Vow of Peace Clarification

[Erushin Laaslir]

I'm playing a 7th level Serpent Fire Adept that also has the Sensei archetype's advice feature and he also employs Vow of Peace, both for Ki and the flavor of helping guide even his enemies towards their true path of self perfection. A few questions.

He can never strike the first blow in combat. If attacked, he must use the fight defensively action or the total defense action for the first 2 rounds.

Does this preclude Inspiring allies (we have an Fire Bomber Alchemist, a Gunslinger and a Blackened Winter Oracle, so only the Rogue and I can do nonlethal)? Does my character have to be targeted by an attack to start the 2 round timer? Or could one argue that attacking my allies meets the if attacked condition?

He must always give his opponent the option to surrender, and cannot purposely slay another creature that could reasonably be influenced to flee or join a civilized society as a productive member (obviously this excludes many monsters).

How do I prevent the game from slowing down with sermons about redemption? The +3 bonus from Inspire Courage and Flagbearer to hit and damage on three other PCs that use primarily touch attacks has thus far spelled short work of the 2 combats we've been in but if I get nonlethal up on the enemy, they'll likely fall unconscious. Would a Wand of Detect Evil be useful here?

[JoeElf]

Since you are level 7, you can start a bardic performance as a move action. So you could both do Inspire Courage and Fight Defensively/Total Defense [assuming you did not need to move in order to hit an opponent in order to use defensive fighting].

Start Inspire Courage as a move action, and elect to use your standard action to either Fight Defensively [but only taking the attack from Fight Defensively {as a readied action to go later if you are ahead in initiative} after you've been attacked] or use Total Defense for your standard action.

[Claxon]

It may preclude doing anything other than Fight Defensively is the problem.

The idea of "let me inspire my friends to kill these people" runs counter to the idea of non-violence. Even if you don't raise a hand to kill them yourself, you're still kind of complicit.

Personally, the rules are too vague and the benefit not strong enough.

I would simply avoid many of the vows where they could potentially cause problems with your party.