I have just met up with Malcolm Holmes and was wondering the pros and cons of my two options:

1. Option 1 is to kill him and steal all of his stuff including the star bottle caps. Although I wont lose Karma if its a sneak attack, its just that killing innocents are not my thing, I like to play as I would act in the real world.

2. Option 2 is to use a stealth boy and pickpocket him for it. The downside is I lose Karma and waste a stealth boy on his ass.

I have actually accomplished both of these and they are autosaved so the next time I play I have to choose one of the two so I can resume my game.

What have most of you guys done? Suggestions.

As always, thanks for you help.

If you're worried about karma, dont kill him or pickpocket. It's not that hard to get sasparilla caps, and he only has a few.

If you dont care, stick him with yer stickin' knife.

I just let him go.

I shot him immediatly without actually knowing he had anything important on him beforehand.

Does that make me a bad person? :spotted owl:

Kill him in Sneak Mode. He won't see it coming, and you don't lose karma.

Good Karma is so easy to come by anyways, just ice him dude.

I loved the "Legend of the Star"....when I found out what the treasure was I was quite pleased I chose the path I did.

That's exactly the situation that calls for a stealth boy to be used. And it's not like there is a limited amount of them when you can simply buy one at Gunrunners and other vendors. But it is possible to get away with not using one if you are quick. I remember pickpocketing a very important item in the Gomorrah with only 15 Sneak. If he catches you and demands you give him what rightfully belongs to you then what will you do at that point?

When I talked to him the first time, I let him walk but for fun I pickpocketed him to see what he had on him and found out "YOU LIAR!!!" and I shot him dead.

Does anyone know if I can still accomplish the Legend of the Star quest without stealing or killing Malcolm Holmes for his 6 star caps? Or will I be regretting it later in the game?

Just murder him already . Forget the caps what you need is the trader outfit + 10 to barter.

Generally speaking I'm a boyscout and I don't kill non-hostile NPC's but you'll never see Holmes again anyway and you can make up the karma by killing a few Ghouls.

And yes you can still obtain the necessary star caps without killing him.