Fallout 3
72 Achievements
1,550
73-98h
Xbox 360
Xbox One
Xbox Series
Pinnacle of Survival
Reached Level 14 with Neutral Karma
20
How to unlock the Pinnacle of Survival achievement in Fallout 3 - Definitive Guide
(Copied over from "Ambassador of Peace")
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 13, you can get the other two achievements, "Pinnacle of Survival" (Level 14 Neutral) and "Harbinger of War" (Level 14 Bad), as well.
Upon reaching level 13, you can either get more XP until you are just on the brink of Level 14 or you can play it safe, save at the start of the level, and work towards 14 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!
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 13, you can get the other two achievements, "Pinnacle of Survival" (Level 14 Neutral) and "Harbinger of War" (Level 14 Bad), as well.
Upon reaching level 13, you can either get more XP until you are just on the brink of Level 14 or you can play it safe, save at the start of the level, and work towards 14 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 14 with neutral karma.
Getting to level 14
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
Neutral karma generally means that you do as much harm as good. Playing through the storyline as the traditional hero will get you a wealth of positive karma, so getting the neutral karma achievements will require you to do some evil (mostly murder and theft).
If you need a karma boost, I have two suggestions:
* At the Church of the Atom (Megaton) or Saint Monica's Church (Rivet City), donate caps. If you have a lot of cash lying around, it will be very easy and quick to get into "positive" karma.
* In Megaton, give away your scrap metal rather than requesting payment. (You still get the XP.)
If you 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.) This will have some obvious gameplay effects 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, 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.
To get this achievement, you need to reach level 14 with neutral karma.
Getting to level 14
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
Neutral karma generally means that you do as much harm as good. Playing through the storyline as the traditional hero will get you a wealth of positive karma, so getting the neutral karma achievements will require you to do some evil (mostly murder and theft).
If you need a karma boost, I have two suggestions:
* At the Church of the Atom (Megaton) or Saint Monica's Church (Rivet City), donate caps. If you have a lot of cash lying around, it will be very easy and quick to get into "positive" karma.
* In Megaton, give away your scrap metal rather than requesting payment. (You still get the XP.)
If you 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.) This will have some obvious gameplay effects 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, 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.
(Carried from Mercenary)
By far the easiest way to get this achievement is just to play through as good, and when you're about 50 exp away from levelling up, drop the difficulty to very easy, and go to town on the lovely people in megaton. Kill enough people to drop your karma to neutral, and leave town, remember you won't level up until your character is safe, so exp isn't a problem, as long as there is enough people for you to kill to drop your karma. If you destroyed Megaton, The Rivet City marketplace is fine as well. Obviously save it beforehand because you will inevitably kill named characters and lose out on trade, quests or conversation if you don't.
By far the easiest way to get this achievement is just to play through as good, and when you're about 50 exp away from levelling up, drop the difficulty to very easy, and go to town on the lovely people in megaton. Kill enough people to drop your karma to neutral, and leave town, remember you won't level up until your character is safe, so exp isn't a problem, as long as there is enough people for you to kill to drop your karma. If you destroyed Megaton, The Rivet City marketplace is fine as well. Obviously save it beforehand because you will inevitably kill named characters and lose out on trade, quests or conversation if you don't.
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.
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.
1st your gonna wanna do the scrap metal glitch
2nd after doing the glitch successfully head back to walter in Megaton and exchange scrap for free giving good karma for the good karma acheivment and xp and when you want to just get xp give it to him for caps and when you want to lose karma go to Moriarties bar around the corner and just keep opening his terminal as every time you open it you lose karma
Hope this helped
This video helped me and sometimes it doesn't work with one playthrough so just make a new one and it won't take long to set up at least this worked for me on series x
2nd after doing the glitch successfully head back to walter in Megaton and exchange scrap for free giving good karma for the good karma acheivment and xp and when you want to just get xp give it to him for caps and when you want to lose karma go to Moriarties bar around the corner and just keep opening his terminal as every time you open it you lose karma
Hope this helped
Reach Level 14 with Neutral Karma, the trophy will pop on the Levelling up screen where you raise your stats. See the Karma Advice section in the Road Map for important info on managing your saves correctly.
See Last, Best Hope of Humanity
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