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
The player follows the character's childhood during character creation. After the gender, name, and appearance are chosen, 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 and 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 and appearance are determined during the in-Vault tutorial, they can be changed just before leaving the vault.

Character Editor
A 3rd party character editor is available:  http://rapidshare.com/files/164984516/Fallout_3_Character_Creator_v09.rar 

Edited 18th November 2008, created by Oggy1985 (version change: MAJOR CHANGE - added character Hit Points, Action Points, Carry Weight, Melee Damage, Character level select; added auto-condition testing for PERKS and corrected few minor bugs + level verification)

Another character creator is available at: fallout 3 character calculator xls ods

Main statistics
The main statistics are the same as they were in previous games. The player's SPECIAL attributes default at 5 points per attribute, with an additional 5 points for distribution to a total of 40 points. Each individual attribute cannot score lower than 1 nor higher than 10, regardless of equipment or physical ailment.

SPECIAL stands for:
 * Strength
 * Perception
 * Endurance
 * Charisma
 * Intelligence
 * Agility
 * Luck

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, clothing, etc. There are bobbleheads to be found that raise each one of your SPECIAL stats by one, and either perception or strength may be raised an additional point upon completion of the Those! quest; however, 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. It is possible to achieve the Intelligence bobblehead at level 2, by travelling directly to the bobblehead's location in Rivet City. This is a trade-off of 1 stat point for 1 skill point; as a stat point gives 2-6 skill points (in addition to other benefits), it is still more beneficial to place only 9 points in intelligence.

The 40 standard character points are allocated during character creation early in the game. However, upon escaping from Vault 101, the player will have one last opportunity to reallocate character points.


 * Table showing items' influence on SPECIAL stats points.

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 1 will give you an unarmed skill of 13 base. [(5 + 1) * 2] + 1 = 13). Initial values also function as base value, meaning any later change to the SPECIAL stat would also have similar change to the respective skill.

The available skills are:

Gambling and Outdoorsman skills were completely removed.

Improving and Maximizing Skills
Skills can be improved:
 * temporarily...
 * by equipment with modifiers.
 * by using chems.
 * permanently...
 * by 1 or 2 points by reading books.
 * by 10 points by finding the corresponding Bobblehead.

But note that a skill can never be increased above 100.

Thus, it isn't recommended raising any of them, with a possible exception of combat skills and lockpicking, above 80. It is possible to eventually raise all your skills to 100. As there are 25 skill books per skill (24 only for barter for some reason), you can potentially add 50 points to each skill through books alone, providing you don't read any before obtaining the comprehension perk at level 4. Add this to the 10 point bonus for each bobblehead and it means that you only need to assign 40 points to each skill during your level ups. Throughout the whole process of gaining 20 levels there are a more than enough points to do this so add more to your preferred skills ensuring that eventually you assign at least 40 points minimum for each skill (42 for barter) by level 20. This means you can concentrate on choosing more beneficial perks as opposed to ones that add points to your skills as they are wasted.

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.