Character creation advice

[e11]

I'm going to start this game for the first time. Are there any must-have abilities for the main character, and any that are better outsourced to NPC's? Thanks.

[dq_177]

Negoitation was a skill I found highly useful, started with 6 points in it and worked on getting it up to 8. The increase to morale and reduction on food consumed by shelter from the different levels of its perks was nice too.

There's other skills that have really useful perks such as Mechanical but I've not had any trouble leveling them up later with the skill points I got through gameplay.

Now don't take me as gospel on this but Agility seems like a really useful stat out of the 4, having alot of AP has been great, I've been building my guy as melee only with a one-handed weapon and shield.

[maverick2986]

The 3 non-combat skills I found important were:

#1 Negotiation - Get this to 6 as soon as possible and get the perk that allows you to always have survivors eating at a 25% rationing without penalty to morale

#2 Science - Get this to 3 and you can have an extra gallon of fuel per day

#3 Mechanical - Get this to 6 and your generator will consume half its daily fuel

There are others that are very useful to - I point out these 3 because the sooner you get them the more useful they will be to mid / end game resource amounts

Towards the end of the game you should have an abundance of.... everything. These perks will help you get to a point where you can just sit in your shelter all day and work on making bullets and grenades :)

[Vahkn]

You get a lot of skill points pretty quickly when you start playing, so starting skill choice isn't that important. Your starting stats on the other hand won't change much and are going to have a much larger effect on how you play.

I started with 6 str, 10 agility, 1 vigor, 1 perception with maxed melee and it worked out well. If I play through again I would use 1 str, 6 agility, 1 vigor, 10 perception with max ranged (just for a totally different approach that will also be viable). Things like negotiation you can easily pick up before you need them.

[Motorola]

Just go with max strength and vigor, for the rest go leadership negotiation first and then survival and mechanical, put 3 on science and lock it until you progress mechanical and survival to 6, always go primarily with negotiation and leadership though.

Dont make ranged characters, they suck, because you have to have high perception to be effective, and honestly i prefer to reach 10 strenght as soon i can, both for carryng capacity and to deal great melee damage to the enemy.

Once you are armored you dont need to go ranged, you go close and personal with enemies, so thats why you need max strenght, ranged in this game is useless, since you have good allies ranged for that, and yourslef can tank everything once you get a shield and a decent armor.

Mine character have perception 1 and strenght 10, and i kill whole maps alone.

[Ciznit]

Max strength, then put the rest of your skill points into agility. This will maximize your carry weight (STR) and give you a good number of starting AP (10). For skills, put enough points into melee to reach the second perk. Get the bonus defense for the first perk, and the one that lets you carry over AP between turns for the second. The first one gives a much needed defensive boost for your early game, and the second one allows you to manage your AP more effectively during a fight.

After that, you should have a couple of points left. Put whatever is left into leadership and survival. You'll want to get 3 into each of these as quickly as possible. For leadership take the don't panic perk, and for survival take surveyor.

As you progress, what you decided to improve upon is up to you. I highly recommend maxing leadership and getting negotiation up to at least the second perk tier. Both of these abilities are extremely useful in out-of-combat encounters. Additionally, the leadership perk gives you special group commands that give your entire party buffs during a fight.

[Captain Australia]

My advice - don't go full-on combat, build that later .. lean on stronger survivors at first.

There are some tasty perks in the mechanic and science tree that reduce the amount of gasoline you use dramatically.

Negotiation, IMO, is VITAL if you want positive roleplay outcomes, otherwise if you like to just watch the shelter burn around you and enjoy darker storylines, then .. dont worry about it

Also, in my first playthrough, I forwent perception and guns for my main survivor .. chose
6 str 6 agi 5 vit 1 per

Carry weight benefit was great, and as I built him up to 10 str it only got better .. and when he did develop his melee skill became a blade/blunt powerhouse with three gunners supporting him.

[Makoto Naegi]

Leadership and negotiation are the most important I feel. You can get another survivor to do any other skill for you, but you can't get another survivor to do dialogue skill checks for you. And that's not counting the perks you get from each.

For stats, I like high agility for more ap. You need to decide early on if you want to use ranged weapons or not. Ranged accuracy is highly dependant on perception, so it's best to either go full bore into ranged and take high perception, or completely ignore range and leave perception at 1.

[maverick2986]

For stats, I have been focusing on Agility and Perception. I didn't opt for melee because it seemed to me that human groups were a bigger threat and guns are a much better help in those situations. I always bring Max with me and he's a melee machine (bonus on zombie killin' too). I usually deck him out in the heaviest gear since he has a high Strength stat and then pair up with Vic and Paul as gunners behind him. With Max fully geared up with a Riot Shield he becomes a very effective Tank. Most humans will focus fire on Max, at least in the first round of combat. I also like equipping Max with nerve gas to knock out the more serious threats and then the gunner group picks the rest off in short order.

This configuration doesn't work out as effectively against zombies but honestly, all my guys are up to a certain level of armor now that zombies don't even do any damage.

