Create-a-companion!

Post » Sat