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Fallout 3 for the PC


Schwaltzvald
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I've been having fun with it... no idea if it really makes much of an actual difference though.

I wish you could reset your character somehow to try different things without replaying the game. I'd love to try a different stat setup.

Lucky it doesn't really take much to get a new lvl 20 char, and I bet you you'll find new stuff all the time :)

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Okay, so I've been playing this game like an addict since it came out on the 28th (got the PS3 CE). Finished my first playthrough and now I've been going through the strategy guide a fair bit for tips for how to build the optimal character. Now, if you're a completionist like me, you might find my discoveries pretty interesting, so please read on...

My goal was to see if it was possible to build a character with 100 skill points in every skill (all 13 of them). And I have now determined that this is possible. What I'm going to spend the new couple paragraphs explaining is how. Mostly what it boils down to is two things: bobbleheads and skill books.

According to the strategy guide, there are 25 skill books for each skill (except for one that only gets 24.) One of the perks you can get early on is Comprehension, this gives you 2 skill points instead of 1 for each skill book you read. So, already we're looking at 50% skill points for each skill, before any levelling up or anything. Then there's the bobbleheads. There is one bobblehead for each skill, and when you get it, it permanently raises your skill by 10 points. So, with skill books and bobbleheads, you're looking at 60% skill points already. Assuming you have at least 5 points in all your SPECIAL attributes at the start of the game, each of your skills will start at -at least- 15 points. So, now we've got 75% skill points. 25 left, doesn't seem like much does it?

Here's another (somewhat more comprehensive) way to look at it. With 13 skills, that can each have 100 points, you're looking at a total of 1300 skill points to earn. So, assuming you get all the skill bobbleheads, each one nets you 10 skill points for each of the 13 skills, there's 130 skill points. Now, with all the skill books and the comprehension perk, you're looking at 25 books for 12 skills and 24 books for the other skill, so that's 324 skill books, for a total of 648 skill points. That's a total of 778/1300 skill points so far. Assuming each of your SPECIAL attributes starts with at least 5, then you get 15 skill points in each skill at level 1. So, 15 (points) times 13 (skills) equals 195 points. Also, at level 1 you get to tag three skills, which gives them a 15 point boost straight off. So that's another 45 points. Now our total points is up to 1018/1300. Another perk you can take (and should take asap) at level 4 gives you an extra 3 skill points every level up. Assuming you take this perk right at level 4, then by level 20 you'll have earned 48 extra skill points. Brings us up to 1066/1300. That just leaves 234 skill points between your character and perfection. But wait! With your starting INT of 5 (which I already assumed earlier), at each level up you're going to earn 15 skill points to spend. You'll get them 19 times before you reach level 20, so 15 times 19 is 285! You've got enough skill points with extras to spare! 51 extra skill points to be exact. And that's not even counting the additional skill points you'll get for having some of your SPECIAL attributes higher than 5.

So, to summarize, if you want to min-max (which I will be doing with my next playthrough), then follow my guidelines here and you'll have the perfect character. It'll require some serious effort and careful skill point placement but it's definately doable. Also, because you'll have more than enough skill points, it frees you up to choose other perks you might not normally take that have unique benefits outside of raising your skill points. As for me, I'll be taking Intense Training a few times (gives you one extra point for a SPECIAL attr.) to try to max out my Strength, Endurance, Agility and Luck.

If you actually read this wall of text, and it looks like I forgot something or made a mistake, please let me know.

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Damn, doing that Declaration of Independence quest was hard. Sydney died basically right away. Protectrons aren't that hard to kill, but Mr. Gutsy and Brainbots/Sentries are. The only way I got through was by using pulse grenades.

Best you can do is have her wait back and you setting up pulse mines for the sentries and protectrons, pulse grens for Mr. Gutsy. Overall the quest was rather enjoyable as I "borrowed" her once to help clear out some metro tunnels and the Dunwich Building to help clear out the zombies. As much as I like pip boy travel, I would like to explore more without going low on ammo. Sadly she's not really as useful against master mutants; fuckers tend to be carrying mini guns >:L

ultra smg + hunting rifle = awesome clean up tools for zombie infestation. I pop one or two at a distance, she'd get the ones coming in close.

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Damn, doing that Declaration of Independence quest was hard. Sydney died basically right away. Protectrons aren't that hard to kill, but Mr. Gutsy and Brainbots/Sentries are. The only way I got through was by using pulse grenades.

I'm glad she died, I'm using her sub-machine gun like there's no tomorrow and I didn't have to lose karma! :D

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I can't help but be a god damned goody two shoes.

I was about to swear harder but realised this isn't Offtop and Fallout 3 isn't the real world where people swear every 3 seconds. But I love the verisimilitude!

It's like Oblivion, but way funner! And I LOVE Oblivion!

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I can't help but be a god damned goody two shoes.

I had the same problem when I played Morrowind: I set out to play a selfish jerk character, but I kept lapsing into "play the hero" mode.

