Wastelander (Fallout 3)

The anonymous survivors of the Great war. Usually found dead, but some seem to randomly run around the Capital Wasteland until they run into a Raider or something else that kills them. Wastelanders have poor health and no armor, and die after a couple hits from pretty much anything hostile out in the wastes. They sometimes are armed with a hunting rifle, but usually they only carry melee weapons such as knives or pool cues. Unlike most named NPCs, Wastelanders reset their inventory every 72 hours, so if you come across them after a period of time you may find them carrying different weapons and wearing different headgear. After completing The Wasteland Survival Guide you may come across a wastelander fighting a mole rat, mirelurk or other hostile creature. They will tell you about how they bought a copy of the book, and because of it their life has improved. The Wastelander will thank you and tell you how you've done "A good job" if you choose the option to say you helped write it.

A few small settlements (usually consisting of only 1 or 2 sheet-metal structures) of Ghoul Wastelanders can be found across the Capital Wasteland. These Ghoul Wastelanders are often, though not always, hostile towards all outsiders, including the player. They carry leveled weapons (up to and including assault rifles and combat shotguns) but have poor durability. None of these settlements are a map waypoint, but some can be found fairly near map waypoints (i.e. SE of Rockbreaker's Last Gas.

Bomb
A (usually) female Wastelander (prid 474bd) will approach you and tell you raiders have strapped explosives to her. You have the option to attempt to disarm the explosives or leave her. If you fail to disarm the explosive (or just choose not to), she will start beeping and run away, then explode. After she explodes or the bomb is disarmed, the raiders will approach. One of these raiders always seem to have a heavy weapon,usually a flamer. There is also a Wastelander that will run to you and say "Help me! I'm wired with explosives!", then immediately run away.

Bugs

 * Despite the following information that would speak to the contrary, this author was able to disarm the bomb normally with a single attempt at a skill level of 100. There is no reward to speak of for saving the Wastelander's life, not even good karma. Unknown if this was recently fixed or was never broken. (360 version)
 * The bomb can't be disarmed following the conversation, not even with a skill of 100.
 * For the curious, the reason behind this is simply sloppy/overcomplicated scripting. The script in theory transfers the Skill cap (75) to a custom variable inside an "Onload" block. The mistake here is twofold: First of all, the Onload block does not trigger as intended, so neither variable is set to what it should be. Replacing the onload block with a gamemode block (which is always triggered) or possibly putting it in the subsequent onactivate block would cause the script to work properly.
 * Secondly, the existence of such a variable is completely unnecessary to begin with. One could have simply sufficed with replacing all instances of needed ExplosivesSkill with 75, since this number does not in any way shape or form change.
 * The bomb can be disarmed using tricks: Kill her, or get her hostile against a third party (say a Robot or Super Mutant); you will then have 5 seconds to disarm. Now the skill check is 75, which was the intended limit all along.
 * If you hurt any of the three raiders, she will turn hostile (probably bad grouping). Before or after saving her from the bomb. (Hurting one of the raiders before, and she will explode after 5 seconds.)
 * The best 'trick' to getting credit for disarming the bomb and saving her life: If you attack her once with the least amount of damage you can do (pistol, knife, etc...), she'll turn hostile and you'll be able to disarm the bomb (with 75+ explosives skill) and gain xp. But, if you holster your weapon immediately after disarming and allow her to hit you once or twice - she will turn non-hostile towards you again and you'll be a hero for saving her.
 * It is possible that the Wastelander may be scripted to automatically lose his/her nerve halfway through the defusing process, causing you to automatically fail and the wastelander to begin running away in a panic, with five seconds to live. To actually save the wastelander (without causing him/her to glitch and no longer speak to you), chase him/her down and talk to him/her again before he/she explodes. You'll get the option to defuse him/her a second time, and this time a skill of 75 is enough to succeed. Once you do this, the Wastelander will run away until they normally would have exploded, then stop and thank you. You receive good karma for following this process, while you get no karma change if you shoot the raiders or wastelander first, or start the 5-second count down any other way and then defuse the bomb. You will actually LOSE karma if the Wastelander dies after you start the countdown by attacking him or the Raiders.

Mole rats
A male Wastelander will run past you, chased by four Mole Rats. He will thank you when you've killed the mole rats ("I thought I was a goner"), but not give you anything actually profitable.

