Clarification on Minthara's Fate

[Bella ✝]

Hi,

I find myself at a crossroads, and I am in need of some help. This is my first playthrough, and I have deliberately refrained from consulting any external sources, such as YouTube videos, to avoid spoilers.

My query revolves around Minthara, and I would greatly appreciate the insights of veterans who have traversed this path before. As I want to have Minthara as a companion later on, I am unsure about the specific course of action required during the encounter with the goblin leaders.

1. Knocking Out or Killing: Should I incapacitate Minthara along with the other two goblin leaders, or is it essential to eliminate the other two while only leaving Minthara unconscious?
   
   
2. Verbal Interaction: Is it necessary to agree with the raid on the tieflings before knocking Minthara out?

Also, upon recruiting Minthara to join my camp in subsequent acts, are conflicts going to happen between her and other companions. Will I be compelled to take sides?

I am intrigued by her tale and would like to explore her more without compromising my first playthrough as a good character. A friend of mine told me it is possible, but she couldn't answer these doubts of mine in a confident way.

If any experienced players who can shed light on these matters, it would be incredibly appreciated.

Thanks!

[jayman760]

This has worked for me:

First rescue Halsin from jail, but don't recruit him into your party. Tell him to wait.

Then knock out Minthara, but don't talk to her.

Kill the other bosses as usual.

Fast travel out to the grove. Halsin will be there.

In Act 2 you can rescue Minthara and invite her to your camp.

Both Minthara and Halsin are in your camp and they don't hate each other.

[Bella ✝]

Originally posted by jayman760:

This has worked for me:

First rescue Halsin from jail, but don't recruit him into your party. Tell him to wait.

Then knock out Minthara, but don't talk to her.

Kill the other bosses as usual.

Fast travel out to the grove. Halsin will be there.

In Act 2 you can rescue Minthara and invite her to your camp.

Both Minthara and Halsin are in your camp and they don't hate each other.

I found a guide, but it's a bit vague on the details I asked about. It simply says to knock Minthara out.

Thanks a bunch for the quick advice! I'm gonna give it a shot and cross my fingers that everything goes smoothly.

[Doom_Cookies]

Minthara is designed to be a recruitable character for evil or neutral characters. Unless you plan to exploit bugs that allow you to get Halsin and Minthara simultaneously - and they are bugs, absolutely unintended for you to be able to get both of them, many of the ways to do so so far fixed by Larian's patches - then the only way for you to get Minthara is to allow the Tieflings to die. There is no exception, no alternative path, that is not a bug exploit.

You can either:

1. Side with the goblins and raid the grove.
   
2. Free the Goblin from the cage in The Grove and let her inform Minthara where The Grove is, or inform her yourself with or without the goblin being freed, and then...just ignore the raid and head to Act II. The raid will happen without you and Minthara should be recruitable in Act II. I've never done this, so I'm not 100% sure, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
   
3. Leave the grove vs. goblin quest unresolved by mostly ignoring Minthara in the goblin camp, never letting her know where the Grove is, and never having released the goblin from the cage in The Grove. Just move on to Act II without finishing it. The Grove and the druids will never be found and will be fine, but the Tieflings will leave and die on the road.

To reiterate, having the Tieflings alive beyond Act I and having Minthara is a choice between mutually exclusive options - you cannot have both (unless you exploit a bug).

Once you have Minthara, she does not have any clashes with other party members. She's a powerhungry pragmatist, not pure evil. She's pragmatic like Laezel but selfish rather than militant. She ultimately gets along with the others more or less fine, and even empathizes with their plights...in her own way.

[Bella ✝]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Leave the grove vs. goblin quest unresolved by mostly ignoring Minthara in the goblin camp, never letting her know where the Grove is, and never having released the goblin from the cage in The Grove. Just move on to Act II without finishing it. The Grove and the druids will never be found and will be fine, but the Tieflings will leave and die on the road.