I stated earlier what I would pick for non-combat skills. Its going to be a balance at first between combat and non-combat skills but if I had to pick one I would say getting Negotation up to 6 for the rationing bonus beats out any other perk on the list. Food can be a constant struggle to make sure your stockpile is not getting low and this perk helps out alot, especially when your shelter starts holding larger numbers of survivors.

I haven't reached "The End" of the game but have started up a new game to test out some of the different features that have been added since my last playthrough. I will probably stick to the same build as last time since it worked out pretty well but I might do a little experiementation with the melee side if I feel the need to mix things up. Sometimes its fun to be the heavily armored badass with the sledgehammer taking all the gunfire :D

[SirNewbzAlot]

I have made a couple of successful shelters having been playing the game for a couple days and i'll tell you how to make an overpowered main character.

Stat Point Explanation:

First thing is stats as other users have stated agility and strength are the most important for most character builds and especially in the early game. 10 agility gives you 12 action points which lets you outrun almost all enemies in the game other than dogs, and strength gives you carry weight. Arguably more strength means more experience per day at the very least.

Hit points are nice but zombies rarely hit for over 50 damage, and although some enemies can kill your character in one shot with only 70 health (1 vigor) you will always go to knocked out and not straight to death so you can be revived immediately by other party members. Initiative is pointless in dead state because when you initiate combat you get the first turn, and there is no system in place to give characters with high initiative more turns overall like in wasteland 2.

Stat Point Allocation:

Strength 6.
Agility 10.
Vigor 1.
Perception 1.

Endgame Stat Point Allocation:

Strength 10.
Agility 10.
Vigor 1.
Perception 1+++. (after you fill up strength put everything else in perception.)

Skill Point Explanation:

The strongest skill point allocation in my opinion for a new character is a very diversified one. You will get a lot of levels from the nearby areas so you dont need much skill in survival to begin, but get it to 6 very quickly so you can travel easily.

3 in melee for armor class and less of a pain in the ass in the first few areas (later level it to 6 to get 4 ap rollover each turn). 3 in medicine for the extra healing and no need for a medic in your starting squad (probably never level this past 3). 3 in mechanical for quicker constructions over the course of the game this will save you hundreds of man hours.

Other points into survival and negotiation.

Early-game Skill Build:

Melee 3: Brawler.
Medicine 3: Paramedic.
Mechanical 3: Architect.

Mid-game Skill Build:

Melee 3: Brawler.
Medicine 3: Paramedic.
Negotiation 6: Likeable, Rationing.
Survival 6: Forager, Trailblazer.
Mechanical 3: Architect.

Late-game Skill Build:

Melee 6: Brawler, Barrage.
Ranged 10: Vital Shot, Quick Draw, Sharpshooter.
Leadership 6+: Don't Panic, Get Up.
Negotiation 6+: Likeable, Rationing.
Medical 3: Paramedic.
Science 6+: Inventor, Pharmacist.
Survival 10: Forager, Trailblazer, Animal Magnetism.
Mechanical 3: Architect.

The dog from animal magnetism is surprisingly good and basically acts like a 5th party member with a huge amount of ap.

Arguably you can skip leadership and mechanical but the combat abilities can save you in some fights if you screw up and architect is nice to get more stuff done.

Very Late-game Skill Build***:

Melee 6: Brawler, Barrage.
Ranged 10: Vital Shot, Quick Draw, Sharpshooter.
Leadership 10***: Don't Panic, Get Up, Double Time.
Negotiation 6+: Likeable, Rationing.
Medical 3: Paramedic.
Science 10***: Inventor, Pharmacist, Bomberman.
Survival 10: Forager, Trailblazer, Animal Magnetism.
Mechanical 3: Architect.

The skills marked *** are beneficial but not that much. A leadership skill that gives your party 4ap is essentially a better "Go!" skill if you have pistols or baseball bats on your allies. More bomb damage and more poison chance is also ok and getting science 10 yourself can have some crafting benefits if you make it a priority getting apocalypse armor early (i think its a bad idea though.)

Only level past the Very Late-game Skill Build if you are really struggling to get fuel or for some reason you need to heal companions a lot. But then you're probably messing up looting. Gathering 3 fuel a day is not hard and I wind up with a lot of extra fuel. I suppose if you go for a sandbox playstyle where you take your time solar power could be good.

[MQDuck]

Sorry to revive this thread after six years, but why in the world would you take Rationing over Popular?

[NOIRE-]

Originally posted by MQDuck:

Sorry to revive this thread after six years, but why in the world would you take Rationing over Popular?

IMO. It doesn't really matter. It's so easy to find yourself having over 5000 morale at the end of the game if you play your cards right. And this also applies to food.

But if you like to see big numbers, then i will go with rationing too. -25% is gonna save you more food with more and more people joining the shelter

[Liro Raériyo]

For any future onlookers, most of these are great advice, the one thing you shouldnt start with though is a dump into science, poison dot can only be applied at melee range so you need melee skill to use it, you cant apply it against the undead.

An early science lab is extremely far fetched, not only will you likely have next to no one who you can staff in it but you need to get the equipment, parts AND spend a languorous amount of time just to build it.

Nearly everything else has some practical applications early, some are certainly better then others, but nothing is as awful as starting with dumping into science