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Pacifist on Ice - A solo min-kill playthrough of IWD

The (still unfinished) min-kill run I did through the Baldur's Gate series (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/37678/im-not-a-murderer-a-minimal-kill-solo-playthrough) was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had with those games, and I've been meaning for a while to do a similar playthrough of IWDEE. It's not as poetic as the potential next Lord of Murder trying to avoid killing, but it was still a fun challenge.

Ahead of time, I could think of three big reasons why I thought this run might be easier than that one:

1. A rule change by me: ONLY THE LIVING COUNT. This means that killing undead is A-OK. They're already dead! More importantly, I knew I would rage-quit if I tried to do the Vale of Shadows while getting dry-humped by a hundred skeletons. I planned to play it by ear regarding other "constructs" like golems. Does anyone know what the heck a Tarnished Sentry is? Whatever it is, I didn't count it.
2. Heart of Winter gives a ton of easy kill-free experience.
3. Dimension Door. Some of the most difficult parts of my BG run involved getting stuck in a crowd of enemies. Being able to teleport past them would have been very helpful.

But I thought these would be outweighed by four ways this could be more difficult:

1. IWD is very linear, so there's less flexibility on how to do things.
2. It's also much more combat-based. Intuitively, you would expect more killing to be necessary.
3. There's no experience for using thief skills or learning spells.
4. The huge one is that enemies follow you even when they can't see you. They follow you FOREVER, even into adjacent areas, even weeks later after you've been in Lonelywood. To me, this is the number one most annoying thing about this game compared to BG. It just makes no sense at all, and it drives me nuts.

In the end, this run was clearly easier. Being allowed to kill undead made an enormous difference, and I was never running around trying to scrape together tiny amounts of experience or gold. I'd like to try it without the undead relaxation, but not until someone makes a mod to address the absurd following behavior.

My character is an Elven FMT named Zoran (in honor of Zoran Dragic and the $4,000,000 contract he got for having a brother). His stats are 18/79-19-17-18-3-11. Core rules, no mods, lots of reloads. I'll make a post for each chapter and write them all in the first person, even though I'm not really an Elven FMT (or a Slovenian basketball player).

To summarize, the "living beings" killed by Zoran were Lysan, Albion, Yxunomei, Krilag, Malavon, The Idol, Pomab, and Belhifet

Comments

  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    edited March 2015
    I remember from a Baldur's Gate run like this a long time ago that if your summons kill someone, it doesn't count as your kill. So if this hasn't changed then you could completed IWD with 0 kills.

    And if you're against summons, you could in some of the encounters charm and enemy and have it kill the boss.
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    Chapter 3 - None

    Except for that squirrel, every creature involved in this chapter is undead.
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    Chapter 5 - None

    Asked Kerith for the key, gave it to Gareth, picked up Soth's book. Repaired the bridge, talked Joril into giving me his badge, and left the glacier. Don't worry, the next chapter's a lot longer.
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    Heart of Winter - None

    Hailee, Tybald, Ambere, and Kieran give fast experience. So does the first visit to the Barbarian Camp and the subsequent conversation with Baldemar. I didn't have high enough charisma to sweet-talk Angaar, so I had to run away from his crew.

    Fighting undead on the Burial Isle would be OK in this run, but I was still pretty low-level, so I avoided it. (I came back during Chapter 6 and cleared it out.) I walked to Wylfdene's Tomb invisible, told Mebdinga I'd leave, then cast Haste, looted the tomb, and went stealth. Talked to Hjollder and ran back to Young Ned. I had leveled up enough to be able to fight a Greater Werewolf, so I finished Emmerich's quest for a cool 840,000 XP.

    The only tricky thing in the Gloomfrost is that you can't walk past the Ice Salamanders in the northeastern corner of the map. I didn't have Dimension Door yet (although I could have gotten it from Edion), so I just provoked them into moving and then maneuvered around them while Hasted before going invisible again. I walked right past all the Remorhazes and Ice Golem Sentries, stopping only to get the mirror, rose, shield, and weapon (I went with the Fist) from Tiernon.

    After talking to the seer and having her transport me back to the surface, I went straight to the Barbarian Camp. I made another thread about what happens when you sit out the Elk vs. Wyrm battle when I was contemplating this playthrough (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/39971/non-intervention-in-how-spoilers). To summarize, the Elk Tribe won without my help, and Hjollder took me back to Kuldahar.
  • JLeeJLee Member Posts: 650
    So fun to read! Thank you for sharing it!! image
  • kcwisekcwise Member Posts: 2,287
    Well done!
  • MivsanMivsan Member Posts: 139
    edited March 2015
    Like I said in your BG playthrough - very interesting runs and well done, especially so in IWD. It might not be as poetic as a non-violent Bhaalspawn, but mechanics-wise, everyone knows IWD is the most combat-centric IE game (together with IWD2) so in that sense, doing a pacifist run is even more of a statement. Fun stuff!
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