Pacifist

This article is about beating the game without killing anything. For the pacifist chest, see Holy Mountain#Trivia.

A Pacifist run is a run with zero enemy kills that are attributed to you. There is an Achievement Pillar for completing it.

Because it is often unclear whether a given spell or perk will count as a player-kill, those that are safe to use are listed below.

Details

Some enemies' deaths will always count as player kills, even if the result of trick kills, friendly fire, or other pacifist kills:

• Kolmisilmä
• Kolmisilmän koipi
• The Houre's crystal

The regular rules regarding pacifist and non-pacifist kills apply to some unexpected entities and some easily-overlooked "enemies":

• Essence Eaters
• Glueballs from the Glue Hiisi.
• Eväkäs; this includes those in the Holy Mountain that are easily victimized by wand testing.
• Flasks / Hollow Eggs / Bombs / Deercoy

Other notes:

• A good way to tell if you have failed this run is when picking up a perk the altar will bleed.
  • …the exception to this is if there is a wand from the pacifist chest this will make the altar bleed even if you haven't killed anything.
• Although it is possible to traverse back up to the Altar, the Pacifist Achievement Pillar will only be awarded when the The Work (End) room is loaded in.
• Kills from attacking while transformed with Chaotic Polymorphine count as player kills.
• Kills from Essences count as player kills.
• Kicking will count as player kills; be careful when trying to kick physics objects into enemies when they are too close.
• A new mechanic with teleporting at high speeds builds up a mini explosion. This is NOT pacifist safe.
• Restarting the game or traveling far enough away to unload and then reload a projectile will cause it to generate pacifist trick kills.
  • Any trigger projectiles reloaded in this way will lose their payload, and Boomerang-style homing will home on enemies instead.

Spells

Long Distance Cast + Explosive Projectile + Summon Hollow Egg

Safe

• Acid from Acid Cloud / Acid Trail
• Any projectile when Cessation is cast before it deals damage.
  • If Cessation is cast before the release of a payload, payload kills will also be trick kills (…except for some special cases such as Eldritch Portal).
• Circle of Fervour
• Destruction
• Digging Blast < is safe, but not to be confused with NOT safe > Digging Bolt
• Dormant Crystal / Explosive Detonator
• Drowning via Water Trail / Chunk of Soil (the soil's explosion will count), etc.
• Earthquake / Earthquake Shot
• Explosive Detonator ending any other projectile that explodes.
  • If a projectile is ended before its lifetime ends, the explosion will not carry info about the caster. Nothing is safe to the caster, but is a trick kill.
• Eldritch Portal
• Explosive Projectile with Summon Hollow Egg, a Material spell, or other projectiles that don't directly deal non-pacifist damage and die from causes other than ProjectileComponent lifetime expiring, such as Magic Guard, Big Magic Guard, Powder Vacuum Field, Liquid Vacuum Field, and some Spells with alternative component lifetime.
• Summon Fish
• Fire from Fire Trail / Burning Trail / Fire Arc
• Magic Guard / Big Magic Guard
• Giga Black Hole
• The particles dropping down from Glitter Bomb count as trick kills, but the initial explosion is not safe.
• Kills from the 'beam' portion of Plasma Beam / Plasma Cutter are safe, but kills from contact with the 'emitter' source are not.
• Poison from Poison Arc / Poison Trail
• Prickly Spore Pod (although note that the projectile does 3 damage and can kill weak enemies).
• Propane Tank
• Spells To Magic Missiles / Spells To Nukes / Spells To Giga Sawblades / Spells To Death Crosses
  • …as long as the spells transformed are not yours (e.g. a spark bolt made into a sawblade will give you a kill count).
• Spiral Shot
• Summon Deercoy
• Summon Egg
• Summon Hollow Egg with caster unknown trick
• Explosives with a physics body (such as Bomb / Summon Explosive Box / Summon Large Explosive Box) will count as pacifist trick kills if:
  • they explode from dying to non-player-associated damage,
  • from random chance on being hit,
  • from having their physics body destroyed (e.g., with Ground to Sand), or
  • from alternative component lifetime caps expiring
    • …but can count as player kills if they explode from their "normal" (ProjectileComponent) lifetime expiring (including from Nolla) without Remove Explosion, and while explosions from dying to player-associated damage are trick kills, the player will still be credited with a kill of the explosive itself.
• Summon Rock
• Summon Rock Spirit
• Summon Taikasauva
• Thundercloud / Cursed Sphere (the Cursed Sphere projectile itself counts as a player kill but its spawned thunderclouds do not).
• Touch of spells
• Unstable Crystal

Not Safe

Note that kills from the following spells do count as player kills and will invalidate the run:

