Losing karma from a demonic creature called " a lifestealer"

[GalenKnighthawke]

So...I fight a demonic creature called "a lifestealer."

Everything about this creature suggests that it is evil. The fiction; the fact that it's a demon; the fact that it takes the shape of one of the most vile entities from the Dungeon Doom, the Devourer of Souls.

And you lose Karma from killing it.

Seriously?

Stuff like this makes it awfully hard to defend you all on other things, even when your actions warrant it. Stuff like this carries over. If there's some fictional reason for it there should be at least a hint of that, if only so it looks more logical, and it had damn well better come into play in-game at some point.

Frankly my guess is that it was a screw-up, but by the time you fix it it'll be too late.

-Galen's player

 

[Storm]

I completed the quest and lost no karma

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I completed the quest and lost no karma

Were you perchance on a lower-karma character?

Sometimes it's scaled, so that if you're low already you don't lose anything.

In my case I was really high.

Less so now; trying to make up some of it.

_Galen's player

 

[Kojak]

almost feels like you had some life stolen from you as take time to get your karma back up, huh? hehe

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

almost feels like you had some life stolen from you as take time to get your karma back up, huh? hehe

*chuckles*

Their demonic revenge?

-Galen's player

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

They also get attacked by their own animated dead.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Evil Alignment, but has a Positive Karma (2500). The ones up there NW of the city are also on a leash. Maybe they could put leashes on some of that swarm around Honesty Shrine so the shrine can be used like the others, instead of a rez-kill area.

 

[pgib]

I checked and lost karma too.

I don't know if the designers fully understand the karma thing. I mean, for some characters taking negative-karma actions is not "possible". My tamer is a "good guy", there are no chances for him to take lowering karma actions. Yet the game is full with quests that have no reason to be karma oriented but "force" you to kill "good" mobs.

For example, the zosilem quests: being fictionally unable to take lowering karma actions, the only way i have to complete the quests that require fairy dragon wings is by looting dead bodies found in the abyss. That's fine.

But I don't know what trick I'll have to use for the next tier because the odds to find a dead treefellow are very very low and i'm supposed to gather 10 woods from their bodies for each round.

Of course this doesn't mean that every quest should be karma-neutral, being good is a choice that may require sacrifices but my impression is that the entire thing is totally overlooked.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

The only reason that it might make RP sense for you to lose karma from them is this:

You were sent to kill the evil lifestealers by an evil entity, the soulbinder Grubbix, to further his agenda.

So, you're left with a moral quandry. Is it "good" to kill one evil entity to further another evil entity's designs, or are is what you're doing "bad" because evil is still evil?

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The only reason that it might make RP sense for you to lose karma from them is this:

You were sent to kill the evil lifestealers by an evil entity, the soulbinder Grubbix, to further his agenda.

So, you're left with a moral quandry. Is it "good" to kill one evil entity to further another evil entity's designs, or are is what you're doing "bad" because evil is still evil?

Kinda thought of that.

Firstly, the only fiction we have on them is that they are evil too.

Secondly, if killing an evil entity on behalf of another evil entity is evil, then consider the ultimate source of the quest, which is not evil at all.

Thirdly, the quest doesn't give us another way to get what we want in any case; trust me, Galen would surely have preferred to kill the soul stealing thingie then go and kill the heart sucking thingies on his own later.

Fourthly and finally, somehow I doubt you don't lose karma when you stumble upon them and kill them on your own.

-Galen's player

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Secondly, if killing an evil entity on behalf of another evil entity is evil, then consider the ultimate source of the quest, which is not evil at all.

Prugyilonus just said to get the tears, he never said how.

Thirdly, the quest doesn't give us another way to get what we want in any case; trust me, Galen would surely have preferred to kill the soul stealing thingie then go and kill the heart sucking thingies on his own later.

Fourthly and finally, somehow I doubt you don't lose karma when you stumble upon them and kill them on your own.

Here's where we have to question wether or not the Devs even considered any of this. Chances are they didn't, at least not as far as we are willing to.

 

[pgib]

somehow I doubt you don't lose karma when you stumble upon them and kill them on your own.

Yes, I wasn't on the quest when i killed it (because it aggroed my dragon) and i lost a bit of my precious karma.

The problem is that even a purely fictional world must obey the rules of logic. Maybe it is a bug? The mob should have had negative karma but the "-" slipped out.

...the quest doesn't give us another way to get what we want in any case...

This is a key point imho, and not only for the quest at hand.