Welcome to sweet 16. This is the point in the introduction where you find out what job you're going to have when you grow up. You're also going to have a little, but optional, confrontation with the Tunnel Snakes boys on the way to the exam room. As usual, there are good / neutral / evil ways to resolve that confrontation.

(The confrontation with the Tunnel Snakes can be handled in about half a dozen different ways, including unarmed combat. One method is evil, another one or two are neutral, and the rest are basically "good". Make a save point if you want to try out all the different methods, or mix it each time you roll a new character.)



Once you enter the classroom and take your seat, the teacher will start talking about the G.O.A.T., or you can try to sweet talk the teacher into letting you skip it by telling him how you want it to turn out.

Personally, I recommend taking the long way the first few times and going through the test. There are no wrong answers, and you can always fudge the results. If you answer somewhat honestly the first time, you may find that it points you towards a playstyle that you hadn't considered. The goal of the GOAT is to (a) introduce you to the skills system and (b) allow you to boost three skills by 15 points at the start.



As you'll see after taking the G.O.A.T., there are (13) skills in Fallout 3. They are done on a scale of 1-100 (even if you go past 100 points, you'll only get 100 points worth of effect out of a particular skill) and the starting values for each skill are based on your SPECIAL attributes. I've included the associated attribute in parenthesis after each skill. Boosting SPECIAL attributes later on in the game will grant additional points (automatically) in the associated skills.

Right now, you'll only be able to assign 15 additional points to three different skills. But later on, as you level up, you'll get around 13-17 points (depending on your intelligence, perks, and other goodies) each level to increase skills as you please. The points granted at each level can be spread or clumped as desired, with no limitations.

Barter (CHR) - How expensive will items be at a vendor, and how much will a vendor give you for items. But you can also get better prices if the vendor likes you and eventually you'll have more money then you can shake a stick at (in the upper teens levels). I don't recommend making this one of your three starting picks.

Big Guns (END) - This is your skill with oversized weapons (flame throwers, missle launchers, rapid-fire energy or projectile weapons). Since you won't find these until later on, also not a good starting pick.

Energy Weapons (PER) - Skill with energy-based weapons (lasers, plasma, etc). Some folks like EWs (energy weapons), while others don't. For a starting player, skip this skill and put your picks elsewhere as you won't find EWs prior to level 2 or 3.

Explosives (PER) - Skill with mines and grenades (do more damage). Mark this as a potential pick. There's a quest early on where you'll need 25 points in Explosives in order to complete it. But you could also put points into this skill when you get to Level 2, or use gear/chem to boost you a few more points to get high enough to complete the quest. Also, keep in mind that you're unlikely to find mines and grenades before you get to level 2 or 3.

Lockpick (PER) - Allows you to attempt locks. All locks are rated in increments of 25, so the ideal situation is to have exactly 25, 50, 75 or 100 points in Lockpick. On the other hand, you'll only get a dozen or so points each time you level up. Early on, this is a good skill to have at 25 or higher as it will let you loot containers that you otherwise couldn't. You might even want to get this to 50 pretty quickly so that you don't miss out on opportunities.

Medicine (INT) - Recover more health when you use a Stimpak. For players with high levels of endurance, this can be a real money-saver. There are a handful of quests that require a minimum skill level (30-70 points) and the related perks require a skill of 60 at level 14-16.

Melee Weapons (STR) - Weapons like knives, swords, pipes, or other blunt objects make use of this skill. It also controls how much damage can be blocked if you use the block key at the proper time. Still, unless you are really planning on going the melee combat route, I don't recommend this as a first pick.

Repair (INT) - Allows you to fix damaged equipment and lets you repair equipment to a higher condition level. Lower condition (quality) weapons do less damage and are more likely to prove unreliable in the heat of battle. If you're looking to save money in the early levels, this is a strong pick.

Science (INT) - Similar to the Lockpick skill, except that this allows you to break into computer terminals (difficulty levels of 15 / 25 / 50 / 75 / 100). It also makes the hacking mini-game easier if you have a high skill level. You don't have to take this skill as an initial pick as you can leave the vault without having it. But you'll want to get it up above 25 fairly quickly at the start.

Small Guns (AGI) - Skill with small firearms such as pistols, SMGs, shotguns, assault rifles and regular rifles. You'll also find it easier to use scoped weapons and your small projectile firearms will do more damage. Unless you are planning on using melee, energy weapons or unarmed combat methods, I strongly recommend that you take this as one of your three initial picks.

Sneak (AGI) - How easily you can sneak around and avoid detection. Also gives you additional damage if you attack while still undetected (sneak attacks). For the stealthy types, this is a strong initial pick.

Speech (CHR) - Your skill in meeting speech challenges during conversations with NPCs. Higher levels of this skill give you increased chance at succeeding at the conversational gambit. This may result in additional rewards or dialog or karma. Note that you can always exit from a conversation, quicksave, then try the speech challenge (repeatedly reloading if you fail) to get past a situation where your skill and charisma are low. So I would mostly take this as an initial pick out of roleplay reasons rather then gameplay reasons.

Unarmed (END) - Unarmed combat. Rather complicated method of fighting, so I don't recommend taking this as one of your initial three picks until you are more experienced with playing Fallout 3.

Again, you can change things before you leave the vault.

My personal recommendations for a new player are any of the following:

Explosives
Lockpick
Medicine
Repair
Science
Small Guns
Sneak

I'm partial to Repair, Sneak and Small Guns to start; with boosting Explosives / Lockpick at level 2 and Science at level 3 to get them all to 25+ points. From what I've seen so far in the beginning of Fallout 3, there are a few spots where having a certain skill level is pretty important:

- 25 in Science to hack the outer computer in Super-Duper Mart, but only 15 to hack the inner computer.

- 25 in Explosives to work on an early quest.

- 50 in Lockpick to pick a locked door in the Super-Duper Mart (but there are two other ways to get past this door)

Of course, there are other ways to gain an additional 2-10 points in certain skills, so you'll want to pickup and keep anything that boosts skills with hard level checks (Lockpick, Explosives, Science).