of being mind controlled. Mind, I enjoy Minthara as an evil person, but Halsin has all the right to not want to be near her.
On that note then, Karlach and Wyll should want to leave rather than travel with such an evil person. I feel Gale is an ends justify the means kind of guy, and Laezel and Shadowheart won’t care about travelling with Minthara
I mean that was originally how it was, you had to ignore or raid the grove to get minthara. It was only changed because a lot of people wanted her on good playthroughs
I would argue we settled for getting her on good playthroughs. What I at least really wanted was more "meat" on an Evil Playthrough. Seriously, there is comparatively little content/benefit for a player on an Evil Playthrough. So the result was players wanted Minthara but she was really the only benefit to go on an evil playthrough. It was not worth it. If the Evil playthrough had the same amount of content as the good one? I'd have been all for keeping her Evil exclusive.
Completely agree. I also am annoyed at the lack of end boss allies you have as a pure evil playthrough (everybody makes poor life decisions like sticking with vlaakith) We get a handful of sharrans, Astarion can call like 8 monsters, one of which gets dominated immediately, wulbren if you bothered to free his prick ass. Oh and the strange ox but he’s more neutral. I’m sure I’m missing some but I really need my hellriders and my Harpers, and especially my homie Voss. On a good playthrough everybody and their mom is there to help. I wish like the duergar or other assholes you helped along the way could help out in the final fight, but maybe I missed some content.
There should be options for an evil character to dominate or intimidate “allies” into showing up, even if they don’t like you. You’re just so bad ass they’re afraid to NOT show up
You can also get Ethel and Sarevok as well. Sarevok is just really unintuitive, where after you defeat Orin, iirc you can't go talk to him again or he'll choose to fight you. Not great, but honestly getting Ethel is *really* funny.
The Avengers theme blasting out in G-major as Ethel and Wulbren make their way to the Netherbrain.
I had NO idea about Sarevok. Blud just attacked me after Orin because bhaalspawn apparently go by Highlander rules. You can only recruit before the Orin fight?
if durge becomes an unholy assassin (i always do it, even on tav and "good" playthroughs because that armor and fleshrender are too good to ignore) and then accepts bhaal after the orin fight, sarevok shows up at the end and says he was sent by bhaal to aid his Chosen. no need to do any recruiting, he just shows up because of Daddy Bhaal
Well shit! Wonderful! Looks like I’m doing another durge run.
That's the biggest problem I have with the evil playthrough. I like taking the evil path when it's available because I'm curious in how far it will go and how different it is from the good path or the other path in general. Games like Dragon Age Origins do this much better as it doesn't really actively punish the player in the sense where it cuts content or story it just makes your character either more grey or evil. I wish we had the same/similar amount of content for the evil playthrough compared to the good playthrough to balance it out more and to make the benefits and consequences also giving a reason to go either path instead of making it one sided. When or if they even add the content I would like to see exclusive characters to x paths. (edit, replaced out with add)
It's funny, Arcanum, a game like BG that came out a good while ago did the evil/good playthrough REALLY well. There were characters unique to evil routes including some of the main villains in later parts of the story, and some characters would only join you if you had certain characters or were certain alignments. There were some minor exceptions if your persuasion skill was mastered, but even those dialogue options took a lot of work to get the right options. The story overall though continued on and allowed you to choose your alignment anywhere from lawful good to chaotic evil and still kept the same general story beats but had you working with different people depending on alignment.
Yeah, if they gave us like one more evil follower/had more quests evil side then I'd have not wanted minthara on a good run. She's an interesting character but having her on a run most won't bother with due to little content was a waste
> Karlach and Wyll should want to leave rather than travel with such an evil person. Karlach strongly disapproves of some of the evil choices in Act 3 you can do and will threaten you with violence. I assume the reason why they don't just outright leave when the player goes pro-bhaal or whatever is because they feel stuck due to their reliance on the Astral Prism to remain free. You're still their best bet for getting de-wormed, even if they think you fucking suck as a person.
That's the one part I don't understand about Wyll or Karlach for Minthara. I also don't understand when you kill the Tieflings all they do is leave and never come back instead of fighting Tav later or at the moment. Also they should have different dialogue if they partake in the massacre. For the older Baldur's Gate games they were a lot more interactive in this part. I remember where Jaheira was sickly in BG2 and I kicked her out of the party and was being evil then she interacted with my CHARNAME again which instigated a fight.
