High intelligence: A must when creating a character!

Demonslayer, that post is two years old...:roll:

That said, remember, kiddies: Boost your Speech skill if you're playing a non-violent character.
 
Low intelligence characters can always use mentats when to boost IN before dialogues - but most of us knew that already (but... maybe a few didn't)
 
In Soviet Russia, intelligence has you!

Soory, couldn't resist.

Also, playing a low-int char sucks big time; you should take at least 7 IMHO, 9 if you have Gifted.

Roleplay, mahn.
 
Silencer said:
Roleplay, mahn.
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If you're roleplaying and want to get the most out of the game you should play a low intelligence character. Other than being quite fun with some silly dialogue most of the game is set up to provide clues for the dumber characters.
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
If you're roleplaying and want to get the most out of the game you should play a low intelligence character
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I shall now ponder on whether you haven't just insulted me, kind Sir. :D
 
Since when most people roleplay they play something they're not. I.e. female characters when they're male or super athletic dudes when they're nerds. I think I've just complimented you. Unless you like to create characters based on yourself. :)
 
I don't think a high inteligence is a must for character creation, but I certainly think that it is a much more valuable stat than endurance, charisma, and luck.

Endurance (strongest of the above) I can safely leave at a 4 and play through the game without a great deal of difficulty (sure I have to use caution in large combat, but psycho usually cures any apprehension I or my character have).

Charisma I can safely leave at 1 and play through the game without a great deal of difficulty. As far as losing non-combat options charisma is less of a detriment than intelligence, but doesn't have the combat utility of bonus skill points that intelligence does.

Luck I can safely leave at 4 and play through the game without noticing a darn bit of difference until sniper comes into play.


As far as I am concerned Fallout doesn't use SPECIAL it uses SPecIAl.
 
That's assuming that you're going to only take the combat route through the game. While I've mainly played Fallout as a combat character, I've done FO2 with only killing three ants, one alien and the president. Otherwise I sneaked and talked my way through most situations.
 
Here is my two sucessful builds that I have completed Fo2 with twice each.

Unarmed


::Stats::
ST - 5
PE - 8
EN - 5
CH - 6
IN - 8
AG - 10
LK - 5

::Developed Stats::
ST - 10
PE - 9
EN - 5
CH - 8 or 6 with combat implants
IN - 9
AG - 10
LK - 7

::Traits::
Gifted
One Handed

::Tags::
Unarmed
Lockpick
Speech

::Perks::
Awareness
Bonus Move (2)
Better Criticals
Action Boy (2)
Bonus HtH Attacks
Slayer

*Comments - You could take one from PE and toss it into IN to have 10 at the endgame if thats your thing.


Small Guns


::Stats::
ST - 5
PE - 7
EN - 4
CH - 6
IN - 7
AG - 10
LK - 8

::Developed Stats::
ST - 10
PE - 8
EN - 4
CH - 8 or 6 with combat implants
IN - 8
AG - 10
LK - 10

::Traits::
Gifted
Fast Shot

::Tags::
Small Guns
Lockpick
Speech

::Perks::
Awareness
Quick Pockets
Better Criticals
Action Boy (2)
Bonus Rate of Fire
Living Anatomy
Sniper

*Comments - Luck 10 = 100% criticals with sniper, Awesome chance for special encounters, magic 8 ball, alchohal raised hitpoints II perk.
 
Ghost, you're indeed missing the versatility that is SPECIAL.

For instance, EN needs to be high if you're going to go for Close Combat. If you want to be a talker, high Charisma is very handy. Luck can come in handy for a sniper and throughout the game for many, many things.

And I can safely leave strength at 4 without a problem at all. The fact that I can't use some weapons well can be offset by a high skill and high Perception.
I can also leave Perception at a very low level if I want to go the diplomatic route (in fact, that's what I did in my last game of Fallout. Didn't kill a thing, never fired a shot or hit anything)
I can even skimp on Intelligence. The conversations get a lot funnier, and if I raise strength, playing the dumb-ass fighter can be quite fun.

