What if you could choose from multiple races when creating a character? Instead of just humans, I think it would be interesting to have the option to choose to be a ghoul, super mutant, or maybe even talking deathclaw.

I'm thinking that ghouls could have penalties to Strength and Endurance (after all, their skin/muscle has been peeling off in strips, and the fellows are a tad... mushy), but are not attacked by feral ghouls (if they will be an enemy in FOOL, that is). Another idea regarding ferals is that perhaps you could recruit a single one at a time to be a temporary companion, until it dies or you dismiss it. Of course, the most obvious benefit to being a ghoul would be that your character is immune to the detrimental effects of radiation, and is in fact healed by it.

Super mutants would have penalties to Intelligence (Although it would still be possible to create an intelligent character like Marcus or the Lieutenant) Charisma, and Sneak but receive bonuses to Strength, Endurance, and Big Guns. Obviously, they would be immune to radiation (but not healed by it). Super mutants classified as enemies instead of NPCs may or may not attack you, depending on where your character's loyalties lie (I doubt they would be too amiable toward any "human-loving" brethren).

Talking deathclaws would have a penalty to Charisma (while there are talking deathclaws with charismatic personalities, such as Goris, that doesn't really matter much when people feel the urge to run to the hills after taking a single look at your not-even-a-mother-could-love-that face), and would receive bonuses to Agility, Strength, Endurance, and Unarmed. Their attacks have an increased critical hit chance, and an opponent's damage resistance provided by their armor/hide is treated as partially reduced (it's not actually reduced, an unarmed strike from a talking deathclaw just treats it as if it were). On the downside, they wouldn’t be able to equip any armor, although they could wear large, baggy articles of clothing, like how Goris always wore a large robe. Also, the effectiveness of anything involving fine motor skill is severely reduced, such as Big Guns, Small Guns, Energy Weapons, Throwing, First Aid, Doctor, Traps, etc.

I also think that FOOL should have various factions to choose from. Some could be joined regardless of race, while others are race-exclusive. You could assign certain factions to a character when you first create them, as part of your characters background, or you could join certain factions while playing, well after character creation is said and done. For example, you could create a human character who is part of the Enclave as a race-exclusive faction, but you couldn’t join them after creating a human character, since they view you as a mutant (even though you’re really 100% human) due to radiation exposure from your time in the Wastes. You could also make a human character who is part of a Vault, a super mutant who is part of the remnants of the Master’s army, etc. Of course, objectionable behavior against your faction (or rather, getting caught doing it) will cause your character to be kicked out of that faction, regardless of whether your character started out as a member of it.

What do you guys think?

I'm still sitting by my suggestion that you sacrifice your character to create another "race".

Like you have to be XX lvl or something (if it is lvl system otherwhise i dont know... gametime maybe xD) and go to where they "make" mutants, a.k.a somewhere with vats tankers where you get dipped and transforms to either a mutant or ghoul.

And as the fallout bible says: Heavily irradiated humans turn into ghouls, humans that have small irradiation exposure turn into super mutants. Ghouls who are further put against heavy radiation is turned into "glowing ones", but other ghouls somewhat reject glowing ones.

Usually mutants get to keep their intelligence, or only a small decrease of it but sometimes mutants runs the risk of getting very low intelligence due to the dipping process melting your brain as well as your body

I just think it's fun that you have to work your way to become something else, instead of just choosing it and then be it all the time without putting any real effort into it. Also your stats are moved to the other race but are somewhat tweaked.

(im just giving example out of old fallout system)
Like the super mutant, the strength will probably increase, intelligence MAY get lower, agility will probably be lower if it is already high, endurance might get higher (more hit points!), extremely low charisma... luck just stays the same, shouldn't be that affected by anything, perception probably stays the same, balancing issue.

Ghouls will probably have the same intelligence, strength might get lower or stay the same depending on how it was, charisma... low... as hell... endurance will probably be the same or even higher (ghouls are though!), luck doesn't matter i guess it stays the same, agility, iunno, thats a matter of balancing :/, perception, don't know, probably stays the same.

Well, that how I would like it to be at least, just my dear opinion.

I'm still against deathclaws, if they where to become known all other "big" towns would probably move against them since they are... deathclaws... and since almost all where dead in f2 and there where only 2 intelligent deathclaws left to repopulate the race, I could see them as a race but not as an playable one.


and factions ofc, but some should be against some races, like (fallout example), vault city would never allow a super mutant/ghoul entering their inner city.

