Baldur's Gate Pacifist Run: Journey to Beregost

As far as we know, you can arrive in Beregost at any time after leaving Candlekeep, after journeying south, though our preference was to get the extra pacifist run levels from the Wyrm's Crossing Area covered in the previous post first.

Beregost is two maps south of the Friendly Arms Inn

If you approach from the north, you'll probably meet a friendly man named Golin Vend who will offer directions to nearby inns and the famous Thunderhammer Smithy run by blacksmith Taerom Fuiruim. But the path toward the highest rewards of nonviolent xp probably begins with heading to the Feldepost Inn, followed by a quick trip across the street to Firebead Elvenhair's house:

The Feldepost Inn

If you head south down the street past the large obelisk and the Town Crier (who is delivering news about a bounty on a mad cleric named Bassilus, who has turned to necromancy), you'll soon come to Feldepost's Inn. 

On the first floor, you'll be confronted by an angry farmer named Marl who will tell you to get out of the Inn, since adventurers aren't welcome there, according to him. If you talk to him again, he'll be confrontational, and you'll learn that he's upset because his son (who also wanted to become an adventurer) was recently killed.

You'll be given five dialogue choices at various points, and the sequence to calm Marl down (regardless of how well they really fit your own RPG player character's personality) are: #1: first choice, #2: first choice again, #3: third choice, #4: third choice, #5: first choice.)

Marl's friend Dunkin (who initially said "You tell 'em Marl") will chime in to side with you in the process of these, telling Marl that the son was already determined to become an adventurer and never wanted to settle down and farm, as Marl seems to want to believe. If you follow the sequence above ending with offering to buy Marl a drink in honor of the son's memory, Marl will not attack you, and you'll receive 900 experience points.

Other things to do at the Inn: There is a humorous drunken noblewoman named Gyllian you can talk to optionally, an innkeeper who will rent rooms and buy and sell items, and a second floor that doesn't contain anything crucial until later. If you want to be efficient, you can also buy a book called "The History of the Fateful Coin" for a very modest price from the innkeeper before heading over to Firebead Elvenhair's House. 

On the second floor of the Inn, there is also a large man named Algernon who can famously be pick pocketed for a pink cloak that provides its wearer +2 charisma, but you don't need to steal if you don't want to: You can cast a mage spell called "Friends" to increase CHA by about six points temporarily on any occasion where a high CHA score is important, and also find a skill manual elsewhere that will grant you more charisma without having to steal.

(Later on you'll eventually also find an important character on the second floor of the Inn after you complete the Nashkel Mines, but he won't show up here until after completing the Nashkel Mines.)

Firebead Elvenhair's House

You'll find your old friend from Candlekeep at his house across the street from the Feldepost Inn, slightly southeast of the Inn entrance. He will be glad to invite you in (i.e. not consider you an intruder if you just walk into his house), and give you a small quest to bring him a recently published tome called "The History of the Fateful Coin", which you should be able to buy at Feldepost's Inn right across the street. Doing this will reward you with 300 xp and increased reputation.

Other places in Beregost: There are a number of quests you can get from Beregost and complete elsewhere without killing anything, if you're willing to do a bit of travel and use the Charm enchantment spell + the pickpocket spell to steal stolen items back from various bandits, such as hobgoblins, gnolls, and tasloi. 

The Burning Wizard Inn

This inn is in the center of town, and you'll notice it because a bard in yellowish clothing is standing outside it: This is Garrick, who can theoretically join your band, but the problem is that recruiting him might require you to cause someone's death, so we didn't try. (See below in the section re: Garrick and Silke Rosena.)

Meanwhile, inside the Burning Wizard Inn: You can find a halfling thief named Zhurlong on the first floor, who will tell you that he's angry because some hoboblin bandits stole his Boots of Stealth. After he gives you the details, he'll tell you he's spotted the legendary drow Drizzt Do'Urden as a distraction, and  pickpocket you for 15 gold— but if you bring him back his boots he'll apologize and give you 100 gold + the 15 he stole from you, and better yet you'll receive 300 xp.

Recovering Zhurlong's Boots: 

This is another quest you can do nonviolently, whenever you're ready to travel to the forested area on the road south of Beregost: You'll find the bandits in the eastern part of the map a short distance below a dark cave in a crag of rock. 

You can cast Charm on him and then send your thief to pickpocket him to steal back the boots, then choose your methods to send him lumbering off into the woods, and/or cast Sleep or Color Spray.

