Raul seems better if only for the fact that he passively lowers the rate of degradation of your weapons. Also, I'll probably the best combatant in my party anyway.

If I pick NCR, I'd probably recruit Boone, though.

raul, because i think he is going to be more interesting than boone, and boone i think will become sort of a [censored]

there was nothing about what armor ghouls could use until FO: Tactics and therefore only psuedo canon. Also Feral Ghouls are pretty new since the old school ghouls were much like any other gun weilding enemies except they were a bit smarter. And there were glowing ones before, even back in the original FO so really nothing has changed with the exception of the addition of 'Feral Ghouls' which can't even open doors. So 'what they can do now' is what they could do then also.

And consider Ghoul Reavers. Who is to say they were not already wearing armor when they went all ghoulified? Would the armor just magically fall off? If they could remove armor then they could put it on...

Why not ghouls in power armor then? I included one in my fanfic called a "Ghoul Lord". The idea is that ghouls in power armor would actually be fairly common since there was a war going on and all. And there have been several mentionings of ghouls having extraordinary strength just as there were several mentionings that Super Mutants have enhanced intelligence. It is the DC variety ghouls that got weak along with dumb Super Mutants. If anything we can look forward to things going back to normal rather than 'new and improved'.

You don't have to like it.

i like raul more, as a ghoul, he's probably awesome, and i like the perk he gives when he tags along (weapon durability lowers slower), but i have a feeling raul will not be as fun, but more deadly ....i gotta pick both XD ill choose one for each playthrough

As each npc is meant to have a skill to aid you somehow, and a unique companion side quest to boost their abilities / skill.
I would say Raul as a Boone seems to like pidgeon hole-ing you into the anti ceasers legion camp, combined with the easy kill factor of a sniper taking xp from you.
As well as that Raul's a mechanic and most likely companions will have some effect on the main quest, and a sniper may not be that helpfull with certain builds in NV.

So untill I see all the companions I am leaning towards Raul, but that may change.

have to go with boone, its my buddys last name i havent seen either of these guys though

To me Tactics is fully canon but for a few oil drums. I have been saying for awhile now in other posts that Ferals are not a new idea to fallout. "Feral ghouls appear in Fallout (in random encounters, as "mindless ghouls"), Fallout 2 (as "ghoul crazies") and Fallout 3 (where they are actually named "feral ghouls" for the first time)." I know all about Glowing ghouls. FO1 and FO2 show ghouls as rotting people. They don't wear armour in them. Someone rotting with limbs and faces falling off would have a hard time using PA.



Reaver Ghouls and Roamer ghouls are total crap. Again Rotting corpses don't get stronger! Second ghoulification is not an instant thing (please for the love of god don't bring up Moria) The armour does not become apart of their body. Reavers were added because beth need stronger enemies, they wanted bigger, dumber bullet sponges. Why did then not just make the enemies smarter? I will never know.




Agreed I don't have to like it, in fact I am pissed about it. I am doing my best to tolerate it. I like classic ghouls, zombie like beings with rotting skin and exposed organs and bone that are slow and weak. The new ghouls are just people with bad skin and have no other problems.

I'm going to go with Raul initially, but I will go with Boone for my second playthrough when I side with the NCR (my initial runthrough of the game is going to be siding with the people of New Vegas and/or Mr. House, then NCR, then Caesar's Legion). He's supposed to be funny, and his special ability lowers the degeneration rate of weapons (and I think armor too) which is awesome.

on the contrary. Followers now share their xp with you so when he is picking off wasps and sporeplants and saving you time and ammo you will be racking up xp. Hell if you find a busy enough area you can leave your game running while you head to the laundry mat and see how much xp he has earned while you were AFK...

It's part of how Bethesda creates enemies in their games (the ones that Bethesda Game Studios creates, not the crap that gamesas published like "Wet" and "Rogue Warrior"). For instance in Oblivion we had several different types of the Dremora, a demonic humanoid race that were the primary enemies in the Deadlands/"Realms of Oblivion" (I say Deadlands because the proper name for the realm you went to in Oblivion was called the Deadlands, even though Bethesda for some reason just instead called them "Gates to Oblivion"). With an RPG like Oblivion or Fallout 3 you have two ways of dealing with enemies:
1) Have them level up with the player
or
2) Create different sub-creatures that correspond with the player's level.

In Bethesda's case they utilize the second option because the first option irritates most fans. "Why am I level 20 and these super mutants are still so hard to kill?!" Well it's because the super mutants are also level 20 now. If instead it's just "super mutant", "super mutant brute", etc. it is less aggravating as now the fans can know which super mutants will be easy to kill (the low level, generic one), and which ones will be harder to kill (brute, master, or the dreaded overlord), allowing them to pick and choose fights. I'm not much of a fan of that approach, but it's what makes a lot of people happy and what works.

