I expect some of this is due to your choice of language. I had no idea what a "forced guest" might be. What you meant is that you had no followers, but the quest had an NPC with you on the adventure which you couldn't reject and HIS kills counted toward yours.

Had you been clear, you wouldn't have confused some of your responders.

There's nothing you can do. All you can do is to live with the kills the NPC racks up on your behalf. Really though if you're there with an NPC and he's killing things, then you would be culpable in most jurisdictions, so the fact that you aren't "sinning in your heart" is fairly meaningless. Really the game is not meant for this. You might as well complain that the game is not an adequate platform for fashion shows because there is no good runway and the clothing isn't fashionable. This game is about conflict so if you're trying to not kill things you really can't complain that the game doesn't accommodate you. It would be a miracle if it did.

I did it! I pulled it off!

It took a combination of grinding up illusion to allow frenzy to work on the undead, and... Locking Mercer behind iron bars, I kid you not. In grinding up, apparently he leveled beyond calm's grasp. So instead, I had to be careful to keep him behind iron bars. I then frenzied the draugr from a safe distance, made my way through, and got into the inner sanctum. He joined back up, and that's where the hard part began.

Despite being the leader of the Theives' Guild, Mercer wouldn't understand stealth if it came up and stabbed him in the back. BY THE EIGHT that was frustrating... just had to sneak past one druagr Scourge. Not too hard. For me. Mercer, on the other hand, considers stealth "Killing everything in sight." I swear it took ten tries to get the guy to not aggro the draugr, make my way to the next iron cage to lock him up, and deal with any groups I came across.

To add insult to injury, though, the jerk stabs me at the end of the dungeon. I finally understood - he actually WAS trying to get me killed.

To this, I have one last question - If I Fus Ro Dah him off a cliff, does that count as a kill, or can I truly have my vengance against this guy?

@Knock-knock: Aye, those are what I'm specializing in. I have yet to unlock the dragon attacks, so I've not leveled restoration much, but that's basically what I've been doing. I am using armor, but it's the Thieves' Guild armor, rather than anything made for defense. Gotta wear my colors!

I'm good enough at sneaking that I can do anything on my own, really. Draugr are easy to get past - stupid things are blind! But when I am forced to have a follower when I want to do stealth... hardest parts in this run, I swear. This is why only my warrior has a follower. All three of my other characters need stealth, either for build design or for survival.

@Lilbear - no, it's not against my rules to attack - I just can't kill. Problem is that I don't accidently want to one-shot things. I have sneak attack damage to worry about, so I'd rather cast a frenzy spell than use a frenzy arrow. Thanks for the suggestion though, guys. It's nice to see that there are at least SOME helpful people on this forum.

@Carbon - It's straightforward, though. A Guest in your party which is Forced upon you. I guess standard RPG terminology doesn't apply to the Elder Scrolls forums, considering all the people who told me to "just go alone". A little common sense would go a long way, too - if I could, I would, because we all know how bad followers are. The fact that I have one with me in a STEALTH file should have at least made you think "hmm, maybe she has no choice?" The fact that I said I'm doing the Thieves Guild Questline and have MERCER with me should tell you exactly which quest it is I have to do, which should also tell you "She has no choice but to go with him". Unlike most game devs, I don't treat everyone like they're morons, I expect them to have some degree of intelligence. Perhaps next time, though, I'll follow gaming's example and give you a hand-holding tutorial that tries to insult your intelligence every chance it gets. *sagenod*

Role, kudos to you for getting it done your way. Can't help you with the "Mercer" issues.... good luck. And more kudos to you for mostly ignoring the peanut gallery (that would be the people who got snarky about your chosen playstyle.... in a SPMR/sandbox game....)

The only problem I noticed here was that guy featured on Kotaku with the 0 kills didn't actually do the Thieves Guild questline (at least not that I'm aware of)...

But it's awesome that you figured out a way to do it. You're way more stubborn (and patient!) than I would be.

That's awesome, grats!

May I ask how you intend getting through the main quest without a kill count? Considering the fact that the entire main quest is killing Alduin, that would be kinda hard. Granted, you have followers for that, but their killing of Alduin would probably count towards you doing it. And I'm pretty sure Alduin won't get bored and commit suicide. Even then, I'm not entirely sure your followers CAN realistically kill Alduin. But, who knows.

Aye, that's easily the biggest challenge of the quest. In fact, that may be a forced kill. However, until then I'm going to do as much as I can without getting a Kill Count. For this reason, Main Quest is the last quest I will be doing.

I still need to know of Fus Ro Dah-ing someone off a cliff counts as a kill, or if it counts as Nirn killing them...

Fury may work so that they all kill each other...that's what I did for the Dark Brotherhood. Watching the bride and her husband's family trying to murder them both was unexpectedly funny...another possibility is to kill them all with traps, or see if they'll follow you out of the dungeon and into the wilderness somewhere. They're undead, so death by poison isn't an option...

