The Beginner's Guide to SPECIAL and Skills in Fallout: New Vegas
So, You Wanna Know About Stats.
As with many other role-playing games, stats in Fallout New Vegas are a way to define and quantify your proficiency in certain tasks, whether it be taking damage, dealing damage, learning Skills faster, or experiencing the rare critical hit more often.
To break things down in a basic way:
Now then, let's describe these in more detail.
To break things down in a basic way:
SPECIAL — These are your main stats and define your initial build. SPECIAL affects:
- Your starting Skill levels.
- Your combat stats (base melee damage, weapon accuracy HP, AP, crit rate)
- Your ability to detect and accurately hit targets in VATS/the compass.
- Some speech checks/perk requirements.
Skills — These are defined by your SPECIAL stats and can be invested in every time you level up. Skills affect:
- Your damage and accuracy with specific weapons.
- Your ability to explore certain areas and loot locked containers.
- Your ability to pass speech checks in dialogue.
- Your ability to craft items.
Now then, let's describe these in more detail.
SPECIAL
What makes you special? Well, these stats, apparently. SPECIAL is your base set of stats that you set at the beginning of the game and are the first step in whatever build you may have planned. While all SPECIAL stats are beneficial in some way, it's important to know what does what.
S - Strength.
Strength affects, primarily, damage done with melee weapons, your ability to properly handle large/heavy weapons, and your carrying weight, along with the Skills of Melee and Unarmed.
Perks that require Strength often only compound your effectiveness in the above areas, but include Perks for stunning and knocking down enemies and throwing things farther.
P - Perception.
Perception affects your ability to detect entities from further away and your accuracy in VATS, as well as the Skills of Explosives, Energy Weapons, and Lockpick.
Perception shares with Intelligence in having the greatest relevancy in dialogue and in the world, as it allows you to more easily deduce things. Perception doesn't have much in the way of Perks beyond enhancing the above.
E - Endurance.
Endurance affects your resistance to poison/radiation effects and maximum HP as well as the Skills of Unarmed and Survival. Yes, both Strength and Endurance affect Unarmed.
Endurance is a requisite for an array of wonderful Perks and the determinant stat for the maximum number of Implants your character can acquire. Implants are stat increases or special Perks that you can buy with caps at a special vendor near the Crimson Caravan Trading Company.
C - Charisma.
Charisma affects the damage resistance and damage output of companions as well as the Skills of Barter and Speech.
Charisma is used in a few speech checks but is often superseded by Speech or Barter where relevant. Because of this and the overpowered nature of companions, Charisma is considered the most useless stat. Charisma is used for a Perk that turns most mutated animals neutral/friendly.
I - Intelligence.
Intelligence governs a few speech checks, but is most notable for its influence on Skill Point allocation per level. Every two(2) points of Intelligence add one(1) point to the base number of 10.
Intelligence also affects the Skills of Science, Repair, and Medicine, and is the requisite for Perks pertaining to your XP gain and Skill Points. Intelligence influences speech checks that primarily imply cleverness and quick learning on the part of your character.
A - Agility.
Agility affects the Skills of Guns and Sneak. Agility's description in the game results in a lot of false ideas as to what it does, so let's clarify the main two.
Agility does NOT affect movement speed whatsoever. This can be fixed with mods, but the game is designed to be traversible at base movement speed and may be awkward to move through at higher speeds.
Agility does NOT affect AP regeneration, but instead maximum AP. AP in Fallout: New Vegas is restored at a proportional rate of 6% max AP per second, with Perks/consumables affecting the percentage. Therefore, higher Agility does increase your absolute AP generation per second, but the speed at which your AP bar replenishes is independent of Agility.
Many Sneak and VATS-related Perks have it as a requirement.
L - Luck.
Luck does not affect any particular Skill, but instead evenly increases your Skills across the board. Every two(2) levels (rounded up) in Luck increase all Skills by one(1) point.
Luck affects the chance of scoring a critical hit, the chance of the Mysterious Stranger/Miss Fortune appearing in VATS (speculative), and your odds at casinos.
Luck is used in one or two speech checks, but its general usefulness and distribution of Perks makes it a good stat to dump extra points into.
S - Strength.
Strength affects, primarily, damage done with melee weapons, your ability to properly handle large/heavy weapons, and your carrying weight, along with the Skills of Melee and Unarmed.
