Carinna

My point was killing the undead would not be "killing" the original creature, since it already died some time ago.

Yes, this is actually the reasoning I am using to avoid having to completely change the game around for chapters 3 and 6.

I have finished going through the game and finding all the places in the main line quest where the party is forced to make a kill unnecessary to the plot in order to proceed and have drafted an annotation of what needs changing with some suggestions for how to change it, as Berelinde suggested.  Here is what I came up with:

Baldur's Gate II - SoA Pacifist Mod

Concept:  To permit a player to complete the MAIN LINE of quests without also REQUIRING any kills except Irenicus (and assorted already-dead vampires, including Bodhi).

What this mod is not:  This is not a mod to tame everything in the game.  Monsters will still attack you.  You are free to strike back or turn the other cheek (or run past them if you can).  All this mod provides is an unlocked door at the other end if you choose to run.

What this mod is ALSO not: This is not a moral judgment on how to play the game with a good alignment.  Not killing an evil creature can doom a good one.  This mod simply provides the player with more roleplaying choices than he/she previously had.

Solutions (by chapter):

Chapter 1:
Required kills:  4 mephit portals (AR0603).
Description: the door leading to the exit remains locked until all the mephit portals are dead.
Solution:  Door is always unlocked (Why is it locked anyway?  Did Yoshimo lock it up?)
Comment:  Yes, the mephit portals will continue to spit out mephits.  The only change is that the player is not REQUIRED to kill them to exit the dungeon.  He/she can run instead.

Chapter 2:
No changes required.

Chapter 3:
Required kills: Jaylos, Caehan, and Gracen (the defecting thieves and their contact at the Five Flagons Inn AR0511).
Description: Female PCs are required to kill all three men (and male PCs might be required to do so as well, since the only existing journal entry for the quest states they are all dead).
Solution: Change the dialogue so there is an option for the player to actually fool them into believing the party members are also defectors (this dialogue is already written).
Comment:  While several vampires get staked in this chapter, being vampires, they were already dead, so no changes need to be made to the remainder of the quests.  

Chapter 4:
Required kills: kobolds (AR1507), myconids (AR1503), and a troll (AR1506).
Description: "Graduation" from Spellhold requires the party be put through a series of tests.  The first two of these tests require the party to kill everything in sight before they are permitted to progress (and progression is only via teleportation).  A subsequent test requires a troll to be killed for his head, whether the party wants the treasure the head will grant or not.  This later room is already set up so that it appears to have a door that will not unlock until the troll is dead (I know it's a teleport too, but it looks like a door because it is around a corner).
Preferred Solution (for AR1507 and AR1503):  Provide a physical exit from AR1507 and AR1509 opposed to waiting for teleportation.  Allow the party to either kill the monsters (as in vanilla) or run past them to the exit. The keeper mage can meet them there and say his lines, similarly to the way he meets them in the troll scene.
Alternate Solution (for AR1507 and AR1503): Allow the keeper mage to permit progression (via teleport) from AR1507 and AR1509 if the party can render either a) the kobolds and myconids neutralized (via sleep, confusion, horror, etc., or anything else that disrupts them without killing) or b) the party inaccessible to the monsters (i.e. invisibility, protection from weapons, etc.)
OR: If the game can detect that the party did not kill any of the kobolds in AR1507, transport the party directly to AR1506 (this implementation will not require any changes to AR1503).  Reason: the keeper tells the party he doesn't know why they ended up in AR1503; that it must have been some sort of setback.  This solution gives context to the setback.
Solution (for AR1506):  Change exit door (or teleport) from AR1506 so that it is always unlocked (or attended by the keeper mage).  Reaching the door will permit the party to progress without needing to first kill the troll.
Comment: The kobolds, myconids, and trolls will not go away and will still attack as they currently do.  The only difference is that the player will not be stuck on that scene until the monsters are all dead.