Wow, your advice is gold! Thanks a ton for the detailed options—I'm feeling way more equipped to tackle this now. Quick question, though: have you personally tried option three? Just want to make sure before diving in. Also, big thanks for the background info on Minthara. That's exactly why I find her character so intriguing and want her with me to get to know her better.

[Timmer120]

For what its worth, be advised if you take the KO then save the Grove path, then you won't be able to get her Romance path since that happens in the aftermath of the Goblins overrunning the Grove, and its something that the Devs apparently overlooked since both she and the Druid Companion both overlap in what part of the camp they stay at

You don't need to agree to the raid, as all that happens if she is alive by whatever means is that Minthara will be dragged before the general in the next act, told that she'll be tortured to death, and then you can save her from the Dungeon which then has her join your party afterwards, however a bunch of her interactions with you gets locked out IIRC because you can't romance her if you save the grove

[Bella ✝]

Originally posted by Timmer120:

For what its worth, be advised if you take the KO then save the Grove path, then you won't be able to get her Romance path since that happens in the aftermath of the Goblins overrunning the Grove, and its something that the Devs apparently overlooked since both she and the Druid Companion both overlap in what part of the camp they stay at

That's a bummer for those who had their hearts set on that. Fortunately, it's not an issue for me since Gale is my main squeeze.

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Bia:

Wow, your advice is gold! Thanks a ton for the detailed options—I'm feeling way more equipped to tackle this now. Quick question, though: have you personally tried option three? Just want to make sure before diving in. Also, big thanks for the background info on Minthara. That's exactly why I find her character so intriguing and want her with me to get to know her better.

Happy to help!

Yes, option 3 is what I did in my first run. I was playing a character who generally attempted not to take a life as frequently as possible (without using the Knockout passive). When possible, I avoided fights. This included staying completely uninvolved with the Grove vs. Goblin questline once killing to progress was unavoidable. My character was willing to kill only minimally in pursuit of their end goal (the removal of the parasite), to defend themselves (once combat starts, and it isn't Temporarily Hostile shenanigans, then it's fair game), or if it meant directly saving other lives (The Gnolls near those two guys with their delivery package in Act I, for example).

And the situation with the goblins had nothing to do with any of that, so he did what he could do peacefully and left to continue his quest. That the Tieflings later died on the road was a sad and unforeseen turn of events for him.

Roleplay aside, this was really just my way of leaving as many characters alive as possible so I could interact with them all, or in case they would show up again later. It was interesting to use invisibility to sneak passed groups of NPCs that turn hostile due to plot reasons just so that I don't have to kill them.

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Timmer120:

For what its worth, be advised if you take the KO then save the Grove path, then you won't be able to get her Romance path since that happens in the aftermath of the Goblins overrunning the Grove

That's not entirely true. She doesn't raid the grove if she never gets told (by you or the caged goblin) where it is, but if you leave the quest line unresolved without taking sides, she will still show up in Act II and she will suggest a romance with you at the appropriate approval value. Though I can't say if it'll be bugged or not, as I wasn't romancing her in that run, it seemed to be the correct romance starter scene.

[Rand]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

To reiterate, having the Tieflings alive beyond Act I and having Minthara is a choice between mutually exclusive options - you cannot have both (unless you exploit a bug).

So if I killed Minthara in act 1 instead of knocking her out, there's something I can toggle that will put her 'alive' again for whatever happens in act 2?

I only started playing like 2 months ago, have act 1 complete and am into act 2 with a still number of things to do in the Shadowlands before moving onto the tower. And I only read yesterday that there's mods and maybe a recent patch that lets you recruit her and Halsin but only if you knocked her out in that fight.

I don't care about missing out on the romance option, rather I'm only going to play the game once so I hate missing out on a character/storyline if I don't have to - which I assume was the case when doing the goblin camp. So if I could just toggle easily toggle something in a debugger that says she was knocked out instead of killed and without breaking the game, that would be great.

