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Welcome everyone, to another LP. This time I'm going to be LPing an old favorite that I've replayed a number of times over the last fifteen years: The Game Fallout 2 is an unusual species of PC game, an open world RPG that's played out on in a 3D isometric perspective on a hex grid. The setting is post-apocalyptic, the combat is turn based, and you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything that the game engine will allow you to do. There are usually peaceful ways that you can solve just about any quest, and a sneak thief is just as valid a build as Rambo. For something produced in 1998 it was revolutionary, and it's still aged well enough to be entertaining today. I'm playing with the Mac version from Good Old Games, so that's going to produce some constraints on the LP. Luckily it's patched up to 1.02, which should eliminate some of the more egregious bugs. The Setting You could almost describe the Fallout series as future steampunk. The setting has a retro 50's aesthetic, with a lot of the tech looking like what people in that period imagined the future would look like. It's a pretty unique look, and gives the series a lot of its character. The apocalypse referred to earlier took place in an alternate timeline as a series of conflicts from 2060 to 2077, culminating in a nuclear exchange on October 23rd, 2077. Humanity was nearly wiped out, with a few scattered survivors living on the surface and others staying in great underground Vaults. 84 years later the Vault Dweller, the hero of Fallout 1, emerged from Vault 13 in search of a water chip and ended up saving the world from a psychic mutant. It was complicated. After succeeding the Vault Dweller was exiled from the Vault and left to build a small community out in the wastelands. 80 years later the village is in trouble and it falls to you, the descendant of the Vault Dweller, to save it. I'd highly recommend that anybody who's interested watch the intro that's been posted for public consumption here. The LP This is going to be a screenshot LP, with the main run being designed specifically to access as many quests as possible. I'm building the character that way for a reason, and I'll be showing off as much as possible. Once the main thread is done I'll post some bonus updates, including showing off a popular exploit/shortcut and a bit about how the game changes if you play with a female character. I'm going to be doing this in a narrative style, but there will be occasional notes from this little guy:  When I want to interject a bit of gameplay commentary. I'll probably also throw in a couple of gameplay centered updates just to explain the game itself from time to time, and let people know why I'm making some of the choices I'm making. Ground Rules 1. Don't go overboard with spergfests about the wider Fallout world, people's pet theories, and the like. 2. Spoilers: don't. A little bit of tagged stuff is fine, but there are sure to be people out there who haven't actually played this game and don't know about various plot twists. Don't screw it up for them. Also, try not to make this look like a document that's been redacted by the CIA. 3. Enjoy! Table of Contents Update 1: Legend of the Hidden Temple Update 2: The What and Why of Character Creation Update 3: The Village Green Preservation Society Update 4: Bugmen of the Scrub Forest Update 5: Rat Regicide Update 6: Mean Streets and Meaner Men Update 7: Do I Own Him Now? Update 8: Of Henchmen and Perks Update 9: These Boots are Made for Goo Update 10: Child Abduction for Fun and Profit Update 11: It Doesn't Just Roll Downhill Update 12: City of Tight Asses Update 13: Are You My Daddy? Update 14: It Puts the Lotion on Its Skin Update 15: The Simpson Method Update 16: Gifted, You Say? Update 17: There's an Old Sheriff in Town Update 18: Non-Violent Solutions Update 19: Ranger Up Update 20: Criminal Enterprises Update 21: Two Types of People Update 22: Base Noir Update 23: The $5000 Man Update 24: The Greatest Update 25: One, Two, Three Sherriffs! Ha Ha Ha! Update 26: Red Christmas Update 27: Flying High Update 28: Khan't Touch This Update 29: The Dance of the Winds Update 30: Loose Ends Update 31: Money For Nothing Update 32: Go West, Young Man Update 33: The Legend Continues Update 34: The Magnificent Update 35: You'll Never Be Rich... Update 36: A Betting Man Update 37: Behind the Curtains Update 38: Alone and Unafraid Update 39: Semper Fidelis Update 40: What Came After Extra Updates Mechanics 2: Follower Profiles and the Pip Boy Mechanics 3: More Followers, More Feats Mechanics 4: Semi-Final Followers, Final Perks Post-Game Extras, Read All About Alternate Events The Journeys of Hung Wei Lo The Journeys of Hung Wei Lo: Episode 1 The Journeys of Hung Wei Lo: Episode 2 The Journeys of Hung Wei Lo: Episode 3 The Journeys of Hung Wei Lo: Final Reckoning A Slayer's Journey Buffy Season One: A Woman's Wasteland Experience Buffy Season Two: Glitch Aplenty Buffy Season Three: Many Positions Available Buffy Season Four: A Shining Star Buffy Season Five: Captain Buffy Moar Dakka The Dakka Way: Update 1 The Dakka Way: Update 2 The Dakka Way: Update 3 The Dakka Way: Update 4 The Dakka Way: Update 5 The Dakka Way: Update 6 The Dakka Way: Update 7 Solid State Sneaking Mission: Update 1 Sneaking Mission: Update 2 Sneaking Mission: Update 3 Sneaking Mission: Update 4 Sneaking Mission: Update 5 Sneaking Mission: Update 6 Sneaking Mission: Update 7 Sneaking Mission: Update 8 ddegenha fucked around with this message at 05:03 on May 19, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 22:27
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Jan 13, 2014 22:27
