Karma

Karma (as a tab on your in-game character sheet) in the Fallout series is the reflection of all good and evil choices you make during the game. In the first Fallout, it only covered a statistic called "reputation," as well as the special karma/reputation perks. In Fallout 2, what was originally called reputation was renamed to karma, and reputation became a measurement of how you are perceived by various communities.

As a statistic, karma (reputation in the original Fallout) is a measurement of your good or bad deeds and how perceived by the inhabitants of the Wasteland. Also, you can gain "titles" displaying your "achievements". For example, in Fallout, if you kill a child, you earn the Childkiller award.

Wanderer
You start off with the status of a 'wanderer' with 0 karma points. This status can therefore also be called neutral. You stay a wanderer until you either reach +250 or -250 karma points.

Defender

 * If your positive karma reaches 250 you gain the status of the 'Defender'.


 * This karma level's icon is a reference to Batman.

Shield of Hope

 * If your positive karma reaches 500 you gain the status of the 'Shield of Hope'.


 * This karma level's icon is a reference to Captain America. Instead of having a star on the costume's chest, Vault Boy's sports a number 13, referencing Vault 13 from Fallout.

Guardian of the Wastes

 * If your positive karma reaches 750 you gain the status of the 'Guardian of the Wastes'.
 * This karma level's icon is a reference to the British Grenadier Guardsman, guarding a "waste" bin.

Savior of the Damned

 * If your positive karma reaches 1000 you gain the status of the 'Savior of the Damned'.


 * This karma level's icon is a reference to Dudley Do Right.

Betrayer
If your negative karma reaches -250 you gain the status of the 'Betrayer'.

Sword of Despair
If your negative karma reaches -500 you gain the status of the 'Sword of Despair'.

Scourge of the Wastes
If your negative karma reaches -750 you gain the status of the 'Scourge of the Wastes'.

Demon Spawn

 * If your negative karma reaches -1000 you gain the status of the 'Demon Spawn'.
 * This karma level's icon is a reference to the Image comics character Spawn

Fallout 3
Good Karma

Bad Karma

Karma is the system in Fallout 3 that keeps track of the moral actions and consequences of a character. Karma is, philosophically, the principle of cause and effect, yet a recurring paradox within Fallout 3 is a lack of consistency on whether it is cruel intentions or cruel effects of actions that truly count towards or against one's karma. In Fallout 3, karma represents the player's aptitude towards a certain status: good, neutral, or evil, as well as the player's reputation when dealing with NPCs. Although it is measured in points, the player never gets to see a numerical karmic value, only the title. You can only use the console command to get the current value of karma. Players always start a new game at 0 karma: a neutral "Vault Dweller".

People will behave differently toward you depending upon your karma. For example, if a player has very good karma in Megaton, one NPC will talk to the player every day to give them free items such as ammo, food or medicine. Players with evil karma can get the same benefits in Paradise Falls. Karma also factors into certain dialogue options, such as recruiting followers and learning about Bigsley's side operation.

If the player's karma ever becomes good, they will be targeted by Talon Company mercs (even if their karma subsequently drops back to neutral or evil). Likewise, if the player's karma ever becomes evil, they will be targeted by Regulators, even if their karma later raises to neutral or good. A player that has been both good and evil (i.e. in order to recruit all followers) may sometimes find themselves attacked by both Talon Company mercs and Regulators at the same time (though they may attack each other first). Keeping a neutral karma level will result in neither Regulators nor Talon Company mercs bothering you.

Companions and karma
Surprisingly, the two companions (excluding those who don't care about the player's karma) that prove themselves to be the most loyal are those who require low (or evil) karma: Clover and Jericho. After being hired, they will follow the player regardless of changes in karma level, although they will often mention how boring the player is, should he become good.

Butch DeLoria and Sergeant RL-3, both recruited with neutral karma, are similar to Clover and Jericho. They will not leave if your karma becomes good or evil, but unlike Clover, you can't get them back with a high or low karma level when the main story separates you.

Players with high karma may hire Fawkes or Star Paladin Cross. They are not slaves or servants like Clover and Charon: they will follow you of their own free will, without any cost, if you ask them and have good karma. Be aware, however, that being good characters, they will leave your side if you become evil after hiring them, and will refuse to follow you again until your karma is high enough.

On the other hand, Dogmeat will follow you regardless of what your karma level is.

Karma levels
You begin the game with a value of zero, which increases or decreases based on the players actions. There are 5 levels of karma:


 * Very Good: +750 to +1000.
 * Good: +250 to +749.
 * Neutral: -249 to +249.
 * Evil: -749 to -250.
 * Very Evil: -1000 to -750.



Titles
Good karma titles apply if your karma is above +250 points, neutral titles are awarded if your karma is between -249 and +249 points and evil titles are assigned if your karma is less than -250 points.

Ranks above 20 can only be reached with the add-on Broken Steel.

