Starting traits - what do you pick?

[Abyssian]

I have feeling that choosing traits you can reach during game is pretty much loss, like plus this, plus that... Traits which really help you like Brave, Organized, Dextrous, Outdoorsman Fast reader... those are better, no? What do you think? What do you choose?

[kuipperrock]

rough skin and lucky and better ear, i played so long and read so much fast reader nan you lose point, take you are time in game! like rainy day.

[Jambie Lionheart]

I got so many :3 think it's my best build so far.

Thin skinned, hearty appetite, prone to illness, reluctant fighter, slow healer,
weak stomach, fast metabolism, thirsty and low weight for negatives

Dextrous (love this one), Cat eye's (kinda useless on B42), inventive (VERY good trait, highly recommend), Adrenaline junkie (also really good trait, highly recommend. Can reduce anxiety by killing zombies and he moves faster when panicked (my character is always in a state of the end is neigh, poor bastard >.>),
Eagle eyed (doesn't really ddo as much as you think), first aider (this one saved me so many times >.>)
Graceful, inconspicuous, very good when used together and for stealthier builds.
Gymnast (also good for stealthier builds) and brawler, for obvious reasons >: ] )

[Kierstal Arzen]

Modded or not modded? My vanilla choices are way different;


I usually take High Weight because it's easy enough to lose, Smoker, Sunday Driver, and the one that makes you need glasses as well because I view them as free points since I don't do a lot of driving. I also don't use guns so I will almost always take any traits that give penalties to firearms or ranged combat.

For positives I tend to take ones that go with whatever profession or playstyle I'm feeling that day, lol. But generally always Organized, Fast Learner, Graceful and Inconspicuous, because regardless of profession I always try to be sneaky and silent.

[Abyssian]

Originally posted by kuipperrock:

rough skin and lucky and better ear, i played so long and read so much fast reader nan you lose point, take you are time in game! like rainy day.

But lucky gives you only around 7% of better loot roughly as i saw in some source, i dunno if it's good pick. Thick skin is a good one, less insulation/protection clothing need, mainly during summer. Better ear is meh, i tried it years back and it unnerved me as there was always some zombie banging somewhere on the door or window in the neighborhood.

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

I got so many :3 think it's my best build so far.

Thin skinned, hearty appetite, prone to illness, reluctant fighter, slow healer,
weak stomach, fast metabolism, thirsty and low weight for negatives

Dextrous (love this one), Cat eye's (kinda useless on B42), inventive (VERY good trait, highly recommend), Adrenaline junkie (also really good trait, highly recommend. Can reduce anxiety by killing zombies and he moves faster when panicked (my character is always in a state of the end is neigh, poor bastard >.>),
Eagle eyed (doesn't really ddo as much as you think), first aider (this one saved me so many times >.>)
Graceful, inconspicuous, very good when used together and for stealthier builds.
Gymnast (also good for stealthier builds) and brawler, for obvious reasons >: ] )

Dextrous is a must, mainly when you loot in tight spot where zeds reach for you. Inventive... hmmm. I should try that one sometimes. But those others... tell me, what negative traits do you use for balance?

[Abyssian]

Originally posted by Kierstal Arzen:

Modded or not modded? My vanilla choices are way different;


I usually take High Weight because it's easy enough to lose, Smoker, Sunday Driver, and the one that makes you need glasses as well because I view them as free points since I don't do a lot of driving. I also don't use guns so I will almost always take any traits that give penalties to firearms or ranged combat.

For positives I tend to take ones that go with whatever profession or playstyle I'm feeling that day, lol. But generally always Organized, Fast Learner, Graceful and Inconspicuous, because regardless of profession I always try to be sneaky and silent.

Vanilla... i now trying my first 42 with vanilla, i later add some mods. But wait... Overweight/Underweight aren't forever? You lose that status but you still have that negative trait in your info, no? I never picking those. I Always pick Fear of Blood, Prone to sickness and Weak stomach as my negatives, now i recently found out that Smoker very well pair with Fear of blood as one cig make you lose stress completely, which is perfect.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by Abyssian:

snip

The negatives traits I use are on top. The balancers are pretty much all of them.
Reluctant fighter reduces combat related xp gains (dun think it affects maint' xp from attacking though). It's not so bad at first, honestly. By mid level combat skills though, ya start to feel its effect.

Hearty appetite, weak stomach and fast metabolism are the heavy hitters, balance wise and I started off this run as low weight so was in precarious spot to begin with. Makes the character eat more and therefore go through food, probably twice as fast between the hearty appetite and fast metabolism. At month four in my game it's starting to catch up with me because i've been having trouble farming successfully. It's summer, so I need an aphid cure but it isn't possible to make the alcohol version of the recipe for some reason so I can't protect the crops before they die.

Slow healer really doesn't do much. If you reach first aid level 3, ya don't even notice this trait anymore, since everything heals in a matter of hours. 'cept bone fractures. Those still hurt :3

Prone to illness and thin-skinned together are pretty mean negatives. One makes you more prone to getting injured by zombies, the other makes it more likely to contract infection, both normal and zombie virus. so you're running around in a glass cannon. I can get quite greedy and overreach so for me, this trait combination is awful, lol.