And with the roamers and reavers the easiest explanation is that "they have armor on". Plus the ghouls of the east coast, or at least the Capital Wasteland may have had it a bit differently. With more direct hits (i.e. the White House), the flash of the bombs may have been the reason they have armor on. Rather than just having their skin rotting off through necrosis, their flesh may have literally melted and bonded with the armor. That's the best reasoning I can think of (well for the roamers. The reavers I just try to forget ever existed).

Agreed that Tactics is fully canon IMO as well i said 'psuedo' as it's canonization is a subject of open debate and irrelevant.

Okay so perhaps the FO Universe would be a happier more sunshinier fun filled place for you if you realized that not all ghouls are created equal. Consider Harold who is obviously growing throughout the series long before (spoiler). Even in the older games there was a plethora of different ghoul types and I recall some of them were rather deadly, tough to take down or shambled further across the screen than the other ones could when it was their turn.

Feral Ghouls are entirely different than the Crazy Ghouls and the Mindless Ghouls. The concept is similar but as you yourself pointed out they are not the helpless zombies you prefer. Hopefully Obsidian has picked up on this notion as well and has included the wimpy Zombie Ghouls for low level encounters. I hope they didn't stop at Reavers though. I can't wait to see some Rusted Power Armor Ghouls. Better yet giant hulking Ent Ghouls. That would be sweet.

i dont think most of the details in tactics are canon except for a few major events, just my opinion but the black isle guys themselves didnt consider it to be canon either,

Thanks for the infomation that slipped under my radar, when was it announced do you know?

@Styles: I know you are more of a lore buff than me, but I always presumed the "ferals" were just a renamed version of the nameless automaticly hostile ghouls of Necropolis.
As Volundarkvioa said just so you would have an idea of level when facing them.

First, I think the arguement should stop. Start a discussion topic about it, and argue there.

On topic: I say neither. My character is meant to be a sniper, I don't need another one. Maybe later in the game, it would be cool. And Raul seems useless. I don't need a mechanic following me around. Give me a decent character that fits my playstyle, which I know they will, and we are golden.

I'm not speaking for Styles, but I think his issue isn't with ferals necessarily, but with regular ghouls (the humanoid ones like Desmond and Charon), roamers, and reavers. And I can see his point of view:

Ghouls are essentially people who were exposed to low levels of radiation over decades which had an abnormal mutation with them; their outer skin began to flake and rot off, their hair fell out, but yet their internal organs rapidly produced cells allowing for them to become effectively immortal. What's underneath your skin? Muscle, which is covered in blood and fluids, so trying to wear armor without any flesh (or flesh that is constantly falling off) would be rather hard since it would most likely just slip right off of you, as if you were a greased up deaf guy covered in butter.

i just want my mr gutsy and my dog,

I'd much rather have a Securitron. They keep an arsenal of rockets in their shoulders.

To me they are very close if not the same. Look at the ferals in FO3. They stand there looking around, I sometimes can sneak up on them. Now the Crazy hostile ghouls in Necropolis. They stand there but get to close and they attack. Maybe they have not gone completely of the deep end but they are close. They stand there staring off into space then just attack.

goris the scholar I know you like new ghouls and even want bigger ghouls. Beths vision is very odd to me and pisses me off. I am trying to keep my mouth shut and be tolerant because let's face it one old school ghoul fan is not going to change things... I know I am not alone on the ghoul issue but most old school ghoul fans don't use this forum.. I had to deal with lore changes before with ghouls like how the devs of black isle changed it to just radiation to make a ghoul not radiation and FEV a change that still have some original devs divided. That made Harold a Special FEV mutant not a ghoul. You can talk to me till your blue in the face about how the new ghouls are awesome but I still like the old ones better .

Gone off topic enough, this is about Rual vs Boone, I should not have to write an essay to defend my pick.



Well said

does any one know if you can raul as a follower if you side with ncr

I'm sure Raul will be a part of the "neutral" crowd, as in you can be a part of any faction and still have him. He's being held captive in Black Mountain by super mutants, not Caesar's Legion or NCR, so I doubt he'll have any beefs with either of them.

cool thanks because i want to have raul, and my first playthrough im going to side with ncr

but ghouls are awesopme :rolleyes:

I must point out that Raul gives you a perk while he's with you called Regular Maintenance that slows down the degradation of you weapons and armor.

I wonder if/what perk Boone gives the player.

I hope that a companion mod is released soon because neither of the two options is particularly appealing to me.