Unless this game is seeking to be a poverty simulator, you don't design theft to be a necessity. You design it to be a perk. A means to make money beyond the norm - but the norm itself needs to be adequate to play the game with.
Sure, you can also go with "pacifist" playthrough, without killing any sentient beings, and whine about "poor design". Because when you only kill mindless monsters, you clearly won't have enough XP to finish the game. Hell, wait, even with enough XP, you couldn't do it, because many bosses in this game are sentient beings, and you need to kill them to progress further. Why they didn't give you the option to just avoid fighting with them by talking?! When it is obvious that "unless this game is seeking to be a psycho mass murderer simulator, you don't design slaughtering humans and other sentient beings to be a necessity"
I'm sorry, life is brutal. Sometimes you need to kill, or be killed. And sometimes you need to decide, if getting your desired skillbok is worth stealing from some innocent people. Tough choices, this is what good RPGs are about.
