I'm working on a HEAVILY modded gamesave for Xbox 360 and PC that a lot of you folks looking for more challenge might be interested in. My goal is to make Fallout 3 into more of an interactive version of Fallout 1 & 2, especially in regards to loot drops and overall difficulty. Those games were actually hard, and not because of artificially inflating enemies health via the difficulty slider. Even though I love a challenge, I usually leave the difficulty on Normal, it's already unrealistic as it is when you have to shoot a Raider in the head 5-7 times with a 10mm Pistol to kill him. I know the 10mm is a weaksauce weapon by the game's standards, but in real life a 10mm Pistol would be a hand cannon, that you definitely wouldn't be still standing after a headshot from! Therefore, I want to make the game more challenging by putting more enemies, and less healing items. This way you can play on Normal and do whatever the game will let you do, and hopefully it will still be a challenge. I hope this will be a vast improvement over simply adjusting the difficulty bar, which seems to me, an artificial way of increasing difficulty, an easy way out for the game developers. I am going to restrict Sneak, Barter, and Medicine skills greatly, so that you can never get higher than a skill of 50 in them, even with skill books. The working title for the mod is Fallout 3 Survival Edition. I want it to make it actually feel like a survival game, something I'm sad to say was not how I felt about Fallout 3 or New Vegas. And this may sound like blasphemy and madness to you, but I'd be willing to bet that Skyrim won't have a significant challenge either. I may invoke the wrath of Sithis for saying ANYTHING negative about the Holy Omnipotent Game of the Decade Skyrim, but I'm concerned nonetheless.

There's zero percent chance of me dropping that. ZE-RO.

^^^ Yep, I mean I'm all for a more challenging experience. But throwing away a Vengeance is just going too far.

I'm level 7 now and am starting to find things a bit tougher recently. Levels 1-5 were easy enough, but now, as the the enemies increase in strength, I find that my combat worthiness is being tested.

As I'm not allowed to repair (unless at a workbench, which I think I've done about three or four times now, at most) I hardly have any caps at all. Also, I haven't fast travelled once yet. In fact I spent caps 300 alone on some combat armour for Charon, who is saving my life quite regularly right now. I'm wearing only the Armoured Vault 101 suit, which is down to 6 DR. I'm carrying a 10mm pistol (130 ammo), a scoped Magnum (2 ammo) and my trusty Chinese assault rifle (29 ammo). I may have to drop the Chinese assault rifle now, its starting to jam and I have enough ammo for one more fight only. I'm sleeping at the raider outpost opposite the Red Racer factory, so have a choice of combat shotguns to pick from, and enough shells, if I need them.

I deliberately made this trip (I've just circled around from Rivet City and back again) in order to do Operation Anchorage.

Nice. Sounds like good times. Yes, I did Operation Anchorage early too. I found having access to power armor was invaluable at times.... just enough DR to get you to town.

My main motivation for doing Operation Anchorage was for the Chinese Stealth Armour, which is something that I have never used. I'm just wondering if being able cloak myself from enemies on demand will unbalance the game. I'm playing on normal difficulty at the moment, so apart from the limited ammo and poor equipment condition, its still manageable. I intend to move up to hard setting upon reaching level 11, when I'll probably need all the help that I can get.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to revisiting The Pitt and Point Lookout, though I don't think that I'm well equipped enough for those just yet.

I used the stealth armor to reverse pick pocket better armor on my traders after I invested in them, but that's it. And then I heard that Harith and Crow were missing from Uncle Roe, so I'm currently retracing the trade route in hopes of finding a dead body, and then a dead brahmin so I can loot it. The stealth armor is too powerful imo. On another note, the other day I ran out of stimpacks and was forced to drinking water out of a puddle to keep alive.

I think you're right about the stealth armour, I think it would reintroduce the near invincibility that we are trying to eradicate. However, with limited ammo on hard setting it could be okay. Just. All the more so when reavers start to appear, since they imbalance the game even more.

I'm thinking of removing all healing by stimpacks as well, or at least seriously limiting the amount I carry. When you heal with stimpack it also repairs any crippled limbs as well, even if you didn't want to. Currently, I only heal crippled limbs by doctor or sleeping. I spent a good 30mins wandering the metro tunnels the other day with my left leg and head crippled. It was quite difficult.

Here's one challenge I used for myself in my previous game. I walked to my destination. No fast travel, mostly walking. I ran only when in combat or for short periods (10-15 secs worth).

