In Baldur’s Gate 3, decisions matter, but players have discovered a way to avoid some negative consequences of recruiting the Drow Paladin companion Minthara by transforming her into a sheep. Be warned, there are some spoilers ahead for events in the game’s first and second acts, so new players should read with caution.
As PC Gamer writes, recruiting Minthara isn’t something that players can usually take lightly. She’s completely missable, and adding her to your team involves some serious murder, which many of the other companions (understandably) aren’t huge fans of. Some will leave your party altogether if you go down this route. If your conscience can’t handle this, then there’s a strange way around it.
First spotted by gamer pao870111 and translated (and demonstrated) by Reddit user ZookeepergameDeep360, in Act One, during the Kill the Goblin Leaders quest, players must first attack Minthara, non-lethally knocking her out. Then, you'll need to kill the other two Goblin Leaders. You'll then want to take a long rest, which will cause Minthara to respawn. After completing the quest, simply continue on to Act Two to activate the waypoint at Moonrise Towers.
Then, after reaching level seven and learning the Polymorph and Dominate Beast spells, players must return to Minthara in the Goblin Camp, transform her into a sheep with Polymorph, and then use Dominate Beast so that she can become a temporary companion. After teleporting to Moonrise Towers with Minthara in tow, those dedicated enough to see this bizarre journey through must carry her across the bridge into Ketheric Thorm's throne room, re-applying the spells where necessary, until they can gently place her down in the room.
At this point, she will receive her judgment like she usually does in an ‘evil’ playthrough. Amusingly, she'll remain a sheep throughout - it’s only after she’s sentenced to death and you go to save her (by getting her into the jail room and triggering a story scene) that she can be recruited in non-sheep form.
Recruit Minthara and save Tieflings both without Mod/CE from r/BaldursGate3
The Reddit user who demonstrated this weird and wonderful loophole has warned that it’s rather buggy - it’s clearly not a sequence of events that the developers planned on happening, so if you do want to give this a go, don’t expect it to be a smooth ride (you’ll probably want to save before trying it, too).
Baldur’s Gate 3 is already considered by many to be one of the best RPGs ever made. Be sure to check out our list of the best PC games for even more recommendations.
