Fallout/Character creation

An impression for the game was "a big dumb ox and a pretty little lady won't have the same experience" - to quote Christopher Smith's great Fallout FAQ.

The three pre-made characters that come with the game can finish it.

First, select your name. The name doesn't make any difference in the game; it is your own preference.

Next, select your age. You can be as young as 16, but as old as 35. Age has an insignificant impact on the game. Probably older characters might have different reactions with young ones, but none that I know of. But at the same time, all of my characters were pretty young.

Now you are ready to select your sex. You can be male or female, and the game does differ if you are a girl or a guy. It's your own choice; try beating both variations of the game. However, there are some issues regarding the sex of your character. The game really doesn't matter if you are male or female, but these are the differences. (Female is recommended for a slightly easier game.)
 * Male characters typically get knocked down and have a greater chance of you scoring a critical hit on them if you hit them in the groin. The female character doesn't have any known weaknesses in combat.
 * NPC's have different reactions if you are female or male (Killian calls you darling if you're female, Keri can have sex with you if you're male, etc.)
 * Probably to offset the male weakness thing, female characters are hated by couple of NPCs, notably Lasher. Harry is a bit harder to BS with if you're female.
 * If you are female, there is no charisma bonus to your character, and there aren't any strength and endurance penalties. Ditto for males as well.

Derived Statistics
Derived statistics are statistics that are a direct result of the main statistics, in other words, increase and decrease a skill and see what happens. Note: These are straight out from the Fallout manual.


 * Poison is measured in units; keep it below 25.
 * Being 'radiated' qualifies having a rem count of 75, with 300 or above being quite serious. A rem count of 5 or higher will bring symptoms of nausea; a rem count of 75 is quite serious, while a rem count of 300 or higher is fatal. If you have enough radiation in your body to necessitate attention, the message 'Radiation' will appear on the screen.

Upgrading your statistics
During your adventure, you can receive some bonuses to your statistics.
 * Drugs, such as Buffout, Mentats, Psyccho, and RadX can increase them temporarily. (For more info on which stats they alter, refer to the appendix.)
 * Armor can provide a good increase in armor class, damage threshold and resistance, as well as radiation resistance.
 * Tycho can teach you some outdoorsman skill if you ask.
 * MacRae, the guard at the Blades, can teach you some fighting skills if you ask him. It's futile to ask if they're at 91%.
 * Watching the Brotherhood Initiate training can give you an increase in melee and unarmed skills.
 * The Brotherhood has computer courses that can increase your science skill by 15%.
 * Reading books can increase your skills, up to 91%. These include: Scout Handbook (outdoorsman), Big Book of Science (Science), Guns and Bullets (small guns), Dean's Electronics (repair), and the First Aid Book (first aid).
 * The Brotherhood surgeon can increase all of your skills (except for charisma and luck) for a price (and long recovery time).
 * Strength: $2000, 3 weeks
 * Perception: $4000, 1 week
 * Endurance: $3000, 1 week
 * Intelligence: $6000, 3 weeks ($3000 for characters with less than 3 Intelligence)
 * Agility: $5000, 3 weeks
 * Patrick the Celt, the wandering bard, can increase your charisma by one if you sing the Gaelic song with him.
 * Chuck, the fortune teller, can increase your luck by two if you get your fortune told and choose the right conversation path.