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Update 1: Legend of the Hidden Temple So you want to hear my story, do you? You're not the first person to ask me, you know. I've kept it inside for years, because I had more important things to do than talk about what I've already done. But I suppose that if I don't do something it's going to be left to the history books, and a man does have a right to defend himself. If you're willing to listen to me ramble on for hours and hours, then that's your problem. So where to start… I guess you could say that my story starts with the War, because war…no, you know better than that if you're here with me. No...  My story begins with the Vault Dweller, who supposedly saved us all more than a hundred years ago. Some people say he was named Charlie. Some people say he was named Smith. A few heretics say his name was Charlie Smith. Historians, who are heretics by definition, say that he was a composite mythical figure based off of several real people since no single person could have done all the things he supposedly did. Hell, most days I'm not even sure and I'm his great grandson. But I do know how many crazy things a single person can end up doing when they're trying to be a hero.  I should tell you a bit about myself first. I grew up in Arroyo back when it was little tribal village, before it became the city you see today. I wasn't anything too special… a bit more attentive than most of the other kids, a bit quicker, and a good bit smarter. I made friends pretty easily, and I didn't have any major childhood accidents. I spent most of my time learning medicine from the local shaman, learning how to shoot when we had spare ammunition, and trying to talk my way into the pants of any girl in the village I wasn't related to. I was terrible at all three of these things.  None of that explained why I was standing in front of the so-called Temple of Trials. That was a combination of nepotism and drought. Drought had made the Elder decide that the village Chosen One to go in search of pre-war technology to save the village, and I was her grandson so there I was. Grandma knew me pretty well, so she'd even posted a guard to keep me from leaving. I didn't have much of a choice, so I grabbed my spear and stepped inside.  I don't know the entire story behind the Temple. It was supposedly built by the Vault Dweller, although nobody's sure why. He got a little bit… funny… before he wandered off into the desert one day, leaving behind a few personal possessions that became treasured artifacts. Occasionally members of the tribe would go inside, and some of them wouldn't come out. The giant ants hanging around the foyer might have had something to do with that.  There were almost half a dozen in the first couple of hallways alone, which probably could have ended me if I hadn't been patient enough to make them come to me.  Someone had thoughtfully stored some medicine powder in a pot behind the ants, and I recognized Hakunin's handiwork. I suppose it was meant for my use, but it also started me on my path to learning the most important lesson for a hero: take anything that's not nailed down.  Another side chamber held a pair of lesser radscorpions, which we called lesser because they were only the size of a dog instead of being the size of a brahmin. They're slow, and stupid, and aggressive… enough so that if you get their attention and walked backwards, they'll keep on following you right into your spear point. I took their tails, naturally, since you can use them to make an antivenin. The scariest thing about the smaller scorpions is that their tails are just as heavy as the bigger ones.  I found more in a room full of small alcoves, along with the body of another unfortunate who'd attempted the trials before me. I remembered catching baby scorpions and handing them over to the adults in the tribe… I had an uneasy feeling that I now knew what they'd done with them.  After I finished killing all of them, I took the spear I found among the stripped bones. It wasn't like he was going to be using it.  From somewhere they'd gotten a fairly sophisticated door to separate the first section of the temple off from the rest, which someone had thoughtlessly left locked. The single large tumbler in the lock made it easy enough for even someone as incompetent as me to pick, which I suppose was the point. Whoever had designed this place wanted it to teach lessons about what you might expect on some involved quest, but having people come in to stare at a locked door for a while before going back wouldn't have accomplished anything.  The next passageway was full of pressure plates linked to spear traps in the walls. By this point I'd already gotten a bit tired of the whole thing, so I decided to take my time and disable every single one of the bloody things. Someone would have to go through and reset every trap I either sprung or disarmed, and if I had to deal with them then someone else would have to come in here after me. I could have just stayed on the right side of the path where there weren't any plates, but that wouldn't have been as satisfying.  There were more scorpions and ants wandering around at the end of the corridor, which you would think would have resulted in one of them eating the other or them wandering into the corridor and triggering one of the traps.  A few steps down the corridor I found evidence that this had actually happened a few minutes before I came through. The ichor on the floor and on the spear was still wet. I suppose I could have tried to lure them into the traps, but that would have been just unnecessarily complicated.  The extra 25 experience per trap is actually enough to push us over the edge and get us our very first level before we have to deal with the last few things in the temple. As a basic level, this one just gets us a few more HP (I believe the formula is 3 + 1/2 EN, rounded down) and some skill points. Because we have Gifted as a character trait (more on this next update) we also get 2 x IN Skill Points. The majority of them for this level go to Speech, with the remaining three going to small guns. To this day, I don't know exactly what some of the things that were included in the temple's design are for. There were enough spikes and weird monoliths to keep a generation of archaeologists busy. That could actually have been the Vault Dweller's intent… an intentional puzzle for future generations of researchers, with no answer since they would never admit that the answer might be "just because."  I felt about that puzzled when I discovered a block of C-4 and an improvised timer in a nearby pot. I had no way of knowing how long it had been there, how stable the chemicals were, or if the timer even worked. I took it, but I was sweating bullets for the entire five minutes I carried it.  I was actually grateful when I found a doorway that had been filled in with a stone barrier. It wasn't hard to figure out that I'd been given explosives for just this purpose. Of course, I had never used explosives...  So I set the timer, dropped it on the floor...  And ran like hell. Then I waited, with my fingers in my ears.  The results were everything I could have hoped for, although I'm pretty sure that the C4 blew much faster than the minute I set it for. I'd have been embarrassed in the afterlife if I'd managed to blow myself up, and even more embarrassed if the door had survived the blast. Going back out of the temple to explain that I was stuck because of an explosion resistant door would have been been pretty awkward.  