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captain_decadence
2008-02-14, 12:31 PM
So I was writing the backstory for my character I'm about to play and while writing, he ended up being a pacifist. He's a level 2 artificer war-forged who has vowed to hurt no other creature. He's okay with buffing others but won't create items that are specifically used to hurt other people. So two real questions:

1. Has anyone had experience working with a pacifist character (either you did it or someone in your game did it)? Did it work?

2. What are some of the problems that must be overcome to have a good working character that might not be able to actively hurt others.


Also, it's 2nd level and he has Adamantium Body (which is +8 AC and DR 2/adamantium), a 19 constitution and infusions so dying isn't the issue, it's being a good helpful character.

Telonius
2008-02-14, 12:42 PM
Book of Exalted Deeds has rules and feats (Vow of Nonviolence and Vow of Peace) for pacifist characters.

The main thing to remember is that your group (DM and players) needs to be okay with this. It's one thing to have a Wizard that's trying to stay away from combat and snipe with spells. It's a whole other animal if you're not doing anything at all offensively. Combat is a big part of D&D. If this is anything like a normal campaign, you'll basically be doing nothing for a big chunk of the time. If you're okay with that, go ahead and go for it.

Fhaolan
2008-02-14, 12:56 PM
I've tried to play pacifist characters, but it's never really worked. For two reasons, 1) I'm not a pacifist myself, so I find myself making silly mistakes in characterization. 2) Most DM's when presented with a pacifist character, much like when they are presented with a Paladin, get a kind of weird mental block that requires them to perform character assassination.

TheElfLord
2008-02-14, 01:00 PM
While DnD does not have to be all about killing monsters and taking their stuff, that is still a large part of most games. I think it would be hard to be a pacifist in a setup like that, especially since the basic premise of the game (which of course can be changed) is that the PCs are adventurers, a profession that goes into dangerous areas, kills monsters, and takes their stuff.


As many have said on these forums, DnD evolved from war games. While a pacifist could work, it would probably work better in a system that is not so combat heavy.

Zenos
2008-02-14, 01:06 PM
Try to play a technical pacifist who makes stuff that paralyzes, debuffs and stuns people and other fun status effects. Just not directly doing damage.

Little_Rudo
2008-02-14, 01:47 PM
I've been playing a pacifist character in an online game for a year and a half now, rather succesfully. She's a Gray Elf Cloistered Cleric with a strong emphasis in healing; she focuses mostly on healing her allies in battle and using spells such as Hold Person, Shatter and Heat Metal (on weapons) to finish fights in as peaceful a manner as possible.

I think one of the things that helps is that our group has ranged from five to seven members at any given time, so there tends to be a lot of healing and utility spells she can focus on. I had the most difficulty around levels 1 and 2, when after a few Cure Light Wounds, she was out of spells and became almost useless. She's now level 5, and generally has enough spells to be of some use in any given battle, though she tends to be more useful with her spells out of battle.

Somebody mentioned the Vow of Non-Violence and the Vow of Peace, but I personally avoided those. I have a grudge against vows that also bestow penalties on allies who perform certain actions in your presence, even if they themselves have taken no vow. As someone pointed out, D&D is essentially a wargame, and punishing the other PCs - who most likely are picking up the slack for your inability to fight - is not a good way to be on good terms with your group.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-14, 01:53 PM
I am a member of a pacifist religion and am trained in what we call "active nonviolence" (which is basically how to stand up for what you believe in without hurting other people, as opposed to "passive pacifism" where you simply don't seek confrontation, period). I don't consider myself a true pacifist (I would physically fight to defend myself or another person if I felt not doing so would result in innocents being hurt and saw no other options).

But beyond practicing nonviolence, I am a gamer who engages in oft violent play(largely for stress relief--hence, "Death+Quaker"). In a world like one you and I live in, questions of good and evil are ambiguous--we are dealing with the corruptibility and redeemability of our own species. Active nonviolence can work when we are able focus on that redeemability and bring it out in our fellow beings.

