I'm the one doing the pacifist run you may have seen on various discussion pages.
The Great Pacifist Run of 201XEdit
What do you mean "pacifist"?Edit
I mean that my character cannot directly damage the health of any other character. I cannot swing a weapon that would cause damage and I cannot use a spell that would damage a character's health. What I can do is:
- paralyze an enemy and nudge them off a cliff and/or into lava
- lead enemies into traps or to other NPCs who they're hostile towards
- use Command or Frenzy spells to get enemies to kill each other for me
- wildly abuse Martin and Jauffre's essential status to kill stuff (sadly no longer possible--I finally gave in and took them to Cloud Ruler Temple)
- exploit every glitch I can find to bypass enemies
Surprisingly, a lot of quests don't require you to kill anything. Quests requiring you to retrieve an item can often be completed through copious sneaking and good acrobatics, and sometimes pickpocketing.
I should also note, I'm not avoiding leveling. Yes, this makes the game a lot harder (most friendly NPCs go down VERY quickly now), but it'd violate the spirit of what I'm doing to just stay level 1 forever.
What about poison?Edit
Most poison has to be applied via a weapon, which means my character dealing damage, which means it's a no-no. Poisoned apples, on the other hand, I haven't made a decision on yet. I think I'll save them for any quest where I have no other choice.
What about summons?Edit
Technically it would probably not violate my rules? But it just feels really cheap, so I haven't done it.
What's your build?Edit
Female Khajiit with a custom class.
Birthsign: The Lady
Favored Attributes: ??? I don't remember and I can't see anywhere it's listed.
Major Skills:
- Athletics
- I do a lot of running, so this is pretty useful.
- Illusion
- For Chameleon and Invisibility, mostly
- Restoration
- I am a wet paper towel, I need muh heals.
- Light Armor
- Trying to make me less of a wet paper towel. Honestly don't know if it makes a difference; I try not to get in combat anyway.
- Security
- Honestly not as useful as I thought it'd be? Turns out I mostly use Alteration spells to unlock stuff. I used to be good at the lockpicking game, but I suck at it now.
- Sneak
- MY JAM
- Speechcraft
- Also something I thought would be more useful than it is.
Stuff I use a ton but didn't make major skills:
- Alteration for opening locks
- Acrobatics for getting away from enemies, skipping half of a pointless dungeon, and bunny-hopping
No, this isn't the most ideal or efficient build. What can I say.
What's your strategies?Edit
Run. A lot. Make use of Chameleon and Invisibility spells. Avoid combat as much as possible, because by the time you get a few levels in, you can't kill enemies even if you wanted to. Scour the wiki for bugs and cheap tricks. Always ask yourself if you really have to kill someone, or if the walkthrough just says that because that's the usual way to do a quest.
It's difficult to level stuff like Destruction and Conjuration (and forget trying to raise your Strength much), so I've had to resort to getting some junk spells in the "hard" schools and casting them all the time (e.g. Bound Helmet for Conjuration, Dispel for Mysticism).
Custom spells are pretty useful, so doing the Mages' Guild questline early is a good idea IMO.
Have you really been perfectly pacifist this whole time?Edit
Soooort of. I have one assault in my stats somehow. I have no clue when it happened! It may have been a non-damage-causing spell--I think Paralyze counts as an assault. Aside from that, I have no recollection of ever dealing direct damage.
Are you really planning to do the entire game?Edit
Yes! Or at least as much of it as I can manage. Most quests so far have been possible with some creative thinking (or abuse of followers). Unfortunately, there's a few I haven't figured out yet. These are the current headscratchers that I can't think of how to complete:
- Dark Brotherhood (does killing with a Poisoned Apple count as a murder??)
- Knights of the Nine (have to fight the ghosts in the priory)