
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. Devour a corpse ( Cannibal perk required): -1 karma per corpse. Taking the Karmic Rebalance perk in the Broken Steel add-on instantly sets your karma back to 0. Taking the Escalator to Heaven perk in the Broken Steel add-on: + 2000 karma (essentially, it resets your karma to the maximum 1000). Blowing up the Enclave Mobile Command Crawler in the Who Dares Wins quest in the Broken Steel add-on : +1000 karma.
Activating Project Purity yourself in the quest Take it Back! : +1000 karma Broken Steel. Activating the failsafe in the Tranquility Lane quest : +300 karma. Disarming the Megaton bomb in The Power of the Atom quest without requesting payment: +200 karma. Killing a very evil character or creature ( Allistair Tenpenny, Mister Burke, Eulogy Jones, Carolina Red, Ahzrukhal, Jaime Palabras, Jotun, Ymir, and Cutter): +100 karma. Performing a good action in a quest: At least +50 karma (ex: Bring Cherry to Rivet City.). Giving away purified water to beggar characters like Carlos outside of Rivet City: +50 karma per item. Giving away scrap metal to Walter in Water Processing Plant, Megaton for free: +10 karma per item. Selling fingers taken from the corpses of evil characters (you killed) to Sonora Cruz via the Lawbringer perk: +10 karma per finger. Donating caps to a church (In increments of 10, 50, or 100): +1 karma per cap. Karma titles above level 20 can only be reached with the add-on Broken Steel. Your karma status is defined by a "karma title", depending of your karma points and on your level.
You begin the game with a value of zero, which increases or decreases based on the players actions.