So, you're firing up Fallout 4, preparing your first journey into the irradiated Boston wasteland. Suddenly, you're asked to allocate your stats loadout, known in the Fallout universe as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Just what does it all mean?
In this quick guide, I'll be explaining what each of the stats do for your character, as well as listing the perks you can obtain as a result of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. loadout.
For the uninitiated, Fallout 4, at its core, is an RPG. Fallout 4's shooting mechanics have been standardized to a degree, but your stats still determine your proficiency in combat. Whether you decide to be a melee fighter, a grenadier, sniper, or pistol wielding gunslinger is entirely up to you, but a smart S.P.E.C.I.A.L. loadout will only enhance your chosen role (or roles!).
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, and each stat empowers different attributes. You're given 21 stat points to play with at the start of the game, and every time you level up, you're given a choice between adding an extra point of S.P.E.C.I.A.L., or spending a point on a perk. Each point in a particular stat gives you access to a new perk, each of which comes with powerful bonuses. There are items that can increase your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, glasses you can find in the first area increase your Perception by 1 for example, and there are various chems (drugs) that can increase your stats temporarily.
Fallout 4 has no hard level cap, but as we saw with Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, progression after a certain point will begin to slow down considerably, particularly as you begin running out of enemies and quests. So, be sure to plan ahead!
The best way I've found so far when it comes to character building is to use NukaHub's excellent character sheet calculator, you can save builds for later and even share them with your friends.
Playing through Fallout 4 you’ll come up against Legendary Enemies that are a lot tougher to kill than the usual Raider, Bloatfly or Super Mutant. What exactly do all those Legendary Weapon.
To access the perks list in-game, you hit B to display your Pip-Boy, then press Y. The perks sheet looks like the below image, detailing each perk, its requirements, and rank.
Below is an explanation of each of Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes and an overview of the perks attached to each level of those stats. The higher ranks of each perk contain ever increasing bonuses and modifiers.
Strength
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As you might expect, strength determines your physical power. A high strength stat will increase the amount of items you can carry (and thus, the variety of weapons you can wield). It also increases the damage you deal with melee weapons, like baseball bats and sledgehammers. Strength is also tied to perks that increase your prowess in fist fighting, armor crafting, heavy weapons wielding, and hip-fire shooting. The highest strength stats will give you access to the Pain Train perk, which provides combat bonuses when wearing the iconic Power Armor.
- Iron Fist – Channel your chi to unleash devastating fury! Punching attacks do 20% more damage to your opponent. (5 Ranks)
- Big Leagues – Swing for the fences! Do 20% more melee weapon damage. (5 Ranks)
- Armorer – Protect yourself from the dangers of the Wasteland with access to base level and Rank 1 armor mods. (4 Ranks)
- Blacksmith – Fire up the forge and gain access to base level and Rank 1 melee weapon mods. (3 Ranks)
- Heavy Gunner – Thanks to practice and conditioning, heavy guns do 20% more damage. (5 Ranks)
- Strong Back – What are you, part pack mule? Gain +25 to carry weight. (4 Ranks)
- Steady Aim – Stay on target! Hip-fire accuracy is improved when firing any gun. (2 Ranks)
- Basher – Get up close and personal! Gun bashing does 25% more damage. (4 Ranks)
- Rooted – You're part tree! While standing still, you gain +25 Damage Resistance and your melee and unarmed attacks deal 25% more damage (3 Ranks)
- Pain Train – Choo choo! All aboard! While wearing Power Armor, sprinting into enemies hurts and staggers them. (Robots and oversized enemies are immune to stagger.) (3 Ranks)
Perception
Perception primarily affects your weapon accuracy in V.A.T.S., Fallout's slow-motion auto-targeting system. It also comes tied to perks rogue-type characters might enjoy, like lockpicking, pickpocketing, and explosives. Perception also carries perks that will boost rifle and sniper skills.
