In Fallout 1, 2, 3, and NV, your intelligence determined how many skill points you received upon levelling up. This was kind of a problem.

I am not against the idea of Intelligence having some effect on player progression. But in every game in the series so far, I've had to max out my intelligence just so I wouldn't get utterly destroyed by the enemies who levelled up with me.

An intelligent person is able to absorb and process information faster than a dumb person, this is true. But I think it would be best if Intelligence had a more tangible effect on experience gain, as opposed to skill points. You'd level up faster, but you wouldn't level up STRONGER. Otherwise, there's no reason to play as someone who isn't a super-genius.

I'd like to play as a character with above average intelligence (like, 6 or 7), but If it weren't for the skill point issue, I would give my character more charisma than anything else.

Of course, if FO4 is using a skill tree system like Skyrim, with one point granted per level, this might not even be an issue.

Any thoughts?

Do the stupid live longer, and the smart die faster?

Someone who is more intelligent would most likely absorb more information as well, hence the increased skill points.

Also "average" has always been 5.

But you don't need to worry since they got rid of skills altogether in Fallout 4. Yay..

I'm not arguing against the merits of intelligence. I'm just saying that in the Fallout series, there's little incentive to play as a non-genius character. My issue is with the game balance, not the realism.

Though for the record, when the [censored] hits the fan, perception and reflexes might be more important.

Would you consider pop rocks science? or voodoo?

I agree, make INT affect exp, not skill points. We'll still have perks for the latter.

It looks like skill points might be removed anyway tbh, but it'd actually let me attempt a low-INT playthrough for the shiggles without getting frustrated a couple hours in.

Hopefully to counter the poor effects of Intelligence, that it gets a lot of the more powerful perks due to needing knowledge to unlock them.

We don't know enough about the system Beth is using to know if Intelligence will be worthless or not. If all it does is allow you to level up faster then I don't see the need for it to be higher than a 1 for game mechanic reasons (with RPing I doubt I'd have many characters with a 1 intelligence though). If on the other hand it is related to perk requirements; say you need a certain level of intelligence to pick locks, use computers, be a medic, etc. then it may be a very important stat.

That seems agreeable.

Intelligence should be something that pays off more in the endgame than the start.

perhaps high intelligence it will affect how quickly you rank up (or whatever they replace skills with) so a smart person for example can boost their science after hacking a computer or two whilst an dumb person will have to hack a dozen.

likewise I suspect it will remain important for conversations.

I can see skills like Science, Medicine and Repair being directly affected by Intelligence. Speech and Barter should be more dependent on Charisma, though intelligence could have a small effect. It shouldn't have too much of an effect on other skills though, like melee combat or guns.

I just don't want any one SPECIAL stat to completely overshadow the others.

In the stream we already see that intelligence increase EXP. SO this will most likely the new effect of it. Or at least one of it.

It is quite likely that perks will have a stats requirement.

Intelligence will likely govern science which in turn governs the mods you have access to.

Will we be able to make characters like in F1 and F2.

Or do we have similar type of inteligence as F3 and New Vegas?

I'd like to do a playthrough sometime of a COMPLETE idiot character.

Who here as seen the Adventures of Trogg, The Chosen One?

If you have time to read it, you WILL laugh.

http://lparchive.org/Fallout-2/Update%201/

Chosen one was hilarious. New Vegas "dumb" was quite boring

I'd rather have an even more important INT stat with all other SPECIAL attributes having the same significance.

I wouldn't want stats to be mere dressing rather than important elements of the game that honor your choices with consequences.

Don't worry if the game plays anything like previous Bethesda titles intelligence has gone from overpowered to totally meaningless.

If you are intelligent enough in real life to realize that intelligence (the attribute) is the most intelligent choice to level up your character, you're not dumb enough to play a dumb character.

In reality nothing works like the skills or attributes, but they're part of a fun system, a dumb person is inferior to a smarter one, even a very physical person, for example a "musclebound barbarian" will be inferior to a smarter "barbarian" eventually or atleast statisticallly.


I was thinking this morning about how to spend the attribute points, I restarted my character so many times in F3, first spending 10 points on intelligence from the start, then after realizing I couldnt make use of the bobblehead, I had to start over with 9 instead, then I remember there was some other way to get an extra "free" attribute point to intelligence, or maybe there was 2 more, I just remember starting a new character in order to utilize all attribute points.

Now, how will I know how to make the ultimate set up from the get go?

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

The fact that intelligence is literally the *BEST* stat, even for purely physical things? That's pretty broken. In games like D&D, unintelligent characters (like the barbarian you mentioned) are dependent on their other stats for power. A warrior/barbarian with low strength and high intelligence will almost invariably be inferior to one with very high strength. I hate to use Game of Thrones as an example, since I really do not like the franchise, but remember when the Mountain (STR) defeated the Viper(INT)? The intelligence/perception bonus certainly didn't save him.

Fallout's SPECIAL should allow for a multitude of characters with just indirect correlation to archetypical (barbarian for example) character concepts.

How is intelligence the most important stat? All it does is to get you more skill points. Its not as if there are not plenty of skill points available with a 4 instead of a 10 to max out the skills needed. Unless you are trying for some sort of master of everything character it just is not that essential. I'd much prefer to have a maxed luck for the gambling and the crits.

If intelligence in fallout 4 controls the rate at which you gain experience it sounds like that would be a good reason to keep it low to avoid hitting the level cap halfway through the game.

In the beginning of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5H7Qq8quKg

It says intelligence affect the number of XP earned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a confirmation that we no longer have skills? Didn't intelligence used to affect the number of skill points earned during level-up?

Intelligence should be extremely important.

Well, in the older games pretty much all of the stats were too important.

Too low strength? Can barely carry anything, so looting stuff to sell will be difficult.

Too low charisma? Good luck getting companions, better be equipped to handle tougher enemies solo or be able to run out of combat.

Too low Agility? No action points for you then, and my god, without action points you're screwed.

Too low Intelligence? Bye bye skill points, better pick skilled, which means less perk points.

Too low Endurance? Well, at lvl 21 you're gonna be lucky if you survive a criticial hit then.

Too low Luck? Better pick Jinxed to make sure your bad luck rubs off on everyone else.

Also with charisma and intelligence, too low in both? Good luck even communicating with NPC's.

Only stat you didn't need was Perception if you didn't go for a ranged combat character. Which could be fixed easily to be of more importance.

So I actually want Intelligence to be too important. Just like I want every primary statistic to be too important.