I was attacked by a stranger and defended myself just with my fists while wearing a bandana. I still got reported to law enforcement by a witness. The other guy was marked as 'deceased' on the map afterwards.
Is there a way to NOT kill an NPC (that attacked me) in a fight and therefore not being reported to the authorities by witnesses?
Seems that neither the most non-lethal weapon (=none) nor the bandana nor just defending against an unprovoked attack were enough. So what will?
Best Answer
NPCs won't attack you without some kind of provocation.
Causes for NPCs to attack you would be (there might be more):
Most of the time, simply running away will limit any impact on your honour scale/bounty. While you could waste time beating them as gently as possible or trying to hog-tie them, this increases the chance that law enforcement officers will turn up and make the situation worse.
Given enough looting of dead enemies, you should have enough funds to comfortably pay off the bounty should you be affected.
The game doesn't really punish you for earning bounties - you just pay them off. However, having a higher honour level does enable some missions later on in the game.
To prevent the "wanted" status, you need to stop the witness from contacting the law. Do this by either killing them or convincing them to stay quiet (an early mission takes you through this scenario). If your fight is in a town, then all you can do is run and get out of the red area as quickly as possible, and then pay the bounty if you're identified as being guilty.