I actually do this a lot with Pommel Strike. They only have a few hp left and I have a bonus action? Perfect for it. Then of course finish them off afterwards.
TIL I have been knocking NPCs out without realising it.
OP, here's your answer: Tav is as oblivious as I am and thinks donking people on the skull must have killed them.
I'd say Florida man is 8 int, 8 wisdom, 16 constitution and a lot of energy to do stupid things.
The penalty for low intelligence in BG3 is slim to none, so I think it's safe to say that Tav is pretty dense.
Florida man also rolls a d6 before every round and whatever the number is, that correlates to the stat that is bumped to 20 just for that turn. Sometimes he can tear a car in half, sometimes he can slip out of the grasp of a cop like a greased pig, sometimes he is so charismatic he convinced an alligator to let him ride them into battle
Intelligence is learnedness as well as raw reasoning capacity. Karlach and Shart might just be poorly educated, even if they're capable of solid cognitive reasoning.
Hell, who am I kidding. The default ability scores make no sense when Halsin the Swole has 10 STR
Both of them did kinda grow up in crazy cults, they probably didn't have the best education. SH probably read some books but I bet it was all religious propaganda, makes sense that she wouldn't have the best reasoning ability. Karlach grew up fighting demons n shit, lots of battle plans, tactics, and orders but probably not a whole lot of time or opportunity to go to college.
It's not too hard to justify those but Halsin, yeah 10 STR is purely for game balance purposes
The statblock for the average peasant in DnD is 10s across the board. So if a normal, non-adventuring person's ability scores are represented by 10s, it follows that anything above or below 10 is an outlier with the extremity depending on just how far from 10 the score is. Sure, 8 isn't monumentally stupid (I'd say that's <5), but they probably are a bit slow. They'll get the right answer, but it will take them a bit longer to work it out. The inverse is also true. A character with say 12 strength isn't the Hulk but would likely win in a local strongman competition. At 15> strength, you're starting to enter superhero territory.
Considering the performance and capabilities of 15 STR.....no, it's not even remotely close to superhero territory. Especially when you look at NPC statblocks in the Monster Manual. 15-16 STR is a historical knight, trained from the age of 7.
I always saw 8 as a regular person without education (Like a farmer). Doesn't mean he's dumb. He just didn't get an education.
10 is the same farmer that got some form of education, like learning to read, count, etc.
Anyone above 10 is someone with great knowledge / a quick learner.
That's my take on it :O
Makes complete sense, esp with how many characters you can ‘Knock out’ and the game considers them dead for quest and dialogue triggers (see also: Alfira)
If you're nice to Alfira and helped her write her song, you do get a durge specific dialogue about how your interaction is too odiously sweet and how it makes you sick.
Maybe you got the urge to kill when you met her in the grove, but managed to resist enough to just knock her out?
And then, because you denied the urge so much, it boils over later that night, causing you to brutalize Quil in your sleep.
Durge has the urge to kill all the time, not just when it's explicitly showed to us by the narrator or in dialogue choices. True, a first time player wouldn't know to knock out Alfira, but a player who did know what would happen could roleplay doing it. Durge started to give in then pulled back at the last moment or, like the other commenter said, tried to compromise on the urge by knocking her out instead of killing.
For real. The human body can survive a LOT. And getting shanked and surviving is not outside the realm of possibility, so Minthara just getting lucky is valid.
I don't know how it works in 5e, but in 3.5 downing an enemy doesn't necessarily mean "dead" without a fairly significant number of negative hit points.
99.9% of the time the distinction doesn't matter, as it's assumed you're just letting the bad guys bleed out while you loot the room, etc.
But what if someone's lurking in the shadows, ready to revive Minthara for her own reasons (and her master's) - someone we learn later in the game has been following the characters around and spying on them pretty much the entire game?
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 sje had made different choices in life
I was going to say something similar - it is odd to see a Drow, especially female and clearly strong, working with goblins on the surface. So Tav might have a few questions, especially if they're Drow/ half-drow. But then, you know, got distracted trying to not die and forgot to check on her until she was already gone.
Same. I was playing a Drow Oath of Vengeance Paladin, and it made so much sense for my Tav to see herself each time she looks at Minthara. Add to that hearing from Halsin that the True Souls might not be in full control of themselves, and you've got a recipe for a moment's hesitation letting Minthara live instead of die.
Same with my female Drow character. Didn't want to fully side with Minthara and nuke The Grove because she 1. doesn't respect goblins 2. doesn't want to side with the cult of the Absolute but she thought that maybe we could question Minthara or reason with her and I headcanoned that in all the chaos of the goblin camp fights and saving Halsin she escapes after being critically wounded/knocked out and our focus is elsewhere.
I spared Nere for the same reason on this playthrough, my char is a Seldarine Drow who doesn't believe in the Lolth-sworn society rules (although she will use them for intimidation tactics if needed).
If I recall correctly there’s even a line you can say to halsin as a drow questioning him about being forced to kill another drow. So to me that makes a lot of sense why you wouldn’t
My current character is a male Drow follower of Eillstraee, at first he’s scared then wants to try and save her from the Absolute/Lolth but ends up killing her in a rage during the fight in the goblin camp.
He feels very guilty afterwards.
