Attribute and Skill Guide

Hopefully this guide will help you better understand what every attribute and skill in the game can do for you, and allow you to make better choices about how to distribute their points.

If you've got anything to add, feel free. The guide should be open for editing by anyone.

Since your attributes (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) determine the starting value of your skills, it helps to figure out what skills are most important to you, then let that determine what attributes you want to focus on. When creating your character, you will have the opportunity to "tag" three different skills. Tagging a skill starts gives your character fifteen extra points in that skill.

As you play through the game, you'll find armor and items that will increase various attributes and skills, so it's a good idea to never raise a skill passed 80 or so after leveling up.

The higher your ability to barter, the better deals you get when buying and selling items. Loot and unused ammo are so plentiful, though, that you won't really need to pay any real attention to this skill.

Big Guns improves the accuracy and damage of weapons like flame throwers, missile launchers, mini guns, and the Fat Man (a miniature tactical nuclear bomb launcher). As awesome as these weapons are, they're heavy, hard to find ammo for, and you won't find too many of them early in the game. Tagging Big Guns is probably a bad idea, but it is a skill worth investing in later in the game.

Energy Weapons are fairly comparable to Small Guns, but are more accurate and can incinerate enemies on critical hits. Weapons and ammo are more scarce than Small Guns when starting out, but are more plentiful later in the game. There are some powerful and esoteric Energy Weapons out there, so if you don't mind having a bit of a rough time at the start, you may want to specialize in this skill.

Explosives determines the amount of damage dealt to enemies by any mines or grenades you use, as well as how long you have to disarm enemy mines. A high explosives skill will make grenades thrown in V.A.T.S. have a higher chance of exploding right at your enemy's feet.

Explosives can be a big help when you first start fighting Super Mutants and Deathclaws, or any other time you're finding your regular firearms aren't getting the job done on their own. I wouldn't tag it, but I would pay some attention to this skill.

There are many, many locks to pick in Fallout 3, so you may want to tag this skill. The higher this skill is, the easier it is to pick locks. Each pickable lock has a minimum lockpick value associated with it. If your lockpick skill is below that value, you will not be able to even attempt to pick it.

The healing power of medicine is increased with each point you add to this skill. However, healing items are plentiful, so this skill is entirely ignorable.

Melee Weapons dictates how much damage you do with melee weapons (baseball bats, police batons, etc.) as well as how much damage is absorbed when blocking. Melee can be useful for taking out enemies fairly quietly, but you probably won't find much use for it otherwise.

Weapons, clothing, and armor in Fallout 3 has a Condition percentage that determines how effective an item is. The higher the condition, the more damage a weapon does, or the more damage a piece of armor absorbs. How much you can repair your equipment is equivalent to your Repair skill level. Equipment in good condition is also worth a lot more than equipment in poor condition, so repairing items is a good way of making money off of commonly dropped weapons and clothing. You may want to think about tagging this one.

Science is similar to Lockpick, but is primarily used for hacking computers instead of picking locks. I'd suggest tagging either Science or Lockpick, but still giving some attention to whichever one you didn't tag.

Easily one of the most practical skills in the game. Small Guns is responsible for your damage and accuracy with standard weapons such as rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, and so on. More guns and ammo are found in the game for this category of firearm than any other type, and they do plenty enough damage. I definitely suggest tagging this one.

A high Sneak competency will make it much harder for enemies to spot you while in sneak mode, and make stealing and pickpocketing easier. Attacking an enemy who hasn't spotted you will always result in a devastating critical hit. This is one to think about.

Another incredibly useful skill. The higher your speech skill, the better you are at convincing people that your way is the best way. You can obtain information that characters would otherwise not share with your, or simply talk your way out of a potentially violent situation.

Unarmed deals with how much damage you do while using your bare fists, or weapons that go on your fists. Unarmed isn't too dissimilar from Melee Weapons, and isn't any more useful.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is an acronym for your character's seven primary attributes - Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. You will be given a couple of opportunities to distribute your primary attribute points before heading out into the wasteland. You will also have at least one opportunity to boost each skill as you explore what's left of the D.C. area. It is important to note that each of these attributes has a maximum value of 10. Take care not to set your attributes too high starting out. If a skill is important to you, a value of seven or eight is as high as you should consider when first creating your character.