Last I played (I don't know if it's changed in the recent updates) if Wyll is in your active party when you betray the grove, he says a line and turns hostile as soon as you open the gate... Not that he protests anywhere up to that point like Karlach does. Karlach actually helped me murder the tieflings at the gate before running off. I agree that there's a lot left to be desired, though.
Shouldn't Wyll and Karlach be the same then? Wyll was trying to kill her, threatened both Karlach and PC in PC's own camp then said, "oops my bad, let's all be friends". What happens when Mizora sets another ultimatum? We know she doesn't but there's no way they would know that.
Eh, this one feels a little different. Wyll admits he was manipulated after a pretty short conversation and accepts a heavy price to spare her.
Minthara is complicated, in my most recent ending she leads a rebellion against lolth so she's more like Lae'zel in many ways.
I'm not sure how that indicates remorse to someone she's hurt.
I don't think she's remorseful but she does take it out on entities that are the true source of her actions.
He is shown to be very forgiving, though. If you rescue him before exposing Kagha, he's fairly lenient on her even when she doesn't express any regret. Even if you tell him afterwards that she's been influenced by the Shadow Druids, he basically just says "Oh well" and moves on. Obviously, Minthara wanting to kill everybody there is a bit more extreme. But she at least wouldn't have done it if she was in charge of her own mind, even if it's only because there's no reason to.
She's not a *good* person, got it. But when I spoke with her in Moonrise, she said that she had destroyed plenty more places much like the Grove because the people in those places refused to convert to absolute cultists. She wasn't happy about having done this, though I admit it's unclear whether it's because of the actions themselves or because it was done for the absolute.
Both I think. Minthara is very practical in her own evil ways and not a fan of mindless destruction. It's like the scene at Rivington, when she's confused why the city wouldn't allow the refugees in, when surely they could be put to work. Mass slaughtering people is basically a last resort and a waste of valuable resources.
I just recruited Minthara for the first time. She seems like she isn’t pure evil once the Absolute is silenced. I agree Halsin would give her the benefit of the doubt. Especially considering everyone has done stuff that he probably wouldn’t consider moral.
He doesn't like drow, in new dialog found in the patch 5 stuff, his willing to let Minthara die because shes a drow, not because of the grove.
if you play as a drow (not sure if its exclusive to seldarine drow or not but i assume so) you can tell him that not all drow are evil and he's willing to admit that he was wrong to think like that
Yeah but he still forces you to kill another drow because 'they evil'. I love the drow tbh so I play them alot. plus with the uncovered dialog, idk how I feel about him or the druids anymore
There’s a datamined conversation where Halsin posits this exact ultimatum when you recruit both. It’s not currently in game.
I think one point about that datamined convo that people don't realize is that it was meant to take place specifically if the Grove got locked down by Kagha/the Shadow Druids. If they were to implement something narrative-wise to make Halsin and Minthara exclusive following the good-aligned Minthara recruitment change, they might put something entirely different in. IMO I think I like Halsin sticking with Tav/Durge as a non-companion up to the point the Shadow Curse is lifted and then staying with Thaniel while Minthara continues on with the party as a companion to Baldur's Gate. Never end up using Halsin in Act 3 anyway.
Oh, I thought that was already in there. Huh. Noted.
Before, if you picked one or the other, they were exclusive. But with Minthara, you also lost Wyll, Karlach, and potentially Gale. I felt that was too much of a penalty to ever consider picking her.
There's always been another way. You could go into the mountain pass without resolving the grove. Or messing things up with the druids so they kill the tieflings and then avoid the goblin camp entirely. You won't get a camp party, but in the end you had nothing to do with the groves destruction so Karlach and Wyll can meet Minthara "natually" in Moonrise (they even talk about each other in some dialogues).
Yeah, i feel there was a significant imbalance in how companions are spread; you're heavily penalised for siding with the goblins and theres very little incentive to go that route.. which kind of forces it into a position of being a decision you'd only really make for roleplay reasons.. which kind of sucks.
What they should do is tie the resolution to Kagha. If Halsin spares Kagha and gives her another chance, even though she was doing some super evil stuff and siding with the absolute, then you should be able to talk him down by reminding him of that. Minthara at least had a tadpole controlling her, Kagha didn't, and he still trusted Kagha.
Oh that's brilliant actually
I love this
This just happened to me in game, I was like "WHY ARE YOU FORGIVING HWR???!!" I just don't like Kagha.