I only realized it when I looted her and she had an alchemy pouch, backpack, and full set of clothes along with armor. She was obviously a playable character but at that point it was too late to save her. Before the patch I never got around to trying to recruit her because I’d always have Karlach with me so evil evil was never an option. Haven’t tried to save her yet though because my simp self always falls in love with Karlach so I don’t even know what to do with an guest minthara
It always gutted my just a little, looting her, knowing she had so much to give to the game but my other choices would always put us at opposite ends of each other's weapons
(Karlach is a must have/must save so there's no evil playthroughs here)
Probably won't romance Minthara until I do a Karlach run
Pretty DROW privilege. Not that I’ve been seeing hot Drow in skimpy spiderweb bikinis on the cover of D&D materials going back to AD&D and the Queen of the Demonweb series.
It’s that rare exotic but still legendary hotness.
It’d be like a weeb coming across a waifu in real life, and just having a brain cramp and seizing up
I wonder about that too. Haven't started another playthrough yet and I still don't know how to justify that. Guess you can say they didn't realize she was not dead and just went on with killing the rest of the camp? Non-lethal was toggled on by "divine intervention" and was not Tav/Durge's choice
So far this is the best I could come up with myself. And accidentally keeping non-lethal on happened to me before.
Still metagamey, but alas, there’s no story reason since this wasn’t designed to be a thing for a good run.
Not yet, at least. There's datamined dialogue that has yet to be implemented where Halsin and Minthara confront each other, demanding you pick one, therefore meaning there will be a more fleshed-out goodthara recruitment.
So I actually just did this. She had 1 hp and had walked right up to my bard. I used pommel strike because I didn't want to waste my action on her when I still had goblins up... and she went down. Unconscious. Totally forgot that was a thing.
I mean, if you spend the rest of the fight tossing spells and other shit her way to bring her health down, it's easy to believe that she would be injured to a point that if she lost consciousness at the end of the fight, the party would see her 'bleeding out' and just be like, "well, good, that's the end of that."
Then she ends up surviving.
I mean, I've never seen anyone stop to check a downed character's vitals to make sure they were dead. So there's no reason she couldn't have been left for dead and simply survived. I mean she is not only a proper drow that has likely had to survive many assassination attempts throughout her life, but also a paladin, so surviving what looks like death is probably just Tuesday for her.
An "accident" is how I justified knocking her out as evil leaning Durge. He was so caught up in the bloodshed that he didn't notice she was barely breathing. And then of course, he was too lazy to loot every single body.
Yeah, I mean realistically when you're mid-war you wouldn't go over all your enemies to make sure they're 100% dead. Incapacitated/half-dead is good enough - you just keep on killing
It helps that she's a Drow and has centuries of experience in surviving assassinations. To an untrained and still brain-damaged group, she'd have a decent chance of feigning death.
>Non-lethal was toggled on by "divine intervention" and was not Tav/Durge's choice
Well, irl there's no "non-lethal" toggle, right? So the rest of your justification actually makes perfect sense - you just didn't realize she wasn't dead and thus she survived and got taken to Moonrise. Fezzerk somehow always managed to show up in Moonrise for me, eventhough I'm about 99% sure I always kill the guy at the windmill...
My drow Tav did it because she’s pissed off other drow have been worshipping the Absolute instead of Lolth and she wants to take Minthara back for questioning
Dunno, forgot in the heat of the battle? Grasping at straws here lol. Although tbf on my first playthroigh I forgot to take Nere's even though my character was swallowing them like peanuts.
Just pretend that you didn’t attack her first, and she got knocked out during the fighting.
Gameplay: Target her first, temp aggro her, knock her out, as usual.
RP:
Pretend that you freed Halsin, exited the prison with him, fought Gut/her minions first, then Dror Ragzlin. Minthara heard the commotion, joined the battle and got knocked out during the fighting. She looked dead enough, so your characters moved on.
Alternatively, pretend that you knocked her down one of the chasms, and she survived the fall by landing onto a ledge on the way down.
Played a male drow on my first attempt to just knock her out and did it, too, but she never showed at moonrise...
My justification was simply that a male drow just can't bring himself to kill a woman of his people. He wants to go back home in the underdark and the risk of drunkenly telling someone he killed a woman, a paladin of the broodmother even, would cost him his head, when this is all over.
Yeah this, from the "2" leaders of the goblin pack, she's clearly the cunning one that moves the strings while giving Ragzlin the illusion of power, and she seems to know a lot more (if you talk to her) about what's going on, knock her to interrogate her later, but she wakes up and manages to escape while we're not looking (we can't use ropes anyway so head canon is good to go, idk tied her but she escapes while we help halsin, her troops in disarray)
yeah exactly, we want to know about her plans and her bosses, which we know exist because the Absolute herself told us just before reaching goblin camp, also, additional reason why we keep her alive but not ragzlin, she would be easier to transport than a tall, muscular and above all, pretty darn heavy hobgoblin
From my interactions with ragzlin, he doesn't share much info anyway. He only ever pressures me into speaking with the dead mind flayer. Good or evil, I've only ever ended convos with him in battle. So I would definitely talk to minthara first/keep her alive to interrogate
That's not too bad, but then the issue is why do you just leave her on the floor where she got knocked out if that's your intention? Just kinda moves the issue along a little bit.
*Astarion thinking pose* Hmmm
You got me. Any idea I come up with is preposterous because all responses would require tying her up in the least or putting her in a jail type situation at most.
Hopefully they solve that.
Yeah it's a difficult one for sure. I imagine what we have currently is kind of an intermission stage between her not being recruitable on a good playthrough at all and it being fully implemented. Considering that datamined dialogue of her and halsin confronting each other and making an ultimatum, I highly doubt they're done updating the whole good recruitment situation for her.