Chapter 5:
Required kill: Demon in svirfneblin city (or the svirfneblin leader).
Description:  The party cannot exit the Underdark without first being disguised as Drow, or without killing the Drow party that guards the exit.  To be disguised as Drow, the party must meet Adalon, but they cannot get the gem that permits access to Adalon until they first kill either a demon or the svirfneblin leader. (While a thief could pickpocket the gem, not all parties will have this skill).
Solution: Alter the dialogue with the svirfneblin leader in AR2100 so it is clear that the demon can't really be killed, but just banished to its original location (plane?) and the "doorway" to the prime material plane locked with the earth scroll the svirfneblin provide.  I know this may be obvious already to many people, but it needs to be said more explicitly.
Comment:  I will write the dialogue changes for the party interaction with the svirfneblin leader.

Chapter 6:
No changes required.


Chapter 7:
No changes required.

I do need help to make this a reality.  I'm a dialogue writer; I don't do much else.  Thank you to everyone who has commented on this subject so far; I really appreciate the interest.

I wouldn't mind coming up with some way to not kill the vampires, either, but can't think of a convincing method or reason for doing so (at least, not without creating a much, much more involved mod than I want to for my first try).  So I am passing undead off as "dead already" for at least the first version of this mod.

Really, you can't "kill" undead because they're already dead. What you can do is release them from their curse - at least in the case of lesser undead like skeletons, ghouls, etc., who have almost always been animated without much choice in the matter by evil priests. Even in the case of vampires, it could be said that the creature's original soul has long since departed for whichever outer plane it aligned to, and its body is inhabited by some other evil force (which would also go back to its lower plane when the body is "killed" just like demons, etc., so you can't really kill those either unless you do so on their home planes).

Well, yes.  It's the release from the curse I was thinking of in terms of not "killing" the undead.  But whether that brought them back to life or not (I'm thinking not), it would involve a quest (or several of them) that I'm not prepared to write for my very first mod.  Right now this is a mini-mod with only a few changes, which I think is good to start with (though I have a lot of ideas for more things to come).  Incidentally, I believe many of the vampires can be released from their curse also; not all of them were willing converts either (I suspect the "fledgling vampires" in Bodhi's lair were former Shadow Thieves surprised by what happened to them).  Bodhi herself, of course, chose to become one.

I don't like KwiatW's solution because it's far from vanilla game and rules.

Ah.  I like it because it seems more realistic.  In real life, if you rendered someone unconscious, you could go through their stuff and take what you wanted.  In BG, you have to kill them to do that if you don't use KwaitW's mod (or one like it, if there is another).  But not everyone thinks like I do, I know.

I'm thinking in how many situations player is forced to kill someone to get an item. If there's not so many of this sort of situation, additional dialogue when character is helpless (unsoscious, charmed, held etc.) would suit the game just fine. Even not for pacifist players, solution of beating someone with barehands (not as Monk!) and THEN using some negotiations would be appreciated.

Well, for the first version, I am only concerned with the main line quests that you MUST do to complete the game.  For those there are only about 3 places (maybe another in Suldanessallar; I'll be sure after I play through it this time) you need to, not counting killing vampires (or Irenicus or his Tree-of-Life parasites).  If I enjoy doing this one and I get much better at modding, then I will probably upgrade it to add more no-kill options to the side quests that require a gratuitous kill right now.

This reminds me:  To avoid fighting the black dragon in Suldanessallar, does anyone know if there is a minimum Charisma or other stat requirement (or minimum gold/treasure requirement)?

One of the items you can use to satisfy the "body part" requirement is the eyestalk of an elder beholder. Zyraen's Miscellany offers Ust Natha accelerator that lets you avoid most of the killing in the Underdark, and lets you walk a short distance to kill one beholder. Since beholders are abominations, and since your character doesn't seem to mind killing abominations, that should work.

In the meantime, I'll wait to see some of the other parts of the game you think might be improved by alternative quest solutions. It's possible that I can help you with some of them.