I bring this up not to open up debate on real world politics or institutions dealing with these issues (and I will say no more on the subject of "real world" stuff in this thread, though people wishing to discuss such things can feel free to PM me), but to let you know where I'm coming from on this issue.

Unlike what I said about our own world, in a typical gaming world, especially D&D, we have "concrete" manifestations of good and evil -- literal angels and demons. We have undead and things that can't be redeemed--they're mindless creatures that exist to destroy, and the only way to stop them is by destroying them. Reasons for pacifism as we think of them may not always apply in a D&D world--but this is also extremely dependent upon the type of the campaign you're playing in.

First thing you need to do is sit down with your GM and make sure this idea is going to work with his campaign. If he's planning a rock-em, sock-em slashfest against fantastical monsters of ARGH!, he may not have anything for your character to do--even if you do your best to make your character useful in other ways. You might find your character becomes more boring to play than challenging. So working this out with your GM--and also your fellow players--is a key issue.

Assuming your GM thinks this idea will work: as you're continuing to flesh out your character's motivations, think about how they apply in a fantasy world. He has vowed to hurt no other "creature" -- but what does "creature" mean? Does it count if it is undead or an animated object -- and therefore has no soul or cannot feel pain (and indeed, with the undead, you may be doing the tormented soul a favor by destroying it). What of Fiends--is it okay to hurt a physical manifestation of harm? In a nutshell, are you truly going to not participate in active combat in all situations, and does it truly reflect your character's motivations? Work that out to be sure that your character is being internally and externally consistent with his beliefs.

You also need to determine what "no harm" means. Are Enchantment spells to dominate and Illusion spells to deceive okay? Is it okay to cast "Hold Person" as long as you don't allow the paralyzed victim to be killed while helpless? Can you entangle enemies with tanglefoot bags, or weaken them with Rays of Enfeeblement? Will you fix your friends' swords and armor if you have the appropriate Craft skills?

As for how to deal with creatures in a noncombative manner while still doing something, here are some things to consider:

1. An absolute must is High social skills, esp. Diplomacy (I have no idea if this is a class skill for an Artificer, but I'd even take it cross class if not--or ask your GM if you can have it as a class skill as a tradeoff for choosing not to participate in (most) combats as a combatant). The key to nonviolence is never treating anyone as an enemy--merely as a friend/soul-sibling who disagrees (and the hard part is keeping this attitude--and truly believing it--when this "friend" is throwing fireballs at you). If you're good at showing someone you're really in it for everyone's best interests--and sometimes that can mean showing that you would prefer to take a hit than hurt someone in return--you can bring them around to stop throwing fireballs at you and maybe tackling deeper problems at hand.

2. Along with, "make my enemy my friend," think about if you're willing to do things like heal an enemy if you think showing him you can be allies will ultimately be helpful to you and your companions. Think about ways you can convince intelligent enemies to abandon their cause, if not aid you. Maybe gather information against their employers, etc.

3. On a broader base, creating healing items if at all possible and or putting skill points in Heal will definitely keep you appreciated by and useful to the party. Likewise, if you're not creating combat items, making items that makes your journey easier--from Heward's Haversacks to things that either serve as mounts or takes care of mounts. Anything that could spring traps. Dispelling bad magics will also be a MAJOR help. Dungeoneering tools: magical climbing items; Eagle Eye Lenses; unmovable rods; things that give abilities like water breathing; flight; feather fall, etc. You basically want to become the party's toolbox.

4. If you have a way to access it (again, not majorly familiar with Artificer spell lists), "Calm Emotions" is a wonderful spell for a character like yours to use.

5. Put your Knowledge skills to good use--make sure that your character has things covered in non-combat situations (and again, make sure the DM is planning for such situations). Have your Artificer always researching lore that may be useful in getting your Quest achieved faster (e.g., "I've been reading up on how this man built his towers--I think if we find this secret entrance, we can avoid a lot of potential battles). Get into monster lore--the "psychology" of how to get around possible battles without fighting or at least aiding your friends in finishing necessary combat quickly.