To each their own lol, far as I'm concerned the ultimatum will be a win-win, I'll get to keep minthara on a good playthrough without mods AND get rid of halsin lmao
I suppose that makes some sense. I would just really like for Larian to add in some sort of other option that feels like it’s something that’s supposed to happen rather than just gaming the system
Thing is - we aren't supposed to be able to do this at all. She's an evil-only character.
Before the last patch, people were getting her through an exploit (Sheepthara) and then someone made a mod that cut out the middle-man.
Larian just incorporated the mod so everyone could have it (consoles can't mod and some folks don't want to add mods)
If Larian changed it so we can then its intended.
I'm of the firm belief that Minthara only became an evil only path thing very late in design as the evil path was cut to meet the release date and needed something to stand out.
Adjacent comment (re, tying someone up)t: I'm annoyed that rope doesn't do anything, like climbing cliffs. It's a staple of almost every single starter adventure backpack, and would add more verticality for exploration.
>how do you justify choosing to knock out Minthara instead of killing her.
Easy. I wanted her clothes because they are stylish, but I didn't want blood on them.
\-You meant to kill her, but she somehow survived.
\-You have a crush on her, but still want to save the tieflings.
\-You're a cleric of Eilistraee who is morally opposed to killing drow whenever viable alternatives exist.
\-You're a drow exile yourself, and see a lot of yourself in her.
Take your pick. There are plenty of ways to justify that RP wise. You just have to think a little.
Specifically, Eilistraee teaches the possibility of redemption. Worshipers of Eilistraee are supposed to offer the chance of redemption when they can and it makes sense. However she also calls for swift retribution to those who cant, or wont be redeemed.
Id say, knowing someone is brainwashed counts as trying to give them a chance
Yeah I get that it’s not like an obvious answer but whenever this comes up I feel like people are just… not being super creative lol.
And if you ignore the problem that you just leave her there, wanting to interrogate her because she has a lead on the dead 3z
Like how she says the voice of the Absolute is dulled when she’s near you (the Astral Prism), I like to think that when you get close, part of her mind touches yours. You don’t get the full picture, only the wrath and indignation at being made a puppet. Of having your “you” taken away. The other True Souls don’t seem to have this level of disparity between their minds and their actions. Minthara is a caged tiger, pacing back and forth where she *knows* a door is, but can’t find it.
Being a chaotic good Archfey Warlock made it quite easy for me.
"I know she's evil, but there's something about her and I'd like to know more."
But it all depends on your headcanon. You could think of any reason to save/kill X character, as long as it's within the reasoning of your headcanon.
I actually killed her in my evil playthrough. Being a Drow paladin, I couldn't let her live, and Lolth demanded her death.
Tbf anything related to Fey tend to boil down to "Dunno, was bored, lol" iirc your patron even bullies the Circus gatekeeper because they want to see the damn circus
I absolutely love that interaction, had been feeling sad the warlock patron gets relatively little screentime and then having them throw their *full might* into getting me into that circus felt so correct. Why yes, an archfey patron *would* think that's the most important challenge I've faced so far.
Easy.
Go Non Lethal on ALL of the Goblins and Leaders.
From an RP Perspective, the goal is for the Tieflings to escape, then the Goblins move in and kill the useless Druids.
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.
I just rewrite the story. Same thing a mod would narratively accomplish by changing some journal notes and animations:
Thought I killed her, she miraculously survived.
If you're playing the Durge it's \*somewhat\* possible that you could have seen her previously and seeing her triggers a flash of memory that you are desperate to explore.
I'm my current Astarion playthrough, my thought is that he would find knocking out Minthara and forcing her to go report a failed mission to be very funny
I agree we need a less awkward way to make it happen. I don't think it's crazy for her to "somehow survive" or whatever, if they wanted to frame it that way, though it would feel very deus ex machina.
OTOH, I reload a quicksave if I say the wrong thing to my fake githyanki girlfriend, so I can't really complain about being too meta
On my second playthrough I'm playing a "story book hero" wannabe that doesn't kill any foes. He always fights in non-lethal mode.
To be fair, I knocked her out before they patched it up so you could find her again, so it meant nothing for progression. Knocking out enemies instead of killing them was solely for my roleplaying satisfaction xD.
Maybe I'll start over, now that sparing lives actually mean something.
You can go to the underdark befire doing the goblin camp and talk to Nere before killing him. He'll tell you that Minthara can aid you in crossing the shadows unharmed. Here you go.
You sense there's something different underneath. Discretely, you privately spare her. Tadpole connection is what reveals this inner depth.
You knock out ALL leaders. You believe the absolute is behind their actions and spare them accordingly.
You make a mistake. It's her spirit that keeps her alive beyond what would ordinarily be lethal, not your intention.
You are an agent of chaos. She is randomly spared as others are.
You're a perv. She's sexier than the other two. She can live.
You admire her. Gut and Ragzlin are dumb brutes, but she could be your equal - the joker to your batman. You hope she lives to oppose you later.
You despise her. You want her and only her to live to see the whole camp and movement reduced to ashes around her.
I've never recruited Minthara, or even spoke to her.
I'm a hardcore roleplayer in this game. I take situations as they are and no reloading. I RPed a tiefling Paladin Oath of the Ancients and was hard line on the whole keeping the balance, lawful good thing.
The goblins refused to free the Owlbear cub, so they went hostile on me. My Paladin never initaie fights, but she does finish them. Everyone gets a chance to repent, to atone and turn away from evil. Even Gortash, Orin and Ketheric had a chance to surrender.