Nevermind, I see you pulled it off.

I lold at this but really I understand what your doing sounds really hard I don't think I ever do it, you can alway ignore those kills but you want all your kill 0 stats page getting your Illusion up to 90 Frenzy the Draugr good idea I wish I can help all I can say is good lucky and hope you find a way to do that quest with no kills..

Fury works fine, yeah. I usually use a combo of fury and calm, but the problem was these were undead, and... well... I'd have to grind up to 90 illusion. So... I did.

I have learned a few tricks as I've done this, which really come in handy... where I run into problems is when the ally AI of a forced follower either decides to be an idiot, I have to clear out an entire area, or instances where I have no traps to fall back on... these really kind hurt.

So far, though, I'm going good. There a few places I'll have to head back to once I get a follower who doesn't count as a kill contributor... The only huge hurdle I see is how to do this with Alduin, which... yeah...

Still need to know if I can use Fus Ro Dah as a tactic, though. If I can, I'll go ahead and do part of the main quest up until I get it, but if not... well, so much for that idea.

*puts gun in mouth and pulls trigger*

If you're going to take all the effort not to kill anything, do your stats really matter at that point? The game is tailored for you to kill, if you manage to weasel your way past that, your stats hardly mean anything.

congrats on completing your goal, Role. If anything it shows that Skyrim can amuse and entertain (if you have the patience and skill) long after we kill everything in sight stone dead. Incuding our reasons and limited desires for playing it.

I don't even think you can finish the Thieves' Guild questline without killing, if that's what you're planning on.

Well, it was only one step towards my goal, really. Still, thanks. It's nice to see that not all the commenters here are filthy halo jocks.

See, that's not the way to make friends.

The second-to-last Thieves Guild Guild mission will be even harder to get trough without killing, maybe impossible due to the boss, but the people you are with (mostly) understand the idea of being a thief

But as i keep saying, this is a discuised dungeon crawler where killing legions of evil because evil is the main event. If you actually manage to pull this off i'll be very impressed

QFT. Actually, polite voice of sweet reason is a better way to belittle.... (that is NOT pointed at the OP other than a bit of chiding for a fairly nasty dig at some of the idiots.... which is understandable, if not laudable.)

Hey, not everybody who plays Halo are "filthy" or "jocks!" Some of them are also prepubascent children who enjoy teabagging virtual, dead bodies. But to be fair, you are sorta being intense about this. People have different tastes in video games, and I for one like almost all of them (the games, definitely not the people). I for one couldn't stand playing most games where killing was a mechanic, and then not killing. But I see the appeal in it because of the challenge. Either way, most of the people on here do not mean any offense to you by saying something, although you definitely get that from time to time. Just try to relax. It's a forum, and a game (albeit an extremely good game), nothing more. Just try to have fun!

Nor is going around and trying to insult people trying to do a no-kills run by saying that everything exists to be skewered by your blade. If you see that someone's trying to do a certain type of run, do not run in and tell them to stop running it. You come across as some prude little jerk. In this case, half the people replying are telling me I should just kill stuff, which defeats the entire point of the run. As far as I'm concerned, you guys got into gameing by playing Halo, care only about how macho you sound, and really don't have much in the way of skill, nor a desire for a good challenge. You're the types to think that quickscoping is a valid tactic and who look upon Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and just curl up into tiny little balls and cry because it's "too hard".

That's how you come across to me when you tell me to just kill things in a thread about a no-kills challenge. Filthy. Little. Halo. Jocks.

It is most definitely not a way to make friends, buddy. Stop belitting me for my Self Imposed Challenge, and I'll stop belitting you.


Now, for those of you who have helpful suggestions and ideas, I thank you. To me, you guys seem like proper roleplayers who understand what a character concept is. My character is a thief not a killer, and you understand and try help me keep it that way.

The point Allie and I were trying to make, Role, is that you really should simply ignore those who are not posting helpfully. Stooping to their level isn't a good thing. At all. Ever.

"Sometimes, people just need to be shot in the head."

Also applies to Skyrim.

Not to be rude, but alas, I don't think you can leave forced companions anywhere. I don't see anyway around it, other than ignoring the stats and going off of what you KNOW to be true...

...or shooting ancient Nordic zombies in the face with an arrow.

Andraste's flaming knickers, this thread is a mess. I've seen some of the most uncalled for insults and venomous replies that just happened without provocation. To those people, shame on you. You come across as idiot mouthbreathers. To the OP, damn. Sounds like quite the challenge. Kudos to you for having the patience to pull it off. You could stand to not draw down at the slightest provocation though. You do seem kind of touchy. But I say hey, if you wanna play a no kill run, go for it. It's how you play the game for fun to you that matters, despite other peoples' opinions.