Fallout 3 SPECIAL

This article describes the features of the Fallout 3 version of the SPECIAL character system, as well as its differences from SPECIAL's implementation in previous games.

Character creation
Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The player chooses the character's gender, name, and appearance. The father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character. The character's mother then experiences complications from the birth dies shortly after. As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "You're SPECIAL," whereupon the player can set the character's seven primary aptitudes. The character receives training weapons and a PIP-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes. Additionally, several quests inside the Vault will be able to influence the player character's relationship with his or her father.

While the character's statistics are determined during the in-Vault tutorial, you can change any of them, including your appearance, the moment you leave the Vault.

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Main statistics
The main statistics are the same, since otherwise it couldn't be named SPECIAL (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck). You have 40 character points to divide among your stats (all 7 stats start at 5 and you have 5 more points to distribute). They can't be lower than 1 nor higher than 10.

Note: Setting stats to 10 in the character creation is unnecessarily wasteful. None of your stats can be raised above 10 by any means, including chems, power armor, etc... There are bobbleheads to be found that raise each one if your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats by one, and either perception or strength may be raised an additional point upon completion of the Those! quest, but it is important that if you are already at your max, these will be USELESS. One possible exception to this rule may be Intelligence. If increased from a starting score of 9 to 10, it will yield one additional skill point per level until the Intelligence bobblehead is found. This can provide a marginal benefit, but at the cost of lower overall stat scores.

The 40 standard character points are allocated during character creation early in the game. However, upon escaping from Vault 101 (the end of the first stage of the game), the player will have one opportunity to change his or her mind and reallocate character points.

Statistics can be improved temporarily by using chems or wearing equipment, and can be improved permanently through perks and the collection of bobbleheads. Later permanent improvements cannot raise any score above 10, so if you plan on collecting all of the bobbleheads you should avoid assigning any perfect 10s in character creation. It is also possible to raise attributes by completing some quests, such as THOSE! in Greyditch.

Skills
As in the previous games, the player chooses three Tag Skills out of 13 to be the character's specialties. However, unlike previous games, tagging only rewards the player an extra 15 initial points to that skill. Five skills have been cut out from the game (Fallout and Fallout 2 had 18 skills).

Initial Values (Fallout 3): [(Stat + 1) * 2] + Luck Bonus. (ex. Starting STR of 5, starting LUCK of 5 will give you an unarmed skill of 15 base. [(5 + 1) * 2] + 3 = 15)

The available skills are: Gambling and Outdoorsman skills were completely removed.
 * Barter
 * Big Guns
 * Energy Weapons
 * Explosives (replacing Traps and Throwing)
 * Lockpick
 * Medicine (replacing Doctor and First Aid)
 * Melee Weapons
 * Repair
 * Science
 * Small Guns
 * Sneak (incorporating the Steal skill of previous games)
 * Speech
 * Unarmed

Experience and Level
The maximum level the player can achieve is 20.

Perks
The Player Character gains a perk every level, as opposed to every three levels like in previous games.

Unlike previous games, traits that gave you both bonuses and penalties at the same time are no longer in the game. Instead, some of them were changed into perks.