Someone had hidden one more floor plate right behind the stone plug, along with a few more scorpions and ants. By that point I just wanted to be done with the whole business, but I made a point of finishing off each and every single one.  Someone had thought it a fine joke to hide an antidote and some healing powder in a chest nearby, where you'd have to go past the gauntlet of scorpions to get it. You might call that considerate, but I wasn't amused.  The second to last door wasn't locked, but it had an empty chest for a purpose I couldn't comprehend. Either that or they'd missed something when they stocked the place. I wouldn't have put it past some of the people I knew in the village. I opened the door to see an empty passage and walked down it to find...  Cameron. I didn't like Cameron, for a number of reasons. He was older than I was, and he was everything the people of the tribe respected: strong, tough, able to drive a spear straight through two geckos, and as thick as two short planks. I had a bad feeling about seeing him there, and talking to him didn't help… at first.   "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute… I've got to fight you? Nobody said anything about that." "Don't even finish that. I think there's a way to solve any problem without fighting. If you wanted me to solve the problems this drought is causing us by fighting I can't punch the weather and we'd be better off sending a raiding party than a single person." Somehow, he bought it and agreed to let me pass. I don't think he actually thought I would accidentally kill him, but I'm sure he didn't want to explain to my grandmother that he'd overdone it and accidentally kicked my face through the back of my skull.  And just like that, I had completed the Trials of Arroyo. Through the door I could see my "reward" waiting for me. I only had one thought when I saw it:  I was going to look like an idiot until I could find something else to wear.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:29
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This is gonna be good. The only experience I have with this is the low-int run in the LP Archive, so I can't wait to see your spin on this.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:25
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Fallout 2 is the only old Fallout game I've played. Came close to beating it, but didn't because my run basically got crippled by some bugs and I didn't want to wrestle with the game any more. It was still a pretty memorable experience though. This game doesn't hold your hand at all. Like this "tutorial". Its one of the worst tutorials I've ever played because its long, tedious, and can actually be hard if you are unfamiliar with the game. Even among the fanatics that consider Fallout 2 to be a holy grail of game design, I've never heard anyone praise the Temple. Opinions vary from "its okay" too "its like pulling teeth".
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Jan 13, 2014 23:43
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Y'know, as much as I love a good low int run of some games, I feel like it doesn't really let me see the full experience so I'm looking forward to seeing this play out since I haven't played this game yet despite getting a free copy off GoG a few weeks back. I should probably get on that sometime, but 
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Jan 13, 2014 23:59
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Internet Kraken posted:Like this "tutorial". Its one of the worst tutorials I've ever played because its long, tedious, and can actually be hard if you are unfamiliar with the game. Even among the fanatics that consider Fallout 2 to be a holy grail of game design, I've never heard anyone praise the Temple. Opinions vary from "its okay" too "its like pulling teeth". I think the designers really wanted the player to use either melee weapons or their fists at the start because thats all you get early on. Of course if you never plan on using either you'll have a pretty tedious time trying to kill anything before getting some decent weapons.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:08
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Bloody Mess? Not tagging Lockpick? What the gently caress are you doing  Seriously, Gifted is practically cheating, but Bloody Mess just makes the game dull since it actually plays less animations and even the spectacular chestsplosions can get tiresome after the 500th one. Internet Kraken posted:Fallout 2 is the only old Fallout game I've played. Came close to beating it, but didn't because my run basically got crippled by some bugs and I didn't want to wrestle with the game any more. It was still a pretty memorable experience though. This game doesn't hold your hand at all. cis_eraser_420 fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 00:16
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Internet Kraken posted:Like this "tutorial". Its one of the worst tutorials I've ever played because its long, tedious, and can actually be hard if you are unfamiliar with the game. Even among the fanatics that consider Fallout 2 to be a holy grail of game design, I've never heard anyone praise the Temple. Opinions vary from "its okay" too "its like pulling teeth". As I remember it, the tutorial wasn't even supposed to be in the game, until studio execs forced the designers to add a tutorial level, so they intentionally made the worst one they possibly could.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:17
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M.Ciaster posted:Bloody Mess? Not tagging Lockpick? What the gently caress are you doing Tagging lockpick isnt nececary at all if you know what you're doing. How the lockpick items work in this game means you dont need to put that much into the skill to be able to lockpick everything. You should be aiming to tag skills that you're going to add a lot of skill points to and lockpick isnt one of those skills. Tagging doctor, speech and a combat skill is the "optimal" build for a speech heavy build because they are all skills you'll go 100%. Well small guns you can level with books but if you arent planning to use any other combat skill might as well just tag it and have an easy time early on.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:31
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Now that you mention it where did that temple come from?
