» Wed Mar 10, 2010 1:59 pm This is my take on alternate starts, inspired partly by the thread here: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1075096
Most of them make absolutely no attempt to reconcile with the MQ. I haven't played any alternate start mods, so if I'm repeating or overlapping someone else's work, I apologise.
Terminally ill with genetic disease, you spent your fortune to be cryogenically frozen in 2033 in the hope that one day you could be revived and cured. In 2076, a retrovirus with the cure was added to your cryogenic pod, the plan being to revive you in 2078.
It is now 2277 and automated systems have revived you after the 200 year fail-safe system was triggered. You are deep beneath Maryland in a Cryotek Second Chance Vault facility. Your father, with the same illness, was also frozen with your money. He was revived a scant two days before you, but he evidently has not waited for you.
Your constant hospital treatment have given you a familiarity with medical procedures (+10 Med) and days spent in a wheelchair tinkering with hobbies have honed your hand-eye coordination (+10 small guns +10 repair, starts with a choice of Computer Whiz or Robotics Expert, even if the player doesn't meet the requirements), but your frail constitution gives you -1 to both strength and endurance and -10 to Big Guns. Your unfamiliarity with technology developed after you were frozen means you cannot use these weapons as easily (-10 to energy weapons) and you take an agility penalty when wearing Power Armour (additional -1 ag added when Power Armour is equipped).
Starting Loadout
Equipment:
Scavenged from the ruins of the Cryotek Second Chance Vault facility - 10mm pistol, leather armour, baseball bat and hunting rifle all available.
Aid:
Stimpaks (5)
Buffout (2)
It is now 2277 and automated systems have revived you after the 200 year fail-safe system was triggered. You are deep beneath Maryland in a Cryotek Second Chance Vault facility. Your father, with the same illness, was also frozen with your money. He was revived a scant two days before you, but he evidently has not waited for you.
Your constant hospital treatment have given you a familiarity with medical procedures (+10 Med) and days spent in a wheelchair tinkering with hobbies have honed your hand-eye coordination (+10 small guns +10 repair, starts with a choice of Computer Whiz or Robotics Expert, even if the player doesn't meet the requirements), but your frail constitution gives you -1 to both strength and endurance and -10 to Big Guns. Your unfamiliarity with technology developed after you were frozen means you cannot use these weapons as easily (-10 to energy weapons) and you take an agility penalty when wearing Power Armour (additional -1 ag added when Power Armour is equipped).
Starting Loadout
Equipment:
Scavenged from the ruins of the Cryotek Second Chance Vault facility - 10mm pistol, leather armour, baseball bat and hunting rifle all available.
Aid:
Stimpaks (5)
Buffout (2)
[This one requires MZ to make any sense]
In 2021, you were driving home from training with your baseball team when a strange light appeared in the sky. You were taken aboard a UFO by aliens and experimented on in the most horrific ways. Now, for reasons you don't understand, you have been returned to Earth. You are naked, defenceless and alone in a world you don't even recognise.
Next to you is the body of some kind of wastelander [a raider spawns dead at the starting point], clad in improvised armour with a mere 10mm pistol. You should recover what you can from his/her body.
In your previous life, you were a professional baseball player. You start with the Little Leaguer, Toughness and Intense Training perks, even if you don't qualify for them. You also gain a bonus +10 to Melee Weapons, +10 to Unarmed and +5 to Big Guns due to your athletic training. However, alien experimentation has left you with shaky, uncoordinated hands and you take a -15 penalty to Small Guns and Repair, a -10 penalty to lockpick and a -5 penalty to Science. You are prone to flashbacks and irritability (-1 charisma, -5 speech) but your body is stronger even than when you were abducted, giving you +2 to strength and endurance. You hand an unnatural aura about you which makes many people uncomfortable in your presence (starts with -400 karma).
[This is a specialised start for someone wanting to be an evil melee or big guns guy. Big, dumb and destructive.]