- Pickpocket – Your quick hands and sticky fingers make picking pockets 25% easier. (4 Ranks)
- Rifleman – Keep your distance long and your kill-count high. Attacks with non-automatic rifles do 20% more damage. (5 Ranks)
- Awareness – To defeat your enemies, you know their weaknesses! You can view a targets specific damage resistances in V.A.T.S. (1 Rank)
- Locksmith – Your nimble fingers allow you to pick Advanced locks. (4 Ranks)
- Demolition Expert – The bigger the boom, the better! Your explosives do 25% more damage, and you can craft explosives at any Chemistry Station. (4 Ranks)
- Night Person – You are a creature of the night! Gain +2 to Intelligence and Perception between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. (2 Ranks)
- Refractor – You must be part mirror! Instantly gain +10 Energy Resistance. (5 Ranks)
- Sniper – It's all about focus. You have improved control and can hold your breath longer when aiming with scopes. (3 Ranks)
- Penetrator – There's no place to hide! In V.A.T.S. you can target an enemy's body parts that are blocked by cover, with a decrease in accuracy. (2 Ranks)
- Concentrated Fire – Stay focused! In V.A.T.S. every attack on the same body part gains +10% accuracy. (3 Ranks)
Endurance
Endurance directly impacts your hit points and the amount you can sprint. The perks tied to endurance includes all sorts of damage resistances, the ability to eat a wider variety of foods and drinks (including human flesh) and the ability to take in healing from sunlight.
- Toughness – You now have +20 Damage Resistance (5 Ranks)
- Lead Belly – Your digestive tract has adjusted to the weirdness of the Wasteland! Take less radiation from eating or drinking. (3 Ranks)
- Life Giver – You instantly gain another +20 maximum Health. (3 ranks)
- Chem Resistant – All the rush without the hassle! You're 50% less likely to get addicted when consuming chems. (2 Ranks)
- Aquaboy – Water is your ally. You no longer take radiation damage from swimming, and can breath underwater (2 Ranks)
- Rad Resistant – Exposure to the Wasteland has made you more resilient, instantly granting +10 Radiation Resistance. (3 Ranks)
- Adamantium Skeleton – Your skeleton has been infused with indestructible metal, reducing limb damage by 30% (3 Ranks)
- Cannibal – Feast on mortal flesh to heal your wounds! Eating human corpses restores Health. (3 Ranks)
- Ghoulish – Sure, you're still human – on the outside! Radiation now regenerates your lost Health. (3 Ranks)
- Solar Powered – Catch some rays! Gain +2 to Strength and Endurance between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (3 Ranks)
Charisma
Charisma expands your toolset in the game's conversations. With a higher Charisma, you can persuade other characters to do your bidding, and get reduced prices from merchants and vendors. Charisma perks enhance your ability to command your followers, such as the much-advertised canine companion. You can also use Charisma perks to improve your homestead, building supply lines and on-site stores.
- Cap Collector – Buying and selling prices at vendors are now much better. (3 Ranks)
- Lady Killer – You're charming… and dangerous. Women suffer +5% damage in combat, and are easier to persuade in dialogue. (3 Ranks)
- Lone Wanderer – Who needs friends, anyway? When adventuring without a companion, you take 15% less damage and carry weight increases by 50. (3 Ranks)
- Attack Dog – Your faithful canine companion can hold an enemy, giving you a greater chance to hit them in V.A.T.S. (3 Ranks)
- Animal Friend – Commune with beasts! With your gun, aim at any animal below your level and gain a chance to pacify it. (3 Ranks)
- Local Leader – As the ruler everyone turns to, you are able to establish supply lines between your workshop settlements. (2 Ranks)
- Party Boy – Nobody has a good time like you! There's no chance you'll get addicted to alcohol. (3 Ranks)
- Traditional – Because you lead by example, your companion does more damage in combat, and cannot hurt you. (3 Ranks)
- Wasteland Whisperer – Master the post-apocalypse! With your gain, aim at any Wasteland creature below your level and gain a chance to pacify it. (3 Ranks)
- Intimidation – Time to show everyone who's boss! With your gun, aim at any human opponent below your level and gain a chance to pacify them. (3 Ranks)
Intelligence
Intelligence primarily increases the amount of EXP you gain from performing actions in the wasteland, allowing you to level up faster. Intelligence perks pertain to crafting, hacking computers and even robots, turning them into your allies. The highest perk allows you to become enraged at low health, slowing down time and increasing your damage dealt.