I don't think that super mutants and ghouls should have excessively low Charisma. In Fallout, Charisma is about how well-received you are in people's eyes. A person's initial reaction toward a super mutant is almost always negative, but keep in mind that the human citizens of Broken Hills came to accept and coexist with the town's super mutants. And of course, Marcus is able to keep the town from falling apart, and keep it self-sufficient and peaceful, and a person definitely needs to be charismatic to a certain extent to pull that off.

In terms of ghoul charisma, I do think that it should be lowered, since they don't really tend to have the most agreeable personalities, but it shouldn't be lowered too much. Also, some people accept ghouls, while others are bigoted and hate them. It would really depend on the situation, I suppose.

Oh! That just gave me an idea: Dynamic Charisma. When you talk or barter with someone, your charisma may be increased or reduced to a certain extent, depending on that NPC's view of your character's race. For example, interacting with your own race wouldn’t change it. To think of some specific examples:

1. As a super mutant you talk to a human NPC who had lived with peaceful super mutants for a few years, Charisma remains unchanged.

2. As a super mutant you talk to a human NPC who’s brother was killed by super mutants a few years ago, Charisma drops significantly.

3. As a human you talk to a ghoul NPC who has a beef with humans for mistreating his kind, Charisma drops slightly.

4. As a ghoul you talk to a human NPC who’s life was once saved by a ghoul, and the NPC says that you remind him of that ghoul, Charisma increases slightly.

5. As a super mutant you talk to a human NPC who is obsessed with comics and loves super mutants because he thinks they look like the Incredible Hulk, Charisma increases significantly.

Well I see charisma as your looks.
The:

Charisma is about how well-received you are in people's eyes

is shown through karma (generally good/bad) and reputation (how different factions feel about you), like in the old fallout. Still just how I see it.

i like the idea of slowly (and optionally) mutate/evolve into ghouls or mutants... or death claws :p In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

if the change to mutant or ghoul would be optional and not a choice from the get go, it should change the relaltions with faction permanently. Would be kind of sad to see a large amounts of mutants fighting with humans instead of against humans,

of coarse the relationship with your old factions change.

If I remember correctly, when turning into a mutant you lose many of your memories as when you where human, ghouls are known to have a very bad memory.

Anyway, If you turn into a super mutant I hardly think anyone would recognize you anyway Ghouls might be recognizable but I.. really don't know xD, it could be faction depending, like VC would probably kick you out the moment they see any kind of mutation on you, while San Francisco might keep you, but I'v never seen any ghouls there.. so they might kick you out, NCR wouldn't really care I think.

Changing into a ghoul could affect reputation instead and as I'v said in other threads, reputation affects quests, like if you have a really low reputation with a faction they won't let you do any real high risk/paying quests until you've built up a good relationship with them.

(the faction where just examples from old fallouts to make it easer to understand )

Wait in what Fallout could you turn into a ghoul or super mutant?

Well in fallout 1 you could become a super mutant, but the game ended after that and the lore suggests that it is fully possible to become a ghoul/super mutant - you just have to be a human first and then be dipped into vats. Your radiation levels when dipped determines whether you become a ghoul or a super mutant.

I like the turn into one better than start so its not just tons of deathclaws and supermutants.

One thing though being dipped in the vats normally wasn't by choice maybe make it a lvl quest so after a certain lvl supermutants capture (not with-out a fight of course) or when you logout and come back you see you are in their base.

Another thing to remember not all mutations were the same(Harold) but all so the should mix the stats change maybe even the possibility of being turn into a mushy but smarter ghoul to keep it interesting.

Harold is special

human with that have high radiation poisoning will turn into a ghoul, but Harold is neither a ghoul or super mutant, so as the fallout bible says: Harold is special.

Well, those are mostly premade races (also I do love the Supermutant and Deathclaw idea), but you left out the androids. Okay, you can't consider them as real race, because they are just sort of a weird copy of humans, but it would be nice to have those. Or maybe as additional path for humans.

This would bring also a new line of character improvement. Don't improve your gear in your local leather jacket shop, instead you visit the junkyard, reassamble the smacked up machines and improve your own body. I always wanted a nice laserrifle as one of my arms . Your stats will alter with your level of customization (that's something I tried to mod in FO3, but heavily failed).