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Jan 14, 2014 00:51
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Iretep posted:Tagging lockpick isnt nececary at all if you know what you're doing. How the lockpick items work in this game means you dont need to put that much into the skill to be able to lockpick everything. You should be aiming to tag skills that you're going to add a lot of skill points to and lockpick isnt one of those skills. Tagging doctor, speech and a combat skill is the "optimal" build for a speech heavy build because they are all skills you'll go 100%. Well small guns you can level with books but if you arent planning to use any other combat skill might as well just tag it and have an easy time early on. Hm, now that I think of it, I don't think I ever untagged Lockpick  The thought of playing the game and having even a tiny sliver of a chance to not be able to open a lock just feels wrong, man.I hardly ever use Doctor, though, maybe aside from the few fixed checks I'm not gonna spoil and very occasionally healing myself in the earlygame (to get these bonus free XP). Maybe I have been playing this game wrong all along? Either way, I'm still gonna be following this LP - I loved your old-school D&D game LPs, ddegenha, and I can't wait to see what you'll do with what's probably my favorite RPG ever.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:57
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M.Ciaster posted:You should try it again, the unofficial patches have pretty much ironed out all the bugs (aside from the occasional crash). As for the Temple Of Trials, it's just tedious. Not hard - the ants and the radscorps can be kited around pretty easily - but just annoying and it drags on for far too long (despite being doable in a couple minutes if you beeline for the exit, but really, what RPG player would I be if I ignored something?) I did have the unofficial patch. Fallout 2 is such a mess that even with it installed I ran into a lot of glitches, ranging from annoying to game breaking. I finally got fed up with it when I was trying to siege a fortified base and my allies kept teleporting around the rooms and into turrets. I have no clue how people managed to play these games on release. Granted that was a few years ago so maybe the unofficial patch is better now.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:44
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Dis is gon be a good LP. Can't wait to see more from ya. The one on the Archive isn't exactly to my tastes with the whole 'dumb as a brick' character archetype.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:20
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I started the Fallout franchise with this game. I tried to go back and play the first one, but it just felt so...sterile in comparison that I don't think I really got that far. This game is much more charismatic.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:40
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Iretep posted:Tagging lockpick isnt nececary at all if you know what you're doing. How the lockpick items work in this game means you dont need to put that much into the skill to be able to lockpick everything. You should be aiming to tag skills that you're going to add a lot of skill points to and lockpick isnt one of those skills. Tagging doctor, speech and a combat skill is the "optimal" build for a speech heavy build because they are all skills you'll go 100%. Well small guns you can level with books but if you arent planning to use any other combat skill might as well just tag it and have an easy time early on. This person speaks the truth. You only really need about 60% or so lockpick skill to open just about every door you need to in the game, and putting in a few spare points here and there once you've gotten to 100% speech will get you there easily. Getting your speech skill up quickly is one of the keys to a speech heavy run. Livewire42 posted:As I remember it, the tutorial wasn't even supposed to be in the game, until studio execs forced the designers to add a tutorial level, so they intentionally made the worst one they possibly could. This person also speaks the truth. Although I don't know if they tried to make it bad so much as just did the bare minimum and didn't give two shits about that part of the game. It'd be much more of a Fallout game start if they just tossed you out in the village and let you figure it out from there. RBA Starblade posted:Now that you mention it where did that temple come from? According to the Fallout Bible, which was written by Chris Avellone (Creative Director/Lead Designer for Obsidian Entertainment) based on various questions he got from players, the official explanation for the Temple was that the Vault Dweller had it built shortly after the founding of Arroyo, before he had a daughter and then walked off into the wasteland. The Elder is that daughter, and she is officially related to your character. Next update will be an explanation of the character and a bit of explanation for the choices I made in designing him, as well as a look at the three pre-generated characters. I've got to get to work, but maybe later this evening.
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Jan 14, 2014 06:08
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I really wish the tribal outfit was the default outfit and the Vault outfit was a piece you had to put on. At least then it'd be decent to program people to recognize that you are wearing a vault suit and have encounters react to it.
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Jan 14, 2014 10:12
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Mordaedil posted:I really wish the tribal outfit was the default outfit and the Vault outfit was a piece you had to put on. At least then it'd be decent to program people to recognize that you are wearing a vault suit and have encounters react to it. From what I've read certain people do react to the vault suit. As in you have to not have armour and theyll notice you're from a vault.
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Jan 14, 2014 10:19
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Iretep posted:I think the designers really wanted the player to use either melee weapons or their fists at the start because thats all you get early on. Of course if you never plan on using either you'll have a pretty tedious time trying to kill anything before getting some decent weapons. Of course, if you focus on Melee or Unarmed you're pretty decently set early on (though tagging one of those doesn't really do poo poo when it comes to getting halfway competent hit rates on the crap in the temple - even with my most optimized close-combat builds I was only rounding 60%-75% on unaimed attacks) but then there's an utter drought in the midgame when Spiked Knuckles and Sledgehammers are too weak but there's no Power Fists or Super Sledges/Rippers to be found yet. I suppose on a speech-heavy run that's less of an issue, but if you're running speech-heavy then you aren't going to want to pump many points in your Strength, because that's less points for your Intelligence and Charisma. In turn, your melee damage suffers from you being a weakling. 
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Jan 14, 2014 10:52
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I played Fallout 2 before I played Fallout, and I found the transition difficult to annoying due to the sheer number of improvements made to the gameplay and UI. There are tons of interesting glitches in 2, many of which I found accidentally during my first playthrough, and one I actually figured out on my own. I think there's only one skill check in the game that requires a skill of higher than 100% without a relevant tool, and that's science.
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Jan 14, 2014 11:40
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Wow, I didn't know you could speech check your way out of the fistfight. That's so cool!
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Jan 14, 2014 13:50
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Ahh, this is my style of Fallout 2 run. This should be a fun one 
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Jan 14, 2014 15:42
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M.Ciaster posted:...and even the spectacular chestsplosions can get tiresome after the 500th one. Heretic! God drat, this probably my favorite game and I've played through it at least a dozen times over the years. The best thing is that I've found new and totally crazy bullshit every time. Really looking forward to the thread, thanks for running it ddegenha!
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Jan 14, 2014 16:13
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Been a while since I played this. I think I'm going to enjoy this. Funny thing is my best memories are of how shoddy the EU version was with crashing at specific parts in an early game area and items you knew where there were completely gone for no real reason. Not to mention the invisible children that could really screw you over in another place.