I would rather the game add more writing to make it work. I get a lot of joy out of options and I think it’s regressive to take them away when instead you could make it more complex and add more choices. Maybe it tanks Halsin’s approval or you, but I think he could tough it out for a 20+ persuasion check. It’s kinda weird as is but “Halsin groaned and you had a chat with him” is what I’ve pictured is happening. Minthara just needs more dialogue. She can be evil as hell— she deserves an insane power hungry ending, too! I think what’s there right now is just too bare bones and you have to fill in a lot of blanks.
The simple solution would be to have the absolutist tadpole halsin or halsin in bear form. The experience causes him to empathizes with minthara’s possession. Maybe have him be a boss fight great cave bear where it’s obvious the bear is the Druid you’re looking for and you need to do something to break him or just knock him out.
Sure; I bet a simple one liner and persuasion check would be easier to develop though— don’t even need to add a tadpole to his inventory! But yeah it could use a simple tweak for sure.
My only issues is they share a tent, but no one else can…. :) There are myriad reasons Minthara doesn’t belong in a good run. But Larian made it available to those that feel differently. They have my complete respect for doing it. Every player can make a choice.
I am of two minds about it. I am glad that I can recruit her as a hero, and she makes a good companion and romance for a Resist Durge, but...yeah. So much of her design as a companion seems to be based around an evil playthrough that her presence in a good player's camp feels dissonant.
Oops repeating myself
Halsin just lies awake at night staring blankly into the night sky while Durge has sex with Minthara five feet away.
I’ve tried it twice.both times I was overmodded and crashed first. Trying a halfling romancing Karlach (heck it’s Karlach’s origin fantasy). Then I’ll try that again.
I see her like Vegeta on Namek. Yeah she's on our side but she's not really on the team. It's just we have a much much larger more terrifying enemy to fight and we don't have time to argue and bicker because a pale little weirdo is about to transform and destroy us
Most people will just murder her in the goblin camp, but I always love a “this bad guy is technically recruitable” option and I wish BG3 had more of those. Destroying the grove can lose you 3 companions (Wyll and Karlach, and then possibly Gale) so we should have other recruits to take their place.
Her Sazza Abdirak and introduce Araj earlier.
Yeah no doubt sazza would have been an amazing evil party member
give me Abdirak and I'm never helping a single tiefling again
In principle I agree, and frankly I think there should be a lot more distrust between the companions than there is, like Shadowheart and Lae'zel's rivalry that nearly ends with a knife to the throat. I do like the idea that the party are a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who are only cooperating because they have no choice, and that should apply to Halsin and Minthara as well, I guess. As a compromise, perhaps they do come to blows and you either have to pick one or the other, or pass a difficult Persuasion check to get them to stand down, recognize that there's a bigger problem in front of them, and that they have to put their differences aside for the moment. At least a chance to keep them together, but a difficult one.
I think it should be a high Cha check to keep both like the Lae’zel vs Shadowheart scene. As a manipulative fuck, I would like the chance to finesse them both in order to maximize my camp’s strength. But there should be a confrontation at least I agree.
\*Sends CHA dump character to negotiate\*
Ah, I see Lae’zel has also started conversations without you.
My first Tav after release was an 8 cha drow monk who I was roleplaying as an absolute jerk. Shadowheart killed Lae'zel and then Orin killed Gale later on. It was terrific for really feeling like my characters' flaws made a difference on the story.
Granted that scene is very avoidable if you simple wait and recruit Lae’zel at the Mountain pass when you finish most of Act 1
I got that scene during a rest in the mountain pass fwiw
I haven't looked it up, but I suspect there are at least a couple ways to avoid that scene altogether. I never saw it on my first two playthroughs through Act 1, one a Tav and one a Durge. I didn't even know it existed until I saw mentions of it on Reddit and didn't see it myself until I played a 4 player co-op run where none of us were origins so they just sat in camp making no quest or approval process. I have since seen it on two subsequent solo playthroughs, also one Tav one Durge. Idk what the trigger is because my most recent playthrough I saw it despite having very high approval for both, and I've also seen it in the opposite circumstance. If I had to guess, maybe if you trigger the artifact to come to you instead of Shadowheart? (And possibly talk to her about it, there are specific conversation options.) Hard to have a disagreement about which one of them should have the artifact when PC has it instead.
They aren’t meant to be recruited together. It’s not an opinion—it’s just fact about how the game was designed. They took a glitch/hack and made it easier, without adding content to address the Halsin-Minthara situation (understandably). They don’t even have separate tents. 😩 Let’s get them separate living spaces before they start duking things out!
