Keep one thing in mind when reading this: my play-through has been based on severe limitations so the creativity came from how I solved this problem, not so much that it's an amazing thing beyond how I felt when I pulled it off.
You know how there tend to be little side-moments in missions if you explore enough? Well I was trying really hard to deal with one. I won't say where or what the story of the moment was about so that it should be spoiler free.
Two guys are accosting a woman. They want something she has. My goal is to stop both of them non-lethally, but I haven't upgraded any powers or any of my weapons. Any one of those would have made this an ordinary experience. Ideally, I wanted to knock them out from afar with sleep darts and not trigger an alerted state from either of them while leaving the woman alive. This was not working in the fashion I hoped. I could pull one dart off but the other guy would kill the woman and then run toward me.
Finally, I figure out a way to do it. I had to take advantage of a quirk with the AI and do something unintuitive when going for a non-lethal play-through. I waited for them to position just right and then I used regular cross-bow bolts to shoot a knee on each of them. The awareness would either go up two or three notches so I'd have to act fast. I knock the one farthest away from me out. The second one has three indicators and I've missed him with my first dart. He's about to bring the sword down on the woman when I shoot him successfully with a second dart. The swing fails and he falls toward the woman, who is safe while I preserve my anonymity.
I was very proud. That said, because of all my limitations I am playing on Normal. A higher difficulty and their awareness might have been too quick for my base equipment and reflexes, such as they are. The woman gave me a reward and went on her way, and then I lost my no kill status later on somehow in the same mission.

There was something else I did at the same mission, but it would be spoilery. It wasn't special at all. It revealed something that I didn't know before and my mouth dropped when it happened. I couldn't believe what I saw and it confirmed a lot of story elements. All because I was frustrated.
This game is the bestest.