If you're doing a pacifist run through Eschalon Book II, you can gain a huge advantage by planning in advance to seek out the skill trainers who can train you as high as level 8 in the skills they teach. Skill trainers (detailed below) are available for Elemental and Divination magick, Alchemy, Foraging, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Pick Locks, Cartography, and Repair (as well as various combat skills). This means that you can conserve up to 8 scarce skill points for each one of the skills above that you can choose to train in instead, and apply the extra skill points either to other skills, or to save them and then increase the trained skills past level 8 later.
Cost of Training:
Training in skills costs 100 gold per skill level, which means that training up to level 8 in any single skill will cost 100+200+300+400+500+600+700+800 = 3600 gold total. One alternate way to get plenty of gold early on is to emphasize the Mercantile and Foraging skills from early on, but even if you don't do that: The skill trainers will never disappear, so you'll still be able to get lot of use out of skills without training all 8 levels at once, and can go back later whenever you want to invest the gold to train more. (It might take awhile to raise the gold without Mercantile skills, but there is enough treasure to find without ever having to use violence.)
The following skills are available from trainers in Eschalon Book II:
Foraging: Hunter in Wolfenwood
The Foraging skill enables you to automatically gather alchemical reagents while your player character is camped to rest. Combined with the Mercantile skill, Foraging can enable you to raise as much gold as you want, especially if you rest in caves where you won't be disturbed by random enemies.
A ranger named Hunter (found in Wolfenwood) will train you in this skill. (If you're travelling on the main road leading through Wolfenwood, you'll be able to spot a well-concealed side path through the forest heading up north, and will find a fletcher's grove where you can find her.)
Alchemy: Becka in Port Kuudad
Becka, the owner of the "Excelsior Elixirs and Alchemy Supplies" shop in Port Kuudad will train you in this skill. You can use it to brew your own healing elixirs, mana potions, and powerful pacifist run assets like Haste or Invisibility Potions, among many others. This is another very useful skill to earn even more gold, since you can use the reagents you find to brew many potions which are more valuable than the cost of their combined reagents.
Elemental & Divination Magick: Luci in Port Kuudad
Luci, owner of "The Darkest Arts Magick Supplies" in Port Kuudad, can train you in both of Elemental and Divination magick, as high as level 8 in each one. (You won't have to perform any "dark" rites to get the training though, and can just pay her the usual amount of gold.) This shop will usually also have many useful scrolls and magical rings or amulets, potions, etc.
Both magickal disciplines will unlock the second tier of spells with only 5 skill points of training in either one, and we also found it well worth it to train in all 8 levels before investing any of our own skill points from level-ups.
There are also special items you can buy or find in chests (e.g. amulets) to increase Divination and Elemental skill levels beyond the minimum of 11 points required to use tier 3 spells, even if you didn't invest any skill points from your level-ups yet.
Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, and Pick Locks: Zeblin in the Thieves' Arcadia
All three of these skills are taught by a shadowy character named Zeblin, who you'll find in the depths of the very dangerous "Thieves' Arcadia," in the sewers below Port Kuudad.
Cartography: Ned in Port Kuudad
This skill enables your character to create maps automatically as he travels. You can learn it at the Port Kuudad Port Authority building from a man named Ned. (You can also reveal portions of the map if you have the Elemental magick "Reveal Map" spell.)
Repair: Gilgamen in Durnore
The Repair skill enables you to automatically repair your own gear like armor, cloaks, and boost, all of which will become damaged when you're attacked. (Your boots will also wear out more quickly if you do a lot of traveling.) You can learn this from Gilgamen in the snowy dwarven town of Durnore on Hammerlorne Mountain, where he runs "Gilgamen's Ironworks."
This isn't a necessity, and we also usually ended up stumbling on at least one pair of "Tinkerer's Gloves" in our runs, which automatically grants you a few points in the repair skill without training.
Combative Skills: Sonya in Port Kuudad
If you're doing a "modified" pacifist run of some sort and still want to learn more melee combat skills for whatever reason, you can train in bludgeoning weapons, cleaving weapons, and sword skills from the recurring Eschalon character Sonya. (In Book I, Sonya was the owner of "Sonya's House of Pain" training shop in the mining town of Blackwater, and she is now running a new shop called "Sonya's House of Pain II" in Port Kuudad.)
