There's always some combat. Not all encounters are avoidable/resolved peacefully.
You think it's cowardly to try to solve problems peacefully? Oh, then I guess my character is a coward, maybe one of the biggest ever.

Not really.
But people actually did pacifist runs and avoided killing anything.
Like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrhMXqazGYY

Quite a few bosses can be beaten without combat.
My favourite so far might be convincing a devil to off himself, after having him eliminate his entire entourage.

Bard might be the best class for avoiding combat through dialogue.

Originally posted by bakhtos:

That is, is it possible to avoid combat encounters and play through the dialogues only? (Provided you will get locked out of certain paths, ofc)

Cowardice doesn't necessarily equate to avoiding combat. You might murder someone you know will be a safe kill, or end up getting attacked by someone who sees you as weak. So you'll want to make sure you know why you're avoiding combat.

Sort of.

It's almost possible to avoid 'entering combat', but several villains are scripted to die one way or another, so technically speaking, you can't complete the game with no one dying.

But you can get through the majority of the game without ever engaging in combat if you're realky clever.

There's tons of videos about this all over Youtube.

Barrelmancy = Cowardism ^ 10

Disengage. Dash. Flee combat.

They can't catch you. Otherwise you can focus on performance to talk your way out of situations.

this game is heavily focused on fighting and combat. Its where a lot of the XP and gear live, on the bodies of the enemy. You can sneak past a lot of them, sure, but you lose a great deal doing so.

Back in EA I got to level 4 at least without any real combats (I did the grove intro, though, to get past it). You get some xp for some talking and some exploring areas and for doing some things like reading this book or pulling that switch.

and then focused on the word possible, its very possible. I am pretty sure you can use the gale ending to early quit the game in act 2 with only a very small number of unavoidable fights.