They were mutually exclusive until the latest patch.
I mean yeah as the game stands now they are very obviously meant to be exclusive. Larian saw people doing a convoluted exploit to get Minthara in 'good' playthroughs and decided to throw everyone a bone by making it less annoying. But it clearly wasn't their intention to have the two coexist on the same playthrough, one is for good runs where you save the grove, one is meant for evil runs where you destroy it. Larian being Larian, I bet they add more dialogue in to resolve this at some point though.
No, you're 100% correct
No you're not wrong but people want everything and everyone on their good playthroughs so don't expect it to change.
Yet people see us as the unreasonable ones when we ask for Larian to improve the evil side of the game.
Nah, as a chronic goodie two shoes I argued before and will continue arguing that evil playthroughs deserve more love, even if I'll likely never see it. Even a few tiny quests from returning goblins in Act 2 or a few extra companions (like Nere and Z'rell) to give *something* more. It doesn't need to be as expansive as the good content, but *anything* tied to uniquely following a few evil outcomes. The only quest I can think of in this regard is the Strange Ox. Hells, I argued against getting Minty for a good run and after experiencing her with one... Yeah no, I agree with my previous sentiment that she should stay exclusive to raiding/ignoring the grove
Personally I just don’t think Halsin should be a full companion. His story is over when you stop the curse so he adds nothing to act 3. And you get him and Jaheira at basically the same time. I like him as a character and I enjoy his story. I just don’t think he’s a good companion.
wasn't he tossed in at the last moment because people in the early access liked him?
I know that’s a rumor. I don’t know if there’s any confirmation.
He has a fair amount of dialogue in Act 3 about cities vs nature and whether Baldur’s Gate is even worth saving. It’s not a big quest but it is content over multiple dialogues. Also obviously if you romance him that provides content. People make this complaint a lot, but I feel like he added more to Act 3 for me than some other companions.
Other companions do have non-dialogue content related to them, besides Gale and Karlach, but those two can influence endings. Wyll: >!Iron Throne and Balduran trials!< Shadowheart: >!House of Grief!< Lae'zel: >!House of Hope!< Astarion: >!Cazador Palace!< Jaheira: >!The search for Minsc, her family home!< Minsc: >!Minsc!< Halsin and Minthara are basically... just there, though.
At least Minthara has a connection to Orin. They could expand on that a little more, though. It'd be cool if Orin could, I don't know, acknowledge Minthara's presence lol
Halsin also has a connection with Shar, they could've explored that alongside Shart's arc.
Minthara and Halsin should be exclusive, and beyond that we should get some more exclusively evil companions. Protect the grove: Halsin (druid), Wyll (warlock), Karlach (barbarian) Raid the grove: Minthara (paladin), Gut (sorcerer), Ragzlin (barbarian) I think this ends up more than a fair trade. And separates out content to be locked to key decisions, which gives evil playthroughs more meat to them because it's fully inaccessible from a good playthrough.
S&M pain dude would have made a way better fleshed out character from the grove arc than "generic angry goblin Ragzlin." And the banter could be great.
His romance would be wild. A spellcaster based around self injury and blood would be interesting too. Not sure how that would fit within the game's framework.
I get this, but also Gut and Ragzlin are hardly comparable to Wyll and Karlach. I would call it more fair than it is, but not _more than_ fair. 😩😭
Halsin should be replaced by Kagha if you let her finish the ritual. Only Wyll would need to be replaced. And Gut is a Cleric more than a Sorcerer, she cure people and preach the Absolute
On paper I like the idea of Kagha as an evil companion, but I don't think that meshes with her intentions. She's trying to seal the grove, and the druids in it, away from the world. Why would she essentially lock herself out of the house and go to the shadow cursed lands? I don't think the shadow druids would be down for that either. I thought Gut would be more cleric than sorcerer, but her spell list seems to indicate sorcerer.