Perks that require Strength often only compound your effectiveness in the above areas, but include Perks for stunning and knocking down enemies and throwing things farther.
P - Perception.
Perception affects your ability to detect entities from further away and your accuracy in VATS, as well as the Skills of Explosives, Energy Weapons, and Lockpick.
Perception shares with Intelligence in having the greatest relevancy in dialogue and in the world, as it allows you to more easily deduce things. Perception doesn't have much in the way of Perks beyond enhancing the above.
E - Endurance.
Endurance affects your resistance to poison/radiation effects and maximum HP as well as the Skills of Unarmed and Survival. Yes, both Strength and Endurance affect Unarmed.
Endurance is a requisite for an array of wonderful Perks and the determinant stat for the maximum number of Implants your character can acquire. Implants are stat increases or special Perks that you can buy with caps at a special vendor near the Crimson Caravan Trading Company.
C - Charisma.
Charisma affects the damage resistance and damage output of companions as well as the Skills of Barter and Speech.
Charisma is used in a few speech checks but is often superseded by Speech or Barter where relevant. Because of this and the overpowered nature of companions, Charisma is considered the most useless stat. Charisma is used for a Perk that turns most mutated animals neutral/friendly.
I - Intelligence.
Intelligence governs a few speech checks, but is most notable for its influence on Skill Point allocation per level. Every two(2) points of Intelligence add one(1) point to the base number of 10.
Intelligence also affects the Skills of Science, Repair, and Medicine, and is the requisite for Perks pertaining to your XP gain and Skill Points. Intelligence influences speech checks that primarily imply cleverness and quick learning on the part of your character.
A - Agility.
Agility affects the Skills of Guns and Sneak. Agility's description in the game results in a lot of false ideas as to what it does, so let's clarify the main two.
Agility does NOT affect movement speed whatsoever. This can be fixed with mods, but the game is designed to be traversible at base movement speed and may be awkward to move through at higher speeds.
Agility does NOT affect AP regeneration, but instead maximum AP. AP in Fallout: New Vegas is restored at a proportional rate of 6% max AP per second, with Perks/consumables affecting the percentage. Therefore, higher Agility does increase your absolute AP generation per second, but the speed at which your AP bar replenishes is independent of Agility.
Many Sneak and VATS-related Perks have it as a requirement.
L - Luck.
Luck does not affect any particular Skill, but instead evenly increases your Skills across the board. Every two(2) levels (rounded up) in Luck increase all Skills by one(1) point.
Luck affects the chance of scoring a critical hit, the chance of the Mysterious Stranger/Miss Fortune appearing in VATS (speculative), and your odds at casinos.
Luck is used in one or two speech checks, but its general usefulness and distribution of Perks makes it a good stat to dump extra points into.
Skills
Ah, yes! The bread and butter of Fallout: New Vegas: Skills. Contrary to what you might believe, SPECIAL is actually not the most important set of stats. Skills are. Skills make up the vast majority of speech checks, affect your damage output and weapon proficiency the most directly, and are the be all, end all for crafting items and accomplishing certain in-world tasks like, say... opening literal doors! Let's get into them.
Barter
Barter affects the price of items in vendors, caps you get for selling items to vendors, and deals in speech checks that lower caps you need to pay for special events/items or increase caps paid to you by NPCs.
Barter affects Perks mainly related to carry weight. Yep, that's it. This is one of the less useful Skills, though it's very useful for role-playing as a ruthless haggler and logistician.
Energy Weapons
Energy Weapons affects... what else, energy weapons! Lasers, plasma, and railguns, oh my! There's a surprising amount of speech checks using this, but not enough to warrant it on its own.
Where Energy Weapons shines is its array of flashy and devastating combat Perks. All I'll say is, energy weapons don't NEED to be single-target.
Explosives
You will NEVER guess what this does. Explosives doesn't have incredibly powerful Perks, but it does come with other perks.
Speech checks with Explosives usually indicate a high degree of knowledge about explosives and how best to use them. Explosives is best used as a roleplaying tool, as a fair few factions are intimately related with this trade in one way or another.
Guns
The most useful combat Skill and it ain't even close. The sheer variety and commonality of ballistic weapons throughout the world of Fallout: New Vegas make this a ubiquitous and beginner-friendly choice.