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Rand:

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

To reiterate, having the Tieflings alive beyond Act I and having Minthara is a choice between mutually exclusive options - you cannot have both (unless you exploit a bug).

So if I killed Minthara in act 1 instead of knocking her out, there's something I can toggle that will put her 'alive' again for whatever happens in act 2?

I only started playing like 2 months ago, have act 1 complete and am into act 2 with a still number of things to do in the Shadowlands before moving onto the tower. And I only read yesterday that there's mods and maybe a recent patch that lets you recruit her and Halsin but only if you knocked her out in that fight.

Oh, no. You can either have the Tieflings alive, Minthara alive, or both dead. There is no scenario in which the Tieflings survive and Minthara is alive. Once Minthara's dead, she's dead.

The knockout path you're talking about is a bug, not a feature. Generally, if you knock her out, you get a scene where her parasite leaves her brain to try to survive, killing her. The bug is that this scene never plays if she has the Temporary Hostile "buff", which you can get on her by committing a crime in front of her to make her mad like any other NPC who catches you committing a crime. This is 100% an exploit, and it will almost certainly be patched like the previous ways of getting both her and Halsin at the same time.

[Shadow]

I let Minthara die mainly because:

1) I play a drow and don't want competition when it comes to being bossy etc

2) I wanted that sweet sweet armor

[jayman760]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Minthara is designed to be a recruitable character for evil or neutral characters. Unless you plan to exploit bugs that allow you to get Halsin and Minthara simultaneously - and they are bugs, absolutely unintended for you to be able to get both of them, many of the ways to do so so far fixed by Larian's patches - then the only way for you to get Minthara is to allow the Tieflings to die. There is no exception, no alternative path, that is not a bug exploit.

You can either:

1. Side with the goblins and raid the grove.
   
2. Free the Goblin from the cage in The Grove and let her inform Minthara where The Grove is, or inform her yourself with or without the goblin being freed, and then...just ignore the raid and head to Act II. The raid will happen without you and Minthara should be recruitable in Act II. I've never done this, so I'm not 100% sure, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
   
3. Leave the grove vs. goblin quest unresolved by mostly ignoring Minthara in the goblin camp, never letting her know where the Grove is, and never having released the goblin from the cage in The Grove. Just move on to Act II without finishing it. The Grove and the druids will never be found and will be fine, but the Tieflings will leave and die on the road.

To reiterate, having the Tieflings alive beyond Act I and having Minthara is a choice between mutually exclusive options - you cannot have both (unless you exploit a bug).

Once you have Minthara, she does not have any clashes with other party members. She's a powerhungry pragmatist, not pure evil. She's pragmatic like Laezel but selfish rather than militant. She ultimately gets along with the others more or less fine, and even empathizes with their plights...in her own way.

I think that was true initially, but my understanding is Users were complaining they wanted to recruit Minthara without trashing the Grove. So Larian made it a feature, not a bug. Before that there was some crazy work around with morphing Minthara into a sheep and throwing her in front of Ketheric. Now that is a bug exploitation. I just knocked her out in Honour Mode and it worked just fine.

[Doom_Cookies]

So long as she occupies quite literally the same camp spot as Halsin, there's just no way any method of recruiting her when it's possible to also recruit Halsin is intended.

[seeker1]

When Minthara joined the party, Halsin gained inspiration. I ♥♥♥♥ you not. People said there would be confrontation. Oh no, in all of Act 2, they are happily bunking together.

Also, some Act 3 camp spots don't have separate tents for them, but the "main" camp spot (anywhere in the city) they do have separate spots.

... I personally think they took some steps to legitimate an exploit -- sheepthara folks (or Daughter of Lolth) have been getting both for a while -- and haven't fully written all of this out, yes. But no, they are allowing people to get both.

[northernwater]

Originally posted by Bia:

As I want to have Minthara as a companion later on, I am unsure about the specific course of action required during the encounter with the goblin leaders.

She is very boring once you have her on your team post act 1.