(Be careful where you aim your Color Spray, however, as one of our players accidentally temporarily made Imoen swoon with it along with the hobgoblins. Fortunately the Enchanter was also able to incapacitate the other hobgoblins with sleep spells long enough to hold them off until she woke up and they both escaped.)

Before bringing back Zhurlong's Boots of Stealth right away: These items are highly valuable to any thief because they add a large number of points to your Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills (which are averaged to impact your success with hiding in the shadows to move unseen by enemies). 

You can also find a pair of Boots of Stealth on another hobgoblin bandit in the southern part of the map containing the Ruins of Ulcaster later and obtain those in the same way (i.e. Charm + pickpocketing the charmed hobgoblin bandit to steal the boots), so it might be a good idea to wait until later to give Zhurlong back his pair. (After all, you already put down a "deposit" with him of the 15 gold he stole from you at the Burning Wizard.)

Garrick & Silke Rosena

If you talk to Garrick outside the Burning Wizard Inn, he'll say his employer Silke Rosena (apparently a noteworthy travelling performer) is looking for bodyguards. We didn't find a way to deal with this situation peacefully, but the good news is that no one else is actually in any danger (other than you) if you refuse to assist Rosena: 

After Garrick takes you to where she is waiting outside the Red Sheaf Inn, she'll claim she's being threatened by thugs and offer you some gold to kill them on site, but when they approach, they'll greet her courteously and try to say that they've brought her some gems she requested to buy. Silke will try to cut them off and yell at you to strike and kill them immediately, but if you refuse and try to ask questions first, she'll became angry and attack you with magic spells. (The three gem merchants will just stand around doing nothing during this episode, by the way, even if you take their side.)

You'd be able to get away from Silke despite the dangers of her spells, but since there isn't any way to deal with her peacefully that we know of, you might be better off never bothering to talk to Garrick about the "job" she offers. (Since she isn't very nice, you also have the option of pickpocketing her for at least one valuable potion even if you never let her try to recruit you to kill the merchants, since she'll still be standing around outside the Red Sheaf Inn.)

While on the subject of recruitable NPCs: There is also an evil dwarf mercenary named Kagain that you can recruit at his shop in Beregost (just above the Feldepost Inn) if you wanted to, but we didn't recruit him either since evil ax-wielding characters didn't fit in with our pacifist run plans. 

The Red Sheaf Inn

This inn is right down the road east of the Burning Wizard in the center of town, where Silke Rosena is standing.

Warning: Before going inside, be aware that there is a dwarf hitman named Karlat inside. While reasonably polite by assassin's standards, Karlat won't be receptive to any negotiations or counter-offers, and will try to kill you after talking to you regardless of what you say to him.

One option you can use if you have a solo thief with solid stealth skills and/or a mage with invisibility spells is to walk past Karlat invisible, if you want to do anything else in the Inn without him chasing you around, since he is strong and can do a lot of damage if you let him get close enough to strike. 

Another peaceful method that worked to get Karlat permanently out of the way without harming anyone: Unlike the two thieves who tried to kill you at Candlekeep, but wouldn't leave the buildlings they were hiding in, Karlat is more determined and will chase you inside and outside other buildings trying to get you. You can use this to your advantage if you have either a thief and/or mage: 

First get Karlat to chase you out of the Inn and into another house (or perhaps just the upper floor of the Red Sheaf where you first find him, but a a two-story house was used in our case). 

If you then hide in the shadows successfully upstairs (e.g. by hiding in a sideroom or behind a wall partition out of sight) or cast invisibility, Karlat will become confused and stay in the building where he lost track of you, and you can leave while you're still hidden in the shadows (or invisible) without him trying to follow you anymore.

Perdue's Shortsword

The main reason to go into the Red Sheaf is to talk to Perdue, another angry halfling whose shortsword was stolen from him by Gnoll bandits outside the wizard's keep called High Hedge in the west. 

To get the quest, you'll again have to choose some dialogue options that might not be optimal for your own character: #1: the first choice, #2: the second, #3: the first again, and #4: the first yet again. This should give you the quest to recover Perdue's stolen short-sword. 

You'll find the gnolls who have it on the eastern side of High Hedge, the map southwest of Beregost: 

The gnolls are lurking on the southeast side of the stone keep, but happily they're all quite susceptible to the level 1 charm, sleep, and color spray spells, so the tactic of subduing some of them without injury and charming and pick-pocketing the one with the sword should work again.

Gnolls slumbering peacefully after the casting of a Sleep spell...