Guns speech checks are hard to come by, but this owns a vast majority of combat Perks and fosters a variety of weapon choices from automatics (Grunt) to hard-hitting oldies (Cowboy) to just shotguns (there's a few for this one, it's fun).
Lockpick
Lockpick is the main method of infiltrating most locked-off areas and accessing the juicier containers of Fallout: New Vegas, and as such is best leveled early on.
Lockpick makes no significant appearance in speech checks and has no especially useful Perks.
Medicine
Medicine affects the power of healing items and that's about it. It's... pretty useless.
Medicine makes no notably useful appearance as a check, but can be a big convenience in some quests as it's usually the fastest route to completing that segment. Yeah, it's... pretty useless overall.
Melee Weapons
This is where the fun begins. Melee weapons offer an interestingly powerful proposition for players that avoid stealth-archer builds like the plague and prefer raw power.
Its Perks combined with a character that's enemies with the Legion results in a power curve that goes from zero to war crimes in no time at all, and as such it's a great way to blaze through enemies and the game in general. If you prefer buff-stacking, try the Combat Knife. It benefits from some special drug mixes and both the Grunt and Cowboy Perks.
Repair
Medicine's bigger, badder cousin. Repair affects an astounding number of things in the world and gives the player access to some especially punishing formulations of Guns ammo, as well as keeping gear and weapons in tip-top shape.
Repair also benefits from a special little Perk by the name of Jury Rigging, which makes it so that any weapon or armor of the same 'type' can be used to repair each other, as opposed to identical items. This allows very cheap, low-level versions of weapons and gear to be used to repair expensive, high-level gear.
Science
The advanced form of Lockpicking. Seriously though, Science opens up a lot of dialogue options and affects what level of terminal you can hack. Terminals are especially useful in obtaining info, gaining access to locked areas in Old World structures, and disabling most aggressive turrets and robots inside dungeons.
Science Perks are usually little extra add-ons to other builds that make it useful as an extra point dumping ground. It's also important if you value a steady supply of rare drugs.
Sneak
Simultaneously very much worth investing into and at the same time not at all. Much of what Sneak need be used for can be accomplished by keeping a Stealth Boy handy or better yet a very advanced sneaky suit you get in one of the DLCs, but having it actually decently leveled accounts for a lot of situations.
Sneak affects your ability to smuggle things in your pockets and your ability to smuggle things out of others' pockets, as well as how easily you can slip by undetected. It's good for a character that's afraid of confrontation. Perks related to Sneak merely enhance its effectiveness.
Speech
Every New Vegas player's favorite stat. Speech affects most speech checks in the game and usually ends up offering some of the best and easiest outcomes to any quest it's involved in regarding any faction. It's the most powerful non-combat skill in the game.
Speech isn't a requirement for any especially useful Perks, but said Perks add a lot of flavor to a character.
Survival
Survival affects the effectiveness of foodstuffs as healing items and allows you to craft various foods.
On the other hand, Survival's Perks are the best in the game in terms of passives. It's a priority of an experienced player to get this to a sufficient level by the mid-late game. Survival is also used as a common speech check with outdoorsy and farmer-type NPCs.
Unarmed
Are you deranged? Good. You'll need that mindset to get by like this. At the least, it's impossible to make you completely harmless lest you end up armless.
Unarmed is the (somehow) more advanced cousin of Melee Weapons, emphasizing stun effects and special techniques over DPS. If you find sadistic pleasure in slowly beating heavily armored brutes and towering Deathclaws to... well, death, then this is for you. You'll also want to carry around a lot of drugs.
Barter
Barter affects the price of items in vendors, caps you get for selling items to vendors, and deals in speech checks that lower caps you need to pay for special events/items or increase caps paid to you by NPCs.
Barter affects Perks mainly related to carry weight. Yep, that's it. This is one of the less useful Skills, though it's very useful for role-playing as a ruthless haggler and logistician.
Energy Weapons
Energy Weapons affects... what else, energy weapons! Lasers, plasma, and railguns, oh my! There's a surprising amount of speech checks using this, but not enough to warrant it on its own.
Where Energy Weapons shines is its array of flashy and devastating combat Perks. All I'll say is, energy weapons don't NEED to be single-target.
Explosives
You will NEVER guess what this does. Explosives doesn't have incredibly powerful Perks, but it does come with other perks.
