I always find this stuff fascinating.

Especially since I played this game on Easy and got [Censored] by 6 super mutants when I left a subway station. Tchya, "Easy". And people what THIS game to be HARDER?

To each his own I guess. Plus, I guess it also helps to be good at video games.

For even harder-core, do what the original poster said, and use Fallout: Wanderer's Edition and Mart's Mutant Mod with all the hardest settings.

I've done this before, and it's actually very entertaining. However, it turns Fallout 3 in to more of a survival game than an action-RPG. Also, don't get attached to any NPCs. While playing like this, a few Super Mutants followed me to Big Town and ended up wiping out half of it population.


Or, do what I suggested and play dead-is-dead.

This is just basically a mod for consoles. The only thing that breaks this mod is your own lack of willpower. I truly enjoy the landscape/world, have done multiple characters. Instead of having the game hold my hand, I get to choose how I roll. And I don't wanna roll as the god of war who rains down mass destruction everywhere he goes, though I have certainly done it, it gets boring. Uber master, is fun, but boring after a while. I need challenging play.
Actually, I personally am playing DiD with these rules. I'm still alive.... so it can't be all that bad. Playing on Hard.

You svck Big Daddy ... must have Alien reflexes. I mean Im dieing here , really dieing ... In easy setting , with 8 luck ... ofcourse I svck rymes with that.
Are you useing Vats? for first shot? not that it matters ... just curious ..... And no freakin crosshair??? I am however useing crosshair still , but no vats ever. I think you probably do have Alien DNA?

LOL I find gamers are split between the console control as apposed to keyboard mouse. Ive noticed my reactive keyboard skills for this particular game need honeing since Ive adopted the hardmode play. Never been much good with the joy pad ... but my keyboard mouse skills in UT 2004 aint bad (still playing that game) awesome FPS for multiplayer.

Ahhh , that makes me sad thinking this game has no multi player function , not even "Double Dragon" style

Lol sorry Mktavish. Here's my deal: I don't engage everything I see. If it's just me, I will avoid that Enclave Patrol up ahead. There is no way I can survive that. If I had a fatman otoh, maybe I would. If Jericho was with me, and I usually have him carrying a heavy incinerator, then yeah, I will wade through the battle.
Mirelurk Kings are to be avoided.
Basically, if I don't think I can outright win the fight, I don't pick it, and will sneak around and away, or wait til they leave. Buffout and Med X are your little, loyal friends.

And I stand by it. The New Vegas hardcoe mode was a welcome step in the right direction, probably following the lead of many user mods that appeared on Fallout 3. But the main challenge was stimpacks healing over time. Get swamped by enemies and you may find that you can't heal quickly enough. And other than periodic checks to water, food and sleep levels, with ammo weight thrown into the mix as well, theres not a great difficulty curve to it.

Now take our suggestions (among others) -


- Weapon carry limit...one dual-handed shotgun/rifle, and two from pistols/melee/unarmed
- Only one set of armour/headgear
- You cannot pick up ammo for a weapon that you are not carrying.

(above three also apply to companions, so no pack mules)

Plus a few others, depending on taste -

- No healing during combat.
- No healing with stimpacks. Or at least, no healing crippled limbs through stimpacks - you must sleep/find a doctor.
- Repair only by a merchant (or workbench at Rivet City, Craterside Supply and Meresti)
- No Fast Travel
- No Bobbleheads or skill books


I think we are raising the difficulty quite a bit. A real FWE for consoles.

I was reading this topic and it's very interesting. I am trying to play with those rules, but some things still are not realistic. I've been playing this "hardcoe" mode on normal and i don't think i will get any more fun switching to hard. I just hate taking several shots without dying and i think the same about the enemies (this happening on normal). 2 shots with a hunting rifle in the face would kill any raider in real life.

So i will try to play with 1 endurance and the same rules you guys are suggesting, but on very easy (i will later change to easy if it gets very easy to play). Maybe that way will be more realistic.
Depending on the difficulty of this play, i might change some things, like:

-Not using stimpacks, ever (only doctor and food/water). Or;
-Not putting any points on medicine (because with 1 endurance 1 stimpack with high medicine may be a game breaker).
-Change endurance to 2 if it's too hard with 1.
And some things i will think later.