In short: it depends entirely on how you play the game which attributes and skills you are going to find useful.
 
The only weakness to the SPECIAL system is the game designed to use it. If non combat orientated stats and skills are worthless it's because the designer hasn't given that sort of player anything to do.
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
The only weakness to the SPECIAL system is the game designed to use it. If non combat orientated stats and skills are worthless it's because the designer hasn't given that sort of player anything to do.
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This can be said of any system

SPECIAL wasn't a perfectly balanced system. The inherent flaws of Gifted aside, there were skills (thrown weapons, doctor, first aid, that kind) which would've needed an enormous bending of the game world out of proportion to become as useful as, say, speech.

I don't think balance is worth twisting the system that much. It's not a huge catastrophy if someone with 1 INT, 10 CH and speech, thrown weapons and first aid tagged has a hard time making it through the game.
 
Kharn said:
This can be said of any system
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True, but more so perhaps with SPECIAL since the system is versitile.

Kharn said:
SPECIAL wasn't a perfectly balanced system. The inherent flaws of Gifted aside, there were skills (thrown weapons, doctor, first aid, that kind) which would've needed an enormous bending of the game world out of proportion to become as useful as, say, speech.
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I don't think that bending would need to be done, throwing was only limited by non explosive weapons lack of damage, but then again when you're in a fight you're not going to get far by just using throwing knives.

Other than for stealth kills these are mainly quick reaction weapons, not really meant for a prolonged fight and the other throwing weapons, as with melee and unarmed would become more valuable from by simply not having so much ammo in the games.

I've always thought Doctor and first aid should be merged into a single medical skill, with some traits or perks that could be learn't such as combat medic or surgery but not every skill needs to be on the same level as speech or small guns. After all role playing is about interacting with other characters, and scientists don't tend to interact much with non scientists.

All I'm saying is you can't say any skill is worthless, except perhaps for energy weapons.
 
I may not be able to say any skill except gambling is worth less than another skill (because all skills vary in value depending on how you try to beat the game), but I certainly can say that a given attribute is worth less than another attribute.


A melee character is going to want high strength, endurance, and agility. Will want 4+ luck to start (enough with xeta scan to get 6 luck for toughness)

A sniper/assassin character is going to want high perception, intelligence, agility, and luck.

A rambo character is going to want high strength, endurance, and agility. Will want 6 perception so as to avoid serious range penalties.

A diplomat character is going to want a high intelligence, agility, and charisma.


The only stat that all characters in the game want to be high is agility. That says agility is more powerful than the other stats. Only one character class wants charisma to be above 2. That says charisma is probably pretty weak.


Now certainly a diplomat character is going to want both a high intelligence and a high charisma, but which causes greater detriment to the character lower charisma or lower intelligence? The answer is intelligence. Less skill points and less dialogue options versus less party members and slightly less gain in likeability by towns. Now in both fallouts I don't care about having more than 3 additional party members, and so any charisma above 6 is only for minor skill gain (which intelligence covers and then some) and extra likeability.


And for the melee and rambo characters endurance is less important than agility by far. And I gaurantee that I value strength over endurance for them too. A six endurance is all you really need and you get that with gifted. Whereas a melee character will want at least 7 strength (enough for melee damage bonus) and 10 agility. Pretty much all combat characters who don't get an 8 or 10 agility are sacrificing power. And the rambo is going to want a 7 strength to be able to wield a minigun or m60 unsupported by power armor. And you need strength to carry all the weight of the heavy weapons and their ammo too.

All in all endurance is the least important of the combat stats and charisma is the least important of the diplomatic stats (which really makes no sense).
 
At least I got trough to the adv.power armor whit a low Int char by not getting the robe gye to alert the guards and after I just shot him in one turn whit a SMG, then I just toke his key and went inside the shack whit the ladders to the lower level, after that on one got to my way and I got the adv. PA, and I just shot my way though the rest of the base.
 