After the correct gnoll is charmed, you can use the usual trick of using the pick-pocketing skill on the gnoll repeatedly until it succeeds, since a charmed creature won't become hostile after a failed pick-pocketing attempt:

Our thief using the pick pocket skill repeatedly on the charmed gnoll

You'll probably end up with gold and other miscellaneous items the gnolls have on them as well, but you can just check your inventory while the game's paused to make sure you eventually got Perdue's Short Sword before the charm spell wears off.

Checking our thief's inventory to make sure we got Perdue's short sword

Preventing the gnolls from hewing into each other with their halberds after at least one of them gets charmed is slightly trickier, but not difficult if you have the patience to keep sending them away from each other to keep them separated each time they try to re-initiate an attack on each other. (Watch out about taking too many side trips, however, as there are hostile skeletons lurking in the woods a little way to the west, as well as lots more gnolls lurking south of High Hedge.)

We sent the gnoll to take a walk in flowery meadows here, shortly before the Charm spell wore off and we had to run away to Beregost with both the gnoll and a gang of skeletons in pursuit...

When you return to the Red Sheaf Inn and give Perdue his shortsword, you'll receive some gold and 500 experience points.

Thunderhammer Smithy & The Shadow Armor

Inside the Thunderhammer Smithy you will find Taerom Fuiruim the blacksmith. He has many high-priced items for sale, but if you have a thief/rogue on your team, you will be able to give a huge boost to your stealth skills by buying the "Shadow Armor" for a high price here. On a pacifist run it's well worth the gold to boost your stealth skill by the amount the Shadow Armor grants, since you can repeatedly retry hiding in the shadows until your thief becomes invisible again (making it much easier to do things like grab items from chests in dungeons, and then re-hide your character without having to rest, like a mage with limited invisibility spells would). Boosting your stealth with the Shadow Armor and Boots of Stealth will also let you apply more scarce pacifist run level-up skill points into other thief skills.

The Jovial Juggler Inn

Gurke's Cloak

An old dwarf named Gurke is stamping around the first floor of the Inn and is irate because a band of tasloi from the Cloakwood Forest stole his cloak. 

It will be awhile before you can claim it since you'll have to visit Cloakwood Forest (and most versions of the game won't let you enter Cloakwood until a later chapter), but when you can go there: You'll find the cloak on one of many tasloi, and can use the combination of Charm + pickpocketing to steal back the cloak without killing any of them.

Gurke's Cloak is potentially valuable later in the game: It is a magic cloak that will prevent you from being detected by mages. But fortunately you won't have to struggle with temptation to "steal" the Cloak by omitting to return it to Gurke, since Gurke will actually ask you to keep it for yourself if you try to return it to him— so you'll get to keep it and also be rewarded with 300xp for completing the quest. (See the upcoming section on Cloakwood for the details on grabbing the cloak from the band of Tasloi without having to use violence.)

The other encounters in the Jovial Juggler were amusing but we didn't find any further rewards on a pacifist run from them: There is a paladin named Bjornin who was attacked by some half-ogrish brigands southwest of Beregost and wants someone to pay them back with some of their own medicine, but you won't be able to deal with them in a pacifist run since he just wants them defeated in combat. You can also meet a man named Oogie Wisham upstairs, who appears convinced that Bjornin is a zealous inquisitor out to get him— though there's no other indication that this is the case, or that the paladin is even aware of Wisham's presence.

Landrin's House

If you met the old gnome Landrin on the upper floors of the Friendly Arms Inn, you'll find her house just west of the Jovial Juggler, behind a small fence near some tree. 

The house of Landrin, the gnome currently taking refuge at the Friendly Arms Inn

You can enter the house and quickly grab her old boots and wine to take back to her for several hundred xp each (and some gold), but be warned that the spiders inside will immediately attack. 

Warning: If you decide to take on the spiders without incapacitating them with a nonviolent spell like Color Spray, they can also quickly spill out the door and trap you if you're not careful. 

One last Beregost side quest we didn't find a pure pacifist run solution for: 

In a house a little ways north of the Thunderhammer Smithy, there is a woman named Mirianne who is concerned about the lack of news of her husband Roe. It turns out that he already sent her a letter, but ogrillons killed the messenger carrying the letter on the road south of Beregost, and stole it.

Unfortunately Ogrillons (as well as ogres) seem to be immune to Charm spells, so we didn't find a nonviolent way to get back the letter, so skipped it on our run. If you prefer to set Mirianne's mind at ease by charming other creatures to defeat the Ogrillions, though, you'd be rewarded with 300 xp and another Ring of Protection.

