References made by Doc Mitchell, and other sources say that the Courier was shot twice in the head. My thought is, fine what ever the 2nd shot by Benny was to kill him, that makes sense. But our Courier is at least 20 years old. How could he have lived his life roaming the American Wasteland as a job, with getting just ONE shot in the head, other than Benny's? It's like he was protected by the Mysterious Stranger or something for his entire life until he met those two head-aiming finks. Dig?

Any thoughts?

Yeah- what are you talking about? Are you trying to say you think it's unlikely that somebody can't reach 20+ years old and be a courier in this imaginary gameworld without getting shot in the head more than once before ever meeting Benny?

Don't you think that in an expanse of nuclear Wasteland full of bad guys and raiders who shoot anything on site would magically just not shoot a Courier who has been all over the place? Perhaps even carrying important packages. What happened with Benny could easily of happened in another area with another package.

I don't think someone can live 20+ years in a merciless wasteland as courier of all things, without getting shot in the head more than once. I mean, couriers HAVE to deliver packages across massive distances. The dangers from point A and point B are too great for a person to only get shot once when they've been doing it for maybe 3 years now.

1st of all a courier is not an unarmed mailman in silly blue shorts with a manpurse full of letters... a courier is an armed and hardened deliverer of important goods.

2nd of all I can't really rap my head around the argument you are trying to make. You think no one in the fallout universe should live past 20?

@1: As a courier of the wasteland you must travel enormous distances, and on the way you will face people who will attack you. Are you saying you've never been shot in the head during your time place New Vegas?

@2: No, I am saying, you live 20+ years, and have been doing the courier job for a while now. It's only natural that you'd have been shot in the head more than once.

I'm not arguing that it was stupid to include just 2 head shots, I am asking for a user's view point on how the Courier in all the years he's been in the courier business, lived his life just being shot once. It's normally expected for them to get shot multiple times. To me, this one head shot in the span of many years of travelling makes me think he was either magically protected, or it's a funny funk in the story.

I understand what you are trying to say but if you start trying to apply that kind of logic to video games your head is going to explode.

Getting shot in the head isn't really a casual thing. Gunshot wounds to the head usually kill people.
So no, I don't think it's likely that theres a bunch of couriers walking around with bullets in their brain. Interesting idea, though.

Anyone who gets shot in the head more than once or twice and survived deserves a damn medal. I'd expect the Courier to have been roughed up in his 20 years prior to the game, but shot in the head? No way in hell.

Thing is, while the Courier was just working he didn't regularly take on major factions of the wasteland. He wasn't as impatient and fearless as the average player either, if he did see a group of feinds off in the distance he had no reason not to avoid them. Especially since all he had was a pistol and a straw hat.

You're confusing gameplay mechanics with gameworld 'reality'. As a *player*, you'll likely take shots to the head dozens, or even hundreds of times through the course of the game- but since you are the player, they can't have little things like mulitple brain-splattering headshots keep you down, so you always get back up again and keep on going like the Vegas Energizer Bunny. But before you magically took over control of this Courier character, and turned into the cat with 999,999 lives, you weren't having all this gratuitous slaughter happening every 5 minutes throughout your 20+ years. In the 'gameworld reality', people die, for good, when they get popped in the head. Your survival of those two slugs from Benny, is the truly miraculous and unusual thing- but it makes for a good plot starter, even if it's rather unlikely you really would have survived them.

So anyway, sure, while you are in control, it's a shootout every day, every hour, every other minute, if you choose to make it so- gotta keep the player entertained. But that's not the constant gameworld reality for the rest of the npc chars in the game- if it was, they'd all be dead, and the wastelands truly would be empty. And it wasn't the reality for your Courier either, until Mr. Player takes over. Did everybody in Goodsprings have old bullet wounds in their heads? Did every 20-50 year old NCR soldier you run into have lumps on their skulls from missing chunks? Was every prospector and trader and merc you ran across a survivor of multiple head wounds? Of course not. When you shoot any of them in the head, they die. Permanently.

Gotta learn to separate the more-or-less sensible gameworld reality that all the NPC's live in, versus the fantastically unlikely reality the player gets to experience.

Getting shot in the head more than once?

Heck you cant even survive 1 head shot without having problems let alone having the VERY slim chance of living.

By your logic, you're calling it BS that everyone in the Mojave over 20 years of age hasn't been shot in the head. WTF??

Why aren't you asking why Ulysses has never been shot in the head? Or Caesar? Or Johnson Nash?
Seriously man, just sit back and think for a moment how ridiculous it is that you're calling BS because Obsidian wrote a story about a guy who'd never been shot in the head before until now.....I'm sitting at my desk right now going "wait what" trying to figure out how you could argue such a thing. You're basically saying that innocent neutral parties being shot in the head is just a daily occurance in the Mojave.

Trying to understand your logic is making me feel like I've been shot in the head. Twice.


Having said that, I don't think the two shots means that the Courier has been shot like this BEFORE. If you want my opinion, I think Benny simply shot him twice OR we're gonna find out that after Benny shot him and left, Ulysses got to the Courier first and put another bullet in his brain to make sure he would die, THEN came Victor.

I m not sure if lore wise most people take 5 shots to the head to kill.

It may just be in game for the sake of rpg. Its a question I can t really answer.



I can also walk straight up the road if fo nv and be confromted by nothing for much of it. I can also sneak or take another route if I see trouble.

I don t, but most people that live in that world are not thinking. " Ohh look some cl/NCR/deathclaws/ insert here ___________ I think ill start shooting" Most people in that word probably try to avoid being shot in the head, or shot at all for that matter.

I'm talking in reference to the game. It takes an average of about 5 shots in the head to kill a person, in the game. I'm just wondering how as a person who is forced to come into contact with good and bad people, only gets shot once in the head doing this job for years now.

It wasn't meant to be taken as "Everyone gets shot at least once" it's meant to be taken as how does he NOT get shot? It's like being a moving target in the Mojave.

Boy, you ever hear a courier shake their head? Sounds like someone rattling a sack of caps.

This. ^^^