Each level of strength boosts the skill Melee Weapons as well as how much damage your character does while unarmed. Strength also increases how much your character can carry before becoming over-encumbered. While hand-to-hand and melee combat may not be the smartest way to fight in the wasteland, Carry Weight is important to any character. When over-encumbered, your character cannot run, jump, or use fast-travel to quickly travel from place to place.

Thus, how important Strength is determined by your combat style. If you intend on mostly using standard firearms like pistols, SMGs, shotguns, and Assault Rifles, you can start off with a Strength level as low as three and still have enough room for weapons, armor, and a modest amount of loot. However, there's no point in specialising in Big Guns if you can't even comfortably carry more than one at a time.

I would suggest never going lower than three, and never going higher than five. The points you save from not investing in Strength can go towards skills more important to your class, and there are some post-creation opportunites that will allow you to raise your Strength as you play through the game.

Perception is a somewhat important attribute. Each level of Perception will increase your ability to use Energy Weapons and Explosives, as well as make you better at lockpicking. There are a lot of picks to lock in the D.C. Wasteland, and explosive skills can be a help, too. Also, the higher your Perception, the faster enemies are marked on your Compass, allowing you to often see them before they see you. There are even rare occasions when a high level of Perception will allow you special dialog options when speaking to other characters.

I wouldn't say a high level of Perception is desperately needed, but it will make your life easier. Put at least one point in there, if not two or three.

Endurance determines your Health and Poison/Radiation Resistance, as well as your Big Guns and Unarmed skills.

If you want to use mini-guns, flamethrowers, missile launchers, or just the fists you were born with, this is an important attribute for you; build this sucker up to seven or eight. Otherwise, health and medication are fairly plentiful, and you can afford to drop it down to four or so and not really feel any ill effects.

Charisma effects your Barter and Speech skills, as well as people's disposition towards you. Seemingly a lame statistic, it's actually quite important if you want to be able to talk your way out of situations, and definitely worth putting two or three points in.

On the other hand, if you don't care that nobody likes you and just want to pummel your way through every situation, feel free to ignore this skill or even subtract some points.

How smart you is. The higher your Intelligence, the higher your Medicine, Repair, and Science skills are. A higher Intelligence also means more Skill Points for you to distribute to your skills each time you level up. Repair and Science are also a pretty important skills, so intelligence is definitely worth investing in, or at the very least not lowering.

Agility determines the number of Action Points you have while in V.A.T.S., and bolsters your Small Guns and Sneak skills. Considering that the majority of weapons and ammo in the game are Small Guns, and Sneak as well as V.A.T.S. attacks increase damage and critical hit potential, this is definitely one of your most important attributes. Unless it's just not in-line with how you want your character to be, push it up to eight.

Luck will actually boost all of your skills, but by a small margin. Luck will also increase your chance for Critical Hits, and potentially has other benefits I may  be unaware of. Some pretty solid perks require at least six luck, so I would suggest leaving it alone.

If you don't care about any perks related to Luck, you could drain Luck to support other attributes. Unlike previous Fallout games, a low level of Luck won't cause any directly negative effects.

During the game, you'll have some opportunities to boost your attributes and skills outside of initial character creation and leveling up.

• There are 20 Vault Boy bobbleheads stashed across the wasteland. Each one is associated with a unique attribute or skill. Find one, and it will either boost an attribute by one point, or a skill by ten points.
• There are books in the wasteland that boost a skill by one point. There are 25 books for each skill, and you will come across quite a few of them without even trying. There is also a perk that will double the number of points you get from each book, so you can potentially boost any skill by 50 points just by finding these books.
• Occasionally, you can receive some kind of item or effect that will permanently boost a skill by either completing a quest or helping an NPC.
• There is equipment that will boost attributes and/or skills, as well as derived statistics, for as long as you are wearing them.
• There are drugs that will temporarily increase your skills, derived statistics, and/or sometimes even attributes.