Character Creation Guide - Fallout 1 (and Fallout 2)

This classic Fallout guide will show you how to create the best character for your playstyle, going over all the important points of the character sheet, including attributes, derived statistics, traits, skills, perks, and more!

Fallout (Released Sept 30, 1997), is a post-apocalyptic RPG, developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Interactive. Roughly 200 years after the great war in 2077, you play as a blue jumpsuit-clad dweller of Vault 13. This vault in particular is one of several underground shelters in the desolate southern California region. The water purification chip in your vault is now failing, and the Overseer tasks YOU with venturing out into the wasteland to save Vault 13.

[STALK CAEDO HERE]

[CONTENTS TIMESTAMPS]
► 0:00 - FOREWORD
► 1:18 - NAME/AGE/GENDER
► 1:35 - S.P.E.C.I.A.L. ATTRIBUTES
► 6:43 - DERIVED STATS
► 10:19 - TRAITS
► 12:06 - SKILLS
► 18:18 - PERKS
► 20:56 - BUILDS
● Stabber
Attributes: 7-4-7-2-9-9-9
Traits: Fast Shot & Gifted
TAG Skills: Melee Weapons/Unarmed, Steal, Repair
● Shooter
Attributes: 4-9-4-4-9-9-9
Traits: Small Frame & Gifted
TAG Skills: Sm Guns, Lockpick and Science
● Speaker
Attributes: 3-5-3-9-9-9-9
Traits: Good Natured & Gifted
TAG Skills: Sneak, Speech, and Gambling
► 09 END

[GUIDES]

[FULL LETS PLAYS & CO-PLAYS]

[CaedoGenesis]

This guide works just as well with Fallout 2! The only major change is with CHARISMA. In the second game every 2 points is a companion slot, but can be modified by chems too!

What build do you like to run the classics with? If you don't have one yet, check the description for the ones mentioned in the guide if you're looking for a starting point!

[SargentRooster]

My son gave me something for Fathers' Day a truly exceptional gift. I'm 51 yr old and totally loving Fallout and Fallout 2

[gustavosantos]

Hey, I wish I had seen this video 22 years ago.

[madcourier]

Don't forget that in Fallout 2 charisma affects how many companions you can have, from only 1 companion at 2 charisma, to 5 companions at 10 charisma.

[TMillsMusic]

War... war never changes.

And neither do my SPECIAL stats for any Fallout character creation.

[ToneyMo]

Retro guides are genius bro! These games are so daunting especially for anyone who didn't grow up with them looking to go back and experience some good old fashion RPG goodness!

[magekiller]

Sequence doesn't give you extra turns. It defines the order in which each character moves within the turn. Basically the higher your sequence the better the chance you can shoot first.

[pulseweld]

Ive been playing fallout 1, 2 and tactics for years on Steam, never felt like the game had a quality tutorial this one is one of the best ive ever watched.

[Thagomizer]

A new player should also remember that your Action Points are equal to half of your Agility, plus 5. It takes 5 action points to fire a single shot from most weapons, 6 action points for a burst or aimed shot, 2 points to reload (or to use any secondary item in your other quick item slot), and 4 points to access your inventory. So with average Agility (5), you could only manage one specialized attack per turn, and if you had to open your knapsack for any reason, you probably wouldn't be able to attack (unless you were close enough to throw a punch). With an Agility of 10 on the other hand, you could make two shots per turn, or fire a burst and open your inventory, fire a burst, reload, and heal yourself with a stimpack, etc. So yeah, Agility is absolutely vital if you want to be at all useful in combat. An even number is best (remember your action points!), and I would recommend an Agility of around 8 for most builds.

You won't be able to excel at everything, so you have to plan your build carefully. It's totally possible to make useless characters in Fallout 1 (don't take the Bruiser trait EVER; it's basically the equivalent of losing four points of AG, which is just ridiculous). It's also possible to make characters so insanely powerful they more or less break the game. For instance . . .

For a true combat monster, you could start with an AG of 10 AND take the Fast Shot trait (your other trait should probably be Gifted). Then, once you reach level 9 you can select the Bonus Rate of Fire perk (if you have Perception 6, Intelligence 6, and Agility 7) your attacks with small guns, big guns, or energy weapons will cost 1 AP less. At level 12 or higher, you will have access to the Action Boy perk as well, which grants you an additional action point. You can take up to three ranks of this perk in Fallout 1.

What this eventually means is that if you have a level 12+ character with these traits, attributes, and perks, you can easily make multiple attacks per turns with some of the deadliest weapons in the game. If you have access to a Turbo Plasma rifle, for instance, you will only need to spend two AP per turn to fire a single shot! With Two ranks of Action Boy, this means you can get off SIX attacks per turn! Just so you know, the Turbo plasma rifle is the deadliest weapon in the game. Hell, getting off three attacks per turn from a normal plasma rifle is pretty beastly, too. You'll be able to clear out entire rooms of super mutants without too much difficulty, though you'll go through ammo quickly.

[Stogdad]

2023 and I’m playing this for the first time!

Thank you for the video, Caedo

[clunt_fecus]

If you're worried about the water chip timer because of hit points healed in 30 minutes, then you have much bigger problems. You can get the water chip and have 30 to 50 days to spare while taking your time and doing side quests.

[mrslay]

Just started a new game of fallout1 the first random encounter gave me like 8k caps!