Again, you don't get the point: every attribute is useful for different types of character.
Really, if I play a diplomat, I won't need a high agility at all. And charisma at 2 is pretty abysmal and will net you quite a few problems.
Whether or not you wouildn't put any emphasis on these stats doesn't have anything to do with how other people use them.
 
Sander said:
Again, you don't get the point: every attribute is useful for different types of character.
Really, if I play a diplomat, I won't need a high agility at all. And charisma at 2 is pretty abysmal and will net you quite a few problems.
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Actually, in Fallout, Charisma 2 is already one point more than a diplomat needs.

This is the problem: to play a diplomat with great success, all you need in the world is IN 10 and Speech as a tag skill. To play a perfect thief, you don't really need anything except a handful of skill points in Lockpick.

To play a supreme combat-oriented character, on the other hand, you suddenly need AG 10, a high ST, a high EN, a high LK, a reasonable PE, a tag in a combat skill that isn't useless, and a number of perks.

I do think that, since combat was split into six skills, several attributes and many perks, what the SPECIAL system really needs is for the diplomatic aspect to be split into several skills, attributes and perks as well. Conversation options shouldn't come just from IN, but also PE and CH. There shouldn't be just one "Speech" skill, but several: Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Barter should have conversation uses - and there should be a whole tree of speech-related perks that a diplomat would be required to choose, that would open up new options (no, the +speech perks don't cut it). Same for thievery.

The roleplaying aspect (which should never play a part in a game balance discussion) aside, the way it currently works, Speech is as useful to ANY character as all the combat skills combined, and there really is no rational reason for a character to not spend the required points in it, becoming a master diplomat in addition to whatever he otherwise was.
 
Humppa Papan Tappaa said:
Actually, in Fallout, Charisma 2 is already one point more than a diplomat needs.

This is the problem: to play a diplomat with great success, all you need in the world is IN 10 and Speech as a tag skill. To play a perfect thief, you don't really need anything except a handful of skill points in Lockpick.

To play a supreme combat-oriented character, on the other hand, you suddenly need AG 10, a high ST, a high EN, a high LK, a reasonable PE, a tag in a combat skill that isn't useless, and a number of perks.

I do think that, since combat was split into six skills, several attributes and many perks, what the SPECIAL system really needs is for the diplomatic aspect to be split into several skills, attributes and perks as well. Conversation options shouldn't come just from IN, but also PE and CH. There shouldn't be just one "Speech" skill, but several: Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Barter should have conversation uses - and there should be a whole tree of speech-related perks that a diplomat would be required to choose, that would open up new options (no, the +speech perks don't cut it). Same for thievery.

The roleplaying aspect (which should never play a part in a game balance discussion) aside, the way it currently works, Speech is as useful to ANY character as all the combat skills combined, and there really is no rational reason for a character to not spend the required points in it, becoming a master diplomat in addition to whatever he otherwise was.
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Hah. Several people in the game will be very insulting, if not non-cooperative if you have low charisma. And it does reveal new speech lines, and new options. You can usually talk your way out of getting into trouble for being a thief if you have high charisma, for instance.

And speech options do come from things other than IN, CH, PE and several other statistics also play a role in speech options.
 
Sander said:
Hah. Several people in the game will be very insulting, if not non-cooperative if you have low charisma. And it does reveal new speech lines, and new options. You can usually talk your way out of getting into trouble for being a thief if you have high charisma, for instance.

And speech options do come from things other than IN, CH, PE and several other statistics also play a role in speech options.
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In theory, yes.

The basic idea, which was brilliant, was that Charisma would determine the NPC's reaction and Intelligence your options in dealing with the reaction, roughly.

It doesn't really work like that, though. CH 1 or 2, the "abysmal" scores, probably do have some adverse effects, but I doubt the same is true from 3 onwards, especially for Fallout 3.

These are design mistakes, though, not mistakes in SPECIAL, in which C and I were designed as pivotal points in a diploboy.
 
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