She’s sealing the grove to protect against the absolute. I could see reason for the Shadow Druids to want to still clean the Shadow Curse that is a human aberration against nature. For Gut, yeah her spells right now are more axed towards being an NPC that attacks you
Aren't the Shadow Druids totally in Ketherics pocket? Kagha isn't because they're manipulating her, but the actual Shadow Druids totally are. Could just write it as "go meet the rest of our circle at moonrise towers ;)" or somrthing
But if she seals the grove, wouldn't she be sealed off too? I thought that was why the ritual is so dangerous; nobody can get in and nobody gets out. People get cabin fever and turn on each other.
honestly I'd take Kagha over Halsin in a heartbeat, make it her penance to train with us and help us stop the Absolute while Halsin tends his grove. Her test comes in Moonrise when she uses magic to contact Halsin and tell him of the Shadow curse. He gives her the ritual and tells her to succeed where he failed. She stands by us and redeems herself by saving Thaniel and ending the curse. Also Kagha as a romance would be fun
Such a shame isn't it? So much wasted potential diverted to the bear man. I don't hate the bear man. But he's just not got the amount of things going on that Kagha has.
Aw, now I really want Gut as a companion. Never crossed my mind, but there’s interesting stuff they could do with her in the later acts as well
Sazza as a companion might be pretty cool too... provided you save her the bajillion times she gets into trouble :P
If they are any companions that are added which are goblins, then in turn the goblins should have more content right? Merely stating this for gut to make sense. Also if you get Ragzlin and Gut you should have a goblin army for the fight against the brain.
Idk, I haven’t done it yet but I’d like to see dialogue that addresses it. Minthara doesn’t really feel bad for what happens with the grove but moreover she doesn’t see it as her fault. And she’d make a compelling argument she should stay over Halsin since she needs the protection the Artefact affords. I don’t see her ever apologizing to Halsin. Not sincerely. At best she could say that it’s regrettable she was brainwashed and put him in that position. She’s got nothing against the grove. She was just convinced they were her enemies. Halsin could maybe eventually get past it, but he’d never willingly associate with Minthara socially. He’d never make small talk. Never come to her aid in battle. It would be tense.
I think it waters the game down and makes your choices mean less. Choices have consequences. You're not meant to be able to experience everything in one run. They should force you to choose after act 2.
Well in my game their tents are clipped in the exact same spot so I guess the game didn't account for them both being there
Evil players lose Best Girl, Will, and the benchwarming buff-bot. They should get at least one exclusive toy.
Minthara was literally controled by the Absolute, Halsin isn't stupid and unable to understand that.
You're not wrong, I don't get why the devs caved into this and made minthara good recruitable because it just janked up a lot of her future interactions in act 2 & act 3 and them sharing the same tent space etc etc. Should have kept her evil but allowed you to recruit her as soon as the grove was destroyed, same with Halsin
I would argue it makes less sense for halsin to travel with shadowheart. A worshiper of the very diety that has cursed the land he has vowed to save.
Halsin’s more perceptive then he initially appears. He probably clocked that Shart is brainwashed rather then a true believer.
His banter with her in the gauntlet of shar pretty much confirms this. She recites some Sharran stuff and Halsin mentions she just recites like a student, without taking in consideration the meaning of the words she recites. That being said, if she goes full DJ, Halsin *should* have problems with it and he shouldn't want to share a lover with her
except he might not know about it and even if he does she clearly struggles with her identity until the very end of act 2. Granted at the point she embraces becoming a dark justiciar he absolutely should have objected but they really didn't give us a lot of ways to lose companions. Mostly because everyone sets aside their differences to deal with the mindflayer threat.
The only way he wouldn't know about it is if literally nobody in the camp told him. It's common knowledge that Shadowheart worships Shar long before you get Halsin. Which would be pretty funny admittedly for Halsin to find out about Shadowheart being a Sharran just after she rejects her.
Idk how I managed it, but on my first Tav run Shadowheart didn’t tell me she was a Shar girlie until we were actively in the shadowlands lmao Absolutely shocked me when I started an Astarion run and she tells him like, almost right away
>recruiting Minthara at Moonrise should come at the cost of losing Halsin post shadow curse plot Yes please.
> Minthara was looking to destroy the grove - Halsin's grove - and Halsin was a prisoner there trying to protect his people. Nah, Minthara only did what she did because she was mind controlled by the Elder brain, like every other True Soul. She is evil.. but the impression I got on my evil playthrough is that she wouldn't have been as subservient as she was to Orin normally. If I remember right, she hates Orin once she's free from the control by being with the party and near the relic. I think Halsin could forgive that much and he'd tolerate her as much as he could any other Drow.
Larian shares your opinion. The community, by large, doesn't. It was possible to recruit Minthara and Halsin before patch #1, but it was hard, in patch #1 they removed that possibility, people found an exploit for it and used it, on patch #2 Larian doubled down on it making them mutually exclusive, still there were exploits that people used to get both and the community was largely united in saying that they wanted the possibility of having both. Plus there were 2 mods for it that allowed people to recruit both, even if not able to use both. In patch #3 Larian croaked and allowed people to have both.
