Before I start up, I died pretty close to the end (died against the Giant Lord), so I'll have to reroll.
But I can already give some tips and tell you it's entirely feasible. It will be harsh, you will fail many time (and, sometime, near the end)., but you can do it. So, here some tips :

- Be cautious ! Don't get greedy.
That may seem obvious, but I died a couple of time because I was getting overconfident. Always assume that any situation can be your downfall, or else, they will. Don't chase ennemies outside of the main roads if you're not absolutely 100% sure you can beat them... and even then, just don't. Running past ennemies can be tempting, but beware, doing so may block you with too much opponents to handle.

- Play offline.
You don't want to risk being invaded, because during this run, you're build won't be optimized for PvP. That would be your downfall. Plus, there is enough NPC phantoms to summon to have enough help.

- Don't be proud, take every opportunity to exploit game weaknesses...
Becasue the game won't be shy about exploiting yours.

- Do not lit the bonfires.
Except from the one in Majula. It will serve as a checkpoint and a beacon for the homeward bones.

- Do not upgrade weapons.
No bonfire means your weapons will break. Repairing your weapons will cost you too much souls. No bonfire also means you ennemies killed won't respawn, making souls a rare ressource. They only respawn if you use homeward bone, which will also get you back to your last lit bonfire (usually, Majula).

- Use strength and clubs.
Clubs are sold by Melentia, 800 souls each. They are cheap and has A scaling with strength. You will want to have multiple clubs in your inventory, so you can switch when the one you're using breaks.

- Use bow/crossbow.
You will need it in Shrine of Amana, because you want to play safe. Rolling under their spells is a good strategy, but much mor risky. You will need it in Iron Keep too because of those Allone Archers out of reach. Do not waste your arrows/bolts because, as stated above, souls are rare.

- Use Santier Spear.
Found in doors of pharos, in a metal chest behind the doors separated in three pieces, each opened with a different pharros lockstone. Only the pharros mechanism just in front of the door, under the water, is needed to open the door. Beware the rat and mastodon combo just outside this door. Beware the mastodon behind this door too.
Santier Spear isn't so great by itself but, upon breaking, it becomes an unbreakable twinblade.
This means you can upgrade it and, with resins, become a powerfull weapon. This also means you can keep a more powerfull weapon at hand, to use against bosses.

- Buy lifegems.
Melentia has an infinite supply of them, when she moves to Majula. They will be your only solid way to heal.

Now for my prefered route :

FIrst, complete the tutorial. You will gain enough (counting the cristallised souls found as items) souls to level your strength and dexterity enough to wield the mace, that is under the cliff, next to Thing Betwix's exit. This make a good starting weapon (I start as a deprived). Kill the Dragonrider, the Last Giant and the Pursuer and consume their souls, again for the sake of leveling quick.

I prefer to start by the Black Gulch route, because of the fact that it's too easy to die reaching it. Plus, I feel that the Rotten One is the easiest of the four. Next, buy the whispering ring and go to the shaded wood with the fragrant branch of yore. Speak to Tarsk, then summon him, to ease the fight against Najka. Go to the Doors of Pharros and grab the Santier Spear. Beware of the spiders, summon the NPC before Freja and kill her

Go to huntsman copse, kill the skeleton lords, then the Hutt, then summon Jester Thomas and look how he roast some serpent for dinner without any need for you to meddle in his cooking. The Iron King is a dangerous fight, be sure to equip a good shield if you have one.

For the Lost Bastille, you have two choices : Go from the Pursuer's place to the far tower and battle the Ruin Sentinels (I don't recommand) OR, just grab the key that can only be accessed by this route, then homeward, then go through the No Man's Warf, to go to the Lost Bastille by boat, then use a Pharros lockstone to skip the Ruin Sentinels. The shortcut needs the key, which can only be accessed by using Pursuer's Route. It takes more time, but I find it more safe to go through the No Man's Warf and the Flexile Sentry, rather than battling the Ruin Sentinels.
BEWARE OF THE EXPLODING DUDES. Especially, the ones that lies underwater just before the Lost Sinner... They killed me three time. You can find safer to go kill the Belfry Gargoyles and grab the key to skip them (and make the Lost Sinner easier to fight, but that's equally risky. Time to use your bow and shoot arrows in the water to lure them... It's the ONLY time you're allowed to waste arrows.