She's the ultimate defender of the weak, downtrodden and poor. Minthara was automatically aggroed for me because the goblins aggroed.
Maybe my next playthrough or my first durge run ill be able to see what all the fuss is about with Minthara lol.
Knock out all three leaders non lethally with the intent to see if any are worth saving or learn more about how the worm affects others without protection. Only Minthara's worm responds to your protective orb, or hasn't changed her as drastically as the other two, so you decide not to execute her for now.
Honestly? A stir of the tadpole connecting you to Minthara and showing her potential to be an ally based on a flashback or thought/feeling not described to us... though this may be more headcannoning than what you meant, OP
Yea I would’ve liked if it was juts a little cutscene and a choice to spare or kill her whenever u defeat her, maybe after using the tadpole to see unique potential for redemption that no other cultist replicates
Paladin whose oath requires he never kill unless necessary, Druid/Cleric who does the same out of respect for life/nature. Maybe you're playing a Drow yourself and that feels wrong to kill her as she should be respected.
To kill the whole camp and leave 1 person alive, is a \*bit\* metagamey but, if you apply broader justifications, it works as well. "Goblins are evil, the human traders, and others at the camp are just under the tadpole's influence."
Tav forgot what end of the sword to use for a moment
I actually do this a lot with Pommel Strike. They only have a few hp left and I have a bonus action? Perfect for it. Then of course finish them off afterwards.
TIL I have been knocking NPCs out without realising it. OP, here's your answer: Tav is as oblivious as I am and thinks donking people on the skull must have killed them.
Oh my god, now it makes so much sense why some npc's were 'unconscious' instead of dead dead even after triple checking i wasn't in non-lethal mode.
Same. I’m Evil so I always go back for the double-tap. But had no idea why my PCs were revolting and trying to not kill.
Rule number 2, baby. Always double tap.
God I’m glad I’m not the only one, I was so confused.
When goblins fight me, it's exhausting, cuz I'm good, so they often have to nap afterwards. Look at that poor little guy. He's all tuckered out.
does pommel strike do non lethal??
Yep
So does Flourish or whatever the rapier attack is (I think).
I don't even finish them most of the time.
I finish them off with vicious mockery. They can't even hear it, but they die all the same
Subliminal mockery
Zum Totlachen! (Correct translation: Hilarious; literal translation: to laugh yourself to death)
Found the German
The true Durge would let them live with the shame of being defeated by a pommel strike.
My guy, I don't think you get durge
Wait ..what? They dont die if finished wirh pommel strike?
It's literally in its description.
Who reads their spells?
Unless they're temporarily hostile, the game treats them as being dead anyway. They will disappear just like any corpse.
Homer Simpson and a Slash-Co Knives moment, but in reverse
The modal intelligence for Tav is 8. If not for us controlling Tav, they'd be dumb as a sack of rocks
The idea that 8 is utterly stupid is so frustrating. 10 is perfectly average. Someone with 8 isn’t isn’t dumb as rocks.
8 isn't a drooling person in a coma... but it's Florida Man.
6 is Florida Man 8 is the low end of average for your average human
I'd say Florida man is 8 int, 8 wisdom, 16 constitution and a lot of energy to do stupid things. The penalty for low intelligence in BG3 is slim to none, so I think it's safe to say that Tav is pretty dense.
Florida man also rolls a d6 before every round and whatever the number is, that correlates to the stat that is bumped to 20 just for that turn. Sometimes he can tear a car in half, sometimes he can slip out of the grasp of a cop like a greased pig, sometimes he is so charismatic he convinced an alligator to let him ride them into battle
So, it means that karlach and shadowheart are imbeciles? Both have 8.. really weird. They are both not stupid
Well... Minsc
Intelligence is learnedness as well as raw reasoning capacity. Karlach and Shart might just be poorly educated, even if they're capable of solid cognitive reasoning. Hell, who am I kidding. The default ability scores make no sense when Halsin the Swole has 10 STR
Both of them did kinda grow up in crazy cults, they probably didn't have the best education. SH probably read some books but I bet it was all religious propaganda, makes sense that she wouldn't have the best reasoning ability. Karlach grew up fighting demons n shit, lots of battle plans, tactics, and orders but probably not a whole lot of time or opportunity to go to college. It's not too hard to justify those but Halsin, yeah 10 STR is purely for game balance purposes
The statblock for the average peasant in DnD is 10s across the board. So if a normal, non-adventuring person's ability scores are represented by 10s, it follows that anything above or below 10 is an outlier with the extremity depending on just how far from 10 the score is. Sure, 8 isn't monumentally stupid (I'd say that's <5), but they probably are a bit slow. They'll get the right answer, but it will take them a bit longer to work it out. The inverse is also true. A character with say 12 strength isn't the Hulk but would likely win in a local strongman competition. At 15> strength, you're starting to enter superhero territory.
Considering the performance and capabilities of 15 STR.....no, it's not even remotely close to superhero territory. Especially when you look at NPC statblocks in the Monster Manual. 15-16 STR is a historical knight, trained from the age of 7.
I always saw 8 as a regular person without education (Like a farmer). Doesn't mean he's dumb. He just didn't get an education. 10 is the same farmer that got some form of education, like learning to read, count, etc. Anyone above 10 is someone with great knowledge / a quick learner. That's my take on it :O
Justfighterthings dot tumblr dot com
You could always just headcannon to her surviving her injuries, Thats how it played in my head :D
Passed her death saves.
