Sorry mate, this is the best I can do. Atleast, while maintaning compatibility with all other mods out there. I also have played FO2. Great Game.

The SPECIALs were a bit lackluster. My mod should make you actually choose. Another point in Intelligence? Or rather in Endurance to up your Big Guns Cap?

Anyways, I suggest you get NV on the PC There have been great mods released which also makes the game more like 1 and 2.

Oh man you really take everything very literally.

I can't believe I did this, but luckily what I'm doing this afternoon was pretty boring to start with. SO - I created a character! I would appreciate if you would let me show you how wrong you are - go to:

http://vault106.com/users/sign_in

sign in as mugglelover2 password is muggles

OK - This character is level 20 only - No Broken Steel. Also, I've given him ONLY 2 attribute bobbleheads and ONLY 5 skill bobbleheads and the ant might perk
I have selected NO perks that give +skill points aside from intense training and educated. Also I have selected comprehension because that is one of the best perks in teh game. despite this, I have added NO SKILL BOOKS and no +skills from gear.

This character can pick every lock, use every computer, repair every weapon, heal himself, use every gun in the game effectively, use small weapons with extreme precision, pass EVERY speech check (with a 1 charisma, mind you...you might have to wear a plus speech item to get to 100 but i dont know if any speech checks require 100) and even sneak a bit

the only things he svcks at are melee combat and barter - but even barter isnt terrible and as another poster pointed out you dont need all those caps.


NOW - This character can do almost anything with NO SKILL BOOKS and with 10 LEVELS TO GO. You will find things to pick and choose to complain about, but everyone who approaches this conversation rationally will hopefully see my point.

Despite your subjective (and therefore worthless as to the subject of gameplay) opinion, there are plenty of reasons to get skills to 100% This includes gun motion, spread mechanics, critical hit calculations, effective use of chems, maximizing the reward of the speech skill, keeping armor effective longer, and achieving helpful perks. The way I read your paragraph, you don't want any skill points. Fine. Set your intelligence to 1 and never pick up anything that increases them.

Hm... I'm gonna try that build in my game

Dude, you made my day.

The complaint was that it was impossible not to master all skills. I said that was wrong; you have proven my point. Thank you and good day.

I believe you explained to us how you are wrong.

Nah, I want my skill points to make a difference with slower pace (taking into account the amount of content). And if I drop my Int to 1, how would I ever get all those famous [intelligence] speechoptions... again?

I agree with the OP.
SPECIAL as in FO3 was broken and a step backwards from Fallout 2.

So I'm hoping that casual players like Mugglelover get their FO3 SPECIAL and that old school RPG'ers and people who like "that little more" get a more extensive SPECIAL system based on Fallout 1/2. Options over forced concepts.

Maximizing skills means EVERY SKILL AT 100. NOT SOME AT 100 AND OTHERS AT 15. NOT 70s ACROSS THE BOARD. Before getting the GOTY I worked for weeks on end on the problem of how to get every skill to 100 without sacrificing any special statistics. I worked out every single possible configuration of SPECIAL, perks, skill points, and quest rewards to do so. I said it was impossible to get to 100 in all skills without trying at it. You have proven that correct. Thank you and good day.

I have to agree with the OP on this. The only solid use for SPECIAL stats is to allow certain perks to be received.

If you keep the CHR at 1, INT at 9 and balance the rest of the stats to around 6 or so, you can pretty much get every available perk, aside from the Child at Heart and Animal Friend perks which need 4 and 6 charisma respectively.

INT was of course the most important because of the stat bonuses. The other SPECIALs, although not entirely useless, provided such small bonuses and no penalty, that creating a "specialized" character build based on SPECIALs alone were fairly useless.

FO2's SPECIAL system was much more "Role Playing" friendly in this respect.

Sigh. Why do I bother. it hink this is the last time I will respond to Mr. Muggles. Anyway - as someone else said only locks and science have discrete rewards at 100. I am not trying to mathematically get every skill to 100. My point is you can get almost every skill high enough that there's nothing a single character cant do. This is a subjective opinion of course, and that is ok.

But, if we ARE Talking about getting EVERY skill to 100, it can be doe by level 20 without cheating. Please see the sample below from the wiki* But like I said - I'm focused on actual gameplay changes, not the numbers.

Also I dont understand what you mean by saying "without trying at it" Isn't part of the fun trying to improve your character?

The point of this thread is not and never was about getting all skills to 100, despite your attempts to make it so. This is a subjective discussion about the many shortcomings of SPECIAL in FO3.



*
# In order to reach the maximum number of points available in all skills, you only need to train all skills to 40. This is because most skills have 25 skill books, which will give 50 points in all with the Comprehension perk, and then ten more points can be acquired through a bobblehead. Additionally, a bug with two skill books gives the player an opportunity to max the two related skills without ever putting points into it; see Glitches/Exploitable Bugs for details. One other caveat -- since the Yew's Bear Charm acts like a second Speech bobblehead, one only needs to increase Speech to 30.)
# A brief explanation on how to raise all skills to level 100 can be found here, courtesy of Mr. Sark and G4TV.com (http://g4tv.com/videos/36608/Mr-Sark-Fallout-3-Leveling-Tips/).

couldn't have said it better. I think most of the people here are in agreement that improving SPECIAL would be nice for RPG fans. I'm glad to see other people share my opinion on this. I guess its back to work for me. I will miss the muggley posts.

I never said it was possible without trying. I simply said it is possible to do it, not that you didn't have to try to. And, simply playing the game really counts as trying, so I don't know what you're getting at.

I have deleted a number of posts from this topic, flaming/flamebaiting and trolling mean those responsible will receive moderator attention.

Upon further review, even after a clean-up, the remaining trolling and bickering in this thread have still derailed the thread, so it will be locked.