Summary
- Baldur's Gate 3 has fixed bugs that limited Minthara's dialogue, making it more worthwhile to recruit her for an evil playthrough.
- Recruiting Minthara comes with consequences, including the inability to recruit Halsin and the risk of other companions leaving the party.
- Minthara brings versatility as a Drow Paladin and has humorous dialogue moments, making her an interesting addition to an evil playthrough in Baldur's Gate 3.
Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't offer a lot of rewards for choosing to run a morally evil playthrough. However, Larian Studios has helped remedy that to an extent through patches and hotfixes, which have put content involving Minthara that ended up not working back into the game properly by fixing the triggers. But there are still big downsides to recruiting Minthara despite those fixes that leave whether she's worth recruiting lingering.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3]
At release, bugs prevented hundreds of lines of dialogue Minthara from triggering when she was recruited as a party member, making her a lackluster companion. Considering the sacrifices required to recruit her, these bugs made it generally not worthwhile to take the evil route. Although these bugs have been mostly fixed, that might not necessarily mean Minthara is now worth recruiting.
How To Recruit Minthara In Baldur's Gate 3
The standard way to recruit Minthara is by siding with the Goblins in Act 1, participating in the attack on Emerald Grove, and killing the Druids and Tiefling Refugees. This means that Halsin is removed from being an option to recruit to the party since he's on the opposing side, and Halsin and Minthara are meant to be exclusive so that both can't be recruited in the same playthrough. As such, using mods or workarounds often results in Halsin and Minthara glitching and their spots at camp overlapping because one or the other is meant to be there, not both.
The Consequences Of Recruiting Minthara
The recruitment consequences line up with the pros and cons of romancing Minthara in BG3, which makes sense considering romancing her means committing to helping the Goblins against the Druids in the name of the Absolute. The first consequence is that Halsin can't be recruited short of using convoluted methods to convince the game to allow both Halsin and Minthara in camp or through the use of mods. Second, other companions that have already joined the party are at risk of leaving if the Goblins are helped rather than the Druids and refugees.
Wyll and Karlach, naturally, are the two characters who are the most invested in maintaining justice and helping the innocent. As a result of deciding to side with the Goblins, Wyll and Karlach will leave the party if they've been recruited. If they haven't been recruited, then they refuse to join the party after siding with the Goblins, so there's not a way to work around losing them as companions along with Halsin. Depending on Gale's approval rating, he might leave the party as well, bringing the total to a possible four companions in exchange for getting one: Minthara.
Recruiting Minthara Without Becoming A Villain
It was possible to recruit Minthara and Halsin together in BG3, but Larian later patched this out of the game. However, there's at least one new method to get Minthara into the party without participating in the Goblin Raid, which might make her a more desirable companion since it removes the risk of losing up to four other companions. This method uses perhaps the more underrated ability in Baldur's Gate 3: Non-Lethal Damage.
By knocking out Minthara in the Shattered Sanctum instead of killing her, the quest to kill the Goblin Leaders gets marked as complete, and Minthara shows up at Moonrise Towers in Act 2 to stand trial in front of Ketheric Thorm. For some reason, using Polymorph on Minthara before her trial keeps her alive and allows her to be recruited even though the party sided with the Druids. However, Minthara, having been a thrall during the attack and not fully capable of making her own decisions, could play into the fact that she can join, even if the developers didn't intend it.
What Minthara Brings As A Companion
Minthara's a Drow Paladin, so the party gets a versatile front liner with her. As a Lolth-Sworn Drow, she approves of violence and cruelty, so she's a perfect companion for an evil playthrough. In terms of personality, she has a few lines of dialogue that come as a surprise with how humorous they are in a dry humor kind of way. This is particularly true if she's forced to go on stage as Dribbles the Clown's assistant, and her blunt, straightforward responses are a delight to hear, especially now that her bugged dialogue's been fixed and can be heard.
Is Minthara Worth The Sacrifices?
Like many other choices in Baldur's Gate 3, Minthara's worth depends on the playthrough and what the party wants to get out of their experience in Faerûn. It's certainly possible to make it through the game without Halsin, Wyll, or Karlach, especially if a custom character rolls as one of their classes to replace them. Between custom characters, respecs, and hirelings, losing this trio isn't an issue in terms of combat. The biggest loss comes from missing out on the storylines of those characters and any rewards from completing their quests.
A better question would be if Minthara makes an evil playthrough worthwhile. In the end, it's probably worth doing an evil run at least once. Whereas an evil run removes the chance to see Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin's stories and learn more about them, a good run takes away the chance to learn more about Minthara, short of using roundabout ways to recruit her that can result in glitches. Since Baldur's Gate 3 can be replayed again and again with different approaches each time, there's no reason not to give the morally evil side a chance.
Between Early Access and full release, Minthara was plagued with bugs that limited her dialogue and largely made it not worthwhile to recruit her, given the sacrifices required to do so. However, with that being fixed, there's no reason not to go through and make the evil decision to bring her into the party and perhaps later let Astarion Ascend or dominate the netherbrain rather than destroy it. Given the amount of content available, a new character and fresh choices can reveal opportunities and cutscenes that were missed during previous runs of Baldur's Gate 3.
Source: Larian Studios/YouTube