Are there any actual downsides to being a Ghoul?

For reference most folks here aren't going to consider Fallout 4's lazy, poor writing when talking about the lore. Necropolis in the first Fallout is proof enough that at the very least they need clean water. To me, the first game takes priority in the queue to 4.

I also think you're looking at this too much from a deattached "MinMax" perspective. In real life people develop psychological complexes over deformities or injuries that would be considered minor blemishes by a Ghoul. Being a walking corpse with your skin hanging off your bones, smelling constantly of rotting flesh, your face basically being a monsterous warped skull. It would be massively alarming for basically anyone, and would almost certainly ruin your "life". You go from being a human to something inhuman, and you'll be treated like it. Not to mention there's a chance that your mind goes and your horrible, disgusting body will keep going without you, murdering and eating whatever it comes across. It's a grim fate regardless of quirks like immunity to radiation. In fact, your body naturally drawing you to places that are lethal, barren hellscapes to normal humankind isn't particularly lovely either.

As for how they 'should' be handled, I'm of the opinion that they should be basically far fewer in number, far more disfigured (ala Set) than their more recent counterparts and their Agility should be restricted (As well as their AP/movement) and many of them should have radioactivity to the touch - particularly Feral Ghouls. If I were designing a Fallout game I'd make things like Rad-Away and Rad-X extremely expensive/scarce and the concequences of rad poisoining severe, so whilst mindless shambling corpses don't make for particularly tough enemies, you've got to keep a great distance away from them - a problem for Melee and Unarmed characters.

If a Player Character could choose to be a Ghoul, you'd have immunity to radiation, high resistance to poison, as well as capability for Luck beyond human limits and intelligence too (to represent their longevity). In penance you'd be capped on your Charisma, your Agility and your Strength. A Ghoul is not going to be able to wield a minigun without power armor or a set of perks. Due to their strange biology and high chemical tolerance, most chems wouldn't work on Ghouls either. Ghouls have to skull back bottles of rotgut and take doubled-up doses of Psycho just to get it through their system and feel something.

 

You look like a burn victim, you don't actually stop aging so it's immortality without youth, you eventually go crazy, you smell like the rotting skin covering your body, you still need to eat and drink to survive, you can't even get fit or anything, your muscles and bones grow weaker as evidenced by Raul complaining about arthritis. It just kinda sucks.

 

Image ain't working chief

 

Yes. No fucking.

 

Hmmmm seems to be a you problem. it is a pic of Set btw.

 

Imagine waking up one morning a few decades into being a ghoul, you roll out of bed and your dick has dropped off.

Such is the life of a Ghoul

 

people think you are ugly and you probably smell bad

 

and that was before he became a ghoul.

 

Damn he's done you again

 

No u.

 

I would ret-con everything that Bethesda did in FO3 & 4.

Ghouls... Basically like Lenny unless they had become Glowing ghouls.

@GM (Same link, just fixed.)

 

How did you fix?

 

...Truncated the superfluous.

 

Wiki images are wonky with forums posts.

 

maybe there's some sort of self gratification

 

Well I don't consider anything from Bethesda to be canon so I don't care about "their" take on ghouls. Being a ghoul is horrible. Your organs are literally poking out of your body and for someone with hypochondria that would make me turn into a Mindless One in a matter of days due to the anxiety attacks I'd have.

 

We typically have a strong sense of image. Having even something 'wrong' between body and mind is enough to set people off for the rest of their lives. Too much fat, too little hair, too lean, too small, too big, too lanky, too bony, too curvy, that's just the basics, Dysmorphia and so on goes on and on....

Being a walking corpse, losing your cohesive skin, hair, the glow of the eyes, or seeing bones and muscles forever and ever isn't fun for mental health, to begin with. Or the smell, apparently.

A 'skin condition' is some discoloring, or psosaris, or vitiligo. What a ghoul is stuck with is far beyond a 'condition', even if it's technically one.