In 2021, you were driving home from training with your baseball team when a strange light appeared in the sky. You were taken aboard a UFO by aliens and experimented on in the most horrific ways. Now, for reasons you don't understand, you have been returned to Earth. You are naked, defenceless and alone in a world you don't even recognise.
Next to you is the body of some kind of wastelander [a raider spawns dead at the starting point], clad in improvised armour with a mere 10mm pistol. You should recover what you can from his/her body.
In your previous life, you were a professional baseball player. You start with the Little Leaguer, Toughness and Intense Training perks, even if you don't qualify for them. You also gain a bonus +10 to Melee Weapons, +10 to Unarmed and +5 to Big Guns due to your athletic training. However, alien experimentation has left you with shaky, uncoordinated hands and you take a -15 penalty to Small Guns and Repair, a -10 penalty to lockpick and a -5 penalty to Science. You are prone to flashbacks and irritability (-1 charisma, -5 speech) but your body is stronger even than when you were abducted, giving you +2 to strength and endurance. You hand an unnatural aura about you which makes many people uncomfortable in your presence (starts with -400 karma).
[This is a specialised start for someone wanting to be an evil melee or big guns guy. Big, dumb and destructive.]
You are one of the Brotherhood of Steel's many failed initiates. For whatever reason, the Brotherhood released you after your training was complete. Not entirely heartless, you were given a beaten up set of T45d Power Armour and an AER7 Laser Pistol with some energy cells. Your training was extensive, they took you in as a child, but it has left you without knowledge of the wasteland and its many dangers.
You start at the entrance to the Citadel, the huge door lowering into place behind you. You already have Power Armour training and an expertise in energy weapons (+15) and field servicing (+10 to repair), but your upbringing has made you introverted and aloof, -10 to both speech and medicine. Drill every day gives you +1 to endurance and strength, +2 to agility, but your arrogance as a Brotherhood of Steel initiate and your failure to progress to Paladin gives you -1 to both perception and luck. Your mindset, that of a failure, and your background as an initiate gives you a -2 penalty to charisma.
You start at the entrance to the Citadel, the huge door lowering into place behind you. You already have Power Armour training and an expertise in energy weapons (+15) and field servicing (+10 to repair), but your upbringing has made you introverted and aloof, -10 to both speech and medicine. Drill every day gives you +1 to endurance and strength, +2 to agility, but your arrogance as a Brotherhood of Steel initiate and your failure to progress to Paladin gives you -1 to both perception and luck. Your mindset, that of a failure, and your background as an initiate gives you a -2 penalty to charisma.
That went wrong, very wrong. The bodies of your comrades ware all around you and you were going to be next. You are the sole survivor of the Charlie's Guns For Hire, a mercenary band. Your mission was to retrieve some rare pre-war tech from beneath Old Olney, but you were ill-prepared for what you encountered there, a whole family of Deathclaws. You fought your way in heroically, but were eventually overwhelmed.
Your combat armour is rough (starts at 20% hp) and barely protected you from from the claws of the attacking fiends, but escape you did. Now in a side alley of Old Olney, you have only your wits and your trusty .44 magnum to get out of there alive. Do you escape while you can, or return to the bloodbath and try to salvage what you can from the bodies of your friends - and hope the Deathclaws have moved on? You could use the supplies, your wounds need attention, but is it better to be wounded and walking or well equipped and dead?
Player starts with 3/4 health, a .44 magnum and 36 rounds. He has combat armour, and two hits of psycho. Near the starting location is a stealth boy. In Old Olney are four bodies, all equipped to a similar level (with different guns), but one carries 15 stimpaks and one carries 12 darts and a dart gun. Around them are three Deathclaws, scaled to level 5. The other spawns in Old Olney are all killed off by script when the player starts. It'd be suicide to take them on frontally, but there's a clear path out of Old Olney which doesn't pass by many hostiles.
The player gets no special attributes or skills and is chargened as normal with the exception of gaining one rank in the Gun Nut perk due to his mercenary background. This is an extreme start, meant for experienced players.