- V.A.N.S. – Let Vault-Tec guide you! The path to your closest quest target is displayed in V.A.T.S. (1 Ranks)
- Medic – Stimpaks now restore 60% of lost Health, and RadAway removes 60% of radiation. (4 Ranks)
- Gun Nut – Shoot first, kill first, with access to base level and Rank 1 gun mods. (4 Ranks)
- Hacker – Knowledge of cutting-edge computer encryption allows you to hack Advanced terminals. (4 Ranks)
- Scrapper – Waste not, want not! You can salvage uncommon components like screws, aluminum, and copper when scrapping weapons and armor. (2 Ranks)
- Science! – Take full advantage of advanced technology with access to base level and Rank 1 high-tech mods. (4 Ranks)
- Chemist – Any chems you take last 50% longer. Far out. (4 Ranks)
- Robotics Expert – Machines will always serve humans, if you have anything to say about it. Hack a robot, and gain a chance to power it on or off, or initiate a self-destruct. (3 Ranks)
- Nuclear Physicist – You've learned to split the atom… and command it. Radiation weapons do 50% more damage and Fusion Cores last an extra 25% longer. (3 Ranks)
- Nerd Rage – Genius. Is. ANGRY! When your Health drops below 20%, time slows and you gain +20 Damage Resistance and do 20% more damage while the effect lasts. (3 Ranks)
Agility
Agility enhances the frequency you can use V.A.T.S. targeting system, and also grants bonuses to sneaking. Perks tied to Agility increase your abilities with one handed, silenced weapons, and also increase your damage while attacking from stealth.
- Gunslinger – Channel the spirit of the Old West! Non-automatic pistols do 20% more damage. (5 Ranks)
- Commando – Your automatic weapons now do 40% more damage, and improved hip fire accuracy. (5 Ranks)
- Sneak – Become whisper, become shadow. You are 20% harder to detect while sneaking. (5 Ranks)
- Mister Sandman – As an agent of death itself, you can instantly kill a sleeping person. Your silenced weapons do an additional 15% sneak damage. (3 Ranks)
- Action Boy – There's no time to waste! Your Action Points regenerate 25% faster. (2 Ranks)
- Moving Target – They can't hurt what they can't hit! Get +25 Damage Resistance and +25 Energy Resistance when you're sprinting. (3 Ranks)
- Ninja – Trained as a shadow warrior, your ranged sneak attacks do 2.5x normal damage and your melee sneak attacks do 4x normal damage. (3 Ranks)
- Quick Hands – In combat, there's no time to hesitate. You can reload all guns faster. (2 Ranks)
- Blitz – Find the gap and make the tackle! V.A.T.S. melee distance is increased significantly. (2 Ranks)
- Gun-Fu – You've learned to apply ancient martial arts to gunplay! Do 25% more damage to your second V.A.T.S. target and beyond. (3 Ranks)
Luck
Luck governs the frequency of critical hits, which deal increased damage. It also gives you a higher chance to find quality items when looting containers throughout the wasteland. Some of the Luck perks include further bonuses to crit chance, but also additional bonuses that occur at random.