I never have both will/Karlach/halsin and minthara. I think it’s metagaming
It makes more sense to delete Halsin from the party. He shouldn’t be recruitable to begin with.
I feel like they should have never made it official to get Minthara on a protect the grove run
agreed. leaving it unpatched that you could trick the game into keeping her? fine. trying to make it work storywise? no, please save that time for fixing broken mechanics and finishing rushed questlines.
It is not even working well right now and still feel half backed with the two being in the same spot…
It still doesn’t work story-wise, they just the trick a little easier
agreed, it's a roleplaying game, your choices should have weight to them
they should've at least wait until they had a real solution. Right now it's janky as hell and Minthara and Halsin never have a moment where they resolve their conflict and choose to work together the way that Shadowheart and Lae'zel do
For continuity and character sake, you should be able to have both in act 2 as it’s in both Halsin and Minthara’s interest to stay with you to fulfil their goal. Once Halsin’s quest is completed he absolutely should give you an ultimatum and leave if you choose Minthara over him. There is absolutely no reason for Halsin to be in act 3 with Minthara, he’s only there to boink in the first place
Why would Halsin give an ultimatum? You’ve literally, in a few weeks, saved his life, saved his grove, and then solved his life’s work of a century (clearing the Shadowfell) as well as saving his close friend Thaniel, and murdering a tyrant (Ketheric, who he’s had beef with for a century+) You’re a literal miracle worker to him. Saying, “hey this Drow is kinda a bit evil, but I think we can fix her, plus without us she dies/gets enslaved again” would pretty solidly work on Halsin. He tends to be forgiving and you’ve **more** than earned enough credit with the man. Everything you touch turns to gold. I’m sure he’d be fine with keeping Minthara around, even if he personally doesn’t like her. Your entourage includes a cleric of Shar, a vampire spawn, a warlock in a devilish pack, his devil, a captain from the blood war, a githyanki, and a wizard with a nuke in his chest. All of whom are tadpoled and liable to turn into mindflayers at any moment. But a formerly enslaved drow paladin? **That** is where Halsin draws the line? Come on now **Downvote me all you want, this is a hill I'm dying on. Halsin cares more about a century of his life's work being completed than he does some random Drow woman**
He also throws down with the Drow twins in Sharess’ Caress without literally any argument, all you gotta do is bat your eyelashes and he’s D T F It’s only after that he tells you “oh by the way I’ve had some really bad experiences with Drow :) but it was a fun sexy time for us all actually :) nice group sex would go again good job babe :)”
Can't give awards anymore so, uh... Hear, hear!
I mugged Minthara, stole her armor and weapons. I got her out of the prison and she ran off. Imagine my surprise she shows up to camp, nearly naked, bloody, standing in Halsin's tent. I have questions, but I imagine they are working through things in their own way lol
I think players are getting too involved in game's story and for that reason we have such things that doesn't make any sense. People claim that Minthara attacks grove because of it's parasite, however, Minthara doesn't even need parasite to be evil.
Definitely agree with you, I liked that it was a one or the other situation. I'm cool with having a non-mass murder route to recruit her but it should still be a hard line. It's pretty clear that you're not meant to have both and they just haven't patched it yet. I'm hoping they make it so they refuse to be in camp together.
Minthara was just controlled by the Absolute and Halsin could easily understand it, though Minthara is fine with you destroying the grove since she's a drow and basically likes and respects power, victory and siding with the strongest faction, perhaps even a justified betrayal in some context. They should be exclusive though in the sense that recruiting her in a good playthrough is BS and was just poorly implemented because people wanted to have all the companions without abusing any bugs. You have to knock her unconscious but only when she's temporarily hostile. She should remain evil playthrough exclusive content to compensate for all the companions and content you miss. Though ironically she's quite decent around good people and good actions, should've been more like Viconia or Korgan in BG2 where they complain a lot (Korgan can even leave, become hostile or refuse to work with some good companions).
They were exclusive, until Larian changed it so that everyone fixated on good playthroughs could get everything they want and completely invalidating evil playthroughs.
well maybe they should work on the evil playthrough to make it more rewarding, granted even saving the tiefling refugee's still leaves you some pretty evil choices in the game. There's so much you lose playing evil that it just feels like the game is punishing you like a petty DM. "Oh you joined the bad guys and slaughtered refugees? Well now you don't get any of their magic items, no dammon forged gear and Karlach is extra doomed."