I managed to get used to this style from using a FWE/Arwen's Tweaks combo setup. Arwen's Tweaks had a Strain meter that prevented me from running endlessly. At 100% Strain, I would collapse. The meter would rise faster with more encumbrance. And with FWE lowering my max carry weight I really had to watch my inventory or else I wouldn't last 10 seconds when running.

I really enjoyed this play style, but it does require a lot of patience.

Alot of your points are quite meritoirious Big Daddy, but I prefer to have mods that impose penalties for these things instead of just 'making myself not do something.' I don't know if there are mods that cover everything you mention, but for example:

No repair except at workbench: One of my mods (CALIBR I think) includes an "Effective Repairs" feature. With this, if you try to repair something without tools your effective repair skill is actually lower than what it says in the skills. Add a hammer, iron, scissors, and wrench to your inventory and you get the full scale "effective repairs" bonus. Go to a workbench and it is improved still more.

I'm pretty sure ammo has weight in that mod too.

The never going over encumbrance I think is overboard: hell, you can't run, so what is the likelihood you are gonna do it all the time and abuse it anyway?

Another mod that I simply would not play without is the "Wasteland Explorer." I think I have this one as part of a compiltation mod called something like Fallout Wasteland Explorer FWE or something.

The Wasteland Explorer is a motorcycle. It starts out wrecked in front of Megaton. You've got to get parts for it (moto tank, moto brake, leaf blower, conductor, scrap metal) to get it running, and also mix your own fuel at a workbench.

ADDIT: the primary needs mod allows you to reset how healing works, including sleeping = no heal, food no heal, drink no heal, etc. Not sure if it is the same one or not, but I also have one running that makes medicine more important. Stimpacks do not heal crippled limbs. You have to use "Triage" to do that.

This is for those of us on console, as we don't have access to mods. I carry 20 stims to start my walk-about, and five of each chem. I'm not going to the point where I drop or don't take stims, as I'm often reduced to about five after a day or two. I will store the extras at home, or sell them for much needed ammo, or, what I'm increasingly finding, is that I have an incredible amount of dump stops, where I've stored extra weight items in various places. Sometimes a nice surprise to find a decently repaired missile launcher ready to go.

As for the crippling, yes, it's too bad that we kinda heal our crippled limbs when stimming. But even then, with so few stims on my person, I'm often crippled a lot. My character, it turns out, will drop their weapon when both arms get crippled. I've also been finding that I'm relying heavily on chems, and am often addicted, which adds a new bonus when traveling.

I agree, this thread is a kind of 'Fallout Wanderers Edition for Consoles', or as close as we can get to it. I admit, I really like the repair enhancement with wrench, scrap metal, iron etc. Its a great idea and we could probably adopt this on console as well but we don't want to cross a threshold where 'survival based realism' becomes 'constant monitoring of own rules'. By now we know the main things that overpower the player character in Fallout 3, and some simple things can be done to fix this for us console users -

- Weapon carry limit - having access to any weapon you choose, and an unlimited amount of ammo for each one makes the player character a one man army. Solution - to limit weapons to one dual-handed rifle/shotgun (or big gun), and any two of pistols/unarmed/melee. Also, by not being able to carry any ammo for a weapon you are not carrying is far more effective than ammo having weight, as in NV hardcoe mode.

- Repair - an incredibly overpowered skill. Combined with the weapon carry limit (above), it is no longer possible for us to maintain perfect equipment and stockpile weapons, ammo and armour for easy caps. Solution - only repair by a merchant, or at a workbench.

- Healing - being able to heal crippled limbs inside and outside of combat makes death almost impossible. Solution - only heal with sleeping/doctors and not stockpiling stimpacks. Also cap Endurance at 4.

- Skills and SPECIAL - the player character can actually max out all skills in F3, which for a RPG is nonsense. The fact that there is the Almost Perfect (raises all SPECIAL to 9) perk just demonstrates that the game was not designed for character specialisation - its a power gamer's playground. Solution - cap Intelligence at 4, do not pick up any bobbleheads, read any skill books, or take the Educated perk.

This is all very admirable, so much so that I'm tempted to enforce these rules upon myself in a new playthrough. However, I'm a heavy RPer in the sense that each of my characters has a personality, a primary goal, a rasion d'etre. Of course, one would assume that by employing realistic survival measures you'd be adding to the experience; though, after some thought, I've realised it may just be to the detriment of your character as a person.

