I'm Not a Murderer: A minimal-kill solo playthrough
joluv
Member Posts: 2,137
Hi all,
"Pacifist" runs have been discussed a few other places, but I haven't seen this concept pushed to its limit through the whole saga, so I'm in the middle of a playthrough where I try to have my solo PC, Esperanza, kill the absolute minimum possible number of creatures. That can be a fuzzy concept, so here are the rules I've been using:
Kills count if they are done by:
- Esperanza (obviously)
- Her summons
- Creatures she charmed/confused/etc.
- Traps she set
...but not if they're done by creatures she doesn't control, as long as:
- She didn't directly summon them (no Gate, for example)
- She doesn't participate in the battle
Also, I didn't count it as a kill if she got one of her own summons killed by sending it into a fight. I might have done this differently if it had occurred to me earlier.
For the record, I didn't worry one whit about metagaming or reloading. Real talk, there were a lot of reloads.
I just started ToB, but I'll start posting brief summaries of how it's gone so far. I'd be happy to give more details and really interested to hear if anyone has ideas on how to get fewer kills.
Esperanza is a Gnome Illusionist Thief, initial stats 18,18,16,18,4,14. Core rules.
"Pacifist" runs have been discussed a few other places, but I haven't seen this concept pushed to its limit through the whole saga, so I'm in the middle of a playthrough where I try to have my solo PC, Esperanza, kill the absolute minimum possible number of creatures. That can be a fuzzy concept, so here are the rules I've been using:
Kills count if they are done by:
- Esperanza (obviously)
- Her summons
- Creatures she charmed/confused/etc.
- Traps she set
...but not if they're done by creatures she doesn't control, as long as:
- She didn't directly summon them (no Gate, for example)
- She doesn't participate in the battle
Also, I didn't count it as a kill if she got one of her own summons killed by sending it into a fight. I might have done this differently if it had occurred to me earlier.
For the record, I didn't worry one whit about metagaming or reloading. Real talk, there were a lot of reloads.
I just started ToB, but I'll start posting brief summaries of how it's gone so far. I'd be happy to give more details and really interested to hear if anyone has ideas on how to get fewer kills.
Esperanza is a Gnome Illusionist Thief, initial stats 18,18,16,18,4,14. Core rules.
Post edited by joluv on
7
Comments
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Esperanza did a bunch of non-violent sidequests, but here's how she dealt with the main plot:
Prologue/Chapter 1: none
She went to Nashkel before Candlekeep, so I guess there technically was no Chapter 1.
Chapter 2: Mulahey
Sneaking down to the Nashkel mines was no problem. I think she used darts of stunning to keep Mulahey from summoning his minions.
Chapter 3: none
Beat up Tranzig until he spilled the beans, then get the documents from the bandit camp without being seen.
Chapter 4: Davaeorn
Walked straight to the bottom of Cloakwood Mines, drank a bunch of potions, and fought Davaeorn
Chapter 5: none
Spoke with the merchant at Seven Suns, told Scar she didn't want to kill the Doppelgangers or deal with the Sewers. Talked to the guy at the top of the Iron Throne who tells you where the leaders are.
Chapter 6: none
Talked to the Iron Throne leaders, got imprisoned, walked out of the catacombs.
Chapter 7: Sarevok*
The asterisk is because the Duchal Palace battle is the one I feel iffiest about. She paralyzed some of the "noblemen" with a wand before they could turn into Greater Doppelgangers, so that the dukes and Flaming Fist only had to fight one or two at a time. My reasoning is that they weren't involved in battle yet at that point, so it doesn't count as participating. To get to the palace, she had to pickpocket Slythe. As for Sarevok, she just backstabbed him a few times. (The first time, Tazok killed her in between Sarevok falling and the game ending, which I didn't even know was possible. Reload!)
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Chapter 1: Four mephit portals
Esperanza could sneak past everything else, but the doors lock until the mephit portals are dead. Killing them causes the four mephits to die too, but I'm not counting that.
