Fallout 3

The guides above are all great but I found this solution to be a little less hassle (but less fun) as it doesn`t require you to go on some killing spree.

Make sure to play the game with Good karma. Just before you hit level 8 / 14 / 20 with your character save your game. Level up to get the Good achievement and reload your save. Then, go to Megaton and Moriarty`s Saloon. In the back room there is Moriarty`s terminal and if you try hacking it you`ll lose karma. Exit the terminal immediately (don`t finish the hack!) and hack again; you`ll keep losing karma this way.

Once you`ve reached Neutral / Evil, level up to the achievement`s requirement and there`s another unlock :D

EDIT: Another advantage to this method is that you don`t gain any XP for hacking the terminal, whereas massacring people will net you XP for the kills. This means you can get your XP bar to just before you level up, hack the terminal to the karma you want then level up, saving you time.

(Copied over from "Protector")

The best advice I can offer for this achievement is to play the game Good, as it is much easier to get Bad Karma then Good Karma. When you get to Level 7, you can get the other two achievements, "Mercenary" (Level 8 Neutral) and "Reaver" (Level 8 Bad), as well.

Upon reaching level 7, you can either get more XP until you are just on the brink of Level 8 or you can play it safe, save at the start of the level, and work towards 8 and each side of karma.

To get karma, here are some tips:

For Good karma, give Purified Water to the tramp outside of Megaton. He will be to the right laying on some rocks just outside the gate. You can get purified water from Wadsworth at your house. (NOTE: You will only have a house if you have completed "The Power of the Atom".)

For Bad karma, well... this one is easy! Murder, steal, massacre, hit people, whatever you want to do.


ANOTHER TIP:

A friend of mine recommended saving the "Power of the Atom" quest until you reach one of the levels before those in the achievement (7, 13, 19). Once you get to the level, either blow up the bomb or disarm it, and depending on which, you will get XP and karma for completing the quest. The one problem with this is that you might not have Tenpenny Tower in order to blow the bomb up at level 7.


Good luck!

** MINOR SPOILERS BELOW. **

To get this achievement, you need to reach level 8 with bad karma.

Getting to level 8

Straightforward enough, but there are ways to achieve this more quickly. First, avoid companions.

Second, look out for the NPCs who request certain types of items, and then watch to see if redeeming those items provides XP. Two such "standing orders":

* Scrap metal in Megaton. (Easy to find everywhere.)
* Pre-war books at the Arlington Library. (Excellent per-book XP.)

Lastly, I recommend hacking every terminal, picking every lock, and attempting (almost) every speech challenge. All provide nearly guaranteed XP, without the hassle of a fight.

Karma

Bad karma is easily obtained throughout the game, usually through the theft of items or the murder of wastelanders, but can also be gained by simply being mean during conversations. (I particularly enjoyed making children cry whenever possible.)

If you have a good/neutral karma and need to decrease your karma, this is easy -- go on a killing spree in Megaton or Rivet City. (Megaton is great for using the Fat Man, if you have it at this point.) This will have some obvious gameplay effects (reduced numbers of merchants to access), however, so I suggest saving the game prior to this -- go get the achievement, load your save, and then continue.

Neutral karma can be a tough target to hit sometimes, so my suggestion is to check your karma after each murder / mini-nuke. Once you hit neutral karma, simply stop killing and run away until you are out of range of all angry wastelanders.

If you actually need even more karma loss than that, first steal everything you see, but be careful not to be caught, as it will typically provoke a gunfight. Then go on your murder spree.

One last note: Taking the evil path during the Power of the Atom quest will provide a lot of bad karma, so feel free to save that quest for "the right time".

One other tip i can recommend:play the game with good karma, save the tenpenny tower quest and if you're level 7, 13 or 19 finish it the evil way (this is done by letting Roy in by hacking the terminal). This way you'll get around 350xp and quite some bad karma. So if you are good and you want neutral just finish the quest, this will make you neutral. If you're good and you want evil just kill some people first untill you hit neutral or evil (depends on how much xp you need for level up) and then finish the quest.

If you don't have any problems with a glitch/mechanic abuse, there is a way to get XP retalively fast after you leave the vault.