Ghouls

 * For Underworld Three ghouls around a burning barrel. They were on their way to Underworld, but couldn't because of all the Super Mutants. Talking to them will give you the map marker for Underworld.


 * For Tenpenny Tower If the player completed the Tenpenny Tower quest and let the Ghouls live there, they may meet some Ghoul Wastelanders that are on their way to Tenpenny Tower. You can talk to them and their responses are very bigot-like, treating the player as other "smoothskins" treated them. If you tell them that they are wrong for thinking that, they will attack you and one of them will have a Ghoul Note from Roy Phillips inviting all Ghouls to Tenpenny Tower.


 * A small ghoul wastelander settlement near Vault 87 and Little Lamplight. All of them are hostile.

Hunters
A wastelander will run past you, pursued by hunters in leather armor. The hunters can be killed for good karma, or the wastelander for bad karma. If you chose to kill the wastelander, looting the body will cause the hunters to attack you. This is because hunters sell Strange Meat.

Deathclaw
A group of wastelanders will be fighting a Deathclaw. If you assist them in killing the Deathclaw, then the survivors thank you and give you a map to possible treasure since they "lost the appetite for adventure". Possible locations for map: Super-Duper Mart, Rock Creek Caverns, Deathclaw Sanctuary. Also you can find a single Deathclaw with a dead Wastelander,If you loot the Wastelanders corpse he will have Deathclaw Gauntlet schematics. Sometimes at higher levels the wastelanders will kill the deathclaw but still thank and reward you.

Water Supply
A group of 4 wastelanders, 2 humans and 2 ghouls can be found arguing around a fridge. The argument soon turns into a fight, and the wastelanders will start shooting members of the other race. After the fight one or sometimes two of them (of the same race) will be alive. When you talk to the survivor, he says that the purified water belongs to him. You can start a fight, leave, or try to persuade him to give you the water in the fridge. If you kill him, you can collect 8 bottles of purified water from the fridge. (10 bottles of purified water have been seen) If your speech is high enough (? value) you can have all the water (after the fight), have the water split two ways (after the fight), or split three ways (no fight).

There is a similar, separate encounter where one or two wastelanders are being accosted by creatures of any type. If you save them from the attack, they are much more friendly to you than in the above encounter. If you save them, they will say "Help yourself to the water. You earned it.

A rare encounter has the player leave the wastelanders to fight and the winners will be torn to shreds by a Yao Guai which the player can kill and take the water for themselves.

Wannabe Oasis Raiders
Two or three Wastelanders wearing Merc Outfits, who are initially friendly. If engaged in conversation, they will reveal they are heading for Oasis to raid it. Since they revealed it, they turn hostile towards the Lone Wanderer. They don't have any map to Oasis, but the encounter does put Oasis on your Pip-Boy world map.

YouTube video:
 * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcHsY3kGeOM

Greyditch Survivor
A single Wastelander runs up to you and engages in conversation with you telling you that Greyditch is burning. This will put a map marker on your Pip-Boy map.

This also starts the quest 'THOSE!'

Other appearances
A mad Wastelander has wired land mines and mini-nukes to a trigger in the alleyway in Seward Square. Another wastelander pleads with the player to remove the threat so he can travel past the alleyway home. With Charisma check, it is possible to convince him to talk with the insane man, setting the alley ablaze. Alternatively, the insane man can be shot, allowing the land mines and the mini-nukes to be recovered safely. Another option is to sidle along the left wall where the wastelander can't see you, and throw a frag grenade up and over what's left of the wall he's standing behind. This will almost always blast his corpse (or a piece of it) over the wall, which can be quite funny. A note on the insane man who speaks on the speaker: Sometimes even after death the mines and nukes explodes if anything walks towards it. this is probably due to scripting errors, I test this on PC and still haven't been able to figure it out. The frag mines are still armed, so be careful when approaching them. Some of them might not be very visible (near the slide for example) and when you wander too close 2 will trigger at the same time, causing everything to explode.

Another appearance sometimes results in you being approached by three wastelanders who tell you they have escaped from slavers, but still have collars on which have been rigged with explosives. With a high enough science you can remove the collars. If you tell them you may not be able to they reply, "what the hell, do it anyway". If you fail, the wastelander's head will explode.