So the character i will create now will have the following rules:

-Endurance on 1.
-Very easy.
-No healing during combat.
-Repair only by merchants or workbench.
-3 guns, 1 dual- handed and 2 one handed.
-One set of armor/headgear.
-No fast travel.
-No skill books (i will try to eliminate the urge to take those beautiful bobbleheads when i see them).
-Only picking ammo for weapons i am carrying.
-Limited ammo (~400-500 for all weapons together, i don't know yet if it will be that number, two missiles/ nukes max if using the appropriate gun, 15 for grenades and mines together).
- No vats.
- Can't heal crippled limbs (only doctor).
- Can't carry broken items.

After some play i will tell you guys the results =).

Sorry if something is wrong with my english, i'm from Brazil.

Nothing wrong with your English at all, you speak/type better than a fair amount here. I'd be curious too, as it seems to me, that the game is meant to be played at normal or perhaps easy. At least in terms of damage received and damage dealt. With END at 1, I'd suggest you balance that with one solidly good combat-related perk. I tried END 1 on a normal playthrough without these rules... I died a lot. Maybe END 3? That way you will survive the molerat attack, but disqualify yourself from any END related perks.

I've been playing on normal and it looks like its still unrealistic how enemies can be shot several times without dying (especially raiders and dogs, because they are simply normal humans/dogs but still can take several shots before dying). But if i play on easy or very easy with no rules than that problem is on me, being able to be shot several times. So i decided to mix the things so both the enemies and me die easily, making it more realistic.

I will try playing with 1 endurance on easy with the rules, if i think it's too hard i will move on maybe to 2 or 3 endurance or change to very easy (probably the most realistic is easy, very easy you can kill a raider shooting on his leg sometimes =s).

One way I found to make bullet dmg more real ... atleast dealt ... was to raise your luck. 8 on easy seemed pretty good to me. Ofcourse I guess small guns factors in there some how too.

Or try 9-10 on normal. Youve got to do something with all those points if you drop end , plus I find str at 1 is good for more realistic carry weight. You can counteract by selecting mele as tag skill.
Leaving Int below 5 is good too for less skill pts per lvl. Just go ahead and pick up the medicine Bobble head to counteract that in beginning. Int at 3 even more harsh .... wont let you select some of the perks like gun nut.

If your not using Vats then agi wont overpwr you at high #'s , perception I find 7 is ok. (its about equal to when I select actor fade 4 in adv video settings) And charisma is definately no game breaker .... unless you want to RP your unlikeable or something.

This is what Ive used for best results IMO

S-1 P-7 E-4 C-8 I-3 A-9 L-8 easy setting........ or for a little more challenge , swap 1 pt of endurance for 1 more luck and select normal.

I need for strength to be higher than 1 though. Even if you got the strong back perk... life would svck scavenging. And I"m an OCD scavenger, though I don't make railways anymore, so at least I can ignore that stuff. Ten pounds for a steam gauge assembly.... too heavy. Lol, irl it would be at least 70 pounds.

I just did it for the lowest carry weight 160lbs seemed more realism influence than end between 3-4 , I mean 10 hp doesnt matter as much as 10 lbs carry weight.

Cough huh hummm I have to admit I went and installed FWE mod ... maybe I need more time with it but ... my first impression was it made the game clunky. They call regular version "Vanilla" but I say polished

I am wanting to go back to regular with self imposed modding. IDK ill give it a fair shake and get back to ya.

Although I can see its intrest from a long time vetran player. But still , self imposed modding mixed with a fair amount of RP(imagination) is pretty awesome.

My strength is at 4 (or 5, don't remember), but i can't see myself carrying even 1/2 of my limit. I see my character and think that's impossible. I pretend he has a backpack for the supplies, but i can't think of him carrying conductors, plot lights and that kind of stuff. If it was me, i would only be carrying supplies and to make money i would sell some of them if i think i can survive without some. I can't see myself using space that could be used for supplies to carry things that won't help to survive (it will give me money, but wont make me stronger).

Even with str 1, i don't think i would use all my carry limit (only if i used a heavy armor, or a heavy gun).

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My character i created yesterday has endurance at 2 (i thought 1 would be a little suicidal) and i am playing at easy). It's fun, more realistic, the enemies are dying faster and i am too. Intelligence is at 5. It's being kinda easy not to die, so i think i am going to make some rule for healing, maybe healing only by food water and doctor, or 1/2 stimpacks a day, i don't know. But it's being fun. Just completed galaxy news radio quest.

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Are you guys using some kind of bottlecap carry limit for your characters?