See, if I create a character who, during his nineteen years in Vault 101, studied pre-war texts extensively and was somewhat of an apprentice to James (a revered doctor by many), it'd only make sense to pour points into Intelligence. But if we're striving for realism and a generally more challenging experience, this is not an option.

It's a similar situation with Endurance. The character might have been a gym rat, spending all his spare time working out and partaking in physical activity. Therefore, it's only he right he's in good health.
Strength isn't so much of an issue considering the weight limit is capped far before the character's actual maximum carry weight.

Regardless, as a console player (360 usually), I suppose I've got to meet half way a little, even if that does mean sacrificing some finer RP details.

I see where you're coming from. These rules are really for a more survival based game rather than a definitive role play experience. A bit more like Resident Evil, where enemies carry a real threat and ammo and weapons are not in abundance.

Though, having said that, it works both ways. Lets take your first example, of the character with high intelligence. The vastly increased skill points you would have from high INT special would have to be shared out over other skills once you have maximised your core tag skills (let say Science, Speech and Medicine, for example). This would most likely end up with a character who is excellent at just about everything, which would actually dilute the role play experience you are trying to achieve.

For the second example, rather than focusing on Endurance as the benchmark of physical fitness, lets say a combination of Strength and Agility are instead. By still capping your Endurance (and Intelligence) at 4, you are free to pour points into any other SPECIALs as you like. So if you want a starting 9 in both Strength and Agility, then go right ahead.

Of course, none of this is set in stone and you can adopt whichever rules you like the most. The initial focus on Endurance and Intelligence SPECIALs are mainly due to their huge influence on hit points and skill points - two main factors that overpower the player character.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. I always forget about consoles. ADDIT: that really svcks that you can't do mods as a console player. Maybe someday.

To be honest, it's not the lack of Skill Points which bothers me (we'll always have enough of those regardless of Intelligence stat), but rather the loss of unique dialogue choices. Even writing this I can see that's a very petty matter, but it all adds to the immersion IMO.

Still, I'm willing to compromise dialogue for an overall more immersive experience. And I advocate your idea on Strength and Agility -- really, the Endurance SPECIAL only affects, what, 10 HP per point? I guess you can assume that the fact you're character's even surviving in the CW is a testament to his endurance.

On a seperate tangent, I'm interested in how one would utilise the Skill Books located in every single [censored] place explorable. Reading the same book over and over makes little sense, so I propose only reading it once, perhaps? Though, the 1 skill point gained would likely prove rather irrelevant, anyway.

Anyway, if I find myself the times between revision and my ever declining social life, I may be interested in giving this is a whirl. If so, I'll be sure to update on noticable progress if you wish.

If you cap Intelligence at 4, do not read any skill books, do not take any bobbleheads and do not take the the Educated perk, then just 14 skill points per level is not that much. Actually, depending on how my skills look at level 20+ I may advocate a revised cap of 3 but this may unbalance the other skills too much. True, I get your point about the speech checks, but there is no way around this, I'm afraid. As you said, there are so few of them anyway that it won't make a huge difference. Bumping up your Speech skill for dialogue choices is the best thing to do for a character with high intelligence anyway.

The skill books do add up, even more so with the Comprehension perk as well. I've not checked the actual amount, but look at a level 30 character you have created and see how many skill books he has read. If its anywhere between 100-200, as I expect it will be, then that is a lot of skill points, even without taking the Comprehension perk into account. I'll check mine tomorrow, as I'm now curious.

Combining Strength and Agility as a means of determining physical fitness is probably even more flexible than just using Endurance. This way you can even decide whether those hours your character has been in the gym have been spent on lifting weights, or running the treadmill.

As for Endurance itself. According to the wiki, each point amounts to +20 starting HP as well as your radiation resistance. So the difference between a starting Endurance of 4 and 8, for example, is 180 and 260 HP respectively, which is a significant amount. Also, capping Endurance at 4 prevents you from taking the Toughness perk.

Have to find the right balance. There's a certain joy in finding a skill book and reading it and watching a point get added to whatever. I take the Junk Town books and sell them. And depending on the character, depends on what book I sell, or read. I don't choose all the Bobbleheads anymore. One thought would be that you could only take three bobbleheads in total, one for each of your tagged skills. And the optional bonus would be to take a fourth bobblehead for the Tag! perk.

edit:
Another thing I'm playing with is that if I use lower armor, I mean not the high end gear like Ranger or Tribal or Hellfire, but more like Leather Rebel, Raider Commando, Leather, then I can hold the difficulty at hard, and still die on a a fairly normal basis. Level 23 at the moment. I want to go to Point Lookout and get my double barreled shotgun, but the main quest's perk is a game breaker in my opinion, so I will just go and explore, and not do the main quest at all.