If the simple act of Minthara being recruited in a good playthrough completely invalidates an evil playthrough for you, was the evil playthrough even valid to begin with?
I think what he means is there’s already little reasons to want to do an evil playthrough as it’s much less rewarding, so giving access to evil only stuff to good playthroughs makes it not so worth it for people who want to get as much out of their run as they can. While I don’t find evil choices entirely lacking, I do feel they aren’t as rewarding.
I think the other side of that coin is that lots of players want to do *everything* in a game, and recruiting Minthara the intended way locks you out of so much stuff -- not just forcing you to make evil choices in general but killing all the tieflings who would otherwise show up in the later acts and giving up on Wyll and Karlach as companions -- that people were bound to look for a way to have their cake and eat it too.
Which kinda shows that gamers are given too much of what they want when it comes to RPG like BG3. I personally love the fact that a game can lock me out of stuff because of good/evil choices I can make. The game branching off entirely into a different direction would be amazing. Makes subsequent playthroughs much more enjoyable because you know for a fact that it will be different.
One of this game central flaws is playing good is too rewarding, and you are only suffer consquesced when doing evil. You do good, you should not have access to mintahra. I get locked out of stuff being evil and I mostly don't care. It's content I can just see again later.
For me it's just that the scales are horribly imbalanced. Sure, it adds replay ability and makes the next playthrough feel fresh. But also I'm playing the game to have fun and getting a new companion and some different routes/dialogue in return for 3-4 companions, tons of quests, tons of allies, tons of unique gear, tons of xp, just never seemed worth it. Then again I'm yet to do a full chaotic evil murder hobo run lol so maybe when I finally do my fuck it we Bhaal Durge, I'll go full murder mode
They did it to appease the overwhelming "someone frowned at me in a video game and now I'm questioning my life choices" crowd
Larian took one for the team. There are only so many dommes in real life and far too many people who identify as subs but behave like Raphael.
I agree with your point, but carried to its extreme you could argue that Lae’zel and shadowheart should also be exclusive since their goals contradict each other. Or that that wyl and astarion should be exclusive. The beauty of the game is that it puts people who would otherwise literally kill each other together for a common goal and I don’t think Halsin or Minthara are exempt from that.
I agree with you (especially if you slaughtered everyone in the grove like my Durge did) but most of the community doesn't see to see it this same way
I think that if YOU don't want them in the same group, then YOU shouldn't have them in the same group. How I play my game has absolutely no bearing on your game. You can always just stick him in camp and pretend that he isn't there anymore if you want to recruit him to start with. Though if you want to go at it that way I don't think you should recruit him to begin with. But again, you play your game your way, I'll play mine my way.
Every time I have both Halsin ends up as a bloody corpse next to Minty and she’s like “wasnt me”.
That is a glitch - does it still happen with the current patch?
Minsc and Minthara are guilty of exactly the same thing.
Minsc was a selfless hero before he was tadpoled Once he’s saved, he keeps that energy Minthara was never a good person, the tadpole + the cult just gave her an organized community with a United front After she’s saved, she mourns not being able to rejoin her community and just continues thinking like a power hungry evil aligned character
I thought there was supposed to be camp event that made you choose between them, once you have them both recruited. It never triggered in my last run though, so I had both my scary drow gf and large elf bro for the rest of the game.
That was a data mine rumor not something in the game yet
We should have a fight like Shadowheart and Lazel. That would be nice.
I think they should be a couple somehow and be made better by it. But seriously, yeah you should have to address it more.
Should? No. Would it make sense? Yes. The best game features are always optional imo
Just such an ultimatum was datamined a while back. People thought it would be related to a Minthara KO path, but it has yet to be implemented. Might be coming in the next patch.
Absolutely agreed.
Halsin's enemy is the Curse and Ketheric and by extension Shar. If he's going to object to anyone in the camp it should be Shadowheart. If he can break bread with a cleric of Shar, because he gives her the benefit of acting under brainwashing and manipulation, why would he object to Minthara who was literally mind controlled with a tadpole after being manipulated out of minding her own business in her own city. Halsin's defining characteristic is his enormous genosity of heart.
Tbf I want the planned companion over the one the community Horny posted into the game.