Your combat armour is rough (starts at 20% hp) and barely protected you from from the claws of the attacking fiends, but escape you did. Now in a side alley of Old Olney, you have only your wits and your trusty .44 magnum to get out of there alive. Do you escape while you can, or return to the bloodbath and try to salvage what you can from the bodies of your friends - and hope the Deathclaws have moved on? You could use the supplies, your wounds need attention, but is it better to be wounded and walking or well equipped and dead?
Player starts with 3/4 health, a .44 magnum and 36 rounds. He has combat armour, and two hits of psycho. Near the starting location is a stealth boy. In Old Olney are four bodies, all equipped to a similar level (with different guns), but one carries 15 stimpaks and one carries 12 darts and a dart gun. Around them are three Deathclaws, scaled to level 5. The other spawns in Old Olney are all killed off by script when the player starts. It'd be suicide to take them on frontally, but there's a clear path out of Old Olney which doesn't pass by many hostiles.
The player gets no special attributes or skills and is chargened as normal with the exception of gaining one rank in the Gun Nut perk due to his mercenary background. This is an extreme start, meant for experienced players.
Ugh...what WAS that? You have just awoken and a talking tree stands before you. Your memories are gone, you don't know where you've come from or where you're going. All you can remember is drinking something and passing out.
You're clad in the apparel of a roving trader with an assault rifle on your back. Your inventory contains numerous items of junk (but no aid items and very limited ammo, maybe 100 rounds) and 1,500 caps. Were you a trader a scavenger? Maybe, but what's more pressing right now is what that tree wants...
Player starts in the middle of the Oasis quest, with +10 to barter, repair and small guns - Small guns, sneak and repair are tagged. He also gets all the custom schematics (or the warmonger perk) and the Master Trader perk. This one works well with the MQ due to the wonderful amnesia plot device. Canterbury Commons is on the player's map and available for fast travel.
You're clad in the apparel of a roving trader with an assault rifle on your back. Your inventory contains numerous items of junk (but no aid items and very limited ammo, maybe 100 rounds) and 1,500 caps. Were you a trader a scavenger? Maybe, but what's more pressing right now is what that tree wants...
Player starts in the middle of the Oasis quest, with +10 to barter, repair and small guns - Small guns, sneak and repair are tagged. He also gets all the custom schematics (or the warmonger perk) and the Master Trader perk. This one works well with the MQ due to the wonderful amnesia plot device. Canterbury Commons is on the player's map and available for fast travel.
Time to leave, mungo! You're 18 today and it's time to leave Little Lamplight. You're outside Little Lamplight with leather armour (which you made yourself), a 10mm pistol and some ammo. You pocketed 10 portions of cave fungus before you left and you have directions to Big Town. Will you make it?
Your dad left you years ago in Little Lamplight, you barely even remember him. Rumour is, however, that the scav teams saw someone looking very much like your dad near Megaton, but you don't know where Megaton is.
You're well used to dealing with children (child at heart perk) due to your upbringing and everyone in Little Lamplight is taught how to survive, giving you two ranks in the Gun Nut perk. With your school being what it was, namely the best in the wasteland (or the only in the wasteland), you also start with Comprehension and Educated.
However, years of rickets and darkness has left your body weak. You start with -3 to endurance and -1 to strength. You know the way to Big Town (it's already on your map, not not a fast-travel), so it's about time you started moving...
[This is a perk-heavy start intended for a gunslinger and doesn't go well at all with the MQ]
Your dad left you years ago in Little Lamplight, you barely even remember him. Rumour is, however, that the scav teams saw someone looking very much like your dad near Megaton, but you don't know where Megaton is.
You're well used to dealing with children (child at heart perk) due to your upbringing and everyone in Little Lamplight is taught how to survive, giving you two ranks in the Gun Nut perk. With your school being what it was, namely the best in the wasteland (or the only in the wasteland), you also start with Comprehension and Educated.
However, years of rickets and darkness has left your body weak. You start with -3 to endurance and -1 to strength. You know the way to Big Town (it's already on your map, not not a fast-travel), so it's about time you started moving...
[This is a perk-heavy start intended for a gunslinger and doesn't go well at all with the MQ]
