Are there any negative effects whatsoever to having a low karma in NV? Are there advantages to having a high karma? Any difference whatsoever between the two in gameplay? I tried looking on the wiki, but it didn't give a clear answer to what karma does in NV. I'm getting tired of deciding not to steal guns or whatever just because I don't want a low karma, even though I have no idea what difference it even makes.

I think it affects the ending montage but other than that no.

I personally hate the Karma system in New Vegas as it is unecessary and also non-sensical. I wouldn't worry about getting Low Karma, it is a chore to get it low, shoot some powder gangers, tribals etc and it will boost it right up.

yeah, it seems like it doesn't really have any positive/negative effects. I remember in FO 3 they would occasionally include it in things like asking companions to come with you etc, but I haven't seen any of that in NV.

oh, and the bounty hunters/regulators. now it's all done around the reputation system

Considering Fiends attack on sight and you get good karma for getting those, it appears New Vegas' Karma Kameleon is leaning on the good side.

Well, you get good karma for kill every scum in the Wastes since Fallout 1, so, they returned for some reason

It affects the first slide of the ending, and since you get karma for killing certain enemies in the final mission, the only way to see neutral or evil House, independent or NCR ending is to cheat with the console. Like i did last time, even mr. House fears me!

The Karma system in itself I love, but I feel Obsidian screwed the pooch on properly implementing it. Killing certian factions gives you karma? Huh, so much for F:NV being 'morally grey'

I think F3 did a better job implementing Karma than New Vegas did.

Yah it seems that Karma does not play as near as big of a goal as it did in FO3, frankly I miss that.

While FO3 didn't quite get it right either, I agree they did a slightly better job of it than NV. Lose one karma for stealing an item? Ok. Lose one karma for feeding on the corpses of your enemies no matter who they are? Umm... maybe. Gain 100 karma for killing a druggie who didn't even know you were sneaking up behind him with a sniper rifle? Seriously? At least you can get around the karma hit by letting your companions kill all the fiends and feral ghouls, but it's a half-assed solution at best. It might have been better had they made it so killing Fiends gave, say, a tenth of a point of faction rep with Freeside/The Strip/NCR per kill, instead of any karma at all.

very much so...

I have to agree. Killing the Fiends is clearly a good thing, but is it REALLY a karma worthy thing? That's highly debatable. I think it should go back to the system F3 had, killing named Evil/Very Evil characters gave karma. Or certain good/evil behaviors. You're right, F3 was a little improper in how it implented it too, but it was better than F:NV. In NV it makes it alot harder to RP a neutral or evil character when you're forced good karma.

It's also slightly dodgy that you lose karma for, for example, stealing from the Legion when you're fighting against them. It's war, people.

It doesn't have any major effects apart from the ending slides. I know that if you have good karma, Mortimer won't offer his quest to you, and I think there are a handful of dialogue options, but it's really not a big deal.

Losing karma for stealing from the Legion I can sort of see, as while they may have brutal methods, we know that not everyone there is truly evil (you could be stealing from the slaves instead of the masters, after all). Losing karma for stealing from the Powder Gangers - convicted criminals actively pursuing further criminal endeavors - is very shaky to me.

There is only one really noticeable effect from karma that I have seen aside from minor quest hooks (most of which can be gotten around with a speech check of some kind) - you will lose one companion permanently if your karma goes too far in one direction.

I've always since this was raised that they should make a system where if you are tagged 'vilified' of Faction A, it's okay to take things since you are only looting. Where as if you are nonhostile, you are stealing.

And Mortimer is easy work around, just take the quest from Heck Gunderson.

I did find one Karma effect; Cass will run off like a little [censored]/try to kill you if you're Karma is too low. Which is ironic coming from a whiskey-swigging black widow, but whatever.