This again brings us to karma and charisma. As a android who looks like a human, you will get a humans charisma, but the more you customize yourself with all sort of parts your charisma will drop.
This also goes to karma. Faction A loves you, because you are sort of a High-Tech-Soldier. Faction B dislikes you, because you are not a real lifeform.

Ofcourse, this is just theoretical and a short roadmap without getting to deep into the details.

Just a few thoughts .

I like the idea of a high level transition into a super mutant. What benefit is there really to being a ghoul though? Super mutant I could see as being beneficial for the strength and added damage resistance, but ghouls are just old, slow and crusty. Either way, ghouls are war-time creations, so it would make more sense if they were a starting race. The only benefit I could see is because they are so much older perhaps they have more skill points to spend during character creation and possibly at level ups. They would also be immune to radiation and some perhaps could be their own light source in the dark (glowing ones).

As taken from fallout.wikia.com

Just one thing, wiki is never a true source of information, first thing you learn from school.

How was Avellone convinced, is Chris still in favor of the "old" ghoul creation system.

And if you look at it irl there is no way that you can survive a large dose of radiation and survive without any sort of medical help, unless your some sort of wonderboy who gets to mutate somehow. Still, whole vault 12 got radiation poisoning and survived, I'm sticking with the FEV infection as well, as far as I know it's the only viable explanation on how they manage to survive.

//my opinion, cant find the wiki quote in the link you sent.
Radiation poisoning

My bad about the link, was a refence from the ghoul article.
Here's the one I'm talking about. Wasn't my intention to reference the wiki as a source but Fallout Bible.
I agree with you that FEV should be in play for ghouls, it's just far fetched to assume that if you drop someone in the Glow he might come out as a ghoul just from radiation.

I'm thinking more of airborne or randomly dispersed FEV. You could argue that the Enclave was trying to make an airborne version of FEV so the original virus was probably not able to transport itself through the atmosphere at the time the bombs touched down. BUT if a bomb hit an FEV lab, the virus could have vaporized and contaminated a large area in fallout or toxic rain form. That's the most viable option I can think of. Since ghouls existed in the pre-Master era I don't really think that dipping someone might could give you a ghoul, the FEV dose would be much more potent than the one the first ghouls experienced. There's also the dialog with Carol, although I consider FO3 dialogs and plot non-canon. She never mentions dipping.

My Ideas for Fallout character creation come mainly from Fallout Tactics where the series introduced many new types of Playable characters.

I would have:

Humans

Super-Mutants

Ghouls

Cyborgs- I would split the the cyborgs into two factions. One faction being More Human than Robot and the other being More Robot than Human. Both with intriguing stats.

I would leave Deathclaws out because they are new to the world and based off lore are still trying to find their way among the humans. Plus I would include Robots in the game but I wouldn't make them playable because it would be hard to wrap lore around them as playable characters and I can see them being too overpowered.

Also as a side note. I think it would be impressive to allow people to paint their own armor. It is something that has been dabbled with in other MMO's but I think adding a armor painter akin to the the Tabard creator in WoW would be a nice new invention. It would also give players a way to distinguish guilds or whatever their equal is in FOOL.

hmm if I remember correctly they spoke of the airborne FEV (the one who "escaped" the tanks due to nuclear explosion) differ slightly from the normal FEV in the tanks, the airborne had been mutated due to the radiation, could be that only the mutated FEV (if my memory serves me right ) can cause people to turn into ghouls.

//about the feral ghouls, is it only Washington humans that turn feral never saw any of those in f1,f2,fot.

Not sure about Androids or Deathclaws.

But I would DEFINITILY be behind the Human - Ghoul - Super Mutant idea.


-Exo

ye :/ Androids (well the robots from FoT are completely dead), could not be playable since:

A: normal robots, the problem is that they are programmed, no AI, so it would be hard playing them.. especially since.. well they can't really think.
B: Robobrain, the problem here is that there aren't that many robots scurrying around, robots are kinda rare and they only exist within the compound in which they where programmed for. And they are no free AI anyway, they are always controlled via a central hub and even if they weren't they are still programmed to do specific things, a.k.a no free will.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Robobrain

The only robot being able to act on free will was Skynet, which was a highly advanced AI, but it was one of a kind

Deathclaws, well intelligent deathclaws are not extinct. The 2 survivors from fallout 2 could have built up a new community with intelligent deathclaws. BUT the sad thing is that if you ever where to walk with a deathclaw near a city they would try and kill you on site.... if you talked they would probably be a bit confused... then kill you. I think that says it all.