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Jan 14, 2014 16:15
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Update 2: The What and Why of Character Creation Before we go on with the Adventures of Luke, it's a good time to talk about the game system used for the Fallout games and why I made the choices I did for our main character in this LP. So, let's take a look at him again: I'll start from left to right. First target: S.P.E.C.I.A.L. I'm not going to go too far into the origin of the system, but the basic story is that Fallout was originally meant to be a GURPS game but was changed into its own modified system. You start out at 5 in each stat, and have 5 free points to assign at the beginning of the game. You can also decrease a stat from that base of 5 to get more points. I'll go over each of the base stats and what they do, which will explain a lot of the secondary statistics. Strength (ST) - Raw physical power. Your Strength score determines how much you can carry, how much damage your melee and unarmed attacks do, your base HP, your range with thrown weapons, and how big of a weapon you can use effectively. Weapons have a required strength, and every point of strength below the minimum required for the weapon results in a -20% penalty. You can raise Strength by 5 points just picking things up in the game, so there's not much point in raising this above 5. Perception (PE) - How well you see and hear. Determines sequence (initiative) in battle, how far you can reach out with ranged weapons, and how easily you find traps. It also plays a roll in noticing small details, which translates into determining eligibility for some quests and conversation options. Endurance (EN) - Your physical toughness. Influences HP (base and per level), radiation and poison resistance, healing rate, if your character gets knocked down or knocked out by criticals, and how quickly you recover from being knocked out. Charisma (CH) - The ability to look good and act charming. Charisma affects how other characters react to you and how many followers you can have. The formula for the latter is simply 1/2 Charisma, rounded down. Intelligence (IN) - How sharp your brain meats are. Intelligence is used in determining what conversation options are available to your character, and how many skill points you get per level: 5 + (2 x IN) Agility (AG) - Your ability to move gracefully. Agility figures in your Armour Class (Agility + Armor Rating), Action Points, and dodging traps. Agility affects more skills than any other base statistic, including most of the combat skills. Luck (LU) - The Lady's favor. Affects primarily critical chance (at least most directly) but factors into almost everything. Luck influences how good your critical hits are and if good and bad things happen to you, as well as if you find special encounters. Since that neatly wraps up the base stats and most of the secondary stats, the next thing to talk about is skills. Skills There's a lot of them. Most of them are pretty self explanatory, but the base level in all of them is determined by some combination of stats. Unarmed and Melee weapons, for instance, start off as a multiple of the average of ST and AG. Science skill is based completely off of IN. Lockpick comes from PE and AG. The formulas have been changed somewhat from Fallout 1 if you're familiar with it. At character creation you get to tag three skills as specialties, and this gives a 20% bonus to that skill right off the bat. In addition, all skill points you dedicate to a Tag skill count for double. You can Tag additional skills later on, and this will double that skill on the spot. Traits At character creation you can pick up to two traits to further define your character. You don't have to take any at all, but a lot of them are useful. I'll go ahead and list them with some commentary. Fast Metabolism - +2 to your healing rate, poison and radiation resistance drop to 0%. If you're relying on your healing rate to recover HP, you're doing it wrong. Poison and radiation resistance aren't as useful as you think, but still not worth it. Bruiser - +2 strength, -2 action points. This is Bad with a capital B. The strength is nice, but agility points are what determine how many actions you can do during a combat turn. Losing 2 is pretty much guaranteed to cost you one attack per round. Small Frame - +1 agility, -50 carry weight. Can be useful with some characters, as a point of agility is valuable. Carry weight hurts at the beginning of the game, but once you've got a few minions to act as pack mules you won't notice the difference. One Hander - +20% when using one handed weapons, -40% when using two-handed weapons. If you want a pistoleer character (which is a very valid option) this is pretty good. Otherwise, not so much. Finesse - +10% critical chance, -30% damage. You can build a character around this. Since critical chance is based off of a base stat with a range from 1 to 10, this is actually going to double or triple your chance of getting a critical hit. Higher end criticals can cause instant death, especially using targeted shots at the eyes and head, so the damage penalty can be effectively eliminated. I don't like it since there are far easier ways of increasing your critical chance later on in the game. Kamikaze - +5 sequence, 0 base armor class. This restricts you to nothing more or less than your armor value for defense, and in exchange you get to pretty much act first. Although your physical armor will outclass your agility based AC pretty quickly, this is still a pretty terrible tradeoff. Heavy Handed - +4 melee damage, -40% damage from criticals. Obviously only good for characters who are melee based, and most of them tend to rely on criticals for damage. You can apply some of the same arguments from Finesse to this trait, but the +4 bonus is going to pale in comparison to the damage from later weapons. Fast Shot - Ranged attacks cost one less AP to perform; cannot make targeted attacks. Pretty terrible except for one or two builds (one of which I plan on using for the extra updates). The bonus applies to ranged weapons, but the inability to target your attacks applies to everything. You simply can't switch to aimed shots within the combat engine. Bloody mess - Every creature killed in the game dies with the messiest animation possible. This does nothing, but if you want to go Fist of the Northstar and have everything exploding into a bloody mist it's great. I picked it for this character because I didn't have a second trait I wanted. Major downside is that it can be difficult to loot some corpses after they've disintegrated. Jinxed - Critical failures for everyone! This multiplies the chance of everyone in combat having critical failures exponentially, both allies and enemies and is based on your luck. You can only get a critical failure if you fail, and if you're very lucky and pick your shots well you won't. Can be endlessly entertaining, but can also completely make a train wreck of your game. Good Natured - Combat skill base levels receive a penalty, Speech, Barter, First Aid, and Doctor receive a bonus. You