Fallout 3 Min-Maxing
"One shot, one kill."
Fallout 3 is not nearly as satisfying for the min-maxer as its predecessors; given the bobbleheads, plethora of perk picks, cheap non-tag skills, and fewer skills, it’s just too easy to get everything you want and more. Further, Fallout 3 is much more of an FPS than earlier iterations, so an optimized character is not essential to success for those with twitch skillz. Finally, there just doesn’t seem to be the clever combinations in Fallout 3 that there were in previous Fallout releases, where through careful selection of perfectly complementary perks you could create an absolute nightmare of a character.
Still, there are choices that are more efficient than others, and a bit of planning can result in a pretty lethal end-build. The following provides my perspective on min-maxing a Sniper character in Fallout 3. The objective here is to create a stealthy character that focuses on VATS combat with small arms and is broadly capable, particularly in infiltration and survival related skills. Though this is focused on a sniper build, much of the rationale presented can be reapplied to other character types.
Note that this build is based on my play style, which does not involve hunting down every damn bobblehead and book in the game. I’m not above hunting down the SPECIAL bobbleheads at appropriate points in the game, but hunting down skill bobbleheads and god forbid trying to find most of the books…it just starts to feel more like work than fun. You have to draw a line somewhere, and that’s where I draw mine.
Note also, that if you don’t play Fallout 3 and you don’t enjoy optimizing, this Anal-ysis will probably be painfully boring to read. Proceed at your own risk.
SPECIAL Attributes
The majority of actions in Fallout 3 rely on a relevant skill score to determine failure or success; relatively few things are directly based on raw attribute scores. That makes it both meaningful and convenient to compare attributes based primarily on their skill impact, while also considering the other benefits that each attribute provides.
| Attribute | Skill points | Additional Benefit |
| Strength | +2 (Melee) | +10 carry weight, melee dmg bonus* |
| Perception | +6 (Energy, Explosives, Lockpick) | Extend threat compass range |
| Endurance | +4 (Big Guns, Unarmed) | +20 HP, +2% resistance |
| Charisma | +4 (Speech, Barter) | NPC reaction modifier* |
| Intelligence | +6 (Medical, Repair, Science) | +1 skill point per level |
| Agility | +4 (Small Guns, Sneak) | +2 action points |
| Luck | +6.5 (+1/2pts for all 13 skills) |
+1% crit chance
|
*The mechanics behind these benefits are unclear to me, so they are likely under-weighted in this analysis.
Intelligence is the clear winner in regard to skill point gains, as each point assigned gains you 6 points across three important skills immediately, and an additional point to spend each time you level. By level 20, each SPECIAL point spent on intelligence at the outset will have netted you an additional 26 skill points. Buying the Educated perk (attainable at level 4) yields 3 skill points per level – netting a total of 48 additional skill points by level 20, and Comprehension will yield even more (albeit randomly allocated) extra skill points. 9 is a reasonable starting score, along with going for the bobblehead fairly early.
Luck is second in terms of raw skill point yield, however not only is it a distant second, but since those skill points are spread across all skills (including those not useful to you), luck is significantly less useful than intelligence, and even most other attributes, in terms of skill building. Also keep in mind that skills actually increment only on odd Luck scores. The 1% crit chance is nice, but as a sneaky sniper you’re counting on automatic stealth crits most of the time, so luck is not worth splurging on for the marginally higher crit chance. Keep in mind that you can expect to get a couple/few points through equipment that will work well for this build anyway. You’ll want Better Criticals at level 16 which requires 6 Luck, so 5 is a reasonable starting score (plus bobblehead).
Perception is third in skill point gain, providing six skill points across three useful skills. More importantly, detecting enemies early will help you set up clean kills. There are no perks that provide this benefit, but it’s still not worth going overboard on – 6 is a good starting score, given the eventual bobblehead, Ant Sight and equipment bonuses.
Agility ties with Endurance and Charisma for second-to-last place in skill point yield, but these points come in two critical skills for this build. The additional action points are nice, but rather small; Action Boy has a much better payoff than an additional point in Agility (available at level 12, requires agility 6). For this build you’ll want at least 6 points in Agility to start.
