Question regarding Petrus of Thorolund (Spoilers)

[GameLooper]

I read from a post online that you're supposed to be able to kill Petrus without it counting as a Sin if you rescue Rhea from the Tombs, and exhaust his dialogue after returning to Firelink Shrine, as this would supposedly turn him hostile towards the player on his own and no longer count as a Sin if he is killed in this state.

However, after returning with Rhea from the Tombs, and talking to Petrus. He only made some small remarks about me rescuing Rhea. I then went up to the Undead Church to talk and exhaust all of Rheas dialogue as well, and then went down to Petrus again who was back to just wanting to sell miracles.

Not wanting to take any chances, I decided to kill Petrus at this point, as I didn't have enough Souls to buy all of her miracles. This of course counted as a Sin, and the guy in the Bell Tower now wants me to cough up another 12 000 Souls.

Did I miss something, or is it simply impossible to kill Petrus without committing a Sin?

-GL-

[goka9696]

Petrus doesn't attack you unprovoked, he has no reason to.

[dcy665]

If you wait until he commits a sin himself, then you will not have any sin.

Also, 12K. You'll get that much clearing an area soon enough.
My PtDE next soul level cost 500K+

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by goka9696:

Petrus doesn't attack you unprovoked, he has no reason to.

This. At no point in the game will Petrus attempt to murder the player and the game will still count killing him as a sin. There's no way around that, if you want to save Rhea.

However, there aren't really any penalties for getting sin that way. PvE and PvP sin are treated separately and PvE sin only affects the NPC or covenant, you've sinned against. There are only 4 covenants, which if you get kicked out, gives 1 "PvP sin", like if a player used Indictment.
Killing Petrus when Rhea is at Undead Parish will have no consequences, besides losing him as a merchant. That also means, that absolving your sin after killing him at that point in the game has no effect, if you haven't angered anybody else, since there's no NPC or covenant around to be hostile towards you for this (Rhea doesn't give a damn).

[GameLooper]

Originally posted by goka9696:

Petrus doesn't attack you unprovoked, he has no reason to.

I don't agree with this part, as you (the player) learns that he abandoned Rhea and her other two bodyguards in the Tombs. I'd figure it would only make sense that he would want to silence the player as well, so that none of this got out.

Originally posted by JellyPuff:

Originally posted by goka9696:

Petrus doesn't attack you unprovoked, he has no reason to.

This. At no point in the game will Petrus attempt to murder the player and the game will still count killing him as a sin. There's no way around that, if you want to save Rhea.

Are you absolutely sure about this? Because this is exactly what I was hoping to clear up, as there are some contradicting discussions regarding this online, about whether or not there's a legit and proper way of putting Petrus down, while at the same time avoid being branded as a sinner. If not, then I guess it's just misinformation floating around?

11. If you talk to her in the church Petrus will confront you and attack you for saving her. If you let Petrus kill you and you ignore her she will die.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429963555

The only thing I didn't try was to quit and reload after talking to Rhea in the Undead Church, as I didn't want to take the risk that Petrus might kill her before I could buy her miracles.

-GL-

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by GameLooper:

Are you absolutely sure about this?

Now that you've planted the seeds of doubt, i've looked more into it and found out why there's conflicting info about this. There's an interaction with Lautrec, where you can pay him and he'll give you intel about Petrus, after Rhea leaves for the Catacombs. Then confronting Petrus will make him show his true colors, telling you Rhea is at the Catacombs and you can do with her as you please.
This is what might make him hostile towards you, after saving Rhea.

I've never had this interaction with Lautrec and didn't even knew about it until now, since my standard procedure is to kick him off Firelink Shrine, which might explain, why Petrus was never aggro towards me.

[yds]

My general rule of thumb is to kill any NPC I don't need anymore. Which is probably why I have up to 50 humanities by midgame with no farming :)

Unless I need miracles for some reason, I always kill the whole Thorolund gang as soon as they appear at Firelink.

Never paid to get my sins absolved either and why would I? They don't matter.

[GameLooper]

Originally posted by JellyPuff:

There's an interaction with Lautrec, where you can pay him and he'll give you intel about Petrus, after Rhea leaves for the Catacombs. Then confronting Petrus will make him show his true colors, telling you Rhea is at the Catacombs and you can do with her as you please.
This is what might make him hostile towards you, after saving Rhea.