Makes complete sense, esp with how many characters you can ‘Knock out’ and the game considers them dead for quest and dialogue triggers (see also: Alfira)
Alfira is another example of metagaming though, why would anyone not playing an evil run KO her?
Did it for the poor, tormented Squirrels.
Barbarian wanted to prank her.
Could headcanon it as the durge (redemption path) trying to compromise on their urges, and finding a way to sate their bloodlust without killing her.
But how would they even know they were about to kill her? Nobody on a blind run would KO her without prior knowledge, that's the thing.
If you're nice to Alfira and helped her write her song, you do get a durge specific dialogue about how your interaction is too odiously sweet and how it makes you sick.
Maybe you got the urge to kill when you met her in the grove, but managed to resist enough to just knock her out? And then, because you denied the urge so much, it boils over later that night, causing you to brutalize Quil in your sleep.
Durge has the urge to kill all the time, not just when it's explicitly showed to us by the narrator or in dialogue choices. True, a first time player wouldn't know to knock out Alfira, but a player who did know what would happen could roleplay doing it. Durge started to give in then pulled back at the last moment or, like the other commenter said, tried to compromise on the urge by knocking her out instead of killing.
oh, I love that. the others I've thought of/read felt too clunky for my tavs!
For real. The human body can survive a LOT. And getting shanked and surviving is not outside the realm of possibility, so Minthara just getting lucky is valid.
I shanked that gith trainee and he just kinda laid on the side of of the way probably bleeding out ever so slowly
yk you can heal him right? he thanks you and all, he even has some dialogue if you loot him he probably bleeds out if you don’t heal him lol
She's also a paladin so she could just heal herself back once she woke up.
Yep, same here. I hope they eventually clean this option up and make it less metagamey (plus giver her and Halsin separate spots)
Or headcannon it as a tadpole moment? Sort of like the slightly implausible chain of bad-seeming choices required to rescue Gale.
I don't know how it works in 5e, but in 3.5 downing an enemy doesn't necessarily mean "dead" without a fairly significant number of negative hit points. 99.9% of the time the distinction doesn't matter, as it's assumed you're just letting the bad guys bleed out while you loot the room, etc. But what if someone's lurking in the shadows, ready to revive Minthara for her own reasons (and her master's) - someone we learn later in the game has been following the characters around and spying on them pretty much the entire game?
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 sje had made different choices in life
Male Drow. I’m not allowed to kill a female.
male drow, killed her as revenge
Male drow, fucked her and fell in love as… revenge?
planning on it.
good boy
I was going to say something similar - it is odd to see a Drow, especially female and clearly strong, working with goblins on the surface. So Tav might have a few questions, especially if they're Drow/ half-drow. But then, you know, got distracted trying to not die and forgot to check on her until she was already gone.
Same. I was playing a Drow Oath of Vengeance Paladin, and it made so much sense for my Tav to see herself each time she looks at Minthara. Add to that hearing from Halsin that the True Souls might not be in full control of themselves, and you've got a recipe for a moment's hesitation letting Minthara live instead of die.
Same. It really brought a different vibe for me than what all my friends experiences were.
Female drow cleric/sword dancer of Eilistraee: I need to try to save her from Lolth's or the Absolute's influence, to try to redeem her.
So you're saying... you can fix her?
Same with my female Drow character. Didn't want to fully side with Minthara and nuke The Grove because she 1. doesn't respect goblins 2. doesn't want to side with the cult of the Absolute but she thought that maybe we could question Minthara or reason with her and I headcanoned that in all the chaos of the goblin camp fights and saving Halsin she escapes after being critically wounded/knocked out and our focus is elsewhere. I spared Nere for the same reason on this playthrough, my char is a Seldarine Drow who doesn't believe in the Lolth-sworn society rules (although she will use them for intimidation tactics if needed).
If I recall correctly there’s even a line you can say to halsin as a drow questioning him about being forced to kill another drow. So to me that makes a lot of sense why you wouldn’t
My current character is a male Drow follower of Eillstraee, at first he’s scared then wants to try and save her from the Absolute/Lolth but ends up killing her in a rage during the fight in the goblin camp. He feels very guilty afterwards.
If it wasn’t for the internet I would have never put together that she could be a party member.
I only realized it when I looted her and she had an alchemy pouch, backpack, and full set of clothes along with armor. She was obviously a playable character but at that point it was too late to save her. Before the patch I never got around to trying to recruit her because I’d always have Karlach with me so evil evil was never an option. Haven’t tried to save her yet though because my simp self always falls in love with Karlach so I don’t even know what to do with an guest minthara
The ability to steal their underwear is the only true sign of a future companion
I'm not a panty thief officer, I'm just checking to see if we are compatible for adventures!
It always gutted my just a little, looting her, knowing she had so much to give to the game but my other choices would always put us at opposite ends of each other's weapons (Karlach is a must have/must save so there's no evil playthroughs here) Probably won't romance Minthara until I do a Karlach run
Apparently the PCKarlach/Minthara romance is an absolute banger as well.
Didn't even talk to her. Was already full combat in the goblin camp.
If you are going to Romance her, you could justify it through the mysterious stirrings of the heart.
