Baldur’s Gate 3 players reveal why they raid Emerald Grove: “All you need is selfishness”

Stephanie Zucarelli
Baldur's Gate 3 Minthara

A Baldur’s Gate 3 fan who loves to roleplay struggles to find valid reasons to sack Emerald Grove, one of the first major decisions in their adventure through Faerun. Here’s what the Baldur’s Gate 3 community had to say about it.

Baldur’s Gate 3 players face a very difficult choice right at the beginning of their adventure through Faerun. Just after they meet Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale, fans have to choose if they want to raid or save the Emerald Grove, a camp filled with tiefling refugees.

Even if sacking the Grove lets players recruit the fan-favorite Minthara, players have been horrified by the notion enough that they created a workaround to bug the game and get her to their party. While most fans rely on this method, others focused on roleplaying are stuck on wondering why their character should choose to attack the Grove.

In a Reddit post called “How do you justify sacking the Grove in fiction?” Redditor ‘Katsnplants’ admitted that they were working for an evil run to get Minthara, but they couldn’t really figure out a “logical reason why”: “The only lead we have for curing ourselves is Halsin. Minthara doesn’t offer an alternative (beyond Gut, which…ya know) so you’re basically nuking your only lead,” they explained.

Baldur's Gate 3 Minthara
The only way to recruit Minthara during Act 1 is by raiding the Grove and killing all the tieflings inside.

However, players were quick to point out that Larian Studios included some other options that might help role-playing as an evil character. Some explained that getting to know Lae’zel gives the main character another “solution” for the tadpole infection, and others simply said that roleplaying as a Drow (specifically a male Drow) would be reason enough not to question Minthara’s wishes.

“This precisely. My male Drow was just infatuated with Minthara and was like ‘yes Ma’am. Told Zevlor it was nothing personal,” admitted Redditor ‘ODean97.’

Baldur’s Gate 3 players also explained that siding with the Cult of the Absolute during an evil playthrough was all the reason they needed to raid the Grove: “Honestly, all you need to justify it is selfishness. The cult of the absolute is the best lead on your own problems. Getting closer to the absolute is your best chance of a cure. The druids and tieflings aren’t your problem,” said ‘Shadowy_insights.’

Another popular reason for choosing raiding the Grove claimed that Halsin isn’t ideal for solving the tadpole problem, since he has just been studying the tadpoles but doesn’t really know how to solve the problem.

“Meanwhile, as soon as you get close to the goblin camp your parasite starts reacting and the artifact has to save you. That’s the clearest indication that the camp has something to do with what’s happened to you. Why not follow that lead instead?,” commented user ‘Tyallie.’

And that’s some of the reasons players use to justifying raiding the Emerald Grove in Baldur’s Gate 3. If you want to know more about Larian Studios’ RPG, you can check what visual glitch has been interfering with romance scenes during Act 3 and how devs suggest fixing the Xbox save issue.

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About The Author

Stephanie is a Games Writer at CharlieIntel. After graduating as a journalist, she started working as a tech writer for Infobae, Channel 9, and Rolling Stone. She's currently focused on covering Diablo 4, Baldur's Gate 3 and Fortnite, but can't resist anything related to The Sims 4 and Stardew Valley. You can contact her at [email protected].