6. PS: Always carry a source of Continual Flame and a Water-Dispensing Ranged Weapon :smallwink: :smallwink: (see avatar)

Bayar
2008-02-14, 01:56 PM
I tried to do a pacifist character...but the more I was making him, the more he looked like Vash...not many pacifists at the TV...

valadil
2008-02-14, 02:10 PM
Pacifism works just fine if you're in the right group for it. A dungeon crawling monty haul group will bore you and you'll frustrate them.

I once had a pacifist for a GM. He'd present us with situations in which combat was a viable option and then yell at us out of game when we went for combat. Not a happy game.

captain_decadence
2008-02-14, 02:51 PM
So to clarify a bit, he is a pacifist because he murdered someone in a fit of rage. He is trying to atone for that by not engaging in combat like that again. He does have religious beliefs but they are not contradicted by violence.

I don't want to take the Vows of Blah Blah because I frankly hate all of them.

He is okay with using things like Hold Person, Web, different Illusions, and stuff like that. Possibly even grappling and pinning someone, but he won't actively attack someone.

The Campaign is built around building a city in Eberron that fell into ruin during the last war. We're low level and going to be that for a pretty long while (and so he doesn't have to deal with fiends) so most of the campaign will be small combat, social and find/retrieve missions.

The DM is okay with what I want to do and for all of those people that want me to decide how he would react to different situations, I'll wait till those occur. He probably hasn't thought "What happens if I meet a real embodiment of evil? Will I be willing to attack it?" and we, as readers, know that there are embodiments of true evil and true good in D&D but that doesn't mean that an in-game character would know that. If someone wants to try to turn a demon good, only people who have read the sourcebooks would know it's impossible. People living in that world would have no idea.

Also, it's Eberron. Tons of gray (at least the way we play it) and very little white and black.

MandibleBones
2008-02-14, 02:54 PM
I suppose it depends on your definition of pacifism. Is it pacifism (won't hurt any intelligent creature), pacifism (won't hurt any living creature) or pacifism (won't attack or defend against anything at all?)

I mean, the first one is fine, even in a dungeon crawl. You've got to be a little creative tactically, but you hold your own just fine against most beasties. It just means you don't attack the kobolds - but that crazy rabid dog? Oh yes.

The second one means even the dog is free to (try and) bite you, but if you focus on fighting the undead (and non-sentient constructs and probably even plants), you'll do fine in a dungeon crawl - especially as a less than codzillad cleric.

The third one is pretty much a martyrdom waiting to happen, even in a non-dungeon crawl campaign. Great concept, but better suited to an NPC.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-02-14, 02:58 PM
Snag a merciful weapon. as an artificer that should be cheap, and you can be useful in a fight without killing or even harming anyone. I've also always liked the idea of setting up a ring gate to the local prison, then casting reduce person and throwing prisoners through at the end of each day.

Diamondeye
2008-02-14, 03:18 PM
Another thing you could do, if you want to make yourself a little more flexible, is have your pacifism not apply to the undead, fiends, elementals, constructs, i.e. any monster that is biologically not alive. This would fit in well with your theme of atoning for a murder; your character might even have a hatred of the undead if his victim became one.

Jerthanis
2008-02-14, 03:28 PM
I think that a lot of playing a pacifist character in D&D comes down to convincing the DM ahead of time to restructure his plot to allow for pacifist characters. When a person DMs for D&D, they don't need to write every antagonist, or even most of them, to be interacted with without murder. If a DM wants, 100% of the problems a party meets can be solved with violence and the party will still be heroes, and since most of the time violence is the easiest way to solve the problems, DMs often plan with the assumption their players are going to fight and kill. Playing with a true pacifist in the party means that 100% of the encounters a DM plans for need to be solveable with nonviolence, and the rest of the party needs to understand that the easiest way isn't always going to be possible with a pacifist in the party.

It's a lot more trouble than just using subdual damage all the time and then "conveniently" not noticing when the rest of your party slits their throats.

