You can romance any of your companions in Baldur’s Gate 3 if you do it right. But one character is problematic for several reasons: Minthara. You only get the Drow if you are evil – and then the romance doesn’t always work out.
Spoiler warning: The article covers developments of various characters across all acts of Baldur’s Gate 3.
What kind of romance is this? Minthara is one of the companions in Baldur’s Gate 3, a Drow loyal to Lolth and a lawful-evil paladin by default.
You can usually only recruit the Drow if you are really evil, because you have to slaughter refugees to do so. Since the release, players have been puzzling over how to get Minthara without having to wade through blood:
As a rule, you lead the goblins’ attack on the camp yourself. As a thank you, a sex scene with Minthara immediately follows. If you do it right, you can win Minthara as your partner later in the game. Women have it easier here because Drow are a matriarchal society.
The scene with Minthara is one of the most popular romance scenes in the game and gets pretty raunchy pretty quickly:
This is what makes dealing with Minthara so difficult: Unlike all other romances, you can only interact with Minthara from Act 2 onwards. There you have to free her from prison again before she joins you permanently.
From then on you can collect approval from her. The problem: the romance with Minthara is still flawed. Some dialogue options don’t do what they’re supposed to – Minthara sometimes just treats you like a stranger.
Romance scenes are also not played out, so players now suspect that they are simply missing. Nevertheless, some fans have already committed themselves to the Drow and think: it’s really worth it.
By the way, you have to do without Halsin for Minthara. But it’s so popular that there’s even a speedrun category for its sex scene:
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“She would go to hell alone to kill Zariel.”
A big discussion on Reddit is about Minthara and what makes the Paladin so special. The creator says: he now likes Minthara as much as Karlach, which he never expected.
Although the Drow always seem harsh and cold, their arguments always have a basis that can be understood somewhere. Instead of arguing with feelings, she thinks pragmatically, albeit extremely brutally.
One user notes that Minthara is certainly capable of showing her feelings. But that only works with Karlach of all people. You don’t normally see the two together in the camp:
If you want a particularly rare version of the story, play as Karlach. Pursue the Goblin side of the quests, then romance Minthara. A Karlach who has come to terms with death and is in a romance with Minthara shows a whole new side of Minthara. One willing to go through hell alone and kill Zariel in a crusade of revenge for her lover. Minthara is that ride or die aunt you want on your side.
Other users think that Minthara also reacts this way to other characters. Unfortunately, I can only confirm this to a limited extent: when I did my evil run and started a romance with Minthara, she was often quite reserved.
Still, it was somehow fitting. As the child of the murder god Bhaal, she suited my character very well. Just making sure every now and then that you support each other, no matter what, was exactly what I wanted from the relationship.
By the way, the most popular romance option is Shadowheart, at least according to the latest figures. There’s some exciting data here:
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“I’ll wait with my Durge run until it’s fixed.”
Still, Minthara is high on the list of issues fans still want to see resolved. Their missing or incorrect dialogue options even prevent players from starting an evil playthrough.
In the discussion about the new patch 5, which is supposed to fix a major performance problem, calls for Minthara have also resurfaced. The users there already said: they are waiting with their “Dark Urge” run until it is worth pursuing a romance with Minthara.
We don’t know how long this will take. The developers are already working on “new features” for the game, but there is still no date as to when they will appear. There will be more information about this in the next community update.
If you decide to get Minthara as a companion and want to romance her, you will have to give up a lot. There is even an overview for this:
Baldur’s Gate 3: Player creates overview of Minthara’s recruitment, shows everything you lose and gain