Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game jam-packed with consequences. Make this decision here, expect to see its effect there. It had been thought that recruiting one particularly evil character during the first act of the game was incompatible with a good playthrough, but one genius player came up with a workaround — using sheep magic.
Baldur’s Gate 3 spoilers are ahead. Will you press on, desperate for knowledge, or turn back, safe from the horror that awaits? [Spoken in the voice of the Narrator, for emphasis].
Let’s start with some background. Minthara is a ruthless Drow encountered in Act 1 and found in the Shattered Sanctum, inside the Goblin Camp. She’s one of three Goblin leaders, and is desperate to assault the nearby druid Grove, which the player can choose to protect or attack, as well as a few options in between.
If you side with Minthara in Act 1, you may recruit her later in the game. But siding with Minthara means committing a few unspeakable horrors. For a start, you must betray the druids and the tieflings in the grove, killing some or all of them. Do this and both Wyll and Karlach permanently leave your party, with Gale close to doing so as well unless you're able to convince him otherwise. There is no way to avoid this exodus.
But! As reported by Eurogamer, one player, called pao870111, came up with a way to have your cake and eat it. That is, a way to "enjoy" the company of the evil Minthara in your party while keeping everyone who’s on the right-thinking side of society sweet. And yes, this is without mods.
Redditor ZookeepergameDeep360 translated and verified the strategy, based on pao870111’s discovery. Here we go!
Step one: knock Minthara out then kill the other two goblin leaders in Act One.
Step two: return to Halsin’s quest to kill the three goblin leaders before taking a long rest. After, Minthara will respawn. Leave her be for now.
Step three: during Act Two, go to Moonrise Towers and activate the waypoint.
Step four: after reaching level seven, learn spells Polymorph and Dominate Beast. You need to spread these two spells across two characters, as they both require Concentration later.
Step five: return to the Goblin Camp and use Polymorph to turn Minthara into a sheep. Then, use Dominate Beast to make her a companion.
Step six: Click on the Minthara-sheep icon and teleport to Moonrise Towers, drink an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength to improve, you guessed it, your strength. Then use the class action Improvised Melee Weapon to bring Minthara-sheep (that’s what we’re calling her now) to Ketheric Thorm’s private room. Make sure to set Minthara-sheep down gently, because if you throw her, she may turn hostile and attack you.
(It sounds like this bit is super fiddly and takes a while, so save scum your way to success if Minthara-sheep breaks free and tries to flee.)
Step seven: when you get Minthara-sheep as a companion to Ketheric’s room, the judgment begins. Yes, Minthara-sheep will be judged.
Step eight: still with us? Things get complicated here. Divide your party into two groups, one of which should go to the underground jail to save Minthara. When Minthara-sheep is teleported to the jail room, push Minthara-sheep (or Minthara if the magic effect is gone) to enter a fight to make sure she will not run away.
Step nine: talk to the gnomes. After all that’s done, you can welcome Minthara to your camp as if you sided with the goblins in Act One and everyone else in your party seems perfectly fine with that. Huzzah!
It’s worth noting that this is definitely not what Larian intended for gameplay, despite the fact Larian did such a wonderful job creating a Dungeons and Dragons game that copes with pretty much anything the player throws at it. As such, there are potential bugs that get in the way of this most devious of tactics, and Minthara’s dialogue won’t make a great deal of sense going forward. As mentioned, save scum. It’s the only true way to play.
Still, this is yet further evidence of the extent to which Baldur’s Gate 3 players are experimenting with the game, testing theories out, and trying to work out ways to break the established rules of play. If that’s not D&D at its very core, I don’t know what is.
And, you know, players really, really want to be best of friends with Minthara without all the evil and cruelty you normally need to make it happen. Pao870111 isn’t the only Minthara mega-fan, either. Last month, IGN reported on a player who concocted an ingenious (disturbing?) method to recruit Minthara while keeping their hands clean.
In IGN’s review of Baldur's Gate 3, which returned a 10/10, we said: "With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur's Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs."
For more, check out IGN’s comprehensive Baldur’s Gate 3 walkthrough.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.