My third playthrough of Fallout 3 is progressing nicely if a bit slowly. Just hit Level 11 last night thanks to the Here and Now perk, which is basically a hunk of free XP to boost your character up a whole level. Keeping myself neutral-aligned in terms of karma hasn’t been too hard yet as I’ve stuck with the main storyline missions. I’ve only had to balance myself out twice now, once by stealing some items after a small boost of good karma.
The second time I murdered Three Dog with a sledgehammer as he sat snacking on some YumYum Deviled Eggs.
Why? Well, I totally forgot that doing his quest to restore radio power in the D.C. region gains you good karma. Grrr. I wasn’t doing it to be a goody-goody though; I was doing it to find out information about my runaway father, and it was the only way to dig deeper into Three Dog. He forced this good karma into my soul, and that’s just not cool. So when I returned, I was a bit annoyed. And so I sat through his blathering, found out my dad went to Rivet City next, and then it was a-swinging time. I am really enjoying these melee weapons a lot more now that my sneak skill is strong enough to get me close to my victims and give ’em a critical whack from behind. Yup, that sounds totally dirty and badass, and that’s the way Jacob likes it.
On my previous playthroughs, I left Three Dog as is. Yes, interestingly, even during my evil run, I let him do his thing. I guess I did plenty enough evil stuff then that the good karma boost barely made a dent on Samantha. It’ll be odd as I continue exploring the Capital Wasteland without hearing his social commentary on everything happening here and there, as well as my personal decisions on key quests. Now there’s no reason to buy a radio for my Megaton pad…
Grinding Down 