From there, it's quite straightforward. I ran past ennemies through the whole Crypt. Kill the Throne Watcher and Throne Defender BEFORE defeating the Giant Lord, or else, you will have to face them, then Nashandra, without time to prepare.

There. Hope that will help you folks.
Sheers.

I still dont believe theres an actual achivo that makes you use no bonfire ... how the hell are you supposed to exit the fighting arenas from the black gulch etc? Or the crystal cove (where you fight the spider boss)?

Homeward bones are your friend.
I read from another guy who did the run that the Primeval Bonfire that warps you back to Majula doesn't count as resting, but since I didn't complete the run myself, I can't confirm that.

There is better than achievements... There is rings, my friend. One turn your right hand weapon invisible, while the other ring turn your left hand weapon invisible. I encountered some player with one of those ring in PvP and it is quite devastating... you know what weapon they use only when you get hit by hit...

@aetheldod: I'm pretty sure the rule is no resting at bonfires. You can still light them, just never rest. The primal bonfires don't count as regular bonfires and they warp you back to Majula when you beat the Old Ones. The trick is to light specific bonfires at certain times to act as checkpoints if you die. There was some guide I saw where you don't actually light the Majula bonfire till about halfway through the game. Trying to do both no death and no bonfire in the same run though, may be just for crazy people.

You don't need to do these at the same time. You can do one run without bonfires and one without deaths. Both don't sound like fun to me. I'm sure I'll get the one without deaths eventually, but I'm not going to restart if I die. That's not my idea of having a good time.

On some level I am kind of intrigued by it though.

Well, the "no bonfire" seems like a cake walk, if you can die. After all, dying is a good way to get repair your weapons, as well as getting your estus flask back, and so on... Sure it prevents you from warping and attune your spells, but with a dex/str build, that's not a problem... And attempted on NG+ it would be even easier, since you could always attune your spells before starting the NG+. So the no bonefire with death means SUICIDE FOR THE REPAIR run. Not really a challenge.

That's why I do the two at the same time.

@myrmicus: That is an impressive accomplishment!

@aetheldod: There is no achievement related to either a 'no death run' or 'no bonfire resting run'. The rewards are only items.

Santier's is kind of a strange choice; sort of negates the whole point of what makes the run interesting (i.e. using different weapons) but the run would be amusing up to that point. I'll eventually do this with 20-30 different weapons, busy for the next month or two though.

I was just pointing out that you don't need to do both at the same time for anything. That's purely your choice. It's not my thing to do. It sure isn't any fun to do and if you don't get anything out of it I especially stop caring. If you want a lot of challenge do no bonfire / no death / no weapons / no armor / no healing items / no estus. It can be done. Fun? I bet not.

Come back to me when you're into a SL1 run...

Throwing all those at once is pure nonsense, since you literally doesn't gain anything to do so. I'm like you, I doesn't like "over the top" challenges, but i still like challenges. I bet you like a little bit of challenge too, since you are playing Dark Souls in the first place... you wouldn't if not. Correct me if I'm wrong. If the only thing I wanted were the rings, I would roll a NG without bonfires, it's a minor nuisance in itself, then prepare for a NG+ without death, cheesing my way through both playthrough. That wouldn't be fun (like, having enough soul memory to skip half the game, then summon helpers every time I can). Getting those ring that way, they become more than rings, they become trophies. A no bonfire + no death run isn't as hard as it seems.

Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on you because of your choices, and tastes, I'm trying to explain why I find it fun. And rewarding.

