Survival or Medicine? : Fallout: New Vegas

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:50 am

Hello again fellow Rangers, Pretorions and securitrons! today im asking you:

SURVIVAL OR MEDICINE??????

i wondered because even on hardcoe mode, medicine is still better at healing than food, so WHATS THE BIG FUSS WITH SURVIVAL ON hardcoe MODE?
any reply's appreciated :fallout:

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:49 am

+HP effects from different foods stack. Stimpacks don't.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:15 pm

Unless you're roleplaying or planning on using the food cooking abilities at fires, it's a novelty feature, much like the gambling skill in F1,2,and T. I personally find Medicine to be far more useful.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:39 pm

Medicine.

I like to get my Survival skill up to 40 so I can make AntiVenom at campfires if I want but I can usually find it on Legionairies a lot so 40 isn't even necessary. I take Animal Friend so the Nightstalker blood becomes hard to get. It's not hard to get the number up with Comprehension and the 4 Wasteland Survival Guides that aren't hard to get...that's 16 points right there. Saving up ingredients and using a skill magazine for a campfire session can net you the items that require a higher Survival. So...go for the Medicine.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:47 pm

+HP effects from different foods stack. Stimpacks don't.

I think they do, chug stimpacks (5-10 at once) in hardcoe mode, they last for a long time and you are invincable.

Survival.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:30 pm

When you take multiple stimpacks their *duration* stacks. When you eat multiple types of food, their *magnitude* stacks.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:16 pm

Medicine is the easiest skill to take for healing obviously, but survival is great for RP reasons. Not to mention that food is much more plentiful, and if you don't mind scrambling around to find the right ingredients, there are some recipes that rival a regular stimpak in healing.

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:53 am

When you take multiple stimpacks their *duration* stacks. When you eat multiple types of food, their *magnitude* stacks.

Yeah but the magnitude of individual stimpacks is already very great with an adequate med skill, throwing in a super stim for a quick boost and chugging stims, it makes you invincable.

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:13 am

Actually, Stim would never achieve the magnitude of regen thanks to Desert Salad.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:20 pm

Medicine is needed more for quests and such (the boomers, head injury etc etc").

I can't think of a single quest or talk where survival was needed to say or do something special.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:06 pm

Medicine is needed more for quests and such (the boomers, head injury etc etc").

I can't think of a single quest or talk where survival was needed to say or do something special.

Speech check in the boomer museum... Siri... uh... ooh yeah! You need to pass a Survival 60 and a Guns 60 to get the best ammo handload, .44 SWC.

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:38 am

If it were just for the healing, I'd say survival. The higher class food items like Cook-Cook Fiend Stew, Desert Salad or Wasteland Omelets outclass Stimpaks by a wide margin. Even more so when Chemist is taken as a perk. Survival also influences other food given effects like DT & AP, from Whiskey, Nuka Quartz, Victory, Sugar Bombs, etc.
Medicine however, has a huge number of skill checks in the game. For that reason I always develop both to around 70-80.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 8:06 pm

Survival is good for Dead Money but that's about it (there are very few stimpacks in Dead Money and you mostly have to rely on food). Overall Medicine is much better.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 8:38 pm

Survival is good for Dead Money but that's about it (there are very few stimpacks in Dead Money and you mostly have to rely on food). Overall Medicine is much better.

Dead Money - Clinic - Reception Desk - Stimpack vending machine code.

Problem survivalist? ;D

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:03 pm

well, Tremble is one neat poison, but it svcks against animals/abnominals. Also with 100 survival skill any alcohol will give you +3 CHR and STR ( but -3 INT)

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:10 pm

Medicine. Useful for checks, pretty neat increase to stimpak effectiveness.

I don't really use survival, if I really knuckled down and learnt a few key recipes I may be more inclined to but I found that pretty quickly there's nothing you can't just buy, poisons exempted but then I never need to use poison, few enemies last more than a couple of hits and my melee character tends to kill everything in one.

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:32 am

Dead Money - Clinic - Reception Desk - Stimpack vending machine code.

Problem survivalist? ;D

lol yea but early on stimpacks are hard to come buy and even after you get the holo for them they can be pricey if you don't have many chips. But yea other than that I will admit it is pretty useless.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:21 pm

lol yea but early on stimpacks are hard to come buy and even after you get the holo for them they can be pricey if you don't have many chips. But yea other than that I will admit it is pretty useless.

Well my The Puppet had an obsessive compulsive disorder so he/she picked up every single chip he/she found.
Was well set for the poison gas after that.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:42 pm

Medicine is better in every aspect. But I like the challenge of food over meds.

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 3:44 am

Survival is the one skill that is kind of meh. it kind of sort of helps in hardcoe mode but rad removal is so easy as it is (just pop into any town with a doc) and food is all over the bloody place. seriously I thought I was walking over an all you could eat bufet at golden corral from hell only cleaner. (jk)

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:51 am

Surival hands down. Go stack a couple of high powered foods like Desert Salad, Trail Mix, or Gecko Steak with a high surival skill. Even the sodas can keep you going. Basically being invinciable.

I can not think of any "difficult' skill checks for medicene. Everyone can be bypassed by a couple of med-x/stim packs.

» Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:32 pm

well, Tremble is one neat poison, but it svcks against animals/abnominals. Also with 100 survival skill any alcohol will give you +3 CHR and STR ( but -3 INT)

On my drunk cowboy/ survival character I took cass as a companion.

So at survival 100 and cass as a companion you get +3 STR +3 CHR +5 DT. Great bonus there for the low str low chr set.

Medicine is good for straight healing but survival boost the benefits of ALL edibles and does pretty good stackable healing.

I like survival for RP purposes mostly. Nothing like hunting big horners

» Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:17 am

Found survival to be extremely potent in hardcoe mode, while medicine was easily king in regular mode.