So, there seems to be some material, on wikis and game magazine sites and such, about character creation for this game. However, it seems to all just be copy-pastes of what's in the manual, with no opinion or judgment added. How is that helpful? Now that I've beaten the game, and actually know what attributes and skills are useful and what aren't, and have a good idea how a party should actually be created, I'd like to go and tell you all all the advice that I was looking for when I started playing this game but couldn't find: ATTRIBUTES So, one of the key things to understand about attributes is that for those derived stats that are based on more than one attribute (like Combat Initiative or Action Points), they appear to work off some kind of underlying arithmetic formula instead of a matter of getting a flat bonus at specific breakpoints on each attribute. What I mean is that going from, say, a Speed of 3 to a Speed of 4 *might* get you an extra Action Point, or it might not, depending on what you already have in Coordination, Intelligence and Strength. So in practice what this means is that you want to tune your attribute purchases carefully, point by point, to see what you're going to get out of them. Veterans of the Fallout series are probably going to immediately zone in on Action Points. The thing is, though, that in this game Combat Initiative determines not only who goes first, but how often you get a turn. So how many actions you get is actually a factor of not just Action Points but that as well. Since skill point bonuses are determined solely by Intelligence, it makes to pick out what Intelligence you want for a character first (I can't imagine wanting less than 4, by the way), dumping your dump stats as far as you're willing to, and then doing the rest of your tweaking from there. Coordination The good news is this figures heavily in the Action Point formula. The bad news is the only other thing it does is give you an infinitesimal accuracy bonus. Twiddle this after you have other stats in place, and don't increase it to a value that doesn't give you an extra Action Point. Luck You can dump this if you want. The bonus APs and Crits you randomly get from it are nice, but they're like a bonus on top of your normal functioning, so it's not like you're *harmed* by not having any Luck. If you decide to take it it will do something, but, personally I prefer to be predictably good at the things I designed the character to be good at. Awareness Contributes heavily to Combat Initiative. Supposedly increases vision radius too. I never noticed a problem with not having enough vision radius but then I generally had Awareness in the 5-6 range just to get my Combat Initiative where I wanted it. Strength If you have an extra attribute point left over, going up to Strength 4 for the bonus CON as you level up makes sense. It's even more tempting if you can get an Action Point out of it - Strength is in the Action Point formula (although it's a relatively minor factor). I really wouldn't bother jacking this high or increasing it solely for another few points of base Con or carry weight. Speed Can grant both Action Points and Combat Initiative. Due to the twiddly unpredictable nature of the formulas it's always worth checking to see if you can get those from Speed, because sometimes a point of Speed will get you a point of each, which is awesome. You can alright mobility with a 3 or 4 Speed but I would recommend against trying to dump stat this. Intelligence There are only three valid values for this stat: 4, 8, and 10 (the breakpoints for skill point bonuses). Anything else is a total waste of points. More skill points sounds like the most awesome thing you could get but to be honest if you plan ahead of time well you can make a 4 Intelligence character perfectly viable, and 4 attribute points is really a lot of attribute points that you could be using to make yourself better in combat. Charisma Dump stat. Possibly the XP bonus is noticable but even if so you don't need it. You definitely don't need the NPC unlocking - there are plenty of NPCs in the game that are plot-mandatory or who will join a min Charisma party. Counter to intuition, this has absolutely no effect on dialog skills like Kiss Ass - those are based entirely on your skill rating. This does effect the usefulness of your Leadership skill but since your NPCs won't have Charisma dumped you can just have one of them develop the Leadership for your team. WEAPON SKILLS Obviously, you are going to want to make sure each PC has a weapon skill. The game recommends giving different characters different weapon types so that you can maximize use of looted ammo, and there is something to that idea, but there are two problems with it: one, in the later half of the game, different weapon types seem to converge on using the same ammo; and two, not all weapon types are equally useful (and the most useful ones are the ones that converge on ammo type later, of course). The majority of the combat in this game takes place either outdoors, or in massive buildings not really subdivided into rooms that might as well be outdoors for all tactical purposes. This means weapon range is incredibly powerful - a party armed with long-range weapons can get multiple rounds of attacks in before enemies close, sometimes even making it through a combat without allowing the enemy to make an attack even once. For this reason, the Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle weapon classes are by far the best weapon classes. Do not listen to the game when it tries to tell you Assault Rifles have low damage/AP by the way - it's just not true. Weapon skills have a totally different relationship with success rate than non-combat skills do. Non-combat skills scale your success chance against a "difficulty rating", which in practical terms means that if you have been keeping up with leveling one, you will succeed, and if you haven't, you won't. In combat, your chance to hit has very little to do with who you're shooting at - a low weapon skill will frequently miss, and a high one will frequently hit. For this reason, starting with one point in your primary weapon skill is not advisable - not only will your inaccuracy make combat difficult, it'll also make