Pardon me Ô mighty SL1 runner ! You are so much cooler, because your challenge is faaar greater.Except... nah. you can keep your SL1 run, this thread wasn't to gloat about who has the biggest, it was to give some hints and tips to those who would attempt a no bonfire + no death run (even if I'm quite proud of myself, to be honest). Plus, I don't see how SL1 run is so superior, in term of challenge... You can still die, you can still rest, you can still have gear to beat ennemies to pulp and you can still cheese your way through the game. All it does is turning you into a one-hit-point-wonder, forcing you to be a dodging master.

@Fredchuckdave Yeah, Santier's spear negate a part of the "no bonefire" bits of the challenge. But not completely. You still can't use any spells (even with a str/dex build, a little bit of pyromancy helps a lot), your armors and rings still suffer from the degradation and you still can't get your estus flasks back. There is a simpler way to negate the weapon breaking problem : use the little white soapstone. You get summoned for little jobs, which doesn't require you to help in beating a boss most of the time and you upon completing your duty, you get back as if you rested to a bonefire.

@myrmicus: I didn't do a SL1. I just found the idea of one much more appealing than a run where you can die and lose 10 hours of progress because you made a single mistake. Besides, at SL1 I don't know what ''gear'' you're refering to. With 6 in all stats you have to kill all bosses with a dagger. It can be a +10 raw dagger by the end but it's still a terrible weapon.

@pyrodactyl: What gear ? Rings, light / medium armors (I know you can use a knight armor and still be under 70% equip load with SL 1, for this is the very first armor I chase in a no death/no bonefire run), throwing knives, urns/bombs, As for the weapons, you have : Hand axe, club, mace, broadsword, foot soldier sword, Sure, that's not the best weapon, but that's not as awfull you could think. Upgrade them, nfuse them with raw or mundane (not sure which would do greater damage, since I never used them), apply resins and you can pack some nice damage even in SL1. Plus, with one ring, you can get slots for a few pyromancy spells...
So yeah, not really a "dagger run".

I don't really see a point in playing the game like this... so... is there a point? Do you get some amazing weapon for NG+ or what? Otherwise this doesn't sound the slightest bit fun. The only sorts of these things that I find really cool is when people use tactics like this for speed runs. Does this allow you to beat the game in like an hour? If no, then what the hell? Pride?

@liquidprince: Yes. Pride. A deadly sin ^^

And yes, speedrunning this is a way to do so, mainly because of the high chances of failure. The more I'm trying to do this, the more I speedrun, because the more I fail, the less I want to waste time before having to reroll. Ironically, speedrunning makes you restart a no bonefire + no death run more often, so I don't know if it save time in the end.

Requirements:

Hand axe: 9 Str 3 Dex

club: 12 Str 2 Dex

mace: 12 Str 5 Dex

broadsword: 11 Str 6 Dex

foot soldier sword: 7 Str 6 Dex

You get 6 Str 6 Dex at SL1.

I've checked, the only weapons you can equip are:

the regular dagger, the handmaid's ladle and the broken straight sword.

But you're right, if you can ever get to one of the attunment rings you would be able to equip 1 or 2 pyromancies. No way that would be enough to kill hard bosses even if you get your flame to +10 but that would certainly help.

@pyrodactyl: Except you can use weapons two handed, which double your effective strength for the required stats. As for Pyromancy, two Flame Swath attuned means 4 casts, each dealing monstrous damage.

Wait, they changed that? It used to be 150% of effective strenght. With that you get the foot soldier sword and the hand axe.

@pyrodactyl: Uh ? It always was like this, since Demon Souls, if I recall (but I'm not sure. Dark Soul 1 was like that though);

http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/NEW+PLAYER+HELP#.U0gH0vldVoQ

two-handing a weapon gives you a 50% strength bonus in terms of stat requirements

like in dark souls 1

I started a no death + no bonfire run too, tnx for your tips myrmicus, I think there's another thing pretty useful: instead of rerolling after every death, it would be easier to create another "trash" character to train with before every boss fight, trying the fight as many times as you need to avoid deaths ;)