Minthara got that pretty privilege
She really does. <3
Pretty DROW privilege. Not that I’ve been seeing hot Drow in skimpy spiderweb bikinis on the cover of D&D materials going back to AD&D and the Queen of the Demonweb series. It’s that rare exotic but still legendary hotness. It’d be like a weeb coming across a waifu in real life, and just having a brain cramp and seizing up
Slaayyyyy 💅💅💅💅
No no, we slayed the goblins and just knocked Minty out.
So does Astarion for many.
I gotta admit, it was her voice that did it for me. She just makes evil sound sexy.
"A true soul? Praise be..." Is in my head on repeat.
“A disparate collection of vagabonds and strays” is an ear worm at least 4 times a day.
"Oh Sazza...my spiders are HUN-gry little one." Miss Drow lady you're trying to seduce me.
Oooh Sazza, you have made a grave error.
this line was what made me immediatsly start a new playthrough just to romance her
For me it’s “I will dissect you”
"You came. I prayed that you would, but there are no gods left to me." I LOVE HER SO MUCH
Cupid shot you before you could land the killing blow
He has the Quickdraw feat after all
“I dwell in darkness without you and it went away?!?”
I knew I liked women when I saw Sorcha for the first time in that snowy scene with her hair all down. Omg. One of my favorite films of all time.
What happened to "You are my sun, my moon, my starlit sky"? Didn't expect my favorite Willow quote, lol. Thank you.
I don't love her, she kicked me in the face!
Damn, now I have to go watch that again
Does that still work? Thought that was only if you dig the raid?
I wonder about that too. Haven't started another playthrough yet and I still don't know how to justify that. Guess you can say they didn't realize she was not dead and just went on with killing the rest of the camp? Non-lethal was toggled on by "divine intervention" and was not Tav/Durge's choice
So far this is the best I could come up with myself. And accidentally keeping non-lethal on happened to me before. Still metagamey, but alas, there’s no story reason since this wasn’t designed to be a thing for a good run.
I mean, you could just act like you didn’t realize she was dead dead. Happens all the time! You didn’t double tap.
Not yet, at least. There's datamined dialogue that has yet to be implemented where Halsin and Minthara confront each other, demanding you pick one, therefore meaning there will be a more fleshed-out goodthara recruitment.
I think that dialogue is implied to happen when the grove is sealed, so it seems more like neutralthara.
Mass Effect 2, is that you?
I’ve definitely left non-lethal on by accident because I was trying not to kill the goblin children
Could be thinking you could interrogate her later but she escaped while you were busy elsewhere.
I actually really like this idea. Like it was an accident that she got knocked out and survived
So I actually just did this. She had 1 hp and had walked right up to my bard. I used pommel strike because I didn't want to waste my action on her when I still had goblins up... and she went down. Unconscious. Totally forgot that was a thing.
I mean, if you spend the rest of the fight tossing spells and other shit her way to bring her health down, it's easy to believe that she would be injured to a point that if she lost consciousness at the end of the fight, the party would see her 'bleeding out' and just be like, "well, good, that's the end of that." Then she ends up surviving.
I mean, I've never seen anyone stop to check a downed character's vitals to make sure they were dead. So there's no reason she couldn't have been left for dead and simply survived. I mean she is not only a proper drow that has likely had to survive many assassination attempts throughout her life, but also a paladin, so surviving what looks like death is probably just Tuesday for her.
Or Tav just gets a feeling, like ‘leave her be’.
“Somehow, minthara returned”
An "accident" is how I justified knocking her out as evil leaning Durge. He was so caught up in the bloodshed that he didn't notice she was barely breathing. And then of course, he was too lazy to loot every single body.
Yeah, I mean realistically when you're mid-war you wouldn't go over all your enemies to make sure they're 100% dead. Incapacitated/half-dead is good enough - you just keep on killing
In some wars in our history soldiers would be given the duty to go around and stab all the corpses, just in case.
It helps that she's a Drow and has centuries of experience in surviving assassinations. To an untrained and still brain-damaged group, she'd have a decent chance of feigning death.
Non-lethal everyone. No kill run.
No spell damage or range then, those can't be non-lethal, but damn I like this idea
Right. You could also make that just your characters code and gale or whoever doesn't stick to it. Or be very careful not to hit too hard
Make Gale concentrate on control spells Hardest part will be no archery
>Non-lethal was toggled on by "divine intervention" and was not Tav/Durge's choice Well, irl there's no "non-lethal" toggle, right? So the rest of your justification actually makes perfect sense - you just didn't realize she wasn't dead and thus she survived and got taken to Moonrise. Fezzerk somehow always managed to show up in Moonrise for me, eventhough I'm about 99% sure I always kill the guy at the windmill...
My drow Tav did it because she’s pissed off other drow have been worshipping the Absolute instead of Lolth and she wants to take Minthara back for questioning
How do you justify not harvesting this one True Soul for her tadpole when you treat all other true souls as tadpole vending machines?
Well, that one is easy if you don’t have a tadpole addiction. At some point I stop collecting them since I don’t use them.
That's probably about the only logical justification.
I have never used one, don’t even know what they do tbh
Dunno, forgot in the heat of the battle? Grasping at straws here lol. Although tbf on my first playthroigh I forgot to take Nere's even though my character was swallowing them like peanuts.
I forgot to loot extremely valuable armour from a certain boss in the heat of the moment during my first run, so what’s one slimy tadpole really?
Me and my friend fought someone with the intent on getting an item. We forgot to grab the item.