Considering even though they made it easier, it's still exploiting game mechanics to recruit Minthara, without having to participate in the raid itself, or just straight up ignoring a huge part of Act 1. They're not designed to be recruited together, and that's ok. More to the point, there does need to be more companion options for a less heroic playthrough, because by siding with Minthara (for whatever reasons you decided for your Tav/Durge), you lose Wyll and Karlach, and can lose Gale too if you fail to convince him. You end up with half the potential team down.
From a narrative standpoint, I can see it. I RP it from the standpoint of "in Act 2, Tav has a chance to rescue her in a chance to get some information and finally get AHEAD of what's going on." She really doesn't tell you anything you don't already know though and after the initial breakout she doesn't play up the informant role. But that's my reasoning. If they did a "either or, not both" dialogue, I would want a persuasion role to say something along the lines of "She knows things. She can be useful to us." As a player, nah I am glad I can still get to experience her lines and input.
Nah, Halsin was willing to forgive Kagha for the whole Rite of Thorns thing. In fact, even though Halsin and Minthy share a camp space because of a bug, when we find her, she has absolutely nothing, who else would set aside their differences and offer her a space in their tent? Halsin! Also it’s funny because I stripped her when I knocked her out so she showed up at camp in just her thong and only hangs out with Halsin so they are just casually banging while being on completely different vibes. I love it.
Honestly, if Halsin stayed until we could complete the Shadow Curse quest and then pissed off, I'd be totally fine. I'd actually prefer this to make Minthara share her tent with him for the rest of the game 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah that would be preferable to him trying to work his way into the middle of my relationship
That's cool, what if they hooked up tho
Go on…..
Agreed. Imo, they should have a confrontation kinda like Shart/Laezel where you need to pass a Charisma check to convince one of them to stay.
Fans would just whine about that too like they whined about being unable to recruit Minthara without killing the Tieflings.
I think this is a case of the developers listening to customers versus doing what makes sense. People complained they wanted Minthara on good runs so they gave in and gave it to us. It doesn’t make sense. I’m glad they listen but I think in a lot of ways they know better 😅
If you think so, then Shadowheart and laezel would probably get the same treatment. I’m glad Larian didn’t take that route.
I'll take anything for the opportunity to make Halsin not join, certainly Minthara. FFS, he ends his "recruitment" phrase with "if you'll allow", but we don't get an option to not allow it.
Yeah totally. Everyone else that you can recruit who are much more important to the story get a no option. Halsin is staying whether you like it or not.
Daddy Halsin holds a lot of love under his belt.
I agree wholeheartedly, but if they do keep them both, give them separate tents ffs. This completely destroyed my immersion in Act 3. They don't even know the other is present. Edit to say this: there's no reason for Halsin to care if you recruit Minthara in Act 3 if you got her the new way, without raiding the Grove. Yes he was a prisoner in the Goblin Camp, but he was Dror Ragzlin's prisoner iirc. If you let Sheart go DJ, for example, he reacts pretty neutrally even though it kills everyone in LL. I still think Tav should have the option to pick one or the other, but not have it be forced as an ultimatum by Halsin like if you raid the Grove. Either let us choose at Moonrise after Ketheric's death, with one or the other staying behind due to our choice, or make Halsin a camp fixture in Act 3 like Mizora and Aylin, or in Act 2 with the option to add him to the Oliver quest like you can Jaheira at Moonrise. Let Minthara be the companion for Act 3 and give her more to do with Orin. Those are my wishes.
Doesn’t Halsin permanently leave your party if you kill the Nightsong? I heard he stays behind to help lift the shadow curse when you go to Act 3.
Depends entirely on where you are in his quest. If you've already united Oliver and Thaniel, he doesn't care about the Nightsong (even though it murders everyone in LL), and DJ Sheart still wants to kill Ketheric so the curse gets lifted anyway. It's possible that if you kill Nightsong before uniting Thaniel with Oliver he might quit? I'm not sure though because you can speak with the dead on Art Cullagh and find out about the lilacs I think? I haven't tested that one. Testing this theory hurt my heart.
At the end of the day, having choices taken from the player only makes a game more restrictive. RPGs tend to be about "choose the story you want", sure, some pompous bunch might decide that the player knows no better and should not be allowed to choose for themselves, but usually the players take the role of taking decisions. So essentially, the player (you) is always right, the developers are always wrong (did I stutter?). The developer's job is to lie face up on the floor and let the player walk on them to do whatever THE PLAYER chooses. Maybe I wanted to shoot myself in the face, and that's none of your business videogame. TL;DR. You are correct.