Prometheus
2008-02-14, 04:45 PM
Try to play a technical pacifist who makes stuff that paralyzes, debuffs and stuns people and other fun status effects. Just not directly doing damage.
I agree, it is a pretty cold hearted variety of pacifist than can stand by and watch his friends being hurt without actively apprehending them. I'm not sure what artificers do, but if you can get access to Dispelling that might also be a very viable way of contributing without harming. I've actually been thinking about making a pacifist that specializes in combat specials: grapple, trip, disarm, subdual damage, possibly stunning. I may make a thread later on asking about the best options for this build.


Another thing you could do, if you want to make yourself a little more flexible, is have your pacifism not apply to the undead, fiends, elementals, constructs, i.e. any monster that is biologically not alive. This would fit in well with your theme of atoning for a murder; your character might even have a hatred of the undead if his victim became one.
I agree with Diamondeye and Deathquaker, in a world with all varieties of intelligence, motives, sensitivity, and liveliness, it can sometimes be hard to draw a clear line on this type of issue, but if you want to be consistent you have to draw the line somewhere. I'd also throw into question aberrations, oozes, vermin, and summoned creatures.

For both of the above questions, you also have to decide how you divide the line between attacking and apprehending? Physical involvement? Pain? The possibility of accidentally doing long term damage? Putting the subject in a position where others might do long term damage? Having the subject regard you as a neutral party in the dispute? Only to defend against the subject's attacks and never to prevent attacks from being made? There are a lot of things that can or cannot be done along a continuum of pacificism. Probably the best way to determine what you guiding principles are is to decide what consequence you CANNOT allow rather than what is permitted.

captain_decadence
2008-02-14, 04:51 PM
Another thing you could do, if you want to make yourself a little more flexible, is have your pacifism not apply to the undead, fiends, elementals, constructs, i.e. any monster that is biologically not alive. This would fit in well with your theme of atoning for a murder; your character might even have a hatred of the undead if his victim became one.

Um, my character is a warforged, a semi-construct that is considered by many people in his world to not be sentient. He probably won't attack these things "assuming" that they will be non-sentient.

And his victim didn't become undead, he just had his head bashed against the ground until his brains ran out.

AslanCross
2008-02-14, 04:59 PM
The DM should be aware of the pacifist character from the get go so that he'd know what kind of adventures to give (especially if the player prefers non-combat RP).
My group has a cleric who is "pacifist" (more like she just doesn't like fighting). She tries to prevent the other more martial (or less rational) characters from excessive violence and resorting to torture, but she's not pacifist in the truest sense.

As for crunch, there's the BoED vows of Peace and Nonviolence.

Rutee
2008-02-14, 05:22 PM
Hm. I gotta say, it /does/ seem really cold to just stand by while your allies kill or be killed. And I don't think you can truly claim to be following the spirit of your vow if you aid your allies /at all/ (EG Buff them), as it stands.

The only experience I have with a pacificist character was one of my friends playing a Doctor in Exalted who took his hippocratic oath seriously. He had a practiced martial art dedicated to bringing his foes down with as little lasting harm as possible, based heavily on clinching (AKA Grappling), dealing Bashing (Subdual) damage, and inflicting short term crippling (Ability damage). Everything he caused, he could relatively easily fix, after subduing or disarming his foe, and in his mind, this was the best way to keep people safe; After all, left to our own devices, those of us not quite so kind would kill these people.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-14, 05:38 PM
Step one: talk to your DM. Actually this should probably be step *zero*. If your DM is going to be running a - well - standard D&D game a pacifist character *might* be a problem.

If it works, think about *why* your character is a pacifist. If he once killed a man in a fit of rage, maybe his big fear is letting his anger take control of him. In that case he might avoid direct confrontation, but will still be happy to buff his allies, or even debuff his enemies. It's not the killing he has a problem with, it's the becoming a killer, if you see the distinction.