can overcome this with skill points and dedications, and if you're intending to create a peaceful character this can help with successes early on. Chem Reliant - You recover from hangovers/withdrawal faster, but you're more likely to become an addict. Not for me, as I don't really bother with drugs that much. If you do, however, you're probably never going to come down from your high and you're going to be mainlining enough drugs that you'll be addicted no matter what. Chem Resistant - Your chance of getting addicted is reduced by 50%, but so are the stat bonuses you get from drugs. See above, only this is worse because you're not even getting all the benefits of being stoned out of your gourd. Sex Appeal - Bonuses to reaction from characters of the opposite gender, penalty to reactions from members of the same gender. More useful for women than men, since men are in the majority across the game. You can use it for a femme fatale character. Skilled - You get +5 skill points per level, but you only get perks every four levels instead of every three levels. I'll cover perks in another update, but they're massively useful and cutting yourself off from 2 or 3 over the length of the game is a huge downside. Absolutely terrible. Gifted - All your base stats are increased by 1. In exchange, your base skill levels are reduced by 10% and you get -5 to your skill points per level. Considering that raising your IN by 1 point already makes up 2 of those lost skill points, and you can probably save enough from not having to raise other stats to get yourself two more points in IN. Probably the best perk, but you can live quite well without it. So, that's pretty much all you need to know about basic character creation. Next, we'll talk about : Pre-Made Characters There are three characters available for use if you don't want to go through the trouble of making your own character. Let's talk about them a bit: Narg  Narg and Cameron would be best friends. Screw those guys. That said, Narg is perfectly useable as a character with a few major reservations. Melee weapons and small guns are useful skills, but throwing is absolutely crap. Heavy handed isn't a great Trait, but his stat distribution is pretty good. You can use the modify button to fix a few of these things, which is still probably a faster option than creating a character from scratch. Mingan  Your stealthy option. Mingan has bigger issues than Narg. He's got no combat skills, which hurts the early game when you have a harder time avoiding fights. He has no diplomacy skills, which will hurt him in the mid to late game. His stat distribution is pretty decent for what he's supposed to be doing, but skilled is going to hurt a lot in the long fun. Chitsa  The diplomatic option. Chitsa is probably the most solid overall of the pre-made characters, but her lack of combat skills might make it a bit rough for beginning players. None of her Traits are horrible, and her stats are pretty well distributed. Barter isn't terribly useful as a tag skill and first aid is distinctly inferior to doctor, but otherwise it's okay. Give her a pistol to capitalize on that One Hander Trait and she'll be fine. Why Luke? So, with all that information dump let's take a look at our character and I'll explain him a bit. Stats - 5 ST is more than enough, and we can live with 5 EN pretty easily. 8 PE is important for showing off as many quests as I can, and there's a couple of perks that require high perception. 6 CH will help with diplomacy, and having 3 henchmen means lots of storage capacity and friends. 9 IN ensures that we'll have access to just about every dialogue option, and helps with the skill points we're going to need. 8 AG gives us just as many action points as 9 AG would, and we can save that point for other areas. I went with 6 LK because that's the minimum for a number of useful perks. It's important to note that you can improve all of your stats in the course of the game, so that's a pretty good reason to not put any stat at 10. Skills - Small Guns is hands down the most versatile combat skill in the game, so that's an easy choice. You'll see just how versatile it is as we go through the game, but you can go from the beginning of the game to the end with just Small Guns. Doctor seems like a weird one, but you'd be amazed how many quests and other benefits you can get from having a high Doctor skill. Also, Doctor can fix crippled body parts which can be really useful. Speech is also a way to open a lot of doors, and many times you can get additional quests and better rewards for using Speech persuasively. Traits For the stats we need to get as many quests as possible and the perks I want, Gifted is a must have. I can get around the reduced skills starting off, and 9 IN makes up for all of the lost skill points. I didn't really want to use any of the other Traits, so I picked Bloody Mess for the entertainment value. I'll be able to live with the difficulty of looting the resultant piles of bits.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:53
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Rockopolis posted:Wow, I didn't know you could speech check your way out of the fistfight. That's so cool! I love being able to show people things they didn't know about their favorite games. One of the things about talking your way past is that you get 600 experience for talking your way past him versus only 300 for beating him in a fight.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:01
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Just btw a max luck unarmed jinx build is the only true way to play this game.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:03
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Luke's setup is pretty much the one I used for most of my runs through the game. The only real difference is that I usual swapped in Finesse instead of Bloody Mess and ran with 4 Endurance so that I could start with an Agility of 10. While you can boost it later in the game, being able to pop off two non-targeted shots per turn is great in the early game when things are roughest anyways.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:08
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ddegenha posted:Fast Shot - Ranged attacks cost one less AP to perform; cannot make targeted attacks. Pretty terrible except for one or two builds (one of which I plan on using for the extra updates). I think I know what build you have in mind, and it is very orky indeed.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:30
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KataraniSword posted:I think I know what build you have in mind, and it is very orky indeed. Fast Shot + One Handed + Gauss Pistol is actually a very good combo I've used in several playthroughs. Gauss Pistol owns, so does the Gauss Rifle. I was pissed when it was so lackluster in FO3 and not small arms anymore.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:09
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Requested_Username posted:Just btw a max luck unarmed jinx build is the only true way to play this game.