Chapter 2: none
Freed Hendak and the slaves by pickpocketing the Beastmaster's key, then freed the rest of the slaves in the Slaver Boat by pickpocketing Captain Haegan's key. Ran around starting but not finishing other major quests, picking up loot to get 15,000 gold.
Chapter 3: Jaylos, Caehan, Lassal
I don't think you can do better than this by siding with Bodhi, but I'm not certain. I pickpocketed Gracen, but he wouldn't show up until Jaylos and Caehan were dead. Bodhi wouldn't show up until Lassal was staked.
Chapter 4: Several kobolds and an imp, Dace, four kobolds and four goblins, spore colony, three trolls
Esperanza convinced Desharik she was insane. The asylum requires a lot of killing! I don't think killing Bhaal in a dream counts, but maybe that depends on the metaphysics of the game. I really couldn't tell which creatures absolutely had to die to trigger the crystal shard; I suspect the imp was an unnecessary kill. Esperanza staked Dace for his hand, then proceeded to the very important task of getting the Boots of Speed. Interesting fact: if you're hasted and wearing the boots, you can run out of the safe room before the door shuts, thus avoiding a golem fight. She killed the four kobolds and goblins to start the tests, disintegrated the spore colony before it could produce any myconids, and killed the three trolls to finish the tests. I was sure that going with Saemon would necessitate more kills, so Esperanza skipped the sahuagin city and took the portal to the Underdark.
Chapter 5: None
Pickpocketed Golander for the Light Gem, got disguised by Adalon, bought a few things in Ust Natha, and ran like hell past kua-toa to the Underdark exit, where she sweet-talked the drow to escape. (Sometime later, after pickpocketing the Cloak of Non-Detection, Esperanza returned to the Underdark to sprint into the beholder caves and pick up more loot.)
Chapter 6: Six named vampires and Bodhi
The door to Bodhi's inner sanctum opened as soon as Esperanza killed the six named vampires. She staked Bodhi and ran past the vampiric mists to get the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise.
Chapter 7: Six elementals, three parasites, Irenicus, Wraith Sarevok, Slayer
Gathering the 30,000 gold it takes to bribe Nizidramanii'yt required some time running around gathering loot. There's no way to get deeper into Watcher's Keep without killing anything, but I picked the first level bare. I'm not counting the kills by the Spirit of Rillifane, even though Esperanza helped summon it.
At this point, I realized that Esperanza needed more gold and experience if she was going to make it through Hell, so she went out to methodically tie up every possible non-violent loose end. She picked every lock, disarmed every trap, and learned every spell she could afford.
Esperanza killed Irenicus by cheesily having him use up all his spells on weak summons, then finishing him off with Melf's Minute Meteors. She took the Good path in all the Hell trials. She could only hit Wraith Sarevok on critical hits, so that battle took forever. I went and made dinner while she whiffed away with Belm. Slayer Irenicus was dispatched by waiting out his buffs, getting him to use up his Maze casts on summons, then using two rounds of Melf's Minute Meteors, Improved Haste, Tenser's Transformation, and a lot of backstabbing*. On to Throne of Bhaal!
*I think that thing was regenerating 30+ HP/round. Anyone know if this is another instance of the greater werewolf regeneration bug, or is that how it's supposed to be?
I can't tell if this is going to work...
Good luck in ToB!
Experience isn't coming nearly as fast as I'd expected. I'd forgotten how much of your experience comes from unnecessary kills in ToB; the game is downright stingy with quest experience by comparison. (Can you imagine how much experience you'd get for resurrecting the guy in Saradush if it happened in IWD's Lonelywood? Here, it's 1000 XP.)
The other major difficulty is that hiding has stopped working as well. Even creatures that can't see through invisibility are much more likely to follow and surround a stealthed character than they were in SoA, so I've had to reload a few times when Esperanza got stuck in a crowd of passive enemies. It's possible that Teleport Field would help with this, but I haven't tried it yet. Anyway, on to the specifics...