I actually did pay Lautrec for the information regarding Petrus during this playthrough, and Petrus did indeed show his true colors afterwards by making some rather disturbing comments about Rhea in the Tombs, followed by a creepy laughter (Petrus is one messed up individual).

However, he never turned hostile on me despite this. I'm guessing I must've missed something, like needing to quit and reload after talking to Rhea in the Undead Church or perhaps there's a certain window during story-progression for this to take place. I went down into the Catacombs before ringing the Second Bell, and I never encountered Patches down there as well, even though the guide I was using told me that he would be there flipping the switch for the bridge, but he wasn't. Maybe that was the missing trigger?

I'm going to try and follow Petrus and Rheas events again when I start over in NG+, and this time I'll try do things a bit different, as I really want to get to the bottom of this. I've seen other players posting on other forums about Petrus turning hostile at some point as well.

Originally posted by yds:

My general rule of thumb is to kill any NPC I don't need anymore. Which is probably why I have up to 50 humanities by midgame with no farming :)

Unless I need miracles for some reason, I always kill the whole Thorolund gang as soon as they appear at Firelink.

I usually don't care much about these things either. But this is my first playthrough since I last played the original game back on the PS3, which was about 10 years ago now I think. So I wanted to do a full playthrough by following the events of all the NPCs in the game.

I also vaguely remember that you need to follow through with some of the NPCs events in order to be able to obtain some of their Armor Sets / Weapons as well. If you kill Lautrec at Firelink Shrine, you won't be able to obtain his Armor Set "Favor", for example.

-GL-

[goka9696]

Originally posted by GameLooper:

Originally posted by JellyPuff:

There's an interaction with Lautrec, where you can pay him and he'll give you intel about Petrus, after Rhea leaves for the Catacombs. Then confronting Petrus will make him show his true colors, telling you Rhea is at the Catacombs and you can do with her as you please.
This is what might make him hostile towards you, after saving Rhea.

I actually did pay Lautrec for the information regarding Petrus during this playthrough, and Petrus did indeed show his true colors afterwards by making some rather disturbing comments about Rhea in the Tombs, followed by a creepy laughter (Petrus is one messed up individual).

However, he never turned hostile on me despite this. I'm guessing I must've missed something, like needing to quit and reload after talking to Rhea in the Undead Church or perhaps there's a certain window during story-progression for this to take place. I went down into the Catacombs before ringing the Second Bell, and I never encountered Patches down there as well, even though the guide I was using told me that he would be there flipping the switch for the bridge, but he wasn't. Maybe that was the missing trigger?

I'm going to try and follow Petrus and Rheas events again when I start over in NG+, and this time I'll try do things a bit different, as I really want to get to the bottom of this. I've seen other players posting on other forums about Petrus turning hostile at some point as well.

Originally posted by yds:

My general rule of thumb is to kill any NPC I don't need anymore. Which is probably why I have up to 50 humanities by midgame with no farming :)

Unless I need miracles for some reason, I always kill the whole Thorolund gang as soon as they appear at Firelink.

I usually don't care much about these things either. But this is my first playthrough since I last played the original game back on the PS3, which was about 10 years ago now I think. So I wanted to do a full playthrough by following the events of all the NPCs in the game.

I also vaguely remember that you need to follow through with some of the NPCs events in order to be able to obtain some of their Armor Sets / Weapons as well. If you kill Lautrec at Firelink Shrine, you won't be able to obtain his Armor Set "Favor", for example.

-GL-

I have been playing Dark Souls since its steam release and I have not seen Petrus attack me on his own even once. Not when I let him kill Rhea, not when I confronted him, not when I discussed Lautrec's information with him, never. If he does indeed attack you on his own, it must require a very specific and obscure course of action.

[GameLooper]

Originally posted by goka9696:

I have been playing Dark Souls since its steam release and I have not seen Petrus attack me on his own even once. Not when I let him kill Rhea, not when I confronted him, not when I discussed Lautrec's information with him, never. If he does indeed attack you on his own, it must require a very specific and obscure course of action.

I guess it must be misinformation about Petrus turning hostile at some point then. I'm a bit disappointed if that were to be the case though, as I was kinda hoping that the developers had added a way for the player to get rid of Petrus in a more proper way once his secret was out, and the player had become aware of his dark side.

I'm still going to give it another try in NG+, but you're probably right about this, and he doesn't turn hostile on his own accord.

-GL-