Well, you won't like it... 1. My personal rule is that the transaction window end result must always be zero. I am trading, not selling. 2. I pay off followers for doing missions with me. A fair deal for a honest day's work. In Oblivion, I get rid of excess cash by paying "taxes" on my home. This involves me selling uber gear, which is always sold at a loss, then immediately buying it back at double the cost.

Hm, nice idea with the followers. I will try using this "trading only" system.

Okies FWE officially sux ... the sniper rifle is unusable (vats only weapon) who ever designed that was smokin crack.

No to be fair FWE has alot of good points , and the possibilities of wastelander adventurer just compounded. But stuff like the sniper rifle makes me want to wipe that shism off my hard drive. Im not seeing a convinceing reason I should have installed the mod.

I always enjoy playing FO3 this way. I role play a female character so it makes sense that she is very selective about the fights that she gets into.
Half the role play fun is scampering over the hill in a different direction, not knowing if the battle you might run into is more deadly than the one you just ran from.

When I play hardcoe I always stay away from the scrounger perk. That thing just hands out way too much ammo.

My girl carries 250 bullets for each small gun, 6 grenades, 6 mines, 6 stimpacks, 6 nuka cola, various food, 1 armor.
No healing during combat, she only heals at taps and hydrants (which I only use 3 times before I move on).
The stimpacks are only used to simulate a sleep bonus if I bunker down in a ruined house that doesnt have a bed I can use.

Her Strength is only 3 which makes the carry limit realistic. I like the rule to only repair at work benches. It makes the decision what to pick up super cool.
edit- another way to use stimpaks is to only use them when reach a wall medi-kit. At least that stops you spamming the health kick.

I will try this one, the way i'm doing is not being challenging, if this way still makes it easy i will move on to only food/water/doctor.

So this. And sometimes I had wished I had stayed and taken my beating. I get one stim in combat. I use it when I am down near 25% health left. My MED level is currently 44. This seems reasonable to me.

Very nice! I try to not use any stimpacks at all during combat. When I reach 25% I normally panic and try to find some cover so I can get the action points back.
There can numerous times that I have been shot in the back while trying to find that cover. Lol. Cue the action sequence of her dead on the ground.
I do allow my character to quickly use some ice cold nuka cola and food to gain a small bit of health back however.

Another thing I like to do is control my combat when I am crippled. Arm injury means no grenade throws, leg is no running and the head ringing means taking a sit down and rest all the time.
Fast travel is not allowed when cripped and I slowly limp back to Megaton.

I've found out something interesting, and am experimenting with it, in reference to ^^. I normally don't use VATS. ( I'm still experimenting with it, as I haven't found the sweet spot yet.) So when 1) one of my arms gets crippled, my aim gets way off. It's very noticeable in both VATS (in the percentages) and without, you see your rounds start taking decidedly strange angles, and even at point blank range, you will record more misses than hits, at least I've noticed, my up close and personal weapons are Blackhawk and a set of spiked knuckles.
2) When both of my arms get crippled, the aim is crazy off. When both of my arms get crippled at the same time I drop my weapon. Either way, the percentages to hit in VATS, versus the perceived bullet path that I see, is crazy lower than no VATS. So, the thought is that when both arms get crippled, or one arm is crippled and you are using a two-handed weapon, I SHOULD use VATS, as it lowers my chances. As long as I don't have any uber perks in the small guns category, this should work.

I have one ice cold Nuka Cola and I'm saving it for a nice view.

Interesting. I will have to pay attention to this. Too many times in the past I just built an uber character that domination the wasteland by the mid teens.
Now I see how boring this is and really love the hardcoe style of gaming.

The next time I am arm crippled I shall take a careful note. I rarely use combat outside of VATS. I miss all the bloody time. Lol.

I'm glad it's not an FPS with stats on hit percentages..... everyone would call me a moron lol.

Some good ideas in this thread, heres some of my own.

- no HUD (totally loving this, much more immersive)
- Only a doctor can heal radiation
- Only repair weapons at a workbench or via a vendor
- maximum of 5 stimpacks
- Only carry a realistic carry amount (no 'taking all' off every dead body)
- no music, play on hard.
- no VATS ever.
- Can only heal crippled limbs in a safe environment, not in the middle of nowhere or mid-battle.

Another convert! Welcome....
The no HUD thing was tough for me. I accidentally stole a lot of stuff. If I could have a crosshair, without the rest of the info, that would be ideal. I tend to put my HUD around 4, so that it disappears in daylight... Think of it as glare or something.