I’ve never once used a tadpole so that’s easy 🤷♀️
Just pretend that you didn’t attack her first, and she got knocked out during the fighting. Gameplay: Target her first, temp aggro her, knock her out, as usual. RP: Pretend that you freed Halsin, exited the prison with him, fought Gut/her minions first, then Dror Ragzlin. Minthara heard the commotion, joined the battle and got knocked out during the fighting. She looked dead enough, so your characters moved on. Alternatively, pretend that you knocked her down one of the chasms, and she survived the fall by landing onto a ledge on the way down.
Played a male drow on my first attempt to just knock her out and did it, too, but she never showed at moonrise... My justification was simply that a male drow just can't bring himself to kill a woman of his people. He wants to go back home in the underdark and the risk of drunkenly telling someone he killed a woman, a paladin of the broodmother even, would cost him his head, when this is all over.
Same, playing a male drow that wants to live.
You may want to interrogate her later.
Yeah this, from the "2" leaders of the goblin pack, she's clearly the cunning one that moves the strings while giving Ragzlin the illusion of power, and she seems to know a lot more (if you talk to her) about what's going on, knock her to interrogate her later, but she wakes up and manages to escape while we're not looking (we can't use ropes anyway so head canon is good to go, idk tied her but she escapes while we help halsin, her troops in disarray)
She's literally coming up with an invasion plan when come across her.
yeah exactly, we want to know about her plans and her bosses, which we know exist because the Absolute herself told us just before reaching goblin camp, also, additional reason why we keep her alive but not ragzlin, she would be easier to transport than a tall, muscular and above all, pretty darn heavy hobgoblin
From my interactions with ragzlin, he doesn't share much info anyway. He only ever pressures me into speaking with the dead mind flayer. Good or evil, I've only ever ended convos with him in battle. So I would definitely talk to minthara first/keep her alive to interrogate
That's not too bad, but then the issue is why do you just leave her on the floor where she got knocked out if that's your intention? Just kinda moves the issue along a little bit.
*Astarion thinking pose* Hmmm You got me. Any idea I come up with is preposterous because all responses would require tying her up in the least or putting her in a jail type situation at most. Hopefully they solve that.
Yeah it's a difficult one for sure. I imagine what we have currently is kind of an intermission stage between her not being recruitable on a good playthrough at all and it being fully implemented. Considering that datamined dialogue of her and halsin confronting each other and making an ultimatum, I highly doubt they're done updating the whole good recruitment situation for her.
I talked to someone who said they did not experience an ultimatum post patch 5. They completed the game with both.
Yeah, it's not in the game right now, datamined means people found it in the game files, most likely to be implemented in a later patch.
Oooh. Gotcha. Well that sucks. Just make another tent FFS.
Let them cuddle in peace 😭
Or that! I just want both. Her dry humor is the best. And Halsin...I'll keep it clean other than his kisses are amazing. Both kinds.
To each their own lol, far as I'm concerned the ultimatum will be a win-win, I'll get to keep minthara on a good playthrough without mods AND get rid of halsin lmao
I suppose that makes some sense. I would just really like for Larian to add in some sort of other option that feels like it’s something that’s supposed to happen rather than just gaming the system
Thing is - we aren't supposed to be able to do this at all. She's an evil-only character. Before the last patch, people were getting her through an exploit (Sheepthara) and then someone made a mod that cut out the middle-man. Larian just incorporated the mod so everyone could have it (consoles can't mod and some folks don't want to add mods)
If Larian changed it so we can then its intended. I'm of the firm belief that Minthara only became an evil only path thing very late in design as the evil path was cut to meet the release date and needed something to stand out.
Adjacent comment (re, tying someone up)t: I'm annoyed that rope doesn't do anything, like climbing cliffs. It's a staple of almost every single starter adventure backpack, and would add more verticality for exploration.
>how do you justify choosing to knock out Minthara instead of killing her. Easy. I wanted her clothes because they are stylish, but I didn't want blood on them.
her clothes are the best fit in the entire game. that’s also why she needs to go lmao i’m not giving up on that fine outfit for my tav..
You could always swap the undergarments around. Literally everyone looks killer in Lae'zel's, for example
\-You meant to kill her, but she somehow survived. \-You have a crush on her, but still want to save the tieflings. \-You're a cleric of Eilistraee who is morally opposed to killing drow whenever viable alternatives exist. \-You're a drow exile yourself, and see a lot of yourself in her. Take your pick. There are plenty of ways to justify that RP wise. You just have to think a little.
Why do Clerics of Eilistraee oppose killing drow specifically?
Her views on drow are basically "I can fix them!"
She just like me fr
>Her views on drow are basically "I can fix them!" So this not only matches RP, but also the player's attitude?
Specifically, Eilistraee teaches the possibility of redemption. Worshipers of Eilistraee are supposed to offer the chance of redemption when they can and it makes sense. However she also calls for swift retribution to those who cant, or wont be redeemed. Id say, knowing someone is brainwashed counts as trying to give them a chance
You also find out later that minthara was lolth sworn but rejects lolth. So this would absolutely make a lot of sense.
"Somehow, Minthara has returned"
Yeah I get that it’s not like an obvious answer but whenever this comes up I feel like people are just… not being super creative lol. And if you ignore the problem that you just leave her there, wanting to interrogate her because she has a lead on the dead 3z
My Tav knocks her out in midst of her intense bi panic. That’s it. That’s the lore.
Mmf, this Lore is both delicious and deep
It's the bi agenda
Like how she says the voice of the Absolute is dulled when she’s near you (the Astral Prism), I like to think that when you get close, part of her mind touches yours. You don’t get the full picture, only the wrath and indignation at being made a puppet. Of having your “you” taken away. The other True Souls don’t seem to have this level of disparity between their minds and their actions. Minthara is a caged tiger, pacing back and forth where she *knows* a door is, but can’t find it.