[tatodziadekpl]

My build suggestion:
St 6
Pe 6
En 4
Ch 8
In 7
Ag 9
Lk 8

Trait: Small Frame, Gifted

Tag skills: Unarmed, Lockpick, Speech

[PSEUDOSOPHER]

Thank you for this guide! I wanted to give Fallout 1 and 2 a try ever since i fell in love with New Vegas, and this video helped me tremendously.

[Sparhawk]

i spent so much time trying to figure out how to build my character, but after watching this video everything made sense. Thanks a bunch caedo your awesome

[ryguy]

I always play high luck and intelligence characters in the classics, especially in 2. In fact, Fallout 2 is really easy to break with the right character build. Seriously, the M72 Gauss Rifle, plus a very high small guns, plus 8-10 luck, plus sniper perk equals "I WIN".

[antondavidovic]

Fallout 1: We don't want our players to get frustrated or discouraged right at the beginning, we'll give them the necessary items according to their skills at the beginning of the game :)

Fallout 2: Here, have this weak-ass spear bitch

[fidelvasquez]

Gosh, l needed this video 3 years ago, my first time playing this l didn't increase agility at all so my combat resulted in my character getting shot often. My build is Strength- 5, Perception- 7, Endurance - 5, Intelligence- 7 Charisma- 7, Agility- 9, Luck-7 AFTER taking the gifted perk. leaving anything below 4 in special is bad, as the character can suffer, such as poor combat or little health. For skills, Repair, Enegery weapons, and Science, I noticed those skills are used often throughout the game. Look out for the alien blaster, its damage is tied with energy weapons.

[АноНимус-щг]

Slayer makes every melee hit critical regardless of luck. That said it might be a good idea to get your luck to 6 for better criticals. Also, an eyeshot is around +60% critical hit chance and everyone shoots in the eyes +4.26% avg if the chance to hit is 95%, so even for snipers(with sniper perk) it might be ok to go with 6 as the critical hit chance for eye shots will be ~88%(70.26% to crit then another 60% roll if not crit).
Furthermore, if you take 3 levels of more criticals and finesse trait(-30% dmg part in reality is +30% normal resistance(DR) which is ignored on armour bybasses and probably is ignored for energy weapons/fire damage entirely(edit:it's probably not, but noncriticals suck anyway)) your chance to crit in the eyes will be ~99% with 10LK or 4% lower with 6LK so you won't even need the sniper perk and you'll be as good as characters with it but much earlier. If you're going for the fastshot sniper build go ahead and take 10lk(minus increases you're planning to get throughout the game of fo1/fo2).

Another thing I'd like to mention is that gifted is probably overrated, IMO. If you want to be a pure sniper or a pure pacifist you don't need those extra 7 stat points to have high relevant stats and you'll be slowing down your skill training on top of having a worse start. Do train/tag speech regardless of CH you get, if you still care to roleplay a decent person and sneak, if a non-combat char and hit 1 on random encounter loads for a high chance to avoid combat with low outdoorsman.
If you want to be everything and have everything(like extra few options from that high CH, maybe) and you are going to fight a lot and get all that exp from high level critter encounters then you can go ahead and take it, though.

Also you might want to try to have fun and take advantage of jinxed since you are probably going to miss your hits much less than opponents, which is what I'm trying this time and it's funny so far, but might get old. If you're a solo pacifist you only benefit :)

I have replayed fo2 countless times ever since it came out(when I was 8. Oh that scratched disk and playing minimal installation on a damaged HDD experience...) so at some point I started questioning stuff like taking gifted every time and noticing stuff like JHP having a 2/1 dmg mod, which makes 10mm pistol damage actually 10-24(so critical damage in the eyes is like 25-96, off the top of my head) which often makes my ways differ from what others do, for example I killed most early rats(a lot of side quests for that) with a plant spike throw in the eyes/head because they have like 80%/60% chance to instantly die from a crit in the eyes(look at critical tables on fo wiki, etc, it's some fun info if you want to know what's really going on in combat), that's all rat types, including mutated/tough/pig/mole rats. You can even upgrade that playstyle by using flares - with better criticals you can take out an enclave soldier with some flare throws in the eyes, same goes for 10LK+Sniper hits in the body/non-aimed, so might want to try to take out some enclave dudes with a bb gun for fun. :)

Whatever you do - take 10AG in FO2, if you want to own in combat(or run away faster). Example: you hit an unarmed dude with an unaimed punch(3ap -1 for bonus attacks perk) and go 7 hexes away, almost no critter (apart from mean centaurs and most deathclaws) has 10AP so they walk up to you and have 2AP left and can't even do anything. Doing 2 aimed shots with a revolver without any perks is also nice.

PS: sorry for a lengthy comment, but I'm too lazy and self-concious to make a video of my own guide :P

[Dan-ufvh]

Intelligence 10 or 9 (only a skill benefit to having perfect 10), Charisma 8 (chip + glasses = perfect 10); Agility 6 or 8 (depending on how much Buffout you want to be using; late game 6 + Serum +1 Psycho = 10 Agility and would be a waste to have more); a strength of 3 is perfectly OK if you avoid combat and roleplay everything up to the Power Armor (in Fallout 2 you will have 8 ST eventually = 3 + chip + 4 PA); what is left is to sacrifice as much Endurance as you like for as much Perception and Luck as you want; 7 PE is a must; 2 EN is surprisingly doable, remember never to take 1 EN though (3 vs 2 HP per level); 8 Luck is perfect 10 with hubologist, the difference between 9 and 10 Luck is miniscule so you could start on 7 or even 6 Luck if you want higher Perception and/or that 4 Endurance