Van Buren/SPECIAL

This page describes the SPECIAL implementation in Van Buren.

General information
A highly modified version of the SPECIAL character system, made by J.E. Sawyer. Bethesda's version of SPECIAL in Fallout 3 is something of a combination of the original SPECIAL, the Van Buren SPECIAL, as well as their own changes.

Primary statistics
SPECIAL is an acronym of Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. These were the seven basic attributes of every character in the game. They were used to determine the skills and available perks of the given character.

Derived statistics
Derived statistics were attributes of a character that were based on (or derived from) the character's primary statistics or attributes that the player could not influence directly.

Skills
Skills started at 0 with Tag skills starting at 20. They would not have a % symbol behind them, as this concept was ruled generally frivolous, seeing as players could go far beyond 100% in previous games. Point weighing was to be implemented sooner in order to make skills more difficult to get good at.

The cost on a per-rank basis was:
 * 1 for 1-50
 * 2 for 51-100
 * 3 for 101-150
 * 4 for 151-200 (Max skill)

Each rank bought for a tag! skill was doubled. If you had a 55 Medic, it would cost you two points to increase it one rank—but you would get an additional rank for free.

Traits
Traits would have modified different aspects of gameplay, including (but not limited to): Primary statistics, derived statistics and skills. Traits would always have had both positive and negative results. One would have been able to choose up to two traits when designing a character (or none at all).

Perks
In Van Buren, perks were no longer tied to your character's level but depended solely on your character's statistics and skills. Only high-level characters would have high skills anyway, and powerful perks being dependent on very high skills would be more of an incentive to specialize in a given skill.


 * New perks


 * Special perks