Priest of Life – Best Character Build for a Pacifist Challenge
The Priest of Life has sworn a most sacred oath to never harm or kill any living creature. His, or her, character build is completely composed of non-violent solutions to aggressive enemies. If you ever fancied trying a pacifist playthrough in Skyrim (or Oblivion) then this may be the best possible character build.
This following guide is written for Skyrim but in the advent of the recent release of Oblivion Remastered it might be a fun exercise for the reader to adapt it for Oblivion.
Skills
Naturally the Priest of Life set on the path of pacifism will avoid all the combat skills.
Illusion
Illusion gives us Fear and Calm for two non damaging ways to neutralise hostiles. It also gives us some stealth abilities with Invisibility and Muffle. We must not use the Fury chain of spells because they do lead to injury and death.
Alteration
Alteration does not have too much for us, but the spell Detect Life is invaluable for helping us avoid enemies and blundering into ambushes.
The flesh spells are fine for they do no harm to hostiles but making our character a bit tougher does not really help resolve combat peacefully.
I would consider the paralysis spells to be acceptable to use but they are quite rare and high level.
Restoration
Healing is fine of course, although if we do well with our illusions and sneaking we should avoid taking damage too. Restoration also has some spells for making undead flee.
Alchemy
Alchemy has three uses for this build: health potions, invisibility potions and a trade craft for raising money. Arguably the best reason for taking Alchemy is for its money earning potential. Skyrim does have a few non-violent means of making money, from chopping firewood to picking cabbages, but crafting and selling potions is far less boring and also more lucrative.
Sneak
Although the Priest of Life is no thief, sneaking at least has some use for avoiding enemies.
Running
Although not a skill as such, running away can be a very effective way of avoiding enemies. (Oblivion is better than Skyrim for representing this skill with an actual skill tree).
Speech
In Skyrim speech is almost entirely for getting a better deal on trades. It would be nice if we could use it to de-escalate some encounters or achieve more goals through persuasion or charm, but Skyrim was not really made for that.
Race
Races with magic related abilities such as Bretons and Altmer are just fine. The Voice of the Emperor ability of Imperials which pacifies nearby enemies is the best fit.
Pacifist Challenge Rules for the Life Mage
I feel like there are two possible motivations for the character in the pacifist challenge, one is out of a strong moral conviction, the other is out of sheer cowardice in the face of danger. These different motivations will lead to some very different challenge constraints.
A lot of “pacifist” challenges we see out there tend to assume the latter reason, but the latter reason does not really preclude using indirect violence. There is not really any good reason for a coward to not let others do the killing on his behalf.
The Priest of Life is very much of the former motivation rather than the latter. Consequently this character can not use followers or conjurations or other tricks to dispose of hostiles. This also rules out using the fury chain of spells as it directly leads to harm.
In this way the thematic reason for the pacifism will shape the constraints of the pacifist challenge.
Constraint One – Do No Harm to Any Living Creature Even Indirectly
The Priest of Life may not kill or injure any living creature in the game, regardless of its hostility, directly or indirectly.
This does not necessarily forbid having followers but because really all followers will engage enemies they have to be used extremely carefully. One use for followers outside of combat is to carry inventory. Otherwise their main use is in combat. A strict pacifist challenge ought to avoid causing deaths by followers.
Conjurations are also forbidden since they really have no use beyond combat.
A very strict interpretation could raise some issues with gathering ingredients for alchemy and also food. Many ingredients can be sourced from animals also bees, fish and butterflies. Are these also forbidden?
Potentially food is an issue too. If the Priest of Life will not kill wolves to save his own life then will he eat meat? Perhaps an a vegetarian diet is also implied?
Loophole One – Do the Dead Count?
The Priest of Life’s oath is for living creatures. Perhaps a less strict interpretation could allow guilt free damage to undead and machines like the dwemer constructs.
Illusion spells such as Fear and Calm do not work on undead or constructs, although Restoration does give us some non-violent options for the undead at least. There are also some Restoration spells that hurt the undead that we could use if we do not count them for our moral code against harm.
Constraint Two – No Stealing
If the Priest of Life is morally motivated to do no harm then he will also avoid the lesser evil of stealing. A strict interpretation could also forbid taking any loot even if it is not marked as owned. With this constraint property can only be obtained by trade, gift and harvesting from clearly unowned resources.
Objectives for the Pacifist Run
Now we know what our Priest of Life may do, and not do, and how to do them, we must have a reasonable objective for the character to achieve.
What is the pacifist even hoping to do in Skyrim? How do we win?
The main quest of course is out, as we must kill dragons at the very least. For this reason we need to know the best way on how to avoid becoming Dragonborn, see my article and video on how to avoid becoming the Dragonborn.
Most factions are also out. Even the thieves guild will lead to some killing and our Priest of Life is not a thief anyway.
The Dawnguard might be an option if we are not counting vampires as living creatures, see the loophole above.
Otherwise the best objective aligned with this build’s constraints will be to acquire a house to live in and fully upgrade it, and perhaps also acquire a spouse and a family. The win condition for this challenge then will be that.
Ordinarily these objectives are not very difficult but ordinarily we can earn the gold fee for a house through wholesale theft and slaughter. The Priest of Life will have to find other non-violent and non-larcenous means to raise the money.
An additional non-violent objective could be to stock your library with books and to actually read them.
There we go the best character build for a pacifist challenge in Skyrim (or Oblivion).
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