While playing, one of my party members, while in the slums, attacked a begger which lowered my reputation 2 points. A mistake that I made was attacking a street vendor after a failed steal attempt my Nalia, which lowered my rep 2 more points. My rep is now at two points and whenever I go into the slums I get attacked by guards who say that I have broken the law, and the penalty is death. I have attempted to defeat them, but have failed many times. Is there anything I can do to get my reputation back up?

You can try to go to a temple and make a donation. Doing this will raise your reputation up to 18 depending on how much gold you donate.

How much money do you have to donate to get a point?

To go from 2 to 3 costs 1000 gold
3 to 4 1000 gold
4 to 5 500 gold
5 to 6 400 gold
6 to 7 200 gold
7 to 8 300 gold
8 to 9 400 gold

amount of gold increases with each point of reputation except for 13 and 14 which are lower than the rest.

Is there any other way to gain easy points without giving up my hard earned gold?

Perhaps, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of guards.

DUH!! Next time save before trying to steal. The gaurds coming is to stop you just killing people at random. What did you think would happen. That'll teach you to be so vicious. Attacked a beggar. Sheesh. You only need to get your rep up to four to stop gaurds attacking you though. Get used to losing gold too as it will now cost you a fortune for magic items plus some good alignment characters probably won't even talk to you.

Walnut, at the risk of stating the obvious, it's embarrassing getting caught picking pockets in the slums. As if these beggars and peons would have anything of value to steal. Why do u think they're IN the slums? and how do they get their gold? Better to steal in the temple or government districts, people carry more gold and they are easier marks.

I was trying to steal a +2 sling, and I didnt attack the beggar, Jaheria(sp?) attacked him without me giving her the command to do it... whats up with that?

Probably what happened was a failed pick pocket. The locals tend to get upset when you try to steal from them. Then they turn hostile. If you have Jaheira's script to automatically attack enemy, you set her loose, and she goes to town.