So,here we begin in the world of Fallout.

(I was originally going to link the Fallout 1 intro here. Unfortunately it is mildly gory,so I will not link it, I'm not sure how strict the forums are on tame video game gore,nor do I want to find out. However it is the very first video when you type in Fallout Intro to Youtube if you want to watch it.)

And here we are to the Fallout character creation.

Here,I Will spend about several minutes making sure I am properly prepared for the horrors that await me in the wasteland.

In Fallout, your skills are separated into 7 different "Special" stats that you can upgrade from a set of character points. You start with five points,that are lowered as you upgrade a skill, and lowered when you downgrade one,with all stats at "5" by default.

First we have strength, which affects my health, physical damage, and how many items I can carry.

I will set that to 6, so I can be a bit of a pack rat, and can take a bit of a beating if things get a little out of hand.

Perception will affect my aim in long range combat. I will leave that at the middle of the road 5.

Endurance will also affect my health, but also effects my healing rate, as well as poison and radiation resistance. Since I don't really quite plan on getting poisoned and radiated, I'll keep that at 4. (Of course,that's probably gonna come back to bite me in the ass and I'll be getting poisoned every other enemy encounter.)

Charisma will affect how I deal with other characters,and my bartering skills on prices. Since I plan on my character being the world's largest pack rat and a bit of an asshole at the same time, I'm gonna set that to 1.

Intelligence affects my skill points I gain per level, my dialogue options,and many other things. Because that all sounds incredibly useful for the wasteland, I will be setting my Intelligence to 7.

Agility is...a bit of an odd one for me to understand. I'll probably understand later on,but for now I just know that it affects my action points, which is how many turns I get in a battle. So, Because that sound VERY useful,I will set that to 9.

Luck is the final SPECIAL stat. (Finally...phew,typing down this character creation for the uninitiated has been kinda exhausting.) Luck's purpose is that it affects your chance of getting critical hits, and will affect certain...random events through out the game. Because those random events, (To my knowledge) will be beneficial to me, I will put the rest of my points into it so it will be at the hefty score of 8.

Of course,we're not done making a character yet.

As you level up you will gain traits, and Fallout lets us choose two of them right off the bat.

First there's fast metabolism,which lowers our radiation and poison resistance,but lets me heal faster.

Then there's bruiser. Which increases our Strength but lowers Agility. Meaning we're stronger but also slower.

Small Frame makes us carry less equipment,but increases our agility. So,the opposite of bruiser. Less Strength for more Agility.

One Hander makes us more skilled with one handed weapons,but less skilled with two handed weapons. Which I think is an awful trade off, so a DEFINITE pass.

Finesse makes us get more critical hits,but we deal less damage. I can...kinda see why someone would want that,but it's not for me.

Kamikaze lowers our armor,but in turn we are faster in combat. I'm...not sure if that would be any good. (God,there's probably hundreds of Fallout fans yelling at me right now.)

Bruiser lets us do better melee damage but we have a lower chance for criticals. I don't plan on going in for melee. I plan on guns,and a lot of them.

Fast Shot let's me shoot faster,but does not allow me to do aimed shots. And it takes one less Action point to attack. That seems very intriguing and I might just go for that.

Bloody Mess is purely an aesthetic perk. There's a higher chance of enemies,instead of dying,they explode into a mess of blood and guts. Yes, that would be funny,but there's no real point in wasting a perk for that.

Jinxed makes enemies have a higher chance of critical failures, while at the same time,so do you. That seems useful but the risk is too great for me to take this.

Good Natured makes us less adept at combat. But increases our Charisma,which as I pointed out,isn't on my agenda. I can see myself having to shoot my way out of a lot of situations in this game.

Chem Reliant (Note for unprepared: Chems are Fallout slang for drugs) This perk makes us addicted to chems twice than normal but recover faster from them. This seems...dumb. Not too sure why someone would choose that.

On the other side of the coin is Chem Resistant, which makes the chem's effects half as long,but also makes are chance of becoming addicted half. This also seems kinda dumb.

Night Person allows our intelligence and perception to be increased at night,but be dulled in the day. Now....why would I want some of my most useful skills to be dulled for half of a ingame day? And why would I want it improved at night,where everyone I could use my intelligence on would be...ASLEEP?!!?!?

Skilled gives all of ours skills a boost (More on skills later.) But makes us get perks less often. No thank you.

Gifted is probably the best trait. All of our Skills go down 10 percent,but all of our special stats go up by one. You're gonna notice very soon for skills that 10 percent is NOTHING. So I will go with that as well.

One more thing for the character creation.

These are our skills. They affect a much more spread out range of things than the special stats. We will be able to increase our skills in each level up and right now,we can choose what skills we want to "tag". You can tag three skills, and tagging a skill will allow us a boost for that skill right at the beginning.

First there's the Weapon skills. Small Guns,Big Guns,Energy weapons,unarmed, melee and throwing.Small Guns is for guns that just shoot bullets. (Pistols,machine guns,shot guns,etc.) Big Guns are for MUCH larger guns,and things that explode. (Grenade launchers,rocket launcher,miniguns.) Unarmed is for fists. Melee is for things you have to get up close and personal to use, (Knives,bats,batons) And throwing is for weapons you'll have to throw to use (Rocks, grenades, spears)

First aid is for healing any damage you've taken,and Doctor is to allow you to heal major wounds like broken limbs on your own. If you don't have a high doctor skill you'll have to pay up at a town doctor to heal broken limbs.

Sneak is self explanatory. It allows us to sneak. Lockpick is our ability to successfully pick locks. Steal is our ability to pickpocket people,so these three perks pretty much go hand in hand.

Traps allows us to disarm,and set up our own traps., science is our ability to hack computers and other science things,and repair is our ability to repair broken machinery,weapons,and electronics.

Speech is our ability to convince others that we are correct and talk people into or out of certain things. (Convince people to join you, convince enemies to surrender.) And Barter is like Speech,except instead of just people in general, it lets us convince shop owners to sell for lower prices.

Gambling,of course, affects our skills at cards,dice and other gambling games. And Outdoorsman is what affects our knowledge of the outside world. Plants and animals and such...

I will tag the Small Guns,because I will not come across or use big explodey weapons all that much, tag Lockpick because I just love breaking and entering, and I will tag speech,to counteract the 1 Charisma I have.

Now this is what my skills look like...

Now, join me tomorrow, as I venture forth into the wasteland.