Killing Is Bad, or nonlethal campaign
I wanted to ask you guys about your thoughts and experiences with nonlethal builds, or even entire parties themed around that idea. "A group of heroes that fight a lot but never kill anybody" is certainly a very common trope. And I suppose there's something disturbing about the ease with which your average PC resorts to lethal force, if you stop for a moment to think about it. I am somewhat of two minds about this idea.
On one hand, limitation breeds creativity. You could make a fairly "normal" build, except that the martials all grab the merciful enchantment for their weapons and the casters all take the merciful metamagic feat (although Sorcerers get screwed by the casting time). Or you could go all in on the concept - make a grapple monk, a sap master rogue, etc.
But then on the other hand, I keep thinking that this isn't really how Pathfinder is meant to be played. You're either limiting the player's choices (by making them pick nonlethal focused archetypes) or nerfing them with taxes (having to grab merciful enchantment/feat). And then there are some builds that just don't work at all (a blaster sorcerer, for instance, due to the aforementioned casting time issue). And all of that makes me think that maybe the best way to have a nonlethal campaign would be to just let the players do nonlethal damage for more-or-less free. Maybe in this setting all weapons come with nonlethal variants that are just as easily accessible? Maybe all the casters get Merciful Metamagic as a bonus feat? Or you could homebrew a Metagame Artifact that allows it's bearer to substitute nonlethal damage for lethal damage.