Add karma (Doing Good)

 * Donating caps to any church (In increments of 10, 50, or 100): +1 karma per cap
 * Selling fingers taken from the corpses of evil characters (you killed) to Sonora Cruz via the Lawbringer perk: +10 karma per finger
 * Giving away scrap metal to Walter in Water Processing Plant, Megaton for free: +10 karma per item
 * Giving away purified water to beggar characters like Carlos outside of Rivet City: +50 karma per item
 * Performing a good action in a quest: At least +50 karma (ex: Bring Cherry to Rivet City.)
 * Killing a very evil character or creature (Allistair Tenpenny, Mister Burke, Eulogy Jones, Carolina Red, Ahzrukhal, and Jaime Palabras): +100 karma
 * Disarming the Megaton bomb in The Power of the Atom quest without requesting payment: +200 karma
 * Activating Project Purity yourself in the quest Take it Back! : +1000 karma
 * Blowing up the Enclave Mobile Command Crawler in the Who Dares Wins quest in the Broken Steel add-on : +1000 karma
 * Taking the Escalator to Heaven perk in the Broken Steel add-on: +2000 karma (essentially, it resets your karma to the maximum 1000)

Subtract karma (Doing Evil)
Finally, taking the Karmic Rebalance perk in the Broken Steel add-on instantly sets your karma back to 0: dead neutral.
 * Devour a corpse (Cannibal perk required): -1 karma per corpse
 * Stealing from a non-evil character or faction: -5 karma per instance (note that when stealing from owned (red text) containers, such as cabinets or lockers, the karma change applies once per activation of that container. Meaning, if you open a container once and steal two items, you lose 5 karma, but if you open the same container twice, stealing one item each time, you will lose 5 karma each time, which means you lose 10 karma). Items can be replaced in owned containers after being stolen, and then stolen again and again with the same karma loss each time, making for a useful method by which console gamers can decrease their karma, although repeatedly hacking an owned terminal is a faster way of doing this.
 * Repeatedly hacking an owned (red text) terminal (Classifies as stealing, but can be done over and over again) -5 karma per hack attempt, NOTE, even accessing the terminal will result in negative karma
 * Selling ears taken from the corpses of good characters (you killed) to Daniel Littlehorn via the Contract Killer Perk: -10 karma per ear
 * Killing a good creature: -25 karma
 * Performing an evil action in a quest: At least -50 karma
 * Killing a non-evil character: -100 karma (although, this can be gotten around by shooting them once, making them hostile, then letting a follower kill them.)
 * Giving psycho to Paulie Cantelli in Rivet City: -100 karma each time so long as he's alive
 * Enslaving any character with the Mesmetron: -100 karma
 * Letting the feral ghouls into Tenpenny Tower in the eponymous quest: -600 karma
 * Blowing up Megaton in the Power of the Atom quest: -1000 karma
 * Infecting Project Purity with the modified FEV in the Quest Take it Back!' -1000 karma
 * Blowing up the Citadel in the Who Dares Wins quest in the Broken Steel add-on : -1000 karma
 * Taking the Devil's Highway perk in the Broken Steel add-on: -2000 karma (essentially, it resets your karma to the minimum -1000)

To manually adjust karma, the console command can be used, where x is the amount of karma to add; use a negative value to subtract karma. It is useful when trying to recruit permanent companions with karma requirements.

Karma Карма Karma

Good Karma

 * Access to Star Paladin Cross and Fawkes.
 * Talon Company Mercs will come after you.
 * Citizens in Megaton reward you for your good-doings with ammo and other random gifts.

Neutral Karma

 * The use of the Impartial Mediation perk, the single biggest skill boost in the game.
 * Access to Sergeant RL-3, a good early-to-mid game follower.
 * Access to Butch
 * Neither Talon Company, nor the Regulators will come after you.

Bad Karma

 * The Regulators will be after you.
 * Access to Clover and Jericho, good early-to-mid game followers.
 * Slavers in Paradise Falls reward you for your wrong-doings with ammo and other random gifts.

Fallout: New Vegas
Karma doesn't have as much of effect on gameplay as in Fallout 3, since reputation is used instead. However, it does still exist and if someone catches you performing an action that causes negative Karma against their faction you will often lose reputation with that faction; for example, stealing something from The Silver Rush where a Van Graff can see you. They may also become openly hostile despite your reputation with them not being lowered enough for you to be considered hated where they will attack you.

Karma's basic mechanics work similarly to the way they do in Fallout 3 (a 2000 point linear scale with -1000 being the most evil and +1000 the most good). Unlike reputation, where one can only gain fame or gain infamy, karma can be gained and lost.

Karma also no longer determines which companions you can recruit. However, when opening a conversation with Cass after she has joined you and when you have substantially negative karma (-100) she will complain about your behavior. You will get a second warning when your karma is even lower (-150). After that, she won't complain anymore, as long as the player stays neutral. When you continue on your path to "the dark side" and talk to her again while having evil karma (-250) she will leave for good. Note that Cass does not actually grant the player any grace period to improve their karma, so a player who doesn't know better can alienate her in the space of minutes by making three attempts in a row to converse with her. Even though she will agree to accompany an evil character, the first attempt to talk with her (which you will need to do in order to tell her to travel with you) will result in her telling the player that he "can be a real asshole sometimes" and the first of three strikes will be used up on the spot.

The values for karma gain may be bugged; currently killing Very Evil NPCs (such as Vulpes Inculta) gives only 2 karma, yet killing some Fiends and Feral Ghouls grants 100 karma.

Some ending narration in the game's epilogue will also depend upon the player's karma. (See Fallout: New Vegas endings for details.)

Ways to change Karma
To increase Karma to Good or Very Good:
 * Go inside Vault 3 and kill some Fiends or go inside the NCR Correctional Facility and kill some Powder Gangers.

To maintain Neutral Karma:
 * Kill Fiends or Powder Gangers if your karma is too low.
 * Steal items if your karma is too high.

To decrease Karma to Evil or Very Evil:
 * Steal items.
 * Go on a killing spree in a faction
 * Access an owned computer terminal (which can subtract Karma as many times as the player wishes)

Titles
For the most part, titles are same as in Fallout 3, but with changes because of the Courier's origins (not being from a vault, for example) and because of the game's different setting. Also, the base level cap is 30. The add-ons raise this cap for five levels each, but titles do not change past level 30.

All titles in the table: