So I've been playing around and one thing I've been trying is to take a none lethal approach to some fights. Obviously for some fights or people it doesn't make sense, you wouldn't spare a Mind Flayer for instance, other times it's down right impossible short of save scumming every turn and obscene luck. However, for smaller fights and targeted knock outs it can be done and within the scope of the story can also make sense. The bandits in the old ruins for instance I knocked out all the ones inside except one who their mage decided had to die, she incinerated the guy, it was as funny as Kagha's constant need to shockwave her own people. The problem is that there really isn't a point, if you knock out a target, bandits, goblins or others they just wake up after a camp rest and decide it would be a brilliant idea to take another shot at you. Even after I stripped them of their armor, weapons and other valuables not to mention the fact that I beat them to within an inch of their life already. Two notable characters for a knock out option are Minthara and Kagha. These two can make sense within the story as well as opportunity since there are points where knocking them out is as viable as killing.
The case for Minthara is taking her alive during the grove siege. She's been lured out of her stronghold and has provided an opportunity to take leader of the cult captive, though it isn't easy and shouldn't be. There are several benefits as she could be a source of useful information regarding the Absolute, the cult and why her tadpole is different from our own as well as typical tadpoles. Granted you also need Halsin* for this path to make the most sense I still think it's an opportunity for having a solution outside of the traditional everyone who isn't with us must die. During my first play through at the grove siege I decided to knock her out rather than kill her. Surprisingly it wasn't thing hardest to pull off (only took a couple attempts, less fire) however the game had an absolute meltdown going in and out of combat until Zevlor ran over and capped her. (Just ran it again and you're effectively stuck going in and out of combat as the AI Teiflings swarm her and beat her to death, they have terrible aim.) Despite that particular bug it doesn't matter because much like the siege on the goblin side it wont complete until you've killed everyone as I had knocked out a couple of the Teiflings and I still had to kill them to complete the mission. This also leans into the evil path being nothing more than a slaughter fest but that's been covered relentlessly.
Kagha's case can be narrowed down to confronting her about her shadow dealings. If you fight her after she kills the kid, due to roll failure, the entire grove goes insane and you're pretty much stuck with a kill them all scenario so there isn't much point to taking her alive. However if you confront her about her dealings the bloodshed is restricted to just the cave. Meaning the three shadow druids, Kagha and those two idiots Loic and Marcoryl. In this case despite failing the rolls to convince her to turn back from the Shadow druids you can still make the argument that sparing her is better and that she needs to be seperated from their corruption as well as smacked upside the head. This is also a sound argument for knocking out Loic and Marcoryl since those two don't seem too bright and would probably calm down after getting smacked around. A support for this can also be if you have or have not saved the kid. If you didn't save Arabella than taking her alive so she can face judgement for the death of a child, though, yes, you can kick it old school and just kill her. However, if you save the kid than there's less a need to kill Kagha as other than being naïve she hasn't done much to justify straight up killing (my opinion). Like Minthara, Kagha is another case of where if you knock her out after revealing her shadow dealings it seems to break the game**. If I end the day and return to the cave she will, like other knock outs, be up and angry resulting in my having to knock her out again, or kill her. It's also interesting to note that if I (my character) knock her out again she just straight up dies***, but if I use another like Lae'zel she's knocked out cleanly.
So far the only knock out that has had anything remotely interesting occur was when dealing with the two cultist initiates. When dealing with Brynna and Andrick you can end up having them attack you, it's a funny little fight and very easy to kill them. In fact I did kill Andrick but knocked out Brynna and proceeded on my way. Turns out they'll (I'm assuming both if both spared) return to the goblin camp specifically the party area. In my case Brynna was there and permanently hostile which actually sets off the party, despite my getting in with Sazza as well as being a Drow. So in this case it makes sense for the knock out to simply result in future problems since I killed one of them. However, if you spared both of them I would imagine it could potentially give them pause when dealing with us again. Especially since neither have a tadpole in their brain yet, hence the whole being a novice I imagine.
Now I understand why they haven't made these paths and honestly I doubt they'll be changing any current or potential future cases. Most people would never make this choice and simply prefer to boil things down to kill it or talk it into submission. The whole "murder hobo" term, dumb as it is, exists for a reason. This means that more than likely there would be a lot of work involved for these kinds of options with few actually experiencing these choices. However, I do believe that the ability to knock people out rather than kill every living soul that opposes you because either they're a bandit, evil/good or you failed a dice roll is a good choice to have in an RPG as it gives more diversity to quest outcomes and dungeon crawls. It doesn't even necessarily have to be some major or complex thing. The bandits at the ruins for instance they can either enter a neutral state or piss off since why would they stick around? I mean would you stick around after getting beaten into the ground and facing the prospect of another beating. For the named characters it's good to have more choices than they live or die because they're on the other side of the fence.
*In my first playthrough I didn't actually find Halsin at the goblin camp so he just appeared after the siege. I suppose with Minthara gone it was easy for him to escape the camp, though I think I assassinated Priestess Gut in that play through as well.
**It broke talking to Anabelle's mother, wouldn't complete even though I got the amulet, as well as turning in the investigate kagha quest to Zevlor. He would acknowledge the ritual was stopped but I couldn't tell him Kagha had been removed from power. It seems Netti also breaks, I believe, due to dealing with Kagha before talking to her. When you bring up the tadpole she takes you into the back room then stands there, when you talk to her it jumps immediately to the dice roll choices with her sitting on the stone chair.
***turns out my character just kills rather than knocks out, though I don't think this is a 100% the case, I'll have to test more.
****I should also say that on my evil playthrough I knocked Halsin out when he attacked my camp, I did kill the bear though, and he disappeared after sleeping. With the way the game is I honestly don't know if this broke the game on some level, simply considered him dead and gone or he's the one person that has a knock out path.
Note: May read this over again and edit, it's late now.