Baldur's Gate Pacifist Run: Riverside Farmland & Wyrm's Crossing

North of the Friendly Arms Inn, you'll find a riverside pastoral area that's home to some fishermen with a dark story behind their current troubles, and an old farmer plagued by huge burrowing creatures called Ankhegs.

The Ankhegs are dangerous even to pacifist challengers who are pretty skilled at running away from foes, because they can launch dangerous gob-like projectiles, and also unexpectedly appear burrow up to attack you from underground.

One tip is that the Ankhegs, despite their huge size, appear to be susceptible to the Sleep spell, and possibly other nonviolent spells. 

However, in addition to using stealth to prevent them from spotting you, you can also avoid them by choosing your route carefully, since they're only found in particular areas: If you follow the road up to where Ajantis is standing a short way north of the southern starting point, you'll just have to make sure none of the bandits lurking on either side see you, but will have enough room to sneak up north of Ajantis to reach the houses of the fishermen, and other places beyond that.

Ajantis

There is a paladin (or strictly speaking a squire on a sort of knight's quest to become a paladin) named Ajantis who is strong and makes a good lawful good ally if you want to bring him with you: He is eager to join anyone on a quest to oppose evil, and his current goal was just to strike at the bandits plageuing the Coast Way. We didn't talk to Ajantis at first, however, because having a third member while evading foes with stealth and magic wasn't ideal at the time (but as far as we know he won't leave if you wait to talk to him later).

The Fishermen

There are three fishermen at the homes you'll find in the northwest: Sonner, Telmen, and Jebadon. 

Sonner appears to be more or less the leader of the group, and will tell you that they are poor men with hard lives, due to their oppression at the hands of the evil water deity Umberlee's priestesses. The priestesses of Umberlee use a golden Bowl of Elemental control to cause flooding and deadly storms if they refuse to pay onerous tributes, and Sonner says that their attacks have already killed one of them, and is ruining the livelihood of all the others by making it impossible to put out in their boats to fish.

Sonner will consequently offer you some gold and a magical weapon if you kill the priestess for them, but you won't have to do that even if you agree to it at first.   

If you head north (most easily by keeping near the river's edge, to avoid Ankhegs), you can travel one map to the north and find yourself at Wyrm's Crossing. (We'll explain first, then return south to cover the other quest available at the riverside farm afterward.)

Wyrm's Crossing & Tenya the Water Priestess

Coming up the road or riverbank from the south, you'll find yourself at the foot of huge stone bridge fording the river and leading right to the gates of Baldur's Gate, but you won't be able to get inside the city yet if you try (since you'd be stopped by Flaming Fist mercenaries who will tell you the Grand Dukes have closed the gates for the time being). 

If you head north along the wooded riverbank, however, you'll find the cottage where the water priestess Tenya lives, and be able to ask her about the fishermen.  We recommend saving your game first for reasons that will become clear:  

Tenya is very emotional and won't be too forthcoming initially. If you talk to her twice (which is the only way to get to a resolution that we know of), she'll attack you briefly after leaping to the conclusion that you're on the side of the fishermen who want to have her murdered, but fortunately you won't be forced to harm her since she'll soon stop: Be careful, however, as you'll only want to do the minimum damage (e.g. by having Imoen throw a dart at her), after which she should stop attacking and tearfully demand to know why you're helping the fishermen. 

(Tenya will also likely cast an entangling spell which looks dramatic, but isn't dangerous even if it lasts after the combat stops.)

By being patient with Tenya, you'll now be able to ask her about her side of the story, and she'll claim that the fishermen kidnapped her mother (a senior water priestess of Umberlee) and tortured her to death to try to learn the secrets of how to use the Bowl of Water Elemental Control.
If you tell Tenya that you'll side with her and go get back the Bowl, you'll now have the option to return to the fishermen and confront them about it.

At this point, the fishermen will admit that they caused the priestess' death, but claim it was an accident: 

Apparently the fishermen tried to fight back against the oppression of the evil Umberlee's water sect by a pact with the equally evil storm deity Talos, after being persuaded to do this by a priest of Talos from Baldur's Gate.

At this point, the option to solve the  quest in Tenya's favor by demanding the return of the bowl will be offered in the dialogue choices. Sonner will then give you the bowl, warning that the two evil storm deities are vengeful sorts when crossed, and go back into their huts. 

Caveat: Here we again warn that it's best to have the "Party AI" turned off, because the fishermen will become "hostile" to you at this point due to their resentment, but won't ever do anything at all to attack you. However,  if Party AI is left on, NPC allies might automatically start attacking them while they're trying to go back inside their huts. (The fishermen will never attack you even if you follow them inside, by the way, but would just walk outside to get away from you.)

