Baldur’s Gate 3 offers the chance to find love in Faerûn, but like many other aspects of the game, the choice of whom to romance comes with consequences. Romance options begin in Act 1 and require the romantic target to be recruited to the party, but most relationships in BG3 don’t come to fruition until later. Winning Minthara’s heart requires a violent playthrough, and her romance is full of pros and cons.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3.]
Minthara is a drow paladin and one of the three goblin leaders in Act 1. Recruiting her means siding with the goblins against the druids and tieflings in Emerald Grove. As such, it’s not surprising that choosing Minthara as a romance option means taking a path through Act 1 and beyond that’s filled with blood and cruelty. The result can be a romance that feels like it might bring with it more cons than pros. Ultimately, there is no shortage of difficult decisions to make when romancing Minthara Baldur’s Gate 3.
How To Romance Minthara In Baldur’s Gate 3
Romancing Minthara in Baldur’s Gate 3 requires siding with the Goblins and agreeing with her plan, then defeating the druids and tieflings before agreeing to sleep with her at camp. The process itself isn’t difficult, although it requires a lot of skill checks and fighting to reach the desired end. Yet, one decision after intimacy with Minthara can end the romance early by leading to a fight with her if she doesn’t back down.
Con: Recruiting Minthara Locks Out Other Companions
Possibly the biggest con to romancing Minthara is losing Halsin, Wyll, and Karlach as companions and earning the disapproval of Gale and Shadowheart. While it was possible at one time to recruit both Minthara and Halsin in Baldur’s Gate 3, it meant leaving a lot of Act 1 unfinished and having them glitch, clipping through each other since they have the same location in camp or repeating the same lines when speaking with them.
Ultimately, Larian would patch out the ability to recruit both of them with Patch #1. In the end, simply recruiting Minthara means that three other companions won’t be part of the playthrough, and that can be a big trade-off that doesn’t seem worth the results.
Pro: Romancing Minthara Perfectly Fits A Villainous Playthrough
The biggest pro to romancing Minthara in Baldur’s Gate 3 comes when planning to go with a villainous playthrough of the game. Most romances require decisions that lean towards the more moral side of the spectrum, but the opposite is true with Minthara, and that means there’s an opportunity to see the game from the point of view of the followers of the Absolute rather than those who fight against it. Since Minthara’s approval rating increases by selecting options that would be considered cruel or violent, she basically requires her lover to be ruthless.
Romancing Minthara has a quick payoff, as her intimate scene comes after attacking Emerald Grove and defeating the druids. However, it seems that all non-Origin character romance options only have one such scene, so it’s used early in the relationship, which could be a pro or a con depending on the person. It’s a love that’s earned through blood, but it’s also easy to end it in blood since Minthara attempts to murder her new lover in the middle of the night, so the violence is a constant with her. Overall, it’s one of the few chances that BG3 offers to side with the villains and see the game’s plot from their point of view.
Con: Minthara’s Romance Lacks Depth
One of the biggest reasons that Minthara is listed as among the worst romance options in Baldur’s Gate 3 is that the relationship with her has an overall shallow feeling to it. Building a relationship with her doesn’t exactly happen as part of her romance, and it’s instead a result of following her commands and being generally violent. The result is that the bond with her doesn’t have the same depth seen in other romance options, and that can be a big drawback.
Most romances take more effort to build, and the process reveals more information about characters that aren’t revealed unless romance is initiated. This isn’t the case with Minthara. The blood-soaked journey to win her heart doesn’t exactly reveal information about her as a person, nor does recruiting her and having her tag along through quests. Though it feels like she was a last-minute romance addition, this fact isn’t true since she was one of the few options in Early Access. It’s been put forth that perhaps portions that were meant to be included ended up being cut from the final version of the game.
Con: Minthara’s Romance Is Glitchy
There have been multiple reports of different glitches occurring when choosing Minthara as a romance option. While Patch #1 fixed some of these issues, they’re still a con because it’s annoying to run into. Also, bugs can end up preventing Minthara’s content from triggering, which defeats the purpose of a playthrough designed to see her content specifically.
It’s possible that the bugs and glitches are a result of changes to content between Early Access and the full release. With all the glitches that come with the rest of the cons of romancing Minthara, it starts to seem like her romance is meant to be an undesirable option. Regardless of the reason, the cons start to pile up when considering a romance with Minthara.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth taking her path during at least one playthrough, although it might be best to wait until it’s confirmed that patches have fixed her issues. There are countless ways to approach the game, but now it may be easier to decide if the brutal playthrough required to romance Minthara is worthwhile in Baldur’s Gate 3.