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Jan 15, 2014 03:19
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Pierzak posted:What are the possible critical failures when unarmed? Broken knuckles when punching, that sort of thing? Or is unarmed the specifically safe option? I haven't played Fallout 2 in around 6 years, but the crit failures are usually things like 'you drop your weapon, you trip and lose 4 AP, you hit yourself for X Hp damage, and so on with an escalating scale of 'how hosed are you' similar to the scale of 'how hosed are you' on the hidden critical damage scale roll. For example, a 10 on that scale is 'you knock them down, they take 4 AP to get back up'; a 100 or so is 'wow, I didn't know skull chunks could fly that far'
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Jan 15, 2014 04:29
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Sel Nar posted:I haven't played Fallout 2 in around 6 years, but the crit failures are usually things like 'you drop your weapon, you trip and lose 4 AP, you hit yourself for X Hp damage, and so on with an escalating scale of 'how hosed are you' similar to the scale of 'how hosed are you' on the hidden critical damage scale roll. For example, a 10 on that scale is 'you knock them down, they take 4 AP to get back up'; a 100 or so is 'wow, I didn't know skull chunks could fly that far' To expand just a little bit, it's quite possible to accidentally cripple your own limbs when you do an unarmed critical fail. I don't know if you can crit fail so bad that you die, but it'd be interesting to see. Also, heck with it. Update coming.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:02
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Update 3: The Village Green Preservation Society I knew I should go talk to the Elder about the temple, but the sound of my idiot nephew crying about the well was a bit distracting. Feargus was old enough that he could have been sent to the Temple of Trials and my aunt had tried to get him sent in my place, but anybody could see that he would have ended up as food for the giant bugs in a few minutes.  The idiot's definition of broken was a stuck pulley wheel. I wasn't great with my hands, but even I could see it wasn't that big of a problem. I fixed it then and there, just to shut him up. And you know what the worst part about it is? He's got children now. That idiot actually bred. I sometimes think that if I hadn't fixed the well he would have died of dehydration and the next generation would have been better for it.   "What were you doing, trying to get me killed in there?" "You survived, didn't you? The Chosen One cannot be weak, or we are doomed." "Hmph. Okay Grandma, spill it. What do you want me to do?" "That's Elder when we're talking business, boy! You children have no respect these days… when I was a girl I went through the Temple of Trials and I didn't whine about it. I told them how to make it better!" "That explains a lot…" "Uh.. what was my quest again?" "Idiot! Pay attention! Find the holy Vault 13 and bring back the GECK. Vic, the trader from Klamath, brought us the flask from the holy Thirteen. Start your search with him. The disk will remind you of your task. May the Gods of the Vault watch over you." "Okay, that's giving me more questions than answers. Where the hell is Klamath?" "Klamath… is to the east." "So are a lot of things. Okay, where's Vault 13?" "The Holy Thirteen? I can not help you. Only the Vault Dweller knew. His tales have the sound of a perilous journey." "Okay, zero for two. Now for the big one. What's a GECK?" "Great. You know what else would make our village green and prosperous? MOVING!" We didn't exactly part on the best of terms, as you can imagine. She gave me some money and a flask with Vault 13 stamped on it, and I helped myself to a couple of knives and some fruit from inside of her tent. Then, I went to see what help I could get to prepare for my trip.  My first stop was with the local expert in hand to hand fighting, who I had not paid nearly enough attention to before going into the Temple of Trials. Almost falling on my rear end a couple of times trying to kick giant ants to death had made me think a bit differently. There are actually two trainers in the village who will give you a boost to some skills. How exactly it works is a bit of mystery, but they can boost you up to 10% in a skill up to certain maximums. It seems to be about 55% for unarmed. My next lesson was in the spear, which I didn't think I'd ever get used to. I was hoping that nobody outside the village would care how terrible I was with a spear, but until I could get something better it was the best weapon I had.  Feargus' mother was adopting her usual contemptuous survey of the village when I went to say goodbye. She was a bitch, may she rest in peace. I wouldn't put it past her to rise from the grave and haunt us if I didn't add that. I knicked a piece of flint out of her pocket when she turned her back on me, purely out of spite.  The last person I specifically wanted to visit before leaving was Hakunin, the shaman who'd tried to pound herb lore and medicine into my thick skull. He was… unique.  "I'm leaving. Could you talk like a normal person for once?" "The Earth sings with the news of a champion upon the land… Perhaps, before you go, you would bestow a kindness?" "So that would be a no. Sure, what do you need?" "…did you just ask me to weed your garden? I guess I can do that." "May the gods bless your efforts, Chosen. May your aura grace my presence when the earth breathes clean again." "Come back to you when I'm done. Got it." It turned out that weeding Hakunin's garden was a lot more work than he made it out to be. Weeding a garden normally requires a gloves and perhaps a small shovel, not a spear.  Long story short? I almost died weeding Hakunin's garden. I had to stop in the middle to have him patch me up so I could go after the second Spore Plant. It started spitting seed pods at me as I charged up the row toward it.  Eventually I succeeded, and went back to the old man to find out what else he wanted me for. If it for any other domestic task, my quest might have ended before I got out of Arroyo.  Instead, he wanted to give me some medicine powder and offered to whip up as much medicine powder as I could bring him ingredients for. I don't think I'd ever felt like I earned a reward as much as I did at that moment.  Just past the garden my other cousin Nagor was waiting to ask me to go looking for his lost dog. Since this was the cousin I actually liked, I figured I could kill a bit of time with it. I was delaying my departure from the village by any means I could at this point.  Cameron was also nearby, in a perfect position to watch me get my rear end kicked by a pair of carnivorous plants. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure I heard him snickering the entire time. I think he got an earful from my grandmother about just letting me walk past him.  Luckily, he didn't hold a grudge. He was a better person than I had given him credit for, even if it didn't work out too well for him.  The hunting grounds where I was going dog hunting were just a short distance through the woods, marked by a couple of paths and a place where hunters would bed down when they needed to rest. It was also a place that young couples went to for a bit of privacy, although there were some risks with that.  