It's a good balance for me, especially since I like it on high population. Makes having to balance what I loot and when a strategic choice. Food or weapons? Medical supplies or food? Do I build a garden or spend the day fighting to loot that gigamart and grocer or do I look for skill books and VHS instead.

Also, overweight and underweight are removable. I got rid of mine but the negative effects on the fitness and strength have to be worked off the old fashioned way.

If you're overweight just have the character lose weight (this one is actually a little harder) and if under, gain it (this one is hard depending on your loot settings). Mine was easy cuz I have ♥♥♥♥ tons of loot :3

[The_Aurora]

I pick gambling addict and then walk on the roofs

[Foster]

Conspicuous practically speaking doesn't work at all because all it does is increase the number of ticks that it takes for a zombie to spot you... Which doesn't do anything for more than one tile's worth of movement between two tall walls.

Weak stomach doesn't do anything because you'll literally never eat anything that gives you food illness because eating one piece of burnt or rotten food can kill you even without weak stomach for some reason.

Prone to illness's biggest downside is that it drastically increases the chances of you catching a cold when you're wet for a long period of time (which can happen pretty easily during the summer months the game starts in, especially when it starts storming.)
Catching a cold honestly doesn't do much, because you're usually making enough noise that it matches the distance a sneeze produces sound at anyways, but if you're playing against sprinters or a particularly high population density then maybe it'd matter more.
On the other hand, you can take Outdoorsy to mitigate it drastically to the point it's still a lot less likely to happen compared to without either trait, and you still get +2 points out of it.

This is more of a problem with the game's current balancing of the nutrition system, but if I for whatever reason want to have the nutrition system on instead of just turning it off in sandbox settings (which is generally the better option right now for vanilla) or using mods to make it balanced, then I take slow metabolism and hearty appetite because food that offers almost no caloric intake is somehow abundant even on apocalypse preset compared to food that offers the bare minimum to keep you from losing weight.
Additionally, with food that is higher in caloric intake, you have to time when you eat it to avoid losing weight constantly. It's annoying and you're better off with doing things to mitigate it as much as possible, and having high weight at the start is actually beneficial because you can just not eat anything but what's necessary to stave off hunger debuffs and rapidly enter the ideal weight zone.

Positive traits and other negative traits are dependent on the build I'm going for, so outside of these ones I don't have picks I always go for.

I also play with Simple Overhaul Traits & Occupations all the time unless I feel like doing some vanilla Apocalypse or what have you, which makes some negative traits a lot more viable than vanilla (like all thumbs for example) since you can progress towards getting rid of them and even obtaining their positive counterparts.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

Prone to illness and thin-skinned together are pretty mean negatives. One makes you more prone to getting injured by zombies, the other makes it more likely to contract infection, both normal and zombie virus.

Not really. Thin skin only reduce chance of missed attack giving a wound instead of blunt damage - if you have good str/sta/skill you can just wrestle zed off. And this chance tops at respectable 70% (2% per str/sta and 3% per skill). Next, you have clothing defence.
Chance to avoid wound (and hole in the armor) is mere 10 to 22% - depending on weapon skill. And thin skin turns it into 7 to 16 (i.e. /1.3).

And prone only speeds up zombification, it does not affect the virus chance itself.

And there is a minmax 42 build
Z:unemployed;ThinSkinned;HardOfHearing;HeartyAppetite;ProneToIllness;SlowHealer;WeakStomach;SlowReader;NightVision;Dextrous;NeedsLessSleep;Organized;FastLearner;Athletic;Strong;

41 was a bit different due points difference, e.g. high thirst instead of hard hearing.

[Hedge]

Unemployed.
Fast learner.
Spend the rest as you will. No bad traits.

[zodi_kid]

For the negatives, I tend to pick prone to illness, slow healer, thin skinned, weak stomach, slow metabolism and hearty appetite (these two help me not to lose weight too fast). Sometimes I also pick slow reader.

For the positives, organized is a must for me, also dexterous, fast learner and cat's eyes (I like that you can see at night when your outdoors). Then, I either pick strong, or some trait that will help me level up any skill that I feel I'll need for my run

[Atelth]

Wakeful - less sleep, Cat Eyes for better night vision, Strong/Athletic ( depends ), the rest is situational

Slow Metabolism is must for me, Slow Healer and Thin-skinned, High Thirst, Fear of Blood, Slow Reader

[Rudel]

I really dislike Smoker in B42, there are not enough cigs out there. I didn't even find them in stores or gas stations. It's not worth the2 points anymore (IMO). Slow Healer, Weak Stomach, Prone to Illness is the easy way to go.

[Abyssian]

Originally posted by Rudel:

I really dislike Smoker in B42, there are not enough cigs out there. I didn't even find them in stores or gas stations. It's not worth the2 points anymore (IMO). Slow Healer, Weak Stomach, Prone to Illness is the easy way to go.

Smoker have problems only at the start, i was also surprised that markets and gas stations had no cigs but random cars and homes had. I have chewing tobacco and enough cigs, cigars for months, found just randomly. But get this. If you get stressed by any reason, one-two cigs a day will make your stress disappear.

[Zorlond]

Modded or unmodded, the approach is the same. The best negative traits are things you can fix in regular gameplay, like body weight, fitness, or injuries. The best positive traits are things that alter base game mechanics or add in new mechanics, anything you can't get just from gameplay, like xp boosts, perception, or loot.