Overview
Guide for my fellow wasteland dwellers on understanding their S.P.E.C.I.A.L
Introduction
Hello! I am here to show you how to optimize the S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats for your character and teach you what each stat does.
Strength
Strength modifies your melee weapon skill, melee damage, carry weight and which weapons you are able to use. If you dont meet the strength requirements of a weapon the accuracy will be decreased (for long range weapons) or slower swings (for melee and close range weapons).
I think strength isnt a very mandatory skill and should be kept at minimum 4 or maximum of 8 unless your going melee or you have a hoard addiction and pick up everything to sell at a vendor then go bonkers with this skill but I think you wont need to crank it up very high for weapon usage as at level 16 you can take the perk “Weapon Handling” which lowers the required strength for a weapon by 2.
Perception
Perception modifies explosive, lockpick and energy weapon skills, It gives you further range at which you can find enemies on your compass and gives some special dialogue. I dont think its a good idea to take perception down neither to take it very high up and mainly my characters go with 5-6 perception. The radar distance only helps with snipers and even then I go with 7, cranking it up just for dialogue is not worth it but the real reason you should keep it moderate is because of lock pick and energy. Now if your not going energy feel free to keep it at 5 but it would be helpful to put a point in if you are as you are not only increasing lock pick (which is the biggest way to make your way through places and is mainly the second skill I max right after speech).
Endurance
Endurance determines a character’s environmental resistances (poison, radiation), Hit Points, and Healing Rate, as well as the starting levels of the Unarmed and Survival skills. It also determines the number of implants allowed. I set Endurance to a maximum of 7 or a minimum of 5. If you have 7 endurance you can get all the Implants for other special skills (Go 1 more if you want the DT implant with an enhancement of all special skills) I dont recommend taking the health regen which does almost no difference, too expensive and takes a slot for a much better implant.
Charisma
Charisma modifies Barter, Speech and Companion Nerve. Companion Nerve gives each companion in the party +5% to their damage and armor, up to a maximum of +50% at 10 Charisma.
Regardless of Barter or Speech level, some interactions will not be available with a too low Charisma (Ex. Corporal Betsy). These ultimately do not have any significant effect on game play, nor do they provide any special bonuses. I recommend putting charisma down to 3. Speech is normally what I get to 100 at first, even though most of my characters start with 3 charisma this is because the special addition given with speech (companion nerve) only increases the stats of your companion so I would rather put some points into agility or endurance giving me some speed, vats and hp rather than increasing my companion’s stats. What I normally do is put charisma to 3 and then put speech as a beginning perk so I get a increase of 15 points and so the speech skill will still not be too low at the start of the game
Intelligence
Modifies: Medicine, Repair, and Science skills, as well as the number of new skill points per level. Intelligence affects skill points differently from how it did in Fallout 3. The number of skill points gained each level is based on the formula 10 + (0.5 * IN) per level, including level 1, where IN is the Courier’s Intelligence. If one gets a non-whole number of skill points per level (e.g. 10.5 for INT 1) it will be saved for the next even level up. Depending on how many skills you want to focus on the higher or lower you should put your int. I focus on repair, guns, medicine and speech. So I go with 3 INT (also my level cap is 50 so I rather play my character to the end rather than get fast skill points) But I recommend going 5 and above because this just my playstyle and I recommend getting the Intelligence Implant as soon as possible
Agility
Modifies: Action Points available for V.A.T.S., draw and holster speed, reload speed, and the Guns and Sneak skills.
Agility determines the number of action points available for use in V.A.T.S. (base AP determined by 65 + (Agility x3), and can be raised by perks and some items).
The holster/reload time is modified in percentage by 10*(1+Agility)% from 100% base value. Agility below 5 makes reloading slower. I Like to go high with agility because Im a V.A.T.S and gun lover, I would just recommend not going below 5 with this one.
Luck
Modifies: All Skills and Critical Chance. Unlike other S.P.E.C.I.A.L. scores, Luck has no specific skills associated with it. Instead, every two points of Luck adds one point to all skills. Having a high Luck will also improve your Critical Chance with all weapons.It also improves the odds of winning at any casino game; the higher the Luck, the more likely favorable outcomes on bets will be. If having won a casino bet through the influence of Luck, the “You feel lucky” message is displayed. A Luck of 6 will begin to influence Roulette and Slot machines, though rarely. A Luck of 7 is required to win with any regularity or to begin to influence Blackjack outcomes. There is a fallout nv tactic where you go with 9 luck run into a casino by going through sloan undetected and getting tons of caps. But I like to play the game as It is. I put this at about 8 cause it affects all skills and my favourite critical chance. Even if you arnt interested in Luck just put atleast 1 point into it
Thanks for reading
Turns out you actually read through the whole of my guide! Wowie shows that you really have high endurance. Thanks for reading any few people that happen to fall across this 😀