Speech checks with Explosives usually indicate a high degree of knowledge about explosives and how best to use them. Explosives is best used as a roleplaying tool, as a fair few factions are intimately related with this trade in one way or another.
Guns
The most useful combat Skill and it ain't even close. The sheer variety and commonality of ballistic weapons throughout the world of Fallout: New Vegas make this a ubiquitous and beginner-friendly choice.
Guns speech checks are hard to come by, but this owns a vast majority of combat Perks and fosters a variety of weapon choices from automatics (Grunt) to hard-hitting oldies (Cowboy) to just shotguns (there's a few for this one, it's fun).
Lockpick
Lockpick is the main method of infiltrating most locked-off areas and accessing the juicier containers of Fallout: New Vegas, and as such is best leveled early on.
Lockpick makes no significant appearance in speech checks and has no especially useful Perks.
Medicine
Medicine affects the power of healing items and that's about it. It's... pretty useless.
Medicine makes no notably useful appearance as a check, but can be a big convenience in some quests as it's usually the fastest route to completing that segment. Yeah, it's... pretty useless overall.
Melee Weapons
This is where the fun begins. Melee weapons offer an interestingly powerful proposition for players that avoid stealth-archer builds like the plague and prefer raw power.
Its Perks combined with a character that's enemies with the Legion results in a power curve that goes from zero to war crimes in no time at all, and as such it's a great way to blaze through enemies and the game in general. If you prefer buff-stacking, try the Combat Knife. It benefits from some special drug mixes and both the Grunt and Cowboy Perks.
Repair
Medicine's bigger, badder cousin. Repair affects an astounding number of things in the world and gives the player access to some especially punishing formulations of Guns ammo, as well as keeping gear and weapons in tip-top shape.
Repair also benefits from a special little Perk by the name of Jury Rigging, which makes it so that any weapon or armor of the same 'type' can be used to repair each other, as opposed to identical items. This allows very cheap, low-level versions of weapons and gear to be used to repair expensive, high-level gear.
Science
The advanced form of Lockpicking. Seriously though, Science opens up a lot of dialogue options and affects what level of terminal you can hack. Terminals are especially useful in obtaining info, gaining access to locked areas in Old World structures, and disabling most aggressive turrets and robots inside dungeons.
Science Perks are usually little extra add-ons to other builds that make it useful as an extra point dumping ground. It's also important if you value a steady supply of rare drugs.
Sneak
Simultaneously very much worth investing into and at the same time not at all. Much of what Sneak need be used for can be accomplished by keeping a Stealth Boy handy or better yet a very advanced sneaky suit you get in one of the DLCs, but having it actually decently leveled accounts for a lot of situations.
Sneak affects your ability to smuggle things in your pockets and your ability to smuggle things out of others' pockets, as well as how easily you can slip by undetected. It's good for a character that's afraid of confrontation. Perks related to Sneak merely enhance its effectiveness.
Speech
Every New Vegas player's favorite stat. Speech affects most speech checks in the game and usually ends up offering some of the best and easiest outcomes to any quest it's involved in regarding any faction. It's the most powerful non-combat skill in the game.
Speech isn't a requirement for any especially useful Perks, but said Perks add a lot of flavor to a character.
Survival
Survival affects the effectiveness of foodstuffs as healing items and allows you to craft various foods.
On the other hand, Survival's Perks are the best in the game in terms of passives. It's a priority of an experienced player to get this to a sufficient level by the mid-late game. Survival is also used as a common speech check with outdoorsy and farmer-type NPCs.
Unarmed
Are you deranged? Good. You'll need that mindset to get by like this. At the least, it's impossible to make you completely harmless lest you end up armless.
Unarmed is the (somehow) more advanced cousin of Melee Weapons, emphasizing stun effects and special techniques over DPS. If you find sadistic pleasure in slowly beating heavily armored brutes and towering Deathclaws to... well, death, then this is for you. You'll also want to carry around a lot of drugs.
And that's it!
I hope this guide has helped you... well, guide your way through planning your next build. Keep things loose and enjoy what this game has to offer in spades—interesting stories and characters and plenty of rewards for going out of your way, figuratively and literally. Embrace both what your character can and cannot do, and don't forget your engine fixes. Good luck out there, Courier.
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