- Fortune Finder – You find even more bottle caps in containers (3 Ranks)
- Scrounger – You find even more ammunition in containers. (4 Ranks)
- Bloody Mess – You now inflict +10% damage in combat. (4 Ranks)
- Mysterious Stranger – Who is he? Why does he help? Who cares! The Mysterious Stranger will appear occasionally in V.A.T.S. to lend a hand, with deadly efficiency. (3 Ranks)
- Idiot Savant – You're not stupid! Just… different. Randomly receive 3x XP from any action, and the lower your intelligence, the greater the chance. (3 Ranks)
- Better Criticals – Advanced training for enhanced combat effectiveness! Criticals do 50% more damage. (3 Ranks)
- Critical Banker – You're a patient battlefield tactician, and can save a Critical Hit, to be used in V.A.T.S. when you need it most. (3 Ranks)
- Grim Reaper's Sprint – Death becomes you! Any kill in V.A.T.S. has a 15% chance to restore all Action Points. (2 Ranks)
- Four Leaf Clover – Feeling lucky? You should! Each hit in V.A.T.S. has a chance of filling your Critical meter. (5 Ranks)
- Ricochet – What goes around comes around! An enemy's ranged attack will sometimes ricochet back and instantly kill them. The closer you are to death, the higher the chance. (3 Ranks)
To start with, I'm going to try a stealthy sniper type build, taking high perception and agility at the cost of almost everything else. Of course, given Fallout 4's lack of a level cap, things could work out quite differently by the time I 'finish' the game.
What sort of class will you play? Let's discuss it below!
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In order to grasp the scope and complexity of all mechanics available in Fallout 76 players will need to spend hours upon hours of gameplay. The main aspect of the game is survivability and exploration, which may turn out to be not as simple as many players think, including the die hard fans of the franchise.
That is why it's so important to be prepared before venturing out into the unknown areas of post-apocalyptic West Virginia. Whether you played the beta or not, it is super important to learn as much as you can about Fallout 76.
So follow our beginner's guide below for some of the most essential tips that will help you survive the early game.
Basic Survival Tips and Tricks
The very first thing you need to do in the game is to pick up your CAMP system in the vault and set up your CAMP outside of the vault. CAMP is your movable base, where you can rest, cook and craft all sorts of things in your Workshop.
You will need things like cooking pot for making food and bottles for keeping clean water, which can be obtained by a simple process of boiling. Don't eat raw food or drink water with parasites, as it may result in all sorts of negative effects on your character's health. Just take your time and eat well, drink well, and rest well, as these are the most important survival elements of the game.
Your CAMP also serves as the fast travel point, so place it somewhere safe. Set up a bed inside and take a nap whenever you need to restore health. Later on you will be able to regen health using Stimpaks, but in the early stages of the game sleeping is your best option.
When you have your CAMP all set up, your most basic needs satisfied, and your first melee weapon and armor crafted at the Workshop you can start exploring the map. This is important for gaining experience and leveling up your character.
Managing Your Loot and Inventory
Every single piece of loot in Fallout 76 is valuable, simply because every item is unique and spawns only once. For example, if you've picked up items from a certain place, the other player who comes across the same location will not be able to get that loot anymore.
That is why you should pick up everything you see, because next time it may not be there anymore. On top of that, every piece of junk can be turned into scrap, which in its turn can be used for crafting and repairing your weapons and armor or expanding your base.
So make sure to fill your inventory with as much loot as you can find. At one point, of course, you will find yourself overencumbered, and this is where you will need to use Workshop for utilizing all the junk you have picked up. This will lighten up you significantly, but that's not the only way to carry even more stuff.
One of the best inventory management mechanics applied in Fallout 76 is the Stash system. You can find Stashes all over the map and keep valuable but not emergency stuff in them. Although Stashes are open for use to all players, you will find only your items inside them. Besides finding Stashes out in the open world you can build one inside your C.A.M.P. just like Workshop.
But Stash is not always available, so it's much better to carry as much stuff as you can on your own. For this reason you can put SPECIAL points into your Strength perk, which will increase your carrying capacity significantly. It also makes your melee attacks much more dangerous.
Lastly, there are certain mutations that can increase your carrying capacity even further than that. But that is not something you should rely on, and just use the safe methods described above.
Perks, SPECIALs and Mutations
SPECIAL points and perks go hand-in-hand in Fallout 76. You will get points and packs of cards that define your perks when you reach a certain level. You can put SPECIAL points into your perks, thus increasing the number of active cards per slot.
The maximum number of SPECIAL points per one perk is 15, which means that you can have up to 15 active slots. However, slots are occupied not by single cards, but rather by the number of stars in the cards. They can have one or more stars in their right bottom corner indicating how many slots each card occupies.
