Extreme Pacifism Challenge
Lateralus
Member Posts: 903
Here's a little something to occupy your time whilst awaiting the latest patch. First of all, ask yourself if it is even possible to play let alone enjoy a run through with a...pacifist?! I'm talking about NO KILLING, and avoiding violence whenever possible. For me, I like my games bloody, not necessarily of the mindless violence variety, but when the blood spills, I like a lot of it. So for me, this is a challenge to not kill things that I know I could or really want to!
Here are the rules:
*Hard difficulty (middle right)
*You may damage and destroy the undead, inanimate objects (locks), jellies, slimes, oozes, and constructs (including those soulless abominations known as flesh golems!)
*You may not kill a living being, no matter what!
*You may knock living things unconscious, use magic to hinder them (hold, sleep, paralyze), and manipulate their minds.
*Have fun!
I chose a halfling shadow dancer. My plan is to hide, and steal my way as far as I can go!
So far I attracted a guards attention by robbing a nobles chest at Winthorp's, but I was able to hide and sneak past him.
Here are the rules:
*Hard difficulty (middle right)
*You may damage and destroy the undead, inanimate objects (locks), jellies, slimes, oozes, and constructs (including those soulless abominations known as flesh golems!)
*You may not kill a living being, no matter what!
*You may knock living things unconscious, use magic to hinder them (hold, sleep, paralyze), and manipulate their minds.
*Have fun!
I chose a halfling shadow dancer. My plan is to hide, and steal my way as far as I can go!
So far I attracted a guards attention by robbing a nobles chest at Winthorp's, but I was able to hide and sneak past him.
Post edited by Lateralus on
2
Comments
2) why undead, but not flesh golems? there is 0 difference.
1. It IS impossible, but we shall attempt it nonetheless! For prosperities sake? I myself think I can get to Baldur's Gate within those rules, the hardest part would be using a Charm spell on Davedorn so I can rob the scrolls I need to progress the quest line!
2. Golems are created via the conjurations schools teaching as apposed to the school of necromancy, so I find their existence to be more of a perverted scientific experiment instead of dead matter willed to move for evil deads. A flesh golem IS CAPABLE of protecting and aiding other living things, so in essence it has a soul. If I was a mage I would create a flesh golem to guard my baby girl, smashing all to goo who get too close.
Do Robots and machines have souls? I am sure there is a great theological debate here somewhere.
And ANY golem is "CAPABLE of protecting and aiding other living things" but then again...so are skeletons and zombies, as they are controlled by a necromancer...Just because flesh is used instead of stone, do not confuse a golem to be anything other than what it is.
A pacifist, normally adepts of ilmater teachings, are exactly what some lines in Buddhism does. Still when Buddhism preach the erradication of suffering it's not to be an literal or black and white concept. When you endure suffering to lift it from others, you're still suffering. When you don't kill a person and that person turns to be an phsycopath and kill hundreds, thousands will suffer for you act of charity.
The Witcher is a game that resume this kind of consequence perfectly.
To find the bandit camp simply interrogate that one bandit on the map between Beregost and the Friendly Arm Inn.
You can put his group of bandits to sleep and then literally punch him in the face until he spills the info.
The bandit camp is a joke, sneak in, disarm chest, loot contents, and sneak out.
Sneak into Davedorns lair, paralyze guard, destroy battle horrors or disarm the traps, charm Davedorn, and then steal scrolls off of him.
Sound challenging? It is.
If you were less strict, you can just make the Charname pacifist, and encourages his companions to abstain from killing, but when threatened, his companions will still defend themselves with lethal force against obviously evil enemies that do not negotiate.
Before you kill him, you must knock him unconscious--either with a sleep-like spell, or with fist damage. Then, before you deal the finishing blow, you must let the game sit for a round or two, unpaused, as your character contemplates the meaning of this moment and possible alternatives (or offers surrender). Then kill him as you like, but you may not kill his lackeys.
For Irenicus:
The same rules apply, except when you're in Hell. At that point you're both dead.
The same also applies to all of the Bhaalspawn in Throne of Bhaal. You have to kill them for the plot, but for the sake of the challenge it is sufficient to have a moment's regret before you "do them in".
I don't believe so; however, it's...a lot easier if you do.
With regards to mind manipulation, I am contemplating more restrictions. I find the temptation to mentally dominate NPC's and have THEM kill stuff for me, as a very enticing option. I wanted those boots of stealth so bad that I charmed Bub Snikt and had him kill the hobgoblins for me. I consider that run a failure. This is tougher than I thought it would be. There is some grey area with the confusion spell too. I was thinking a Jester would have a good chance at succeeding at this challenge, but, when people are confused they also attack each other so there goes that theory.
Gonna try a gnome illusionist/thief this time. Hobbit shadowdancers remind me of Frodo Baggins everytime I disappear in front of hostiles. That's a pretty incredible kit BTW, a shadowdancer-mage would be crazy good!
Mulahey
Daeveron
6 Dopplegangers
Sarevok
You can charm others to do the work for you in most cases and you can save/reload until others kill the dopplegangers but in the end they must die somehow.
It was a completely different playthrough and I really enjoyed it. However I only played it on core rules.
You can bluff your way into the bandit camp with a strength of 18.
I tried not killing Daeveron, but I couldn't get past without killing him, ymmv.
It is challenging and quite rewarding!
@bazza bad news man, you failed. Using magic that puts a living being in danger and gets them killed, is an act of violence and murder.
This quest is for the enlightened.
My Jester got greedy trying to steal from Charmed gnolls and they killed him. So I rolled up a gnome I/T. I "found" all the hidden treasure and ran through the 2 man quests on the ankheg map and got some levels. Things got morally confusing when I decided to help Joia get her stupid ring back.
I charmed and stole stuff from some hobgoblins, and somehow ended up leading a horde of 7 hobgoblins into the keep. The guards were getting slaughtered so I charmed Tarnesh to help out and after the spell wore off he got killed and pretty much every but one guard surived. So 12 living things are laying around dead in the "Friendly" Arm Courtyard and I started it all.
Failed run.
Not sure what the big deal is. I got a half-orc cleric/thief (named Pale Orc!) and this challenge has been a walk in the park. First of all, you can disarm traps, loot chests, and pick pockets while in sanctuary mode. I actually never knew that before this. It's 1,000 times better than using the stealth, except that you can't backstab from sanctuary. I pumped up my theft skill and robbed Mulahey and looted the chest without alerting anybody.
I returned to the mayor and I'm a hero now. Zero dead peoples.