Any game that requires Karma in a meaningfull way.
Should really take Planescape: Torment as its base line / goal.
In that game it was a mini story all of its own, almost every dialogue topic ( not tree ) had an effect on alignment.
You make a joke or tell a minor lie to help someone it swung drastically in two directions.
You tell the truth it swings another.
If it follows later on as sending a victimised person to suffer a legally deserved punishment, but morally wrong one it could go 3 or more ways.
It had bonuses to be one or the other and penalties too, it also effected some dialogue by itself as well.

Just a card karma counting machine to say whoooaa you're evil have a lollipop is not roleplaying.
Either put it in right and have many, many, many, many consequences of it or just leave it out.

As to the OP's other question there are at least two karma based effects in game, excluding the epilogue slide shows.
However I doubt any more than those two minor ones.

It may have just been a coincidence but the only time I had real bad Karma one of Old Lady Gibson's dogs attacked me on sight. I never did anything to her or attacked anyone else. All my bad Karma was from stealing or eating some yummy humans. I hope it was just something random because karma should not be known by the other players.

I wish karma affected things like loot and maybe a high luck would balance out a low karma.

Karma as implemented in the game is not what it could be.

Stealing things should not always give a Karma Loss. Like if the owner is not there anymore. I already lost or gained Karma from their death, why do I have to worry about it after? Enemies who attack me, with maybe some exception, should not effect Karma at all. Murder should effect Karma and should carry a larger penalty/reward depending on who and how I took them out. Karma should have an effect on your companions. As bent as Boone is, maybe he should take offense if you steal, and leave if you steal enough for example. Then of course we would need some evil or evil enabling companions.

A person who is a pure thief should never have a negative Karma Balance such that they can not be seen as a good person (the Robin Hood effect if you will). If they do good deeds, then they are "forgiven" for a few property rights violations. A murderer can get redemption, but only with lots of good deeds.

I am not sure exactly how to fix it, but it does need some work in the game. Karma does need to have more of an impact on the ingame activities, maybe not all of them.

so the game has a karma fairy keeping track of deeds and misdeeds. when i steal, i try not to be noticed. so there is no one around to witness the misdeed. it is one thing to kill and steal in front of witness but if there aren't any then they should be no change in karma. if i do a good deed for a fraction and there was proof of it then karma should go up. like when you do that bounty hunt and the head was damaged, you don't get full credit, money-wise. that is how it should be done.

Karma isnt a crime and punishment meter. Karma is how the world as a whole sees you, if you see your childhood bully and its just after The Great War, no ones around but you and him, he's dying of radiation poisoning, you use a Rad-Away, yet he still dies because something in his body started to fail before you got there. The fact that you put the past behind you to save a life, that's what karma is about. Some people don't believe in it some do. I believe in it since in my opinion it makes sense.

Given that the system is so screwed it basically has no point in New Vegas and virtually no ramifications.

I really thought karma would function differently in FONV.

I though it would be much more similar to FO3, but w/ the addition of factional representation for an added twist.

I think NPC's should have factional alignments and karma alignments. Doubly so for recruitable companions.

As it stands, I barely notice any impact karma has in the game.

my point is witness. where is the proof that i stole something? we can steal from the powder gangers but can't steal from the vipers. why is that? we go into vault 3 and everything we pick up doesn't count as theft. since they conquered the place, everything belongs to them. if we pick up things there, the fiends should become hostile.

The universe is the witness. The force is all around you.

I do agree that the method they use to determine if something is theft or not is stupid, as is the gaining of karma for killing fiends. The gaining rep with certain factions for it is a very good idea. I can agree with karma for killing feral ghouls. I view it as putting them out of their misery and removing an unthinking, unhelpable threat. I was bummed I couldn't kill all the ferals in Vault 34. One or two on the second floor of a room I could see from the overseer's office, but I couldn't reach them. I actually hoped Jason Bright was correct that he would be able to cure them.

With the theft thing, why werre the items in the Silver Rush red, but there was no karma loss for stealing them?

Wild guess, but maybe because there's a companion quest (or quests in general, perhaps) related to that place ....like with Boone's quest, stealing red items from that lady's store/house has no kamra loss either.