Baldur’s Gate 3’s lodging of gamers’ extra esoteric decisions continues to astound me, two months after it launched. Gamers have not too long ago discovered a strategy to rescue and recruit Minthara—a secret companion character who you’ll be able to usually solely crew up with by murdering a bunch of Tieflings and happening the “evil” path—with out having to resort to any such bloodshed. All with out utilizing mods or code. You simply…flip her right into a sheep.
The tactic first appeared on a Chinese language discussion board, earlier than circulating on Reddit. YouTube consumer Arui has a prolonged, two-part walkthrough of your entire ordeal, and whereas it’s elaborate and fully predicated on a bug Larian Studios may in the future patch out, it does let you could have Minthara in your crew alongside characters who would usually disapprove of her.
Minthara seems in Baldur’s Gate 3’s first act as one in all three leaders of the Goblin Camp you need to infiltrate to avoid wasting druid companion Halsin (who fucks as a bear). In a normal playthrough you’d have to decide on between killing her alongside the opposite leaders, or siding together with her, thus permitting her to be a celebration member, albeit on the expense of others who don’t approve of your actions. So as to mix the 2, it is advisable to guarantee Minthara survives the battle, however trick the sport into perceiving her as useless, letting you progress the plot with out killing any Tieflings.
To do that, you’ll must assault the Goblin Camp like regular, however as a substitute of killing Minthara, you need to knock her out. This requires you to use non-lethal assaults—a setting you’ll be able to toggle at any time in your Passives menu so long as you’re utilizing melee weapons. So archers and spellcasters should assault accordingly. When you knock Minthara out and kill the opposite Goblin Camp leaders, the sport will deal with this as a victory. However Minthara will nonetheless be alive, and after a Lengthy Relaxation will get up in the identical spot the place you punched her lights out. You gained’t be capable to work together together with her but, however she’ll stand in place till you resolve to assault her once more.
Subsequent, you’ll have to make some progress within the recreation, each to stage up and study a couple of skills, and to activate a fast-travel level within the Shadow-Cursed Lands at Moonrise Towers. You’ll want a torch as a lightweight supply and can face some robust enemies, however when you’ve activated the fast-travel level outdoors the stronghold, you’ll be able to head again to the primary space to get Minthara.
It’s right here the place you’ll want two key spells to tug this off: Polymorph and Dominate Beast. The primary will will let you rework Minthara right into a sheep, and the second will make her observe you round with out bother. Polymorph could be discovered by a Bard, Cleric (with Trickery Area subclass), Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock (with Sculptor of Flesh Eldritch Invocation), or Wizard. Dominate Beast is teachable to Clerics (with Nature Area subclass), Druids, Sorcerers, and Warlocks (with Archfey or Nice Previous One subclass). Be sure you cut up each skills between two completely different social gathering members, as they’ll each have to take care of Focus to tug this off.
Use Polymorph to show MInthara right into a sheep, then forged Dominate Beast to maintain her by your facet. It will tether her to your social gathering and permit her to quick journey with you again to Moonrise Towers. As soon as there, stroll inside and the sport will set off a judgment scene the place she’ll be placed on trial by her commanders within the stronghold. You’ll want some excessive Charisma to speak your manner by means of this section, however in case you can persuade her would-be executioners to throw her into their underground jail, you’ll be able to head right down to the cells, cross a couple of extra Charisma checks, and stroll her out as an ally as a substitute of an enemy.
Finally, that is nonetheless a bug, and it’s unclear if Larian will patch it out, and we’ve reached out to ask the studio for remark. However regardless of the exploit, the story adapts fairly nicely to the scenario, with Minthara recognizing that she was being manipulated by your enemies, and selecting to facet with you to precise revenge. So narratively, all of it works itself out. The entire deal is a reasonably ingenious use of Baldur’s Gate 3’s methods to tug off what appeared inconceivable. It pushes the boundaries, however works inside the guidelines—some actual tabletop nonsense. Actually, I’d like to see Larian reward it by formally supporting the strategy. It’d require just a little clean-up and a few dialogue rewrites, but when I have been a DM of a marketing campaign and gamers broke my setup this successfully, I’d quite allow them to maintain happening the trail they carved than divert them again to my unique plan.
