For automatic and other invasion types, it would be good for players who choose a non-violent path to have a way to help engage with the game. My main idea so far is for there to be NPCs that you can rescue with varying difficulties in getting them to safety.

Tier 1: Traveler
Scenario: A single traveler is wandering around near the city. They are able to retreat from enemies but not move rooms on their own.
Mechanic: HOLD or GROUP them. Can only be leading one at a time. 3-5 roundtime per room while they're with you, like you were dragging them.
Goal: Bring them to the city gate.
Reward: A box or coins equaling the value dropped by two low level mobs. Clears Disturbing the Peace charges.
Lose Scenario: Traveler is killed by ranged weapons or simply escapes on their own while saying unkind things about players.

Tier 2: Trader's Wagon
Scenario: A trader's wagon is beset by low level only mobs.
Mechanic: Spells and abilities that cause stunning, immobilization, push back, or retreating, will allow the wagon to retreat from engagement. One mob will advance on the wagon every 60 seconds until it has 4 surrounding it.
Goal: Debilitate the mobs surrounding the wagon, or kill them, until the wagon has nothing engaging it.
Reward: A box or gems equaling the value of all mobs that were dealt with.
Lose Scenario: The wagon takes too much damage and falls apart, spawning several Travelers with diminished rewards

Tier 3: Caravan
Scenario: A caravan of travelers is attempting to reach the city. When originally found, their mage is attempting to shield the caravan with magic, but is running out of mana.
Mechanics: CHARGE caravan (Arcana) or CHARGE shield (Attunement/Inner Fire). Barbarians will "charge" by bowling over enemies attacking the shield, giving the mage time to recover.
Goal: Using Arcana or Attunement/Inner Fire to boost the caravan's wards or the mage's spell, help recharge the shield spell until the mage can recover, at which point the caravan moves rooms until the mage runs out of magic again.
Reward: A box or gems equaling the value of mid-tier mobs, or a treasure sack to search for all who helped. Clears Disturbing the Peace charges.
Lose Scenario: The mage runs out of power and is overwhelmed. The caravan disperses, spawning several Trader's Wagons in nearby rooms.

Tier 4: Wounded Soldier
Scenario: A guard from the city is way in over their head and dying. This happens around champion mobs.
Mechanics variants:
COVER the soldier until they can bind their wounds and retreat. Must cover them for X seconds. Uses defensive abilities.
HIDE the soldier by the roadside until they can bind their wounds and retreat. Must keep them hidden for X seconds. Uses stealth abilities, so make sure you can hide from enemies before trying this.
WARD the soldier until they can bind their wounds and retreat. Must keep them warded for X seconds. Uses magic abilities and drains mana.
TEND the soldier until they can retreat. Must tend their wounds for X seconds. Uses first aid, skinning, and alchemy skills.
HEAL the soldier until they can retreat (Empaths only). Just like any other patient. This is risky for Empaths on the front lines.
Goal: Save them!
Reward: A box equaling the value of champion mobs, or a unique weapon. Clears Disturbing the Peace charges.
Lose Scenario: They die. A cleric can raise them for the reward, or their body can be looted but the ghost will always catch you. Necromancers can get a special risen? (People may notice something off about the town guard later on)

Some additional features to flesh out the system would be:
A reputation system: Every Traveler who isn't helped back to the city leaves a negative review of the city's defenses. This could cause problems for traders where the value of things decreases. Or make invasions harder as rumors spread of it being an easy target.

Rob them: Every tier of NPC can be stolen from or looted once dead. This gives you their rewards and unique clothes and weapons (like found by Burgle) but lots and lots of social outrage if caught.

That's all I could think of for now for NPCs... I'd like to hear more ideas for ways to engage with invasions that don't involve killing everything. Maybe even peaceful ways to disperse the invasion. I think being able to banner of truce the entire invasion area should trigger something like a surrender or they give up and go home, or start working on attacking the banner spell, making the paladin have to do a last stand to keep it up. I love the banner spell but I don't want it to turn useless and be ripped apart if over used, or used at all. Its a sound tactic to use it to keep the peace.

Maybe there can be a morale stat that decreases over time. Things like rebels and goblins should learn when to cut their losses and retreat. Rock guardians can get bored or forget what they're doing on the road. Debilitating enemies until they're too embarrassed to fight!

I know that there's a lot of push for bigger and harder enemies that take big groups and unique combat strategies to overcome, but that's just one part of the player base and I hope the rest of us will be listened to as well. I don't believe it is enough to give non violent characters ways to help these groups, although that would be very nice as well! But having completely opposing practices for how to deal with the invasions would create some ideological conflict as well. If a characters belief is that life is sacred, they could be conflicted with helping a large combat group break some wards. Its something they can do that is non violent, but they're helping violence happen when the wards are down. If they oppose that, then their engagement with the invasion is to stand back and nag those who fight, which is not fun to do or a great look for their ideology of keeping the peace. By giving them another way to help defeat the invasion without killing or acquiescing to the invaders, both ways can stand on their own merits.

Being objectively good in DR is impossible sometimes. I'm not asking for it to be easy, just possible, someday. I'm just tired of being a paladin forced to make bad choices because the game's systems are limited to that being the only way to play it... Thanks for reading.