This could also make his interaction with the party at once more interesting and less fraught. If he's a "no killing" type pacifist, it can get nasty - "no guys, you can't kill this horde of creatures that's attacking us, because it's wrong". If he just objects to doing it *himself* then he can still let the other players fight, but he might express his concerns that getting too used to killing might be damaging to them, which could make for good party interaction.

BRC
2008-02-14, 05:51 PM
Well, You could be a Karn (From the Magic-the-gathering books) style pacifist, you won't activly hurt somebody, but you will gladly grapple with somebody to keep them out of the fight, or paralyze them or put them to sleep or somthing.
A bard would be the best class for a true pacafist (not to be confused with a Technical Pacifist)

dyslexicfaser
2008-02-14, 05:53 PM
A bard would be the best class for a true pacafist (not to be confused with a Technical Pacifist)

Why? So you can talk people down (via dancing or whatever you're good at)?

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-14, 05:54 PM
Why? So you can talk people down (via dancing or whatever you're good at)?

Diplomancy For the Win.

BRC
2008-02-14, 05:55 PM
Why? So you can talk people down (via dancing or whatever you're good at)?
No, because as a bard your main goal in combat is helping your team, not dealing damage yourself.

That said, there are three ways to go
Hippy: Dosn't harm others, dosn't tolerate team harming others
Standard Pacifist: Dosn't harm others but dosn't mind if the rest of his team does.
Technical Pacifist: Dosn't kill others, but is willing to do just about everything up to that point to them.

TheLogman
2008-02-14, 06:03 PM
There a 3 kinds of Pacifists I can think of, and here's how you do them:

1. A guy who detests violence against living, but loves to Smash Constructs/Undead. In this case, a Cleric could take Vow of Nonviolence/Vow of Peace, and not harm the living, smash the dead, and get cool bonuses too.

2. A guy who personally isn't violent, but who will assist his allies who are. This really makes no sense, and is just an abuse of number 1, and really is no different from standard play for a Cleric.

3. A guy is not violent, refuses to even SEE violence, and will prevent it when possible. This is the purist form of a Vow of Nonviolence/Vow of Peace Cleric/Druid/Wizard, someone who helps everyone, and makes sure nobody gets hurt. He helps everyone, uses Battlefield control spells like Wall of Stone to stop violence, heals everyone, good and evil, and is Neutral Good.

Stormwolf
2008-02-14, 06:04 PM
It's already been pointed out that it's really hard to play a true pacifist in the D&D world given the basic premise... it is possible but very likely you'll have difficulties not only with the DM but with your own party. D&D also has the concept of many sentient races, plus mindless undead and constructs and many many non-sentient yet dangerous forms of life whereas in our world on the whole we only pick fights with our own species.

It sort of depends on what your character defines as 'people'. Would your character be able to kill a cow for food or does his pacifism extend to animals too? If the former case is true, consider limiting his pacifism to humans and other sentient / reasoning life forms. Creatures such as undead perhaps don't fall under that banner. Maybe he won't strike mortal blows against living creatures but has a pathological hatred of Outsiders.

Another possibility is to make your character a negotiator / diplomatic type - an emissary or ambassador, which makes him very useful to the party in some situations, where in combat situations it is vital that the party protect him. I've played this situation out (as DM) as an NPC who is on a mission to broker a peace deal between two warring nations. The PCs were basically his bodyguards / escort... the NPC could talk his way out of a corner most of the time (it's great when you have control of the secret dice) but of course there were times when talking just wasn't the way out. It was a good adventure for the PCs (and a lesson to them as they were young players who prior to that tended to treat every encounter as a hostile combat situation and afterwards they were more inclined to approach situations if not openly friendly, at least not with wands of fire blazing).

dyslexicfaser
2008-02-14, 06:19 PM
Vow of Peace characters aren't supposed to even swat flies.

No joke: it's in the description.

Krusty Kobold
2008-02-14, 08:23 PM
Oriental adventures pacifist monk worked well. in dire need i could justify the nonlethal shtick but my stantard tactic was unarmed strike turned to improved grapple, pin, choke hold, enemy now unconscious high ranks in use rope and diplomacy if the baddies wont play nice then i drag their happy bundled up selves to the local bighouse nice and tidy-like.