The first thing you should keep in mind as you start your game is that it is advisable to keep your character barely good (try stealing things without being caught, saving often, and loading the most recent save when you realize you are neutral) if you are going for all the leveling achievements (the end part of the guide will be assuming you are). Also, make explosives one of your tag skills as you will need a skill of 25 to do this method. Having an intelligence of at least 4 is advisable.

First, go to Megaton and the Craterside Supply (Talk to Lucas Simms at the entrance of Megaton if you are unsure of where this is) and talk to the shop owner, Maria. Tell her you will help with her book and choose to talk about Minefield.

After you finish talking with her, make "The Wasteland Survival Guide" your active quest. then travel to Minefield which should be where your objective marker is. Disarm two mines and fast travel back to Megaton.

Go to the Craterside Supply and make the frag mines you picked up your active weapon. As you walk in, you should see a mercenary leaning on a wall. Head directly behind the wall he is leaning on, crouch, then throw a frag mine and pick it up.

You should keep this process going, getting 5 XP each time you pick up a mine (up to seven with the swift learner perk maxed out). I would advise getting the swift learner perk as quick as possible to increase your speed of leveling up.

One thing to note is that past 5 pm, Billy Crealy will visit the shop and wander, along with his girl. I recomend waiting until 8:00 am when this happens. Eventually, the mercanary will want to go to bed regardless, and you will have to wait until 8:00 am for him to come back.

When your are 35-45 XP from the level you want, then stop. Save, then if you are going for good karma, just keep going until you you level up. If you are going for neutral karma kill both the mercanary and Maria.

If you are going for bad karma, kill the mercanary, then steal everything in the shop. If you are still not bad karma, attempt to hack the computer then back out. Continue to hack in and back out until you are at bad karma or you are confident killing Maria will bring your karma down enough to be bad karma (if she has not run out). If she has ran out, hack the computer succesfully and you will level up.

The video below (which all credit goes to ablestmage on youtube) detail the method of throwing the fragmine and picking it up so you can understand. Please leave comments telling me how I can improve my solution. I am always open to suggestions.

This guide will cover how to get all 9 karma level related achievements in fallout 3.
Whether you are playing new for the first time or coming back like I did to clean up achievements 15 years later, this method will work for you and allow you to get all 9 achievements in about 2 hours or so.

First, when you create a new character, you are going to have to decide if you are going to continue playing with the character afterwards. If not, it does not really matter. If so, you may want to theorycraft and be a bit selective here.

Once you escape the vault, you need to get bad karma and 12 scrap metal. Do not murder anyone in Megatown though. If you are continuing this playthrough, be selective on how you get this negative karma. You can check it on your pipboy. You can find scrap metal anywhere. But it can be bought from tinker Joe near the RobCo facility.

Once you have 12 scrap metal, it is time to do the infinite scrap metal glitch. This glitch will allow you to get caps, exp, karma, and items free and easy. Head to fort independence and start the glitch. To save space on this guide, follow this video: At this point, you should have infinite scrap metal and be talking to Walter in the water processing plant in Megaton. Now, start giving scrap metal to Walter for exp. If you are solely using this playthrough for these achievements, it does not really matter what you do for skills or perks; however, I would recommend taking the swift learner perk twice as it will make it quicker.
Once you get to level 7, through down a save. Now you should have bad karma currently. Keep giving scrap to walter until you hit level 8. This will unlock it for bad karma. Reload your level 7 save. Now, talk to Walter, and give him your scrap for free, this will not net you caps, but will give you good karma and exp. Every transaction, check you pipboy for your current karma. Once you have neutral karma, start giving Walter the scrap metal for caps again. You will hit level 8 with neutral karma. Reload back to your level 7 save again. Again, trade scrap for karma until you hit good karma and level 8. You should start to see the pattern forming.

Once you get all 3 level 8 karma achievements, reload to your bad karma level 7 save. Level this up until you are level 13. You are going to throw down a save and repeat the process above for the level 14 achievements. You will throw down a save at level 19 and repeat one last time for the level 20 achievements.

Yes, this is a lot of dialogue clicking, but you will eventually get into a rhythm with your controller. Also, once you gain enough exp, its recommended you exit the dialogue tree and do the level up process. Please note, the achievements are not going to pop instantly when you hit the level requirement. It was around a 30 second to minute delay. You are exploiting the games exp so cut it a break.

Feel free to comment below if I should add anything else.