Thank you.  I am currently working on finding all the remaining places in SoA that require a kill before the game will proceed (I'm about to go to Suldanessallar, so hopefully it won't take much longer).  Although I originally stated that in my case I didn't mind killing golems, undead, or extra-planar creatures not on their home plane, I thought for this mod that I should provide alternatives for killing for as many types of creatures as possible, to give the most role-playability to others who might want to be more restrictive than I was.  I wouldn't mind coming up with some way to not kill the vampires, either, but can't think of a convincing method or reason for doing so (at least, not without creating a much, much more involved mod than I want to for my first try).  So I am passing undead off as "dead already" for at least the first version of this mod.  All that is to say that I really don't want to be forced to kill beholders, either.  But I believe I've already come up with a simple solution for not needing to kill to exit the Underdark (will post with other solutions when I finish SoA again).

Yes, for additional dialogue options based on Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma trio. I think that mod looks very promising, especially when your character is a Paladin and should avoid killing humanoids (with very few exceptions). I'd love to see a possibility of making enemy uncoscious or fleeing from battlefield - and granting to character xp value similiar to those from killing (even a bit larger because you don't get fallen enemie's loot). I think that Sword Angel kit has something like this. I hope that amount of alternative solutions will increase. (Berelinde, short question, weren't you making mod known as Alternatives?)

Thank you!  It's nice to know there could be someone besides me playing this when it's finished!  As far as making an enemy unconscious, there is already a mod to get quest (and other) items from them (providing the items are carried items and not blood or their head or something).  It's not on the mod downloads page, though, since the author never moved it from there.  Try Kwait_W's "search body" mod. Rendering someone unconscious so Kwait's feature can be used is somewhat problematic, however.

The changes I envision could be based on Wisdom/Charisma when a dialogue is necessary to prevent hostility, but I will need much more help in writing the conditions for the dialogue if it is done that way.  Other changes don't require any interaction and would just be added to the game for anyone (doors being unlocked, for instance).

I'm not the most advanced coder out there. I'm not even in the top 500. If I wanted to get that area transition unlocked without Adalon, I'd look at how it's done *with* Adalon and move forward from there. In all likelihood, I'd see if there was a way that I could use her still and not have to do the fake eggs thing. Basically, I'd look for a workaround that involved the least game-tweaking necessary.

By the way, you do know that you don't have to kill anybody besides golems to get the egg switch done, right? You go to do the egg thing and Solaufein meets you and says "Use these eggs instead. And by the way, take my fake piwalfi cloak so Phaere thinks I"m dead." Nobody but the Matron Mother and Phaere die, and I figure they had it coming, anyway, since one encourages the party to kill innocents and the other forces my male PC to betray his manipulative avariel/domineering c***/Viconia and bed a really slutty drow. The last two euphamisms are meant to show that bad things exist even in the so-called innocent version. Few object to the Aerie or Jaheira romances, despite the fact that one is manipulative in the extreme and the other forgets her late, mutilated husband in a matter of days just because her former foster-son is hot. So... you'd be sparing Solaufein, taking false evidence to Phaere, not killing a single innocent dragon, and still getting the evil drow killed by the demon they gate in. If you wanted to avoid the whole gating sequence, that's another quest, and another set of parameters to work around.

I have no objection to Phaere and Ardulace getting killed by the demon.  What I want to prevent is having the party be killers (I couldn't stop Phaere and Ardulace short of killing them anyway), though I don't mean they (the party) can summon hordes of whatever and have the summons do the killing, either.   IMO Phaere and Ardulace made their own decisions; they're adults.  Even if Phaere was tortured to make her the way she is, there is nothing to be done about it now.

I realize that for the end quest of getting the eggs, no one has to die (and I don't kill anyone to do it, either).  However, to get to that point, you have to provide the blood of something that was formerly living to Ardulace.  If you don't, Phaere will never give you access to the eggs (unless I am missing something).  The only way to get that blood would be to kill who it belonged to.

I don't like any of the romances, either, for the reasons you mention (nor do I like Anomen, whose bloodbath would scare me away permanently in real life, even if I could stand his personality up until then).

Anyhow, thank you, and I am trying to do the least invasive method possible.  I just wasn't sure if there was some way to open the doors without seeing Adalon first.  You mention some other quest as an alternative.  What is that?