Endurance provides 4 useless skill points, but 20 extra HP and 2% poison/radiation resistance. The resistance isn’t that useful and the Life Giver perk (available at level 12, requires Endurance 6) provides 10 more hit points than a point of endurance. Also keep in mind that your HP total rises just through leveling anyway, and unless you find you’re dying too easily, this is probably sufficient. Starting level of 5 is fine, plus bobblehead sets you up for Life Giver if you want extra health.
Charisma provides 4 fairly useful skill points, but…they’re not THAT useful. There’s no sex in this game, and you can only have one companion at a time (plus dogmeat) no matter what your charisma is, so 4 or 5 is plenty.
Strength provides 2 useless skill points and adds 10 lbs carrying capacity. Spend your SPECIAL points elsewhere, and just make sure you have a high repair skill and are selective in what you carry. You need at least 5 for Strong Back (available at level 8), so a starting strength of 4 is reasonable, plus the bobblehead.
One additional consideration for your attributes is that throughout the game various dialog options become available only if you have a minimum score in a particular attribute. I suspect scores of 6 or higher will get you access to most of these, but none that I’ve encountered are of earth shattering significance so I don’t really worry about this much.
Perks
With the availability of Intense Training, I find it useful to compare perks against attribute points (whichever attribute point I’d be most inclined to take if I were to take one). Here are a couple example comparisons:
- There are several early perks that provide 10 skill points. If I compare buying one of these perks against Intense Training in Agility, the comparison favors the Intense Training in my book (10 skill points < 6 skill points + 2 action points + possible additional dialog options).
- If I’m comparing Size Matters to taking a point of Strength (and I’m playing a character that uses strength and big guns) I’d say Size Matters wins (15 skill points > 2 skill points + 10 carry weight + possible dialog options)...but there are an awful lot of other good perks available by the time size matters comes up.
Obviously such comparisons are subjective, but I find this does provide a useful basis for decision making. Only when I can’t find a perk that I’d rather take than the attribute point, do I take the attribute point via Intense Training. I suspect most players will tend to overspend on Intense Training initially, but this perk is really only appropriate when there are no other good options or when you need an Attribute point to meet prerequisites for a more helpful Perk. This is because:
- There are more efficient ways to get all the skill points you need than using Intense Training of an Attribute (other than Intelligence early on). Comprehension can easily be expected to yield 70+ skill points through the life of a character, Educated can yield as many as 48, and a point of intelligence can yield as many as 25. By comparison the 2 – 6 skill points you get from Intense Training other attributes look anemic.
- Most of the “Additional Benefits” you gain through Intense Training can be bought much more efficiently through other Perks as well (though you do have to wait a while for some of these opportunities).
| Attribute | Additional Benefit | Related Perk | Perk Benefit |
| Strength | +10 carry weight | Strong Back | +50 Carry Weight |
| Perception | Threat compass | none | n/a |
| Endurance | +20 HP, +2% resistance | Life Giver | +30 HP |
| Charisma | NPC reaction modifier | none | n/a |
| Intelligence | +1 skill point per level | Educated | +3 skill points per level |
| Agility | +2 AP | Action Boy | +25 AP |
| Luck | +1% crit chance | Finesse | +5% crit chance |
Perks that focus on skill points (eg Gun Nut) are in general best to avoid (again, we’ve got more efficient ways of getting all the skill points we need and there are usually more useful perks to choose from). If I did go with one of these, Gun Nut and Thief are the only two I would consider for this particular build.
For this build, the absolute “must have” perks are: Educated, Comprehension, Commando, Strong Back, Finesse, Sniper, Action Boy, Better Criticals, and Grim Reaper’s Sprint. I also like Bloody Mess, Toughness, Silent Running, and Cyborg. All of these will use 13 of the 19 available perks slots, leaving 6 to use on whatever else you fancy. Other options that may be useful for this build are Intense Training, Gun Nut, Thief, Light Step (but I LIKE having to watch out for traps and mines), Life Giver, and Adamantium Skeleton.
A few comments about attractive looking perks not in this list:
- Entomologist – Insects just aren’t that big of a problem – shoot rad scorps in the stinger at range, and ants in the head (unless there are several, which is the only time shooting them in the antennae is useful).
