Small Frame Trait

[Yung Matt]

What do you guys think?

Is it outdated, that is to say less useful now that we know what traits are going to give us (quite detabetedley) the best advantages, or do you still pick it? Empirically it seems to have roleplaying advantages, and it's drawback is easily fixable.

The question therefore becomes as it were, is +1 to your agility or SPECIAL important, from this funny min-maxing bootstrapping, or some other particular viewpoint?

(I am being sincere btw, I just want to look at this objectively).

[Vassago Rain]

All traits except skilled exist for roleplaying and flavor purposes.

[ÄmJii]

I think it's one of the best Traits, downside is very negligible (you'll still have tough time breaking your own limbs) and the +1 SPECIAL point is always welcome.

Agility affects many little things, most notably Action Points and reload speed (on top of several skills), which are useful for just about any character you make.

[ActuallyZombie]

It has its uses. It's good if you don't want to put points into Agility but still want to get Better Criticals and your Intense Training can be spent on something better.

Skilled is still better, but all the others are a case by case thing.

[talgaby]

In practise I found it probably the worst trait next to four eyes. The +1 SPECIAL brings little to no advantage, but on higher difficulties 2-3 hits are enough to break a limb, essentially rendering you helpless in combat. The initial encounter with the geckos in the tutorial left me with two broken arms and a broken leg once. (Or was it just one arm and one leg…? I know I had three broken limbs after some fight once, but maybe wasn't that one.)

In general, since FO3 rendered SPECIAL almost completely pointless outside of meeting perk requirements, anything that adds a bonus to them without being free is just not needed at all. On the other hand, skill and other various stat boosts now have a much larger role.

And considering that FO4 dropped skills for the favour of this SPECIAL system just fills me with nothing but dread.

[Gom]

It's pretty bad in hardcore mode where you have to use doctor's bag to heal broken limbs. You can counteract it with a perk but a perk for +1AGI? meh...

[Yung Matt]

Originally posted by talgaby:

In practise I found it probably the worst trait next to four eyes. The +1 SPECIAL brings little to no advantage, but on higher difficulties 2-3 hits are enough to break a limb, essentially rendering you helpless in combat. The initial encounter with the geckos in the tutorial left me with two broken arms and a broken leg once. (Or was it just one arm and one leg…? I know I had three broken limbs after some fight once, but maybe wasn't that one.)

In general, since FO3 rendered SPECIAL almost completely pointless outside of meeting perk requirements, anything that adds a bonus to them without being free is just not needed at all. On the other hand, skill and other various stat boosts now have a much larger role.

And considering that FO4 dropped skills for the favour of this SPECIAL system just fills me with nothing but dread.

This is true, it's not really a huge advantage. Especially with the new SPECIAL being so watered down compred to that of the old Fallout.

[Seanleaveshispalstodie]

Hmmm, it's ok still but with the DLC, Skilled and Good-natured are far more useful in general.

[red255]

Never really picked it

not a fan. Ooh +1 skilpoint is the best if you are OCD and need the highest stats for some reason. but thats why there are professionals to fix your OCD.

but whatever.

[Tavman (4)]

If you don't like Agility, you can always 'sacrifice' it and boost another SPECIAL stat.

For me it is not outdated as long as you know how to manipulate the trait. Also there are many speech checks that require a high (and very low) SPECIAL stat to pass.

I agree however that the skilled trait is the best one in the game.

[Bansheebutt]

Originally posted by mattmeow ★:

Originally posted by talgaby:

In practise...

This is true, it's not really a huge advantage. Especially with the new SPECIAL being so watered down compred to that of the old Fallout.

Conversely, the main downside of crippled limbs isn't that huge a disadvantage since I don't know anyone who doesn't at least take a knife or pistol with them, and a doctor is always just a Fast Travel away; and you can just use stimpaks if your're not playing hardcore. *Plus* you can midigate it with Adamantium Skeleton.

At the end of the day, New Vegas is overall a very easy game and nothing besides meeting Skill/Attribute checks has any concequence, which in a way, makes Small Frame one of the best traits.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by mattmeow ★:

Originally posted by talgaby:

In practise I found it probably the worst trait next to four eyes. The +1 SPECIAL brings little to no advantage, but on higher difficulties 2-3 hits are enough to break a limb, essentially rendering you helpless in combat. The initial encounter with the geckos in the tutorial left me with two broken arms and a broken leg once. (Or was it just one arm and one leg…? I know I had three broken limbs after some fight once, but maybe wasn't that one.)

In general, since FO3 rendered SPECIAL almost completely pointless outside of meeting perk requirements, anything that adds a bonus to them without being free is just not needed at all. On the other hand, skill and other various stat boosts now have a much larger role.

And considering that FO4 dropped skills for the favour of this SPECIAL system just fills me with nothing but dread.

This is true, it's not really a huge advantage. Especially with the new SPECIAL being so watered down compred to that of the old Fallout.

Are you talking about watered down in FNV or FO4?

[Yung Matt]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Originally posted by mattmeow ★:

This is true, it's not really a huge advantage. Especially with the new SPECIAL being so watered down compred to that of the old Fallout.

Are you talking about watered down in FNV or FO4?

FNV even, because if you look at the older Fallout games there was a lot of depth to the SPECIAL system. Now the only really important starts are essentially Strength, Intelligence and Luck. Fallout 4 is probably even worse, though.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by mattmeow ★:

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Are you talking about watered down in FNV or FO4?

FNV even, because if you look at the older Fallout games there was a lot of depth to the SPECIAL system. Now the only really important starts are essentially Strength, Intelligence and Luck. Fallout 4 is probably even worse, though.

I'd disagree that the original FO games had more depth in Special.

STR still gates weapon usage (in FNV at least - where you need to meet the STR rating to have good control).

PER? Maybe - it helped with criticals at range if you were playing a sniper, not so much elsewhere.

END still gates HP.

CHA and AGI got gimped in the port over to FPS - only one companion allowed no matter how high (or low) your CHA and AGI's limits on AP can be bypassed by simply not using VATS (which ain't all that great in the first place, IMO).

INT was/is still the God-stat.

And LCK is . . . still LCK. Mostly ignored. If anything, it got a boost as Gambling got rolled into the LCK stat rather than being its own skill.

Most everything else is done through skillchecks, not attribute checks in FO1/2/FNV (though there are some).

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And I do think the attributes of FO4 will be . . . vestigal at best - but I think the Perks functioning as skill-levels (gated by SPECIAL requirements) will work a lot better in fleshing characters out.

In the old system, you got a high Science skill, you were a master chemist, biologist, geologist, mathematician, etc - even with an INT of 1.

Now you want to be a master meth maker - pick the appropriate perks. You won't know ♥♥♥♥ about biology or nuclear physics but you can make some mean drugs.

What you lose out is some granularity in skill check options (and the 100+ point scale was overkill anyway) to get a lot of expandability in skills. Now, potentially, modders can add new perks in that function as new skills or specialiations while before you had what was hard-coded and that was it.

[talgaby]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

I'd disagree that the original FO games had more depth in Special.

Not depth, usefulness. Every attribute was almost equally important, with only AG and IN standing out as crucial. But you couldn't get away with dumping charisma. Or perception. Or strength. Or even endurance, which can be considered probably the least useful.

[Tavman (4)]

The best SPECIAL stats in New Vegas is actually END and LCK. INT at high levels tends to be an overkill of skill points and for the most part you can always meet the Stat checks by donning on some clothing and taking a few drugs.There are better perks that utilise the other skills than the ones offered in INT. For the skill check points very early in the game, you can just tag those skills that are required then level up and add the skill points to the other skill.