Thoughtbot360
2008-02-14, 08:31 PM
Most DM's when presented with a pacifist character, much like when they are presented with a Paladin, get a kind of weird mental block that requires them to perform character assassination.

These ...."De-ims" you speak of sound so very hard on principled player characters. :sabine:


Actually, in my opinion, the problem is the very concept of the "pacifistic adventurer." The typical "adventuring party" in D&D is pretty much a band of specialized mercenaries. If you don't want to even contribute nonlethal damage to a fight, then you simply will not be pursuing such a profession. You can be an adventurer if you refuse to kill (use Saps-or Reversed Blade Katanas like Kenshin!), or if you simply think that there are times when the absolute most lethal force is unnecessary, but if you refuse to fight at all, you aren't going to be a PC, or at least, not a PC that travels with the rest of the party. You are going to a diplomat (of the government, not the party "face") the party has been paid to escort, the merchant who funded the party, or some other character that isn't supposed to be hiding directly behind the fighter-but behind the scenes.:smallcool:

You could actually be a suggestion/glibness Bard who does all sorts of shady dealings behind the other player's back, and have fun with it while fighting as little as possible. But you'll likely have to pass notes to the GM for half the campaign...

The MMO actually has more possibilities for role playing this archetype. Because you can actually tell the party "Bump you, I'm leaving." You can go do your own thing without tying down a "DM" that the other players are using. You can go be pacifistic as you like without interfering with other people's fun, even though the hordes of monsters and PK's might ruin yours.

snoopy13a
2008-02-14, 08:39 PM
A pacifist character normally would not be an adventurer. People who believe in non-violence aren't normally going to support those who are killing and looting.

However, in a right campaign, a pacifist can be plausable. For example, suppose that the player characters start off as political prisoners of an evil despot. One of the characters happens to be a pacifist. In imprisonment, the characters befriend each other and escape. This sets up the premise for adventure. The pacifist ends up in the group by necessity, not choice.

expirement10K14
2008-02-14, 08:46 PM
I have gotten a pacifist character to work once. Only once. I was a bard and took both vow of nonviolence and vow of peace. We rolled for attributes and I believe I had STR 6, DEX 16, CON 15, INT 16, WIS 14, CHA 18. I had some nice rolls.
I stayed back and buffed everyone, and also handled all diplomatic areas, which our dm was nice enough to give us a lot of.

Tengu
2008-02-14, 09:07 PM
Everyone and their dog has said it before, but there are two kinds of pacifists when it comes to personal ways:

1. A true pacifist that refuses to fight anything at all. A bad material for an adventurer. Might be a hypocrite if he sees no problem in his team members killing everything left and right.
2. Technical pacifist - a guy who fights his enemies ferociously, but using nonlethal means - hitting with the blunt edge of his sword, casting spells that incapacitate the opponents, et cetera. This is a great and interesting type of a character, unless you're playing in an evil or bloodthirsty group.

captain_decadence
2008-02-14, 09:13 PM
A pacifist character normally would not be an adventurer. People who believe in non-violence aren't normally going to support those who are killing and looting.


As I said, it's not that he doesn't believe in violence, he just won't personally do it. We aren't an adventuring party as most people seem to be thinking of them, the group is a support group hired by a guild to rebuild a city with all their skills, not just hitting things. I've talked to the DM. We've planned how it's going to work and he says that I will have a place in the campaign. This is not something I need to worry about.

I was just wondering how others have experienced a character who won't attack (he is not a proselytizer). It's like nuns have a vow of chastity. They don't believe that no one should have sex, but they themselves don't. He has a religious vow that he is going to uphold but that doesn't mean he won't support his friends.