Chapter 8: Illasera, three kobolds, two doppelgangers, two drow priestesses, Gromnir, Yaga-Shura
Illasera went down easily, as usual. Esperanza hid for a couple of turns before fighting in the first pocket plane trial, so she only ended up having to kill seven creatures there. Ardic wouldn't talk to her with Kiser still alive, so she couldn't complete the Justice for Mateo quest. She entered the Saradush castle both ways, but the prison was the less perilous choice. The barracks was dangerously crowded, and some of the shades from the sewers caused big problems by following her while she was stealthed. The mages in the Gromnir fight managed to kill each other with Sunfires or something. I made an arbitrary decision not to count that, since she didn't do anything to them at all.
Rushing through the North Forest and the Marching Mountains was no problem at all. With Haste, Esperanza also didn't take much damage running around undead and mists to talk to Nyalee (both times). Yaga-Shura's Stronghold was a little scarier; like half of the enemies in there see through stealth. Even though trap-disarming experience was badly needed, she ran straight through a bunch of traps because there was no time to slow down. Protection from fire prevented most of the damage.
It took a few tries to settle on a strategy, but the Yaga-Shura fight turned out to be reasonably easy. He's the only one who can see through stealth, so he can be lured away from his army alone. Esperanza kited him around the cooking area on the west side of the camp, cursing herself for not keeping a decent shortbow to use arrows of piercing with. In retrospect, balking at the cost of the Gesen Bow was a mistake. The second challenge in the Pocket Plane will have to wait until she has some HLAs. Chapter 8 was completed by channeling Devin Hester to run through the thicket of Tethyrian soldiers in the Oasis.
I'd forgotten that you can't backstab with the Staff of the Woodlands or the Scarlet Ninja-To, so her best backstab weapon is a Cleric's Staff. By my count, there are only three thief melee weapons available on a run like this that are +4 or better:
- Staff of Rynn +4
- Yamato +4
- Cutthroat +4
She didn't buy either of the first two when she had the chance, and she sold Cutthroat while raising funds to bribe Nizidramanii'yt. Basically, I did not plan this well at all. (Another embarrassing mistake: buying the Rod of Smiting and Firetooth in Ust Natha. She had money at that point, and I like those items, but that purchase was just 100% pointless in this playthrough. Also, picking up some Potions of Magic Protection/Shielding or a Protection from Magic Scroll would have been a very smart move.)
Chapter 9 Kills
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Pocket Plane: Bizarro Esperanza, Tamoko, Semaj, Angelo, Slayer (Doubt), three Favored of Cyric, Ravager
The second, third, and fourth challenges were all straightforward: use the Golem Manual, cast Improved Haste/Stoneskin/PFMW, run around throwing a bunch of MMMs, etc. She resorted to mega-cheese for the Ravager, using Farsight and Project Image to lay seven Spike Traps in the spot where it spawns. That didn't kill it outright, but another 40 or so MMMs finished it off.
Sendai's Enclave: Woodcutter, Thelynn'ss, Odamaron, Ogremoch, Diaytha, Captain Egeissag, seven Statues, Sendai
The entrance opens as soon as the Woodcutter dies. Thelynn'ss seemed to be immune to charm, so Esperanza couldn't pickpocket her key. You can walk right through either the North or South Tunnels under invisibility, but Esperanza took the South Tunnels to get some trap-disarming XP. As a lich, Odamaron is immune to spells below level 6, so I don't think there's any way to charm and pickpocket him, either. A summoned juggernaut golem completely tore him apart.
Ogremoch, unlike his friends, can see through stealth, so it was easy to lure him out alone. No such luck with Diaytha. Since she was going to get Creeping Doomed anyway, Esperanza used Tenser's Transformation and chucked MMMs. I was feeling pretty good about this until she ran in to pick up Diaytha's gear and got spotted by the Hive Mother, which led to some tense rounds of running away around drow and umber hulks looking for a corner to hide in.