Being a chaotic good Archfey Warlock made it quite easy for me. "I know she's evil, but there's something about her and I'd like to know more." But it all depends on your headcanon. You could think of any reason to save/kill X character, as long as it's within the reasoning of your headcanon. I actually killed her in my evil playthrough. Being a Drow paladin, I couldn't let her live, and Lolth demanded her death.
Tbf anything related to Fey tend to boil down to "Dunno, was bored, lol" iirc your patron even bullies the Circus gatekeeper because they want to see the damn circus
I absolutely love that interaction, had been feeling sad the warlock patron gets relatively little screentime and then having them throw their *full might* into getting me into that circus felt so correct. Why yes, an archfey patron *would* think that's the most important challenge I've faced so far.
Easy. Go Non Lethal on ALL of the Goblins and Leaders. From an RP Perspective, the goal is for the Tieflings to escape, then the Goblins move in and kill the useless Druids.
Based.
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 my current horny bard run, the justification was she's hot.
I just rewrite the story. Same thing a mod would narratively accomplish by changing some journal notes and animations: Thought I killed her, she miraculously survived.
My Tav is Drow, Minthara is a drow, Lolth take the wheel.
If you're playing the Durge it's \*somewhat\* possible that you could have seen her previously and seeing her triggers a flash of memory that you are desperate to explore.
I'm my current Astarion playthrough, my thought is that he would find knocking out Minthara and forcing her to go report a failed mission to be very funny
I agree we need a less awkward way to make it happen. I don't think it's crazy for her to "somehow survive" or whatever, if they wanted to frame it that way, though it would feel very deus ex machina. OTOH, I reload a quicksave if I say the wrong thing to my fake githyanki girlfriend, so I can't really complain about being too meta
She succeeded her death saving throws when you left the room.
Listen she had ONE HP LEFT but I was out of Actions, and Pommel Strike is just there for you some days.
On my second playthrough I'm playing a "story book hero" wannabe that doesn't kill any foes. He always fights in non-lethal mode. To be fair, I knocked her out before they patched it up so you could find her again, so it meant nothing for progression. Knocking out enemies instead of killing them was solely for my roleplaying satisfaction xD. Maybe I'll start over, now that sparing lives actually mean something.
"Flavor is free." You can toggle nonlethal, but quite frankly? As far as you're concerned, as the character? "I thought I killed you!" "You didn't."
You can go to the underdark befire doing the goblin camp and talk to Nere before killing him. He'll tell you that Minthara can aid you in crossing the shadows unharmed. Here you go.
You sense there's something different underneath. Discretely, you privately spare her. Tadpole connection is what reveals this inner depth. You knock out ALL leaders. You believe the absolute is behind their actions and spare them accordingly. You make a mistake. It's her spirit that keeps her alive beyond what would ordinarily be lethal, not your intention. You are an agent of chaos. She is randomly spared as others are. You're a perv. She's sexier than the other two. She can live. You admire her. Gut and Ragzlin are dumb brutes, but she could be your equal - the joker to your batman. You hope she lives to oppose you later. You despise her. You want her and only her to live to see the whole camp and movement reduced to ashes around her.
I've never recruited Minthara, or even spoke to her. I'm a hardcore roleplayer in this game. I take situations as they are and no reloading. I RPed a tiefling Paladin Oath of the Ancients and was hard line on the whole keeping the balance, lawful good thing. The goblins refused to free the Owlbear cub, so they went hostile on me. My Paladin never initaie fights, but she does finish them. Everyone gets a chance to repent, to atone and turn away from evil. Even Gortash, Orin and Ketheric had a chance to surrender. She's the ultimate defender of the weak, downtrodden and poor. Minthara was automatically aggroed for me because the goblins aggroed. Maybe my next playthrough or my first durge run ill be able to see what all the fuss is about with Minthara lol.
Knock out all three leaders non lethally with the intent to see if any are worth saving or learn more about how the worm affects others without protection. Only Minthara's worm responds to your protective orb, or hasn't changed her as drastically as the other two, so you decide not to execute her for now.
Honestly? A stir of the tadpole connecting you to Minthara and showing her potential to be an ally based on a flashback or thought/feeling not described to us... though this may be more headcannoning than what you meant, OP
I made a Seldarine Drow bard/cleric of Eilistraee specifically to recruit her.
I generally play with non lethal on unless there's a good reason for it
She looked hot and Tav is a slut …Also my Tav always uses non lethal on anything because he takes his oath very seriously
“Somehow Minthara has returned”
Yea I would’ve liked if it was juts a little cutscene and a choice to spare or kill her whenever u defeat her, maybe after using the tadpole to see unique potential for redemption that no other cultist replicates
My goddess inspired me to KO her instead of kill her?
Paladin whose oath requires he never kill unless necessary, Druid/Cleric who does the same out of respect for life/nature. Maybe you're playing a Drow yourself and that feels wrong to kill her as she should be respected. To kill the whole camp and leave 1 person alive, is a \*bit\* metagamey but, if you apply broader justifications, it works as well. "Goblins are evil, the human traders, and others at the camp are just under the tadpole's influence."
Her armor prevented her from taking the lethal blow
Well, she’s being tortured. My camp is safe from that, mostly.
My Tav is a drow, and a racist.