Baldur’s Gate 3 players reveal awkward reasons for sparing evil party member
Larian StudiosBaldur’s Gate 3 players now need to think up reasons for the metagaming decision that’s needed to recruit an evil party member in the latest patch.
Most of the party members in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be recruited with ease, but keeping hold of them is another matter, as some will leave you if you’re too evil, or if you deviate too far from their personal interests.
The most difficult party member to recruit and keep in Baldur’s Gate 3 is Minthara, the Drow Paladin who acts as an antagonist in Act I. This is because she can only join the party if you go the evil route, side with the goblins, and wipe out the Druid Grove and its defenders.
While fans have found glitches and loopholes to recruit Minthara, those are no longer necessary, as there is now a legitimate way to hire her during a good playthrough. Unfortunately, it requires a bit of metagaming to pull off convincingly.
Larian StudiosBaldur’s Gate 3 players need justifications for sparing Minthara after the latest patch
A user on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Reddit has asked fans their reasoning for knocking out Minthara, rather than killing her, as making her unconscious is a key part of recruiting her following the Patch 5 update, but is out of character for a lot of runs.
“You could always just headcanon to her surviving her injuries, Thats how it played in my head” one user wrote, while another said: “My Last Character was a Female Drow so I looked at it as her thinking she could have easily ended up in Minthara’s position if she had made different choices in life.”
One player invoked D&D lore, by saying, “I’m playing as a good boy Seldarine Drow and even though she is super evil and bad, I couldn’t bring myself to kill another misguided Lolth-sworn Drow. This time just misguided by a different god.”
In Baldur’s Gate 3, players can toggle lethal and non-lethal damage when using weapons. However, this option is rarely used, unless a quest specifically calls for it. As such, many players aren’t likely to have a reason to spare the obviously evil leader of a cult, at least not without knowledge they shouldn’t have.
At the very least, this new recruitment method allows even more players to recruit Minthara without needing to kill lots of innocent people in the process. It’s just a shame that it involves players metagaming, rather than the devs giving them a reason to save the life of a random foe.