Esperanza didn't agree to the pit duel, since that would result in all the drow archers dying. The door opens once Egeissag goes down either way, and he's a pushover with or without archer support. She walked right through Mithykyl's crib under stealth.
Sendai's statues weren't much of a problem, but defeating Sendai herself took many tries. Any approach that took more than a few seconds ended up with Esperanza stuck behind a wall of Invisible Stalkers, Skeleton Warriors, and spiders, with Sendai and a bunch of drow out of sight. Telport Field could shake things up a bit, but the room was still overflowing with "bystanders." What ended up working was setting a Time Trap and pelting Sendai with MMMs (under Improved Haste, of course). Sendai got hit about 30 times before she could even get her defenses up.
Abazigal's Lair: Draconis, Abazigal
Both of these guys go down instantly with two clusters of Spike Traps: one for human form, one for dragon form. The non-kills were the more interesting part. With Boot of Speed + Haste, Esperanza pickpocketed Ekim Cyre for the breath potion bottle before he shapechanged into a greater wyvern and went hostile. Running around the Kuo-Toa to get the rope was tricky but possible.
Now for one of my favorite questions of this run: how to handle Iycanth the Mad's quest? I had assumed that if Bondari, et al. retrieved the eyestalk for Esperanza, they'd kill all four beholders, which might weigh on Esperanza's conscience more than killing one herself. But if you go to the beholder area after Bondari's group returns, only the gauth is gone, so let's assume they only made one kill (and that there were never any kobolds). Should we count it? My verdict is no, since she didn't *explicitly* tell them to kill anything. Then there's the issue of what "Bondari reloads..." means vis-à-vis "reality," but let's avoid that headache and agree that Bondari, Nanoc, and Tim are all still alive. (If you're unsatisfied with that, you could probably just pickpocket Iycanth. Boring.)
Amkethran: Balthazar
Esperanza talked Marlowe into letting Vongoethe take his soul, and she restored Malla. Do I feel like she got Marlowe killed? Not really. She entered the monastery using Faheed's key and Spike Trapped Balthazar. When she absolutely has to kill, why not get it over with quickly, right?
So that's Chapter 9. Esperanza still can't even cast eighth-level spells, and I have no idea how she's going to beat Amelyssan. I suspect it'll require being a true Maître Fromager.
There's still Amelyssan, though, and I see you've been slacking with that... :+P
I don't think defeating her should be too hard, especially if you're not against resorting to some ultimate cheddar tactics and possible a reload or two. You can have unlimited Spike Traps through casting Wish from a scroll on your Simulacrum (using Vhailor's helm). She won't even know what hit her. The reload part is for Wish to actually have the "rest" dialogue option.
The only slight problem would be phase 1, but it shouldn't require more than summoning a Mordenkainen's Sword to offtank her summons while you, together with your Simulacrum, gang up on Amelyssan using the Big Metal Unit with Imp. Haste. Or using whatever other resources you have.
As for: The game only counts kills that directly give experience. Therefore enemies like Irenicus or Demogorgon don't actually count (and won't show up in anyone's "most powerful vanquished" category, by the way, as that is determined based on exp per kill - Bodhi is #1 in the whole game with 91k).
I'm going to take this opportunity to plug my similar playthough of IWD, in case you missed it:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/40042/pacifist-on-ice-a-solo-min-kill-playthrough-of-iwd
As for your IWD run - I've seen it and enjoyed reading through it as much as this one. Your opening post of that thread was actually how I found out about this one and pretty much chain-read through both of them.
Nice job with not conforming to all the combat expectations everyone has in those games! :+)
(So sayeth the wise Elminster).
I know this is an old thread, but I just stumbled upon it while writing my own tale of a pacifist run (https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/76969/minimal-rest-and-kills-run-an-almost-pacifist-tale-solo/p1?new=1)
Funny enough, I did not even realise that my character, a gnomish illusionist/thief named Jolluv (a name I used since BG1 first came out for my shorty thieves, even before the bonus merchant appeared in BG2) was an unintentional tribute to your run ! ^^