Scouring the area I found the ingredients for half of a dose of medicine powder, and nothing else. So much for half of my gardening reward. But the plants weren't the risk I was talking about, other than the occasional bit of mutated poison ivy.  The real danger was the roaming geckos, whose jaws were strong enough to leave some pretty impressive bite marks. At least one warrior in the village had scars in an embarrassing place from getting interrupted at an extremely inconvenient time.  Smoke had wandered off into an isolated clearing away from most of the geckos, and looked like he was perfectly happy where he was. Luckily he recognized me and knew that following me was a good way to get back home.  He was smart enough to know that, but stupid enough to step in a puddle of glowing green goo on the way out. Dogs. I'm just glad he didn't try to drink it, because then I'd have had to explain to my cousin how I got his dog killed on the way back.  That didn't stop me from borrowing Smoke and using him to do a bit of hunting. The real problem was keeping the gecko's attention so that it didn't decide to eat Smoke.  Together, we tore through the geckos and cleaned house. I think Smoke was actually having a good time.  The biggest risk was that we'd accidentally get the attention of two of them at once, so we worked pretty hard to keep that from happening. I did end up using a lot of my healing powder on the mutt, but I took a liking to him. He was more helpful than most of the people in my village.  Eventually we ran out of Geckos, and I had to bring him back. I kind of wished I could bring him with me, but Nagor needed him more than I did.  After I rested to clear my head from the side effects of the medicine powder I headed out toward the bridge that was the only way in to Arroyo. Mynoc, the usual bridge guard, was standing there keeping watch and I noticed something a bit different about his spear as compared to my two. Let me tell you, asking another man why his spear looks different from yours is really hard to do without accidentally making it sound like you're interested in more than just weapons.  Luckily he knew what I really meant, and even more luckily I actually had the flint I'd stolen from my aunt with me.  With a minimum amount of awkwardness, I was the proud new owner of a freshly sharpened spear. I was also completely out of excuses to avoid leaving the village.  I crossed the bridge across the gorge, something I'd done dozens of times in my life, feeling like it was the first time and like I had developed a sudden fear of heights.  It was going to be a long walk to Klamath.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:05
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I'm really digging your roleplay here, man. This will be a good LP.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:48
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Good LP, keep it up!
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Jan 15, 2014 13:08
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KataraniSword posted:Of course, if you focus on Melee or Unarmed you're pretty decently set early on (though tagging one of those doesn't really do poo poo when it comes to getting halfway competent hit rates on the crap in the temple - even with my most optimized close-combat builds I was only rounding 60%-75% on unaimed attacks) but then there's an utter drought in the midgame when Spiked Knuckles and Sledgehammers are too weak but there's no Power Fists or Super Sledges/Rippers to be found yet. I suppose on a speech-heavy run that's less of an issue, but if you're running speech-heavy then you aren't going to want to pump many points in your Strength, because that's less points for your Intelligence and Charisma. In turn, your melee damage suffers from you being a weakling. Must not have been that optimized, I just hit 88% with the spear without really trying. The only melee weapons that aren't one handed are the sledgehammers and who wants to chase dudes around the room all day? As for the midgame weapon drought, just hang around New Reno for a while and accept that you're not going to do anything close to the kind of damage you would with a half decent gun. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 17:33
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dis astranagant posted:Must not have been that optimized, I just hit 88% with the spear without really trying. The only melee weapons that aren't one handed are the sledgehammers and who wants to chase dudes around the room all day? The 'trick' insofar as it exists with Melee/Unarmed is that Slayer automatically crits, without the LK check of Sniper, so you can drop luck significantly (especially since you have the Zeta Scans to raise it eventually). It's also why I never saw a point in the Jinxed builds, since that requires high luck and the main advantage of unarmed/melee is that you don't need to put any points anywhere besides getting AG 10 so you can punch all the mans all the time for instant death crits. Should we spoiler game mechanics talk?
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Jan 15, 2014 21:43
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MJ12 posted:The 'trick' insofar as it exists with Melee/Unarmed is that Slayer automatically crits, without the LK check of Sniper, so you can drop luck significantly (especially since you have the Zeta Scans to raise it eventually). It's also why I never saw a point in the Jinxed builds, since that requires high luck and the main advantage of unarmed/melee is that you don't need to put any points anywhere besides getting AG 10 so you can punch all the mans all the time for instant death crits. The point is that I won a boss fight once by racing to see which of us broke all our own limbs faster and he 'won'. Jinxed+Bloody Mess Unarmed is basically the chronicle of a well-intentioned fuckup Fist of the North Star whose hilarious mishaps (and those of his enemies) fuel the comedy.
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Jan 15, 2014 21:52
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MJ12 posted:The 'trick' insofar as it exists with Melee/Unarmed is that Slayer automatically crits, without the LK check of Sniper, so you can drop luck significantly (especially since you have the Zeta Scans to raise it eventually). It's also why I never saw a point in the Jinxed builds, since that requires high luck and the main advantage of unarmed/melee is that you don't need to put any points anywhere besides getting AG 10 so you can punch all the mans all the time for instant death crits. I'd be more interested in spoilers on what plot there is, and only spoilering mechanics talk when it touches on the plot. A person who hasn't played far into the game won't really understand what the mechanics you're discussing mean, and that person doesn't really have to worry about being spoilered. Zeta Scans are actually a good example... a person who isn't familiar with Fallout 2 has just learned from this that there's something called a Zeta Scan that can raise luck, but has no idea when, where, or what plot events this is associated with. As usual though, when it doubt spoilers aren't a horrible idea.
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Jan 15, 2014 22:04
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