Everyone seems to be saying this won't work. Crud...

comicshorse
2008-02-14, 09:52 PM
I played in a Shadowrun game with a friend who played a Pacifist orc shaman. Even to the extent he didn't even learn sleep or stun spells.
His use to us was that he was a dynamite healer and so unselfish in his healing spells to the extent of taking lethal drain to get the rest of the group up and fighting again. We got to like him so much we adopted non-lethal tactics and would only use gel-rounds and narco-jets. It actually turned out really well for us, employers liked that our zero-casualty jobs tend not to stir up trouble or retiliation and we got a reputation as a group to use for subtle work. ( though obviously wet-work was out of the questuion)
The Shaman didn't just heal though, he would recon in astral, he developed spells to convince parar-criiters we were friends so we could sneak pat them
cast hiude and invisibility spells and would use speels to disrupt the enemies weapons or technology.
Finest example I remember of his imaginative approach was we got in a game of chicken with a go-ganger. As we were about to crash he cast increase intelligence on the ganger who immediately realised what a damn fool thing he was doing and swerved out of our way. Saved our butts without hurtuing a soul

Randel
2008-02-14, 11:56 PM
Okay, here are a few ideas on playing a pacifist artificer in combat.

1. get an expeditious messenger homunculus and use it to scout the area ahead, possibly give it invisibility to make it more stealthy. This will give you the power to potentially spot enemies before combat can start.

2. get wands, eternal wands, or other spell items with spells like: sleep, grease, charm person, or any of the other spells you feel comfortable using. healing spells are good too. the Healing Belt from Magic Item Compendium is great for this, tough you might want to make one that repairs constructs since you won't benefit from healing spells as much.

3. If dealing nonlethal damage is okay then getting a merciful weapon could help, Sharn City of Towers also has two sorcerer/wizard spells that do nonlethal damage in a ray or an area attack.

4. I'm not sure if this would work all the time, but if you have access to the Create Food and Water spell though an eternal wand or some other magic item you might be able to bribe or distract alot of animals or other opponents. (Magic Item Compendium has the Field Provisions Box that can feed 15 humans or five horses a day cost 2,000 gp) This could also be a boon for helping people in need at least for a day. On this note, having things to help others with could help avoid fights.

5. A way to detect thoughts/lies/sarcasm can help in diplomacy situations to find out what the others are thinking and see if non-violence can be used.

6. Finally, see what you can do about taking prisoners. If you are able to get enemies to surrender and aren't certain that they won't just go back to fighting then find a way to safely bring them to justice. Lots of manacles, perhaps a portable hole with a bottle of air, or some other means of detaining and transporting them. If you have the connections, try selling them into sla... I mean find a way to make them productive members of society.

Dr Bwaa
2008-02-15, 12:37 AM
Pacifism can definitely be done. Paladins are good for it from a role-playing standpoint, because it's really easy to see pacifism being in the paladin's code: "I see good in everyone and ignore most of my class skills (which you'll be doing as a pacifist anyway in most classes, except cleric) and want to redeem everything instead of slaying it."
Barring that, as an artificer, it's also pretty easy I think. Being an artificer, you won't really be (hopefully) in the thick of battle too much anyway, and your main role is buffs. So just make all your buffs defensively-centered. Not one point in Craft (Weapons), but you can build +5 Defending spiked full plate once a week, and everyone in the party gets their own Bracers of Armor +10. You get my point.

Khanderas
2008-02-15, 07:12 AM
Urban adventures can work with pacifist ideas (example being gentleman thief, catburglar, investigator)
Out in the wilderness, where bugbears and orcs, the rules are quite another.
Dungeoneering ? That is 98% violence and 2% pizzabreak.

And you gotta consider... Non-violence. or just non-killing ?

Reading previous posts, having a mercenary group that gets the non-assassination jobs done without casualties can definalty be a good angle.
Even shady, remoreseless dealers sometimes needs something done, without deaths, because that could stir up trouble. For lethal force, there are many other groups to hire. Your group can be attracting special (and well paying) clientel for getting the job done without deaths.
Off the top of my head: Steal item X and replace it with a fake. If someone dies, things get investigated.