• Random spells from Random Projectile Spell/etc. are treated the same as a normal version of that spell (e.g. a random Fireball will count as a kill, a random Eldritch Portal will not).
• Bomb Cart (although physics kills from the cart are safe).
• Barrier spells
• Omega Black Hole
• Digging Bolt < NOT safe to be confused with safe > Digging Blast.
• Spells cast from an Dormant Crystal With Trigger will count as player kills, although kills from the crystal's explosion will not.
• Energy Shield / Energy Shield Sector
• Flock of Ducks
• Holy Bomb
• Infestation
• Giga Holy Bomb
• Lightning Bolt
• Meteorisade
• Nonpacifist payloads inside a Hollow Egg will generate player kills unless using the caster unknown trick.
  • (Explosive Projectile on hollow eggs also generates pacifist trick kills via its explosion.)
  • Hollow eggs left behind can also be "killed" and be credited against the player if they were not killed via a pacifist method.
• Summon Swarm
• Summon Tiny Ghost
• Spells cast from an Unstable Crystal With Trigger will count as player kills, although kills from the crystal's explosion will not.
• Worm Launcher

Modifiers

Some modifiers can be used safely as long as the projectile they are modifying does not kill the enemy.  Projectile damage can be reduced with Light Shot or Piercing Shot, among others. Every Modifier though dangerous can be made in to pacifist safe land mines with Intense Concentrated Light interactions.

Safe

• Bubbly Bounce / Lightning Bounce / Concentrated Light Bounce
• Electric Arc
• Explosion On Drunk Enemies / Explosion On Slimy Enemies
• Firecrackers
• Gunpowder Arc / Gunpowder Trail
• Personal Gravity Field
• Projectile Energy Shield

Safe(ish)

• Downwards Larpa / Upwards Larpa / Orbit Larpa / Larpa Explosion / Larpa Bounce / Chaos Larpa (If spell was safe to begin with)
• Copy Trail (If spell was safe to begin with)
• Laser Bounce / Plasma Beam Bounce
  • The emitting projectile is not safe (i.e. if an enemy jumps into the projectile itself it will count as a kill), but the beam is safe.
• Personal Fireball Thrower / Personal Lightning Caster / Personal Tentacler (If self hit spells emitted from player are not safe).
• Plasma Beam Orbit / Nuke Orbit
  • The emitting projectile is not safe (i.e. if an enemy jumps into the projectile itself it will count as a kill), but the explosion and beam are safe.
• Quantum Split (If spell was safe to begin with)

Not Safe

• Clusterbolt
• Damage Field
• Explosive Bounce
• Fireball Orbit / Sawblade Orbit
• Petrify
• Sparkly Bounce
• Venomous Curse

Perks

Safe

• Cordyceps
• Electricity
• Exploding Gold
• Exploding Corpses
• Fungal Colony
• Homunculus
• Lukki Minion
• Mournful Spirit
• Plague Rats
• Revenge Rats
• Spontaneous Generation
• Summon Sädekivi

Not Safe

Note that kills from the following perks do count as player kills and will invalidate the run:

• Angry Ghost
• Concentrated Spells (makes some safe spells do projectile damage thus making some safe spells unsafe).
• Contact Damage
• Fungal Disease
• Levitation Trail
• Lukki Mutation / Leggy Mutation
• Personal Plasma Beam
• Revenge Bullets / Revenge Explosion / Revenge Tentacle
• Telekinetic Kick

Items

Safe

• Shiny Orb
• Runestones (when thrown)
• Chaos Die
• Materials sprayed from Potions

Not Safe

• Emerald Tablets act as both a 25 damage projectile and a physics body, and will count as player kills if the projectile kills the target.
  • This makes them very unsafe to use on enemies, although slightly safer to use on enemies with more than 25 HP.
  • However, if you drag an item out of your inventory instead of equipping it and throwing it, you can "throw" an item without counting as a player kill. This also works with other unsafe items listed below.
• Projectiles from Broken Wand do not count as a player kill, but hitting enemies with the Broken Wand itself will.
• Elemental stones like the Ukkoskivi, while safe to use in water for trick kills, should not be thrown at enemies, as kills from hitting enemies with them will count as player kills.
• Projectiles transformed by Runestones will retain ownership and will still count as your kills if lethal.
• Paha Silmä
• Crystal Key
• Broken Spell
• Flasks and Eggs, if broken via a non-pacifist spell, will count as a player kill
  • …but breaking via throwing or launching is safe.

Exploit (patched)

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The easiest method by far to achieve a pacifist run was to use the polymorphine exploit, as detailed in the below video. This has been patched and therefore only works on Noita versions released before March 11, 2023.

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Polymorphine exploit