Once you have the golden Bowl of Elemental Control from Sonner, you can take it back to Tenya and give it to her, and she'll be very grateful to you and claim she'll repay you when you reach Baldur's Gate. For completing the quest this way, you'll receive an impressive 2500 xp. (The only thing you'll miss is the +1 Flail that Sonner has, unless you dealt even more sharply with the fishermen by also casting Charm on Sonner and pick-pocketing the flail using your rogue/thief's pickpocket skill.)

Alternative method:

While it wouldn't provide as much of the dramatic background history, there is also a quicker and less confrontational alternative offered by our other contributor, who had his solo halfing thief McGibbits run directly up behind Sonner without ever talking to him or the other fishermen at all, and pick-pocketing both the Bowl of Water Elemental Control and the +1 Flail from Sonner without ever beginning fishermen's the dialogue. He then went directly to Wyrm's Crossing, and completed both conversations with Tenya in one trip to give her the Bowl and receive the 2500 xp.

Farmer Brun & The Ankheg Pit:
There is a sad but nonetheless nonviolent quest that you can also complete in the riverside farmland area on the same map as the fishermen, but one which will reward you with about 1500 xp in total (if you make the right choices in dialogues).
To initiate it, visit Farm Brun's farm and you'll learn that his son Nathan disappeared when he was out looking for missing cows, and is now missing. Unfortunately, you won't be able bring about a happy ending.
Note: This quest would probably be safest if you have the ability to cast invisibility on more than one party member, though it can be done without this.
If your current player character and allies have low strength and can't carry an extra 120 pounds, now would probably be a good time to recruit Ajantis nearby (or some other ally of your choice with high strength). Alternately, you could probably also consume a potion of strength.
You'll find the gaping dark hole to the Ankheg's underground cavern in the west between the fishermens' homes and Brun's farm.

When you descend into the inside of the huge cavern, it will look like a labyrinth, but you'll only actually need to keep to the uppermost passages and head east in order to find the hoard of treasure that unfortunately also contains the body of Brun's son (which you'll need to bring back to him to complete the quest). 

If you have invisibility spells, you can use them here, and a thief's hide in shadows skill will also let you infiltrate the burrows without being seen by the ankhegs, if it's strong enough not to fail at a crucial point.

We tested this using stealth, but it would probably also work to enter and use nonlethal spells, or just run past the ankhegs. Ankhegs are capable of inflicting lots of damage with projectile attacks, but less dangerous if you move quickly without stopping to confront them, as long as you have enough healing potions to make sure they don't kill anyone before you can get away.

If you stick to the upper paths only and don't wander into the cavern, you will probably only have to run or sneak past about three ankhegs. 

The main challenge is when you reach the east end and have to grab all the treasure and the body out of the hoard: This is why you'll need a strong fighter to carry the body. If you cast invisibility on the strong ally, he (or whoever is chosen to loot the items out of the hoard) will have to break the spell near an Ankheg a short way to the east, but you can pause the action while you loot the items. (You can also pass items around to other allies even if they're too heavy for the player who takes them to move around with, so if you kept your strong ally invisible and used a thief with solid stealth or a mage with one more invisibility spell to cast, you could pass the items around and then have everyone leave the caves invisible again.)

We tested a few approaches on different player's runs: The ones who were invisible obviously got out effortlessly, but the others also got out of the caves even without the ability to hide from the Ankhegs: One hit Ajantis with a projectile for a lot of damage, but he was tough and lucky enough to survive, and using some healing potions on him was a minor cost in exchange for the treasures in the hoard, which include valuable wands, scrolls, potions, and magic armor and weapons. (Minor caveat: One potion is a cursed antidote.)

Also, one Ankheg that followed the group out of the hoard was immediately rendered unconscious (but unharmed) by the Sleep spell.

When you bring Brun the body and the sad news (preferably approaching from above the farm to avoid the Aknheg a short way below it), you will receive 500 xp. If you then talk to him again and  ask him to accept 100 gold pieces, you'll get an additional 1000 xp and your reputation will increase.

Regarding division of the xp: 

In most if not all cases, you'll be free to ask Ajantis (or whoever you used to carry the body) to temporarily leave and then rejoin the party, if you want all the xp to go to your own character or other allies: He will just stand where he was whenever you asked him to leave, and you can then pass over the body to Brun to get the xp, and then immediately ask Ajantis to rejoin you again afterward.

If this seems cynical and/or too silly for you though, you should find enough pacifist run xp in the longrun to cut Ajantis into his share here.