Scavenging

The amount of pure gathering quests are few and far between, but they are a life-saver in terms of XP. Unfortunately, the gatherables are usually surrounded by mobs.

My usual strategy is run in, war stomp to stun the enemies, grab my gatherable, and run out. Then I skirt the area looking for another easy pick, and waiting for war stomp to recharge. Occasionally the gather "cast" is fast enough that I can run in and get it with one or two mobs attacking me.

The best times happen when I arrive at the gathering area to find a bunch of corpses. Someone else is in the area, clearing the mobs away, and I have free space to stroll around and gather my goods. Stumbling upon this situation is an absolute delight!

Other times, a high-level character is in the area for whatever reason - mining or herbing low-level things. My strategy for when this happens is to wait for him to pull the mobs he runs through, then dash in and grab my gatherables before the mobs give up the chase and come back. It's a tricky situation!

Oh, sparkly pick-ups. You got me to level 8! What lies beyond?

Vendor Clothes?!

It would seem so far that Eversong Woods is the friendliest place for me in terms of finding gathering and delivery quests. I'd say I'm going to have to scrutinize each place for these kinds of quests, as it's looking like I'll probably make several rounds through the starting zones as I slowly level up.

Meanwhile, I'm doing alright on the money front, but not well enough that I can start buying stuff off the Auction House. This must be the first time in my WoW career where I actually bought armor from a vendor. I was delighted to see that at least my new "set" of gear matches, although it makes me look something like Xena the Warrior Cow.

More Clarifications

Several people have asked me whether or not I will count it if I'm grouped with people who are killing things while I heal them.

So far, I am unsure. Will and I are going to do a test on another character, and see if a party member killing something will add that mob to your "monsters killed" stat on WoW Armory.

Also, I just sort of have to roll along and see if that will make things too easy or not. I'm crafting the terms of the experiment as I go, which may be cheating a little. Fortunately, this is not science :D

Counting your Coppers

As I suspected, getting money is a huge issue when you can't kill anything! After exploring and doing delivery quests enough to get myself to level 5, I had to sell everything on me to pay for herbalism. I chose it first since it didn't need any other supplies.

A few rounds of herbs sold to the vendors and I had enough copper for fishing and mining - though not enough for a mining pick.

Fishing proved an ample source of vendor trash, but only in the beginning! In the early skill points of fishing, all you catch is debris and tangled lines and sickly fish. Gray and useless, but good-selling items for vendors. When I got high enough level that I started catching usable fish, my income all but disappeared (a usable fish sells to a vendor for only 1 copper, while a gray "sickly fish" sells for 18!)

Fortunately, this got me enough copper to buy my mining pick, so I'm all set for a source of income now. My next plan is to travel about the starting areas, exploring for XP and mining and herbing along the way. I need a bit of a starting capital for auction house fees, and then I should be able to start auctioning my wares and making some monies.

The money situation was interesting, as this is pretty much the first time I've had to do some serious budgeting in WoW (more than just "saving up for my mount"). It was an interesting struggle to overcome. Another way to keep my budget is to not train any offensive spells. Training adds up quick!

I feel that in the future I'm going to be fishing out of a lot of floating debris for stuff to sell.

Clarifications

Normally the first few levels in WoW breeze past, but they're going to be tricky for me. I know there are collection quests around, I'm just not high enough to get them yet. My goal is to get to level 5, so that I can pick up a profession and start making money.

I have a feeling money is going to be really tricky to start, since I can't get vendor trash off of mobs.

Meanwhile, I have been forced to clarify my definition of "don't hurt anything." I imagine I'll take up fishing and gathering herbs (I'm a pacifist, not a PETA member), and I'm not above using my war stomp to stun enemies as I run away from them.

However, does hitting a peon with a blackjack to wake him up count as hurting him?


After some thought, my answer is no. I will only count things that actually do damage to a mob. Yes, the decision is a bit driven by desperation, but there you go. Those are the things I set out to learn!

The Experiment

Greetings, internet! Welcome to my experiment in WoW Pacifism.

The experiment is simple: can I create a character on World of Warcraft and successfully progress without doing damage to anything?

We shall see with Tenzin, my new Tauren Druid (named after Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama). I can do gathering and relay quests, and other quests that do not involve killing mobs. I can heal people, and myself, and I can explore. I can even join battlegrounds as long as I don't harm the opponent. I'll even go so far as to not carry weapons, though I'll carry offhands and non-traditional weapons (like fish).

I rolled Tenzin on Thorium Brotherhood, figuring an RP server would be more sympathetic to my experimental playstyle.


I'll post here about thoughts and progress, and see what the game because if I don't kill anyone.