Source vampirism

[Slex]

Is using it a morally questionable act? From what I've read elsewhere it doesn't have a negative impact on the game (excluding possibly losing lore and quest hints), but from an RP perspective, is it wrong?

My understanding is it means that the spirit won't pass on to the hall of echoes if you use it on them, damning their soul.

[droggen]

I was also wondering this I choose not to use the skill on anything but dead voidwoken I try to just find source fountains to use.

[slovakiaman]

It is basically consuming their soul, so it doesn't go to hall of echoes like all the spirits go. It means that they will not live in the afterlife so it's basically destroying their entire existance in life and afterlife altogether.
The only impact it has on gameplay is that each time you use source vampirism, you get a minus point into your overall goodnes. If your overall goodnes gets below some value (I don't know exactly), you will gain a Villain tag, and you will have another option in dialogues.

[Illuminary]

Interesting tidbit though, if you don't feel like consuming spirits to replace your source, you can just use source vampirism on dead bodies, like after you kill something, or a corpse laying around. (Unless that was patched out)

[Ryzor]

I have only been using it on people and things I deem "bad" (Roost, voidwoken, Black Ring for example). Besides that I have been a "hero" so I wonder if that source vampirism will somehow effect the ending for me. I'm in Arx now so I guess we shall see shortly!

[eom]

I used it pretty liberally and never became a villain, tho idk if it differentiates between dead bodies, living ppl, ghosts, etc
note they always give you that 'suck source' dialogue option on ghosts, so maybe that's where you pick up points -- I have no idea

tbh I always felt bad doing it, but is it better to remain a ghost wandering the earth for eternity?
and if it's a dead body hasn't the soul already left?

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by eom:

I used it pretty liberally and never became a villain, tho idk if it differentiates between dead bodies, living ppl, ghosts, etc
note they always give you that 'suck source' dialogue option on ghosts, so maybe that's where you pick up points -- I have no idea

tbh I always felt bad doing it, but is it better to remain a ghost wandering the earth for eternity?
and if it's a dead body hasn't the soul already left?

Some of the spirits actually want you to consume them, cause they're in pain.

[Lampros]

This game forced me to abandon "morals" a long time ago. I double-cross and kill everyone! ;)

[gimmethegepgun]

Late in the game there's a purity check sort of thing that only lets you pass if you've met 4 criteria. One of those criteria is "respecting the sanctity of the soul", which requires never having used Source Vampirism (at least, on spirits, not sure about using it on bodies). So it's definitely immoral.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Late in the game there's a purity check sort of thing that only lets you pass if you've met 4 criteria. One of those criteria is "respecting the sanctity of the soul", which requires never having used Source Vampirism (at least, on spirits, not sure about using it on bodies). So it's definitely immoral.

Except those checks are pretty much impossible to pass legitimately without foreknowledge, i'm not counting the exploit you can do that allows you to pass them. If you go by that criteria, then your character is evil regardless of what you do, because if you kill anyone, even out of defense or because the person/things were bad, you fail the test.

[slovakiaman]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Late in the game there's a purity check sort of thing that only lets you pass if you've met 4 criteria. One of those criteria is "respecting the sanctity of the soul", which requires never having used Source Vampirism (at least, on spirits, not sure about using it on bodies). So it's definitely immoral.

Except those checks are pretty much impossible to pass legitimately without foreknowledge, i'm not counting the exploit you can do that allows you to pass them. If you go by that criteria, then your character is evil regardless of what you do, because if you kill anyone, even out of defense or because the person/things were bad, you fail the test.

Some people like to do purist runs, and it's not impossible to do it in this game. As far as I know, the requirements for passing the test are no killing and no stealing and that is not that impossible to do if you dedicated your character to be a buffer/healer with no thievery.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by slovakiaman:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Except those checks are pretty much impossible to pass legitimately without foreknowledge, i'm not counting the exploit you can do that allows you to pass them. If you go by that criteria, then your character is evil regardless of what you do, because if you kill anyone, even out of defense or because the person/things were bad, you fail the test.

Some people like to do purist runs, and it's not impossible to do it in this game. As far as I know, the requirements for passing the test are no killing and no stealing and that is not that impossible to do if you dedicated your character to be a buffer/healer with no thievery.

I said without foreknowledge though, most people probably kill at least a few things during the game, unless someone beforehand already decided they wanted one of their characters to be a purist, most people would fail the test. I never said it was impossible to do, but do you expect people who just buy the game to automatically assume that there is a point in the game where not killing anything, stealing anything, etc on one character would mean you'd pass a test?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by slovakiaman:

Some people like to do purist runs, and it's not impossible to do it in this game. As far as I know, the requirements for passing the test are no killing and no stealing and that is not that impossible to do if you dedicated your character to be a buffer/healer with no thievery.

I said without foreknowledge though, most people probably kill at least a few things during the game, unless someone beforehand already decided they wanted one of their characters to be a purist, most people would fail the test. I never said it was impossible to do, but do you expect people who just buy the game to automatically assume that there is a point in the game where not killing anything, stealing anything, etc on one character would mean you'd pass a test?

Anyone who looked through the global achievements to see what hidden achievements there were could've seen Puritan's Walk, whose name sure sounds like a "don't kill anyone" kind of achievement.

[chetwow]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

I said without foreknowledge though, most people probably kill at least a few things during the game, unless someone beforehand already decided they wanted one of their characters to be a purist, most people would fail the test. I never said it was impossible to do, but do you expect people who just buy the game to automatically assume that there is a point in the game where not killing anything, stealing anything, etc on one character would mean you'd pass a test?

Anyone who looked through the global achievements to see what hidden achievements there were could've seen Puritan's Walk, whose name sure sounds like a "don't kill anyone" kind of achievement.

And if they were to make that bold leap of logic for some reason (somehow I doubt this has ever happened) then that would be foreknowledge.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by chet:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Anyone who looked through the global achievements to see what hidden achievements there were could've seen Puritan's Walk, whose name sure sounds like a "don't kill anyone" kind of achievement.

And if they were to make that bold leap of logic for some reason (somehow I doubt this has ever happened) then that would be foreknowledge.

Why would you doubt that has happened? It's a very low percentage achievement whose name sounds like a pacifist run sort of deal (which is always very low percentage because people LOVE killing everything)

[slovakiaman]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

unless someone beforehand already decided they wanted one of their characters to be a purist

And that's what I was trying to say. Some people actually roleplay in roleplaying games so it's not impossible, it's just that people doing that will be a very small minority. I've seen people do purist runs in so many games even without having knowledge if that's possible.