I'm cleaning out the NCRCF, and essentially every item's tagged red, and I do indeed lose karma for stealing. Is this intended?

I'm vilified there for killing everyone on-site, I was hated even before arriving, I'm currently at "Very Good" karma, and I get positive karma for killing them, so shouldn't that qualify me as "not really stealing"?

i get bad karma for stealing from the powder gang, i guess its just stealing is bad in general even from the bad guys.

That's one thing I never understood, but "stealing is stealing", even after the owner died in the game.

In the game only, when they're not looking, I take everything in sight and don't sweat the Karma. In Fallout 3, I built a stronger character faster, with more unique items with this play style. Sneak is a great skill in FNV.

It's because they're an alignable faction. The game does not seem to adjust karma rules with regards to stealing based on faction hostility.

same here, im doing a "good" character run through so youd think after killing the gang members which give you should be able to steal their dynomite right?

Seems like it. They don't know who you're going to side with so stealing is the default.

I was getting bad karma spam from cleaning out the Repconn facility after those fools were in space!

As someone else said. Stealing is stealing, whether the person your stealing from is good or evil, doesn't matter.. your doing an evil deed.

So why do you get positive karma for killing them? :huh:

Blah blah blah...

It's a bug.

You are getting rid of a threat, and creatures as well as the environment will not suffer anymore.

However stealing is never 'good'... stealing is stealing regardless of the owners alignment, dead or alive.

I'm denying my enemy the use of valuable resources. Stealing is an oversimplification.

Don't justify it. The game simply doesn't apply faction rules to faction owned items.

There's plenty of stuff you can steal from hostile guys. Just not if it's an alignable faction.

It seems the game is forcing us to play to an extreme of good or evil karma. If you think about a truly good character would not steal even from their enemy. Thats good Karma. I look at it as a leveling thing where as a lower level character you really cannot afford to be a good karma person. You almost have to steal in order to survive. I imagine that as we level up stealing will be a more of a moral choice rather than a, I don't know, a critical choice. You really don't need the few caps or water on that person you just vaporized. You will get yours the "right" way, so you leave the loot for another to pick up. Good Karma.

Now having played FO3 where I can go on an absolute thieving spree I feel like I am going to go through withdrawal...

Problem with that is.... I can kill the guy. I can loot his corpse. No problems. But I can't grab the bottle of beer sitting on the table in front of him. That's not good karma, that's just silly.

Yup. These threads are amusing. The strained justifications have been going on since Daggerfall at least. I've never seen them to the extent on any other company's forum. Bethesda goofs something up or takes a shortcut and people will pour out of the woodwork to explain how it really makes sense, if only other players would bend their reasoning in just the right way. I blame the "dwarf" fiasco for starting it all, and it's a tradition that has sadly spread to the Fallout series.

Obsidian was handed a system that's too simple for multiple factions that aren't strictly good or evil. Too much work for too little payout. It may be fixable by mod once the script extender comes out. No ethical gymnastics required to explain it.

I was thinking about that as I wrote my post, I reckon when it comes to karma self defense is ok but to be really be karmic not getting into the confrontation in first place would be best. But that would make for a dull Fall Out New Vegas game... and add to the silliness

Killing is evil, not immoral. That's the difference.

Grave Robbing isn't really nice IRL either

I am honestly a little confused by this mechanic myself. I don't really understand. You are in a world that is ruled by survival of the fittest. It makes absolute sense to take advantage of anything you may find. It is almost disappointing since a huge reason I explored FO3 so thoroughly was because of the loot. I lost karma for taking a copy of "Lying Congressional Style" from the prison. Now I cant loot the booty if I want to be good. So far I have still been "stealing" any ammo, weapons and stim paks I may find at a rival camp. This has pushed me into neutral territory a few times. I guess it would make it easier to play a neutral character since many of your good deeds would be undone by picking up a dead rival factions stock of magnum ammo or picking a lock on a med kit.

In my opinion, karma svcks. Get rid of it. Keep reputation, scrap that ridiculous karma system. I won't miss it and it saves the trouble of having to design anything around it.

Same.

This is bugging the [censored] out of me. If you are hated by a faction, you shouldn't be penalized for looting their stuff after you kill the crap out of them, especially if you are getting karma for killing them in the first place.

Another thing that bugged me about FO3 was that you lost rep for putting an item on somebody. WTF?

Maybe is time for a mod to remove the so called stealing ( aka looting) karma hit system.

Just do some good deeds and Karma will forget it ever happened

So then why is it not considered "stealing" when you go to some abandoned house and find items that are not in red? The game can't tell the difference between an ally and enemy when taking items, but it can when you kill them. Dead enemies no longer "own" the items you're taking and yet you get penalized, yet you don't get penalized for picking up items in abandoned areas that could very well still be owned by someone else? Leaps of logic.