- Robotics Expert - there’s only one type of robot that’s really a problem and they’re fortunately rare. I can’t see using up an upper level perk slot on something that’ll be really useful for maybe 10 mobs (protectrons and brain-bots shoot in the head, Mr Gutsy shoot in the thruster, “those tank robots” (as a friend refers to them)…run, drop mines, pray…I dunno, maybe buy this damn perk.
- Here and Now – a perfect waste of a perk. It’s too easy to level in this game anyway and taking this perk will mean you have one fewer useful perks at level 20 (which you sacrificed at a time when most of the really good perks were available).
- Concentrated Fire – haven’t tried it, but since by level 18 (when it becomes available) I kill almost all enemies in one shot, and rarely have less than a 95% hit chance anyway, I just don’t see the use.
Skills
Here’s how I categorize skills according to their usefulness to this build:
- Critical - Small Guns, Repair, Sneak, Lockpick, Speech
- Important - Medicine, Science, Explosives
- Optional - Energy Weapons, Big Guns
- Useless - Melee, Unarmed, Barter
Here, Critical means focus on early and max-out asap. Important means useful but not worth maxing out; you may need to buy some to reach certain thresholds (like to 40 in Medicine before going to Big Town, 25 in Science for easy level hacking, enough explosives to disarm whatever mines you’re encountering...oh, and the bomb in Megaton). Optional skills you can put points in when everything else starts to approach max. Useless is self explanatory; if you spend points on these before all other skills are maxed (or within planned perk/equipment/book/bobblehead range of being maxed), you’re wrong.
A few explanations for some of the more controversial assignments:
- Repair allows you to increase your damage output, increase your damage resistence, reduces the chance of weapon jams (or so I've read, I've never actually had a weapon jam...or not one that I noticed), avoid the cost of paying someone else for repairs, carry less weight and make more money. It’s arguably the most important skill in the game.
- Barter seems like it would be an important skill, but with a high Repair you can repair weapons and armor that you pick up (increasing their value), and then sell them for enough to clean out the local stores of caps, even with a low barter skill. You probably won’t buy much except for maybe some .308 and .45 Magnum rounds, maybe a bobby pin or two. Net, better pricing won’t make much difference and barter just isn’t necessary.
- Medicine turned out to be more important than I would have expected for this build, as it affects how potent stimpacks, rad-x and rad-away are, plus opens various dialog and quest options (eg can get you a lucky 8 ball in Big Town).
Conclusion
The goal for the sniper is one shot: one kill. This analysis provides a slightly tweaked version of the character I just played through, and I was very satisfied with the results. Toward the end of the game, few if any creatures would survive a single shot to the head from Lincoln’s Repeater. Actual fights with mobs that were aware of me got to be rare, to the point that I would bungle these fights a bit because they were such a surprise and change of pace. Oddly, not everyone likes to play a Sniper, but for me playing one in Fallout 3 was just an awesome good time. If you’re an RP sniper and min-maxer, I hope this guide helps.
Garret
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Joined: 22 May 08
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Posted: 14 December 2008
Good article, Colin. It's funny... it looks like our play styles in Fallout 3 are very similar. I initially went for sniper early, but then quickly realized the benefits to being hidden while firing on an enemy. I noticed that Silent Running really helped me a lot when I was positioning for a kill.
One thing about perks... while I agree with the your ranking of importance of specific perks, the game more or less forces you to choose a few of the lower ranked perks, such as Gun Nut, due to level restrictions and availability. The perks at level 2 are almost exclusively based on improving some skill set, with the exception of Intense Training (useful if you need to meet a stat requirement for a great perk), Lady Killer/Black Widow (never tried it since it seemed limited in usefullness to me), and Swift Learner (wow... who needs this unless you plan on just blowing through the main quest?).
I suppose taking something like Gun Nut is a good idea early on since Small Guns kind of sucks at the beginning. It does tend to even out over the long haul.
Other than this small comment, I'm totally on board with your observations. Well, except for your inexplicable hatred for the bobblehead dolls. They're soooooo cute!
Joined: 31 December 69
Posts:
Posted: 19 July 2010
You said
'''One additional consideration for your attributes is that throughout the game various dialog options become available only if you have a minimum score in a particular attribute. I suspect scores of 6 or higher will get you access to most of these, but none that I’ve encountered are of earth shattering significance so I don’t really worry about this much''''
Actually i confirm it's 7.
Good day!