So for Oblivion, I resolved to play a truly evil character. I was basically a serial killer, and I'd pick out victims, every time I reached a new town follow them around, break into their house and wait for them... It was surprisingly and disturbingly fun. I was also running some mods that slowed down leveling and made the game a lot harder, which actually worked really well with the character concept since it meant I pretty much had to rely on killing weak defenseless victims in order to boost my skills.

To restore the karmic balance, I probably need to play Fallout 3 as a grandma who wanders the wasteland, handing out cookies to children.

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There's nothing quite as satisfying as when you get the Commando trait, take your combat shotgun out, and time your headshot (With VATS or in real life, which is awesome- yay for learning how to awp whore) for the time when the super mutant running at you falls headless with the bloodstains just reaching your feet.

But right now, all I wants is mah sheriff hat, Winchester, and Dogmeat bah mah side, walkin to the sunset...

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I FINALLY finished the slave-group-escort mission and it was like hell on earth. Not only do the characters get stuck in potholes (JUST LIKE ME), but insanely tough enemies (like Yao Guai, Deathclaws, Supermutants with rockets) keeps ambushing them. Worse still, they sometimes ignore my 'stay here' command and they'd disappear if I ever sleep (in-game) to rest my character.

The dog and a female bodyguard couldn't make it.

RIP Four Scores.... Poor dog.

Oh yeah, and RIP to my 7 hours of trying to beat the mission.

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I FINALLY finished the slave-group-escort mission and it was like hell on earth. Not only do the characters get stuck in potholes (JUST LIKE ME), but insanely tough enemies (like Yao Guai, Deathclaws, Supermutants with rockets) keeps ambushing them. Worse still, they sometimes ignore my 'stay here' command and they'd disappear if I ever sleep (in-game) to rest my character.

The dog and a female bodyguard couldn't make it.

RIP Four Scores.... Poor dog.

Oh yeah, and RIP to my 7 hours of trying to beat the mission.

Your best bet is to fast travel the moment they leave and wait a week. During that time make sure the area near the Washington Monument has no enemies in it. It takes them a long time to finally show up, but as long as you're not there to witness them, they can't get hurt(Or maybe they're both dead and not dead until you observe them at the memorial). They reach the place by themselves pretty well.

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the dart gun? anybody? get most ghouls (not glowing ones) one shot? the plans you can buy at tenpenny tower and consist of radscorpian poison (easy), toy car (minefield houses), surgical tubing (my first infirmiry or clinic in megaton) and a paintgun (anything underground). cripples both legs and poisons. deathclaws, ghouls, yao guai and anything that attacks is primarily melee can be walked away from while festively spewing hot lead. also a great money idea....sell the ammo for guns you don't use and always grab any ammo lying around. it doesn't weigh anything! (a missle....weightless >.> ) finally a personal observation is that the weapons shoot a little below the reticule, aim at the top of the head for an excellent nose job.....

prolly should send this to ign or something....

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I'm glad she died, I'm using her sub-machine gun like there's no tomorrow and I didn't have to lose karma! :D

No kidding. Her gun is the most powerful automatic weapon I've found yet. Well, besides the minigun. But I'm not a big guns guy, and miniguns are pure annoyance to use outside of VATS. That "charge up" time is killer.

Despite Sydney's death, though, I didn't find the Declaration of Independence quest all that hard. Unloading with the combat shotgun worked pretty nicely, well, and the fact that I was loaded with stimpacks. And the fire resistance from the Greyditch quest, helped by some fire ant nectar I still had around, was useful against the flamethrowers and gas leaks that inevitably blew.

I'm also going around the capitol as the virtuous knight in shining armor. If I play the game again, I'll have to go for a mow-everyone-down dude with a testy attitude. As absorbed as this game has me now, I have little doubt I'll go through it again. The portrayal of the nation's capitol in post-nuclear ruins is just somehow so compelling, chilling, and yet awe-inducing at the same time. I mean, seriously. A group of ghouls living in the Museum of Natural American History? An entire city inside a beached & broken aircraft carrier? A skyline that always seems to include the swiss-cheese remains of the Washington Monument? What other game gives such a surreal experience as that?

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Actually you can start it directly by going to the National Archives and meeting Sydney there. You don't have to go to Rivet at all.

That certainly makes sense. I just would've never done that myself, as the first time I went to the capitol mall, it was too super-mutant infested to do much but do my main-quest mission and get out. Perhaps I ought to clear it out, now, and take a little exploratory stroll down the lane.

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I FINALLY finished the slave-group-escort mission

Is that related to the "Temple of the Union" place? Once my evil character got in there and found out they were all escaped slaves I kinda.. torched the place :D

Then i go down to the Lincoln memorial some weeks later and find Slavers that need some slaves dead or whatever, I tell them I killed them already and they're like "sweet u r awesome" and leave :D

The Mall is just generally an awesome place - I loved storming the capitol building behind Talon company, then sniping the survivors from their backs >:3

Also, I encountered some bug with Abraham Washington's quest - I have the Declaration of Independence but I tried to give it to him twice, and only the "Nevermind I don't have it" option came up. Now it doesn't even come up at all. lol bug

On the bright side, now I have Sydney forever :3

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