I've actually started selling the skill books that I find. At the moment, the 30-40 caps that I get for it is far more useful, at least in the short term, than a +1 to Unarmed or Melee, which are things I never use anyway. I'm currently level 8 and my Small Guns is already 70+, and thats with a flat 14 skill points per level, no bobblehead, and no skill books.

I woke up from the raider outpost by the Red Racer factory and before heading straight to Bailey's Crossroads, I headed north to Megaton to restock some ammo from Moira, and hopefully get my woeful equipment repaired. Again, no fast travel allowed, so I have to face whatever I find along the way. We (Charon and I) encounted a solitary Enclave soldier, which was a struggle in itself. Then promptly after that, a group of four (4) Talon mercs hiding behind a rock. I died that time, since my 29 ammo for the Chinese assault rifle was used up on the first battle. It was great.

By Point Lookout perk, I assume you are referring to Superior Defender. If so, then yes, I agree its very powerful, especially with an assault rifle.

Don't forget Ghoul Ecology; it contains a glitch whereby humans are affected, also. With high DPS weapons such as Vengeance, you're doing about 330 damage, I think. Even on Very Hard, you're still a wrecking machine.

Also, Big Daddy, the qualm I have with your Bobblehead suggestion is that, despite only directly increasing you're Tag skills, you're effectively increasing other less used skills in the long run; your Tag skills would max quicker, meaning you'd have to spend points in, say, Energy Weapons (just as assumption), which would ultimately unbalance your character.
Of course, how one utilises the rules is at their discretion, though I'd still say no to Bobbleheads altogether. if nothing else, they wreck immersion and throw me out of the world.

In regards to armour, does it matter so much what you don? Don't get me wrong, wearing the Leather Armour over T-51b adds to the survival element, but DR only has a minor affect as far as I can tell, and if you employ all the restrictions discussed, the game's still going to be a challenge.

Agree with all of this, I say no to all bobbleheads. You will end up maxing out your tag skills anyway, so they aren't necessary and will just lead to other skills being bumped up, even if you don't use them.

I've just finished Operation Anchorage (I quite enjoyed it) and now have access to all the goodies in the armory. So, based on what we have discussed here - do I use the Chinese stealth armour, or not? On the one hand, I want to use it, since I've never tried it before (and it looks so cool), but on the other hand, I have visions of me killing enemies completely undetected for remainder of the game. I levelled up a few times in the simulation, so I'm now very close to level 11, at which point I will step up to Hard difficulty - from that point on I may actually need it.

I'd say go for it. True, the CSA is ridiculously over powered, though it's equally stupid to just ignore its existence.

I'm all for enhanced realism via health restrictions and the like -- things about your character, hunger, thirst, carry weight. But purposely ignoring items for the sake of realism is just as stupid as, say, taking out three deathclaws with the Assault Rifle.

You earned that armour, so the least you could do is try it. If it turns out to be a gamebreaker after testing, then possibly ditch it.

Ok, I'll try it until level 12, but to get full benefit I'll have to ditch Charon even though he has been a life saver so far. My loadout will be Chinese stealth armour, Chinese assault rifle, 10mm pistol and maybe, just maybe, the Shocksword.

I really wanted to join the Outcasts, since I do that in every game I play. However, this is the first time I have completed OA fully (it bugged out last time) and alas things didn't end as I would have liked.

Meh, I have a strong disliking for the Outcasts (and the East Coast BoS, for that matter, but that's another story), so mowing them all down was... satisfying.

McGraw was a decent guy, though, and I was happy to keep him alive.

Perhaps another playthrough with no Bobble heads then. It's true that this story warrants a lighter than usual RP, the desolateness I think, requires that. Unlike the full-blown RP experience one of my characters is having in Oblivion right now. More people to interact with, and a larger map, imo, make for better immersion.

As for armor, what I mean is that after the Superior Defender Perk, and yes Ghoul Ecology, it is impossible to not seriously own everything in this game. So balancing out the equation by taking a weaker armor. I'm current wearing Hellfire Armor right now though, as the beating I'm currently taking warrants something tank like. I've taken to wearing Power Armor in the city, and leather armor in the country, as I really take a beating in the city. Dying a lot at the hands of super mutant varieties, which is unpleasant.