Grab

The grab ability is the in-game ability to pick up, move around and drop objects. Unlike some other games where the PC can move items in the game world (e.g. Gordon Freeman in the Half-Life series) there are no puzzles in Fallout 3 that require the use of this skill, and it is possible to play the entire game without using it and only miss out on some non-essential loot. (Indeed, this editor only realized the function existed after 400+ hours of gameplay taking 3 characters to level 30 - despite playing through Baby Steps each time!).

The implementation involves the Grabbed item hovering as if suspended from the initial grab point some distance in front of the player (there is no animation of a hand or hands actually doing any Grabbing). (Either the Lone Wanderer is built like a knuckle-dragging gorilla or the extra distance is supposed to help the player manipulate the Grabbed items). A Grabbed item interacts with the game world as 'normally' as a non-Grabbed item, in so much as it will make a noise if knocked against another object, and a sufficiently hard knock can cause the player to drop the item.

The Grab function does not work while Fast Travelling (the item wil be dropped where you Fast Travelled from), nor does it work between map cells - meaning you cannot pick things up and then carry them through a loading screen e.g. into your Megaton house. Also only some items can be Grabbed, whilst some cannot. Items which can be inventoried can be Grabbed (need to confirm on every item?), as well as some items (such as Small Office Fans, Rollerskates, Globes, Alphabet Blocks) that cannot. No container that the PC can store things in (e.g. has an inventory menu, not just is box-like) can be grabbed either, despite e.g. Ammo Boxes being a lot smaller than Super Mutant corpses, which can be Grabbed.

Some uses of Grab include:
 * To make items easier to steal (moving them to somewhere where NPCs can't see, but you still lose Karma),
 * To move a corpse so you can eat it (if you have the Cannibal perk and don't mind losing Karma)
 * Accessing items in Milk Crates that are on shelves, preventing the PC from looking into them.
 * To move things around for aesthetic reasons (e.g. redecorating your house).
 * To quietly move noisy obstructions such as barrels out of confined spaces like doorways and corridors where they may give away a stealthy player.
 * Sometimes more valuable items are hidden at the bottom of containers below common or cheap items, and using Grab can save the player from having to Inventory and then Drop the unwanted items.

An item can be grabbed by aiming at the item you want to pick up and then either clicking in the right thumb stick on the 360 and PS3, or pressing the Z key on the PC. Once Grabbed the item can be moved about using the right controller stick on a console or the mouse on a PC. To drop the item simply repeat the Grab command, and it will fall wherever the game physics says it should.

You are first instructed on grabbing items in the "Baby Steps" quest, and you can grab a lot of varied things in Fallout 3. You can grab corpses, barrels, and grabbing is a suggested way of nicely decorating your home in either Megaton or Tenpenny Tower. Milk crates occasionally contain valuable loot that is difficult or impossible to obtain without using grab. Another use for this is getting to otherwise unreachable ledges by stacking barrels, milk crates, etc. Heavier objects like Super Mutants are harder to move.

You can also use the grab ability to drop things at people from a height. They won't know you did it. A car tire from ten meters up can take down Jericho.