you waste ammo, and then once you're out of ammo combat will just get impossible. I recommend starting with three points in your chosen weapon. Assault Rifles The only reason not to make four PCs who use Assault Rifles is to spread out your ammo usage. They are literally the best weapon class in the game. Energy Weapons The UI doesn't mention it, but these have great range. In late game, they're just as awesome as Sniper Rifles, except with the advantage of using their own separate ammo type. The problem is it takes them a while to get there. For the first half of the game you'll find these very lackluster. Handguns Handguns are garbage, but the ammo is plentiful. One possible for them is to start a high Intelligence character out using them, then have them switch over to Energy Weapons later. In early game, just finding ammo can be an issue. Shotguns Same deal as Handguns, although honestly I like them even less. Since like D&D, enemies fight at full effectiveness until their last HP, it's better to concentrate your damage instead of spread it out. Sniper Rifles To be honest, it seems like Assault Rifles have just as good of range as these do. But their high damage per shot makes them about even there too. In early game Sniper Rifles will use a different ammo type than Assault Rifles so using a mix of the two will help with your ammo problems a little bit. Submachine Guns These are basically Pistols that waste more ammo to do more damage. The thing is, the real problem with Pistols wasn't their damage, it was their crappy range, which Submachine Guns really don't improve on at all. If you only have a single PC starting with Pistols I guess you could do Submachine Guns instead and get them more effectiveness at the cost of more worry about ammo. But you'll still want to switch to a long-range weapon eventually. NON-COMBAT SKILLS As I mentioned when discussing weapon skills, non-combat skill success rate is heavy tied to "difficulty rating" of the task, which will not really match any kind of real-world logic but just arbitrarily hike as you progress through the game's areas. And what this means in practical terms is that if you have been advancing your skills at a high enough rate, you will succeed with them, and if you haven't, you will fail. Because of this, it's important to not spread out your skill points over too many skills. If you have a bunch of one and two point skills at midgame, you might as well not have any skills at all, for all the good they're going to do. A good rule of thumb is that you'll get enough skill points to keep four skills up to date. And you'll want at least one of those to be a weapon skill. So plan on giving each PC three non-combat skills. If you have a 10 Intelligence character they can probably handle another one, but start with that guideline and then look at developing a new skill if you find yourself with extra points. Animal Whisperer Required for a few side quests, so a good source of bonus XP if you can fit the skill slot for it. If you decide to go to Highpool first the NPC you pick up there can cover this for you. Barter Lame. Brute Force Theoretically useful. However, the NPC you get in the very first map has it (and has it better than your starting character), and almost all of the uses for it are early game. It's necessary for one quest in late game so if you're a completionist you should arrange to have it but otherwise, Angela can handle this for you. Hard Ass The best of the dialogue skills. Needed to succeed in a few quests. Even though the NPC you get in the first area has this, since she leaves the party halfway through the game you will want to train up a PC in it to handle it once she leaves. You should probably be starting on leveling it before that happens so that your PC has it an effective level once they have to take over. Leadership Not quest-essential, but the to-hit bonus is nice. This is a good skill to develop on an NPC (since unlike your PCs they won't have dump statted Charisma) when you find they have extra points or come with a skill that duplicates something your PCs are already handling better. Outdoorsman Not quest essential, but if you hate random encounters as much as I do you will love this skill because it really does the trick. It doesn't just reduce the rate of random encounters it (assuming you keep it up to date) makes them go away entirely. If you decide to save Highpool first, the NPC you can get from there has this covered, though. Perception Spots land mines. Strongly recommended. Smart Ass The second best dialogue skill. Tends less to resolve quests than to get you bonus XP without changing the plotline, but still worthwhile if you can afford it. Weaponsmithing Never quest essential. All this does is make you better at combat. However, it is pretty effective at it's job and is fairly fun. Alarm Disarming Utterly worthless. Computer Science A lockpicking variant that doesn't get used until midgame. Essential for a few quests. If you rescue Ag Center first, the NPC you get from there has it. Otherwise, it's worth holding for a while and then picking it up later as an extra skill on a high Intelligence character. Demolitions Removes traps on chests. Strongly recommended. Field Medic Absolutely mandatory. Since it's useful in combat it's even helpful to have multiple characters with the skill, just in case your one "medic" character isn't in the right place at the right time. This is an excellent choice of where to dump skill points for an NPC whose skills are duplicating your PCs. Lockpicking Does what it says. Useful, important, needed to keep your resources up etc. Mechanical Repair Needed for a few quests. Safecracking This sounds like a crazy specialized skill that would almost never be useful. Well, it's not. The loot containers in this game seem to be about half based on Lockpicking and half based on this. So you want both. Surgeon See Field Medic, except with the addendum that you really, really could use a second character with this, because otherwise what happens when your only Surgeon is down and bleeding out? If you decide to save Ag Center first, the NPC you can get from there has this. Toaster Repair Every bit as garbage as it sounds. Useless joke skill. CONTACT INFO james.r.neal@gmail.com