Fallout: The Roleplaying Game skills

Skills and skill checks
With a total of 17 skills, each skill in Fallout: The Roleplaying Game starts and 0 and can advance up to 6 and no higher. Skills are used for skill checks and are paired with a primary attribute and tested against the difficulty set by the GM. For instance, the GM asks for a test against shooting a raider with Big Guns, difficulty of 1. Big Guns default primary attribute is Endurance, and with 4 ranks of Big Guns and 8 Endurance that makes the target number 12. Rolling 2 d20s, the results are 4 and 15. The 4 rolled under the target number and counts as a success, but the 15 rolled over and does not count for anything. 1 success was all that was needed to beat the raider's defense, so the player hits in this instance.

Determining skills
Three tag skills are available from during character creation, with each tag granting 2 ranks into the chosen skill. These chosen skills are important as these are the only skills that can achieve critical successes by rolling under the skill number. Standard skills points are granted after the tagged skills starting at 9 + Intelligence.