Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Guide contains spoilers.

This is not a full main quest guide but rather some tips about getting this achievement without too much hassle.

First off there are some rumours going around that you can kill people in side quests and that wont count towards this achievement. While I'm not 100% sure I would personally assume that you have to complete the entirety of the main quest line without killing anyone. If you have a side quest that involves killing someone, ignore it until you finish the story.

If you're going for the achievement I recommend concentrating on speech, you can get out of most situations with a high speech level. Also unlock the perk Empathetic at level 8, as it will allow you to see your counterparts speech level.

During the main quest there are several sections that require combat, all you have to do is stay back and watch your comrades do the killing for you. There's always at least one person who cant die, like Sir Radzig, Hanush etc. They will always keep fighting so that you don't have to. If you like you can hit enemies from behind with your fists, knocking people out is fine. If you think you've killed someone simply head to the stats section - Player - Statistics - Combat - Look at people killed, this should be zero.(or one after Runt).

Any bandits you find you can still fight them with a sword but just make sure you give them a chance to surrender, they will drop their weapon/run away.

The only difficult quest in my opinion is Baptism of Fire, once you get in to the first camp you will get the objective to kill the archers, obviously you cant do this but neither will your teammates, you can simply wait with your comrades behind the tents for a few minutes which will then eventually finish the objective for you.

After this section your men will run up the hill in to the next encampment, this is where it gets rather tricky since more than likely all of your men will die apart from Radzig and Hanush since you're not helping out that much. It can take a long time for those two alone to kill all of the men, you can try and help out but with only your fists its quite difficult, you can just hide behind the tents until everyone is dead. If archers are shooting you just hide in the corner behind the wooden hut. Once you see Radzig/Hanush by the gate to the church you can move to them which will trigger a cutscene.

Then you will have to kill Runt, this is the only person you can kill. I recommend using a bow to kill him, he goes down in 1-3 shots. I did find a bug with killing him though, I first killed him with Long distance arrows, I checked the kill stats afterwards and it said 1 person killed. I thought this was normal but I reloaded and killed him with hunting arrows and its said in the stats that I had killed 0 people. After testing from several people this is confirmed as normal, you'll still unlock the achievement either way after killing Runt.

There is another fairly annoying quest called Needle in a Haystack which requires you to , you don't have to kill him, you can simply let him go at the end of the quest. I recommend following another guide for this quest though since it is very long winded and boring.

Every other quest you can complete easily by standing back/unarmed/with high speech. Its not hard it can just get tedious.

I would just like to confirm that, despite what the achievement description says, you will not get the achievement if you kill any person (animals are fine) in the game. That includes side quests, in the wild or during the main quests.

Full main quest GUIDE for the "Merciful" achievement. - Contains Spoilers

This guide does not include all of the main quests, only the ones that were relevant or difficult for me and a DLC quest. This does not include the Pribyslavitz attack, it was actually the easiest quest for me o-o, the Talmberg attack was the hard one. And finally, I'm sorry for any typos in my guide...

1. Ignore the looters on the way to Skalitz after the attack, take a long way around them, it's easier than having them surrender.

2. Train with Captain bernard a bit before leaving to level up your strength to get the "headcracker" perk, it helped me a bit during this achievement.

3. To level your speech up select every dialog option at least once, just spam the skip button if it bores you, the more you talk the more speech XP you get, trust me every little dialogue option adds up. I chose the Highborn perk and it worked quite well for me.

4. Do not have a horse when going hunting with Hans Capon, this will make you meet the Cumans preemptively, and this mission is much easier if a stealth approach is taken.

5. I recommend using fists, bludgeons, bardiches, or the trusty companion sword, as these are the worst weapons of their respective categories. Poison & Bludgeon worked well for me. (general tip)

6. Make sure that the bandit protecting the one with the hoof-pick surrenders or runs, I think you can also tell Captain Bernard about it. Go directly to Ginger's hut and lie to him about the bandits searching for him, preferably convince him to go back to Neufhof immediately without talking to that lady who owns it. (lie)

7. Run away from the Ledetchko bandits hunting Reeky when you find him if they are there, or suffer a possibly eternal barrage of reloads and a slow battle.

8. Tell the bandits Timmy's in Rattay, 8/9 speech is needed I think. Drink some alcohol for +2 speech or a bard's potion if you do not have enough yet.

9. As soon as you hear of the german knight, the silver contraband mine/camp spawns, instead of doing things the right way, go directly to the mining camp near Rovna and charge into the cave, ignoring the bandits along the way, following the right wall all the way until the cutscene starts.

10. For Needle in a haystack, do this, in this order, skip the tour, Tell Antonius about your search for Pious, then tell him you know he is Pious, agree with his method of escape, sleep until 10 PM, run to the kitchen and add blood to list, then go to the pantry and get the monastery key, if you do not know where the key is, you can also get a lockpick from behind the altar in the mass room, then go to sleep, go to prayer at 4 am, after prayer, when everybody is eating at 6 AM, get the blood quickly, run to Pious and tell him you have the stuff, then follow the schedule until after evening mass, then, go up to the dormitory and find Pious.

11. In the Vranik battle, stand back and watch the main battles from afar, when it is time to clear the scorched camp, run across it until it ends and the objective will complete itself, and the quest proceed.

12. The Talmberg attack right after Vranik was very easy for me, I attacked the enemies once or twice with a bludgeon and then ran for teammates, and they did the rest of the job for me. (This is when Sir Divish is shot.)

13. For the night raid, deliberately get caught quickly and fail, the result is the same and there is no repercussion, quickly leave back in the ladder; Though you can continue the mission, just make sure to do takedowns and not assassinations.

14. In the siege quests, ignore everything and only do Master Feyfars trebuchet quest, after getting the commission and discovering about the assassination wait until midnight and open the door so that Peychar goes for the guard, he will lose and you will not have to attack him.

15. In the last mission (the hardest one) use your best armor, pack in the potion that gives you a ton of health over time, a few Lazarus pots, a few bandages, and you're golden. When the battle begins climb the ladders first and do your best to agro every enemy there with only your fists, if you knock someone out loot all their armor and dump it, after the first set of enemies is dispatched be sure to rush to the next set enemies before your teammates, when and if only Captain Bernard remains, be sure to run away if you're low on health and take your time, what I did is I brought a poisoned sword and gave them a few pokes and then stood and watched as Bernard killed the rest painfully slowly, I only poked until blood ran out so that I didn't kill them directly.

16. If you have the Hans Capon amorous DLC the only hard part is getting the necklace, so when in the enemy camp participate in the tourney all four times, quitting each match right after starting (unless you have great dice) and allowing someone else to win, the winner will leave for Sasau after winning. While he's traveling or when he's at Sasau pickpocket him or knock him out stealth mode and you're golden.