For example, if you have five slots available in a perk, you can put either five cards with one star in them or one card with two stars and another with three, and so on. This means that you should pay close attention to which cards you include in your perk slots, as you will not be able to reset them later.
In addition to your perks you can get a mutation that may have either a positive or a negative effect on your stats. You can get a mutation by letting yourself get irradiated.
Here is the list of all current possible mutations and their effects in Fallout 76:
Mutation | Positive Effects | Negative Effects |
---|---|---|
Chameleon | Invisibility while unarmored and standing still | N/A |
Bird Bones | AG +4, Fall from heights more gradual | STR -4 |
Eagle Eyes | Critical Damage +25%, PER +4 | STR -4 |
Egg Head | INT +6 | STR -3, END -3 |
Electrically Charged | Chance to shock melee attackers | N/A |
Unstable Isotope | Chance to irradiate melee attackers | N/A |
Empath | Damage taken by teammates -25% | Damage taken by player +33% |
Grounded | Energy Resistance +100 | Energy Damage -20% |
Healing Factor | Health Regeneration +300% | Chem Effects -55% |
Herbivore | Vegetables provides x2 benefit and no disease | Cannot eat meat |
Carnivore | Meat provides x2 benefit and no disease | Cannot eat vegetables |
Plague walker | Poison aura scaling with your diseases | N/A |
Marsupial | Carry weight +20, +jump height | INT -4 |
Scaly skin | Damage and Energy Resistance +50 | AP -25 |
Shell shock | N/A | N/A |
Speed Demon | Movement speed +20, faster reload | N/A |
Talons | Punching attacks do 25% more damage + bleed damage | AGI -4 |
Twisted Muscles | Melee damage +25%, better chance to cripple limbs | Gun accuracy -50% |
Herd Mentality | All SPECIAL stats +2 when grouped | All SPECIAL stats -2 when solo |
Adrenal Reaction | Weapon DMG and quick health regen at low HP | Max HP -50 |
PvP Combat and First Build
The pivotal moment of the game starts as soon as you reach level 5, which will opens up all the true dangers of Fallout 76. This is when you will get the option to either make friends or enemies.
Obviously, it is better to play in a friendly manner as in this way you will achieve much more together. However, you will meet players who will openly attack you or one of your teammates, which will indicate that the time for some PvP action has begun.
But you can avoid PvP and simply not engage. This simple action will protect you from getting a lot of damage, and even if the attacker will somehow manage to kill you, then the trouble awaits. Other players will be able to hunt them for a bounty.
If you're traveling alone, never engage in a PvP combat with a group of players, which will most likely not go too well for you. Unless you are very well equipped and trust your build. Below you can find one of the better builds for your character that will work great up to level 15.
Beginner Melee Build
It's important to note that melee combat in the beginning of the game is your best option. You will not be able to find or craft good ranged weapons early on, but you will get to hit people in close combat for a lot of damage using these perk cards for your melee build for Fallout 76:
Best Perks and Cards
- Strength
- Gladiator: increases one-handed melee weapons damage
- Slugger: increases two-handed melee weapons damage
- Charisma
- Lone Wanderer: take less damage and regen AP faster in solo
- Agility
- Action Boy: faster AP regen
- Intelligence
- Makeshift Warrior: melee weapons break more slowly
- Luck
- Serendipity: take less damage at low health
You will be able to get all these cards before level 10, so if you are interested in building an effective early melee build, then take these perks into consideration.
Best Armor and Weapons
If you've played previous Fallout games from Bethesda, then you should be well aware that the best armor in the game is Power Armor. If you can find one early in Fallout 76, then you will be out of competition in both PvE and PvP combat.
The best two melee weapons are both two-handed: Machete and Fire Axe. Machete can be easily crafted in the beginning of the game. These two weapons work great with the Slugger perk, which will further increase their damage.
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These beginner tips and tricks for Fallout 76 should help you start the game on the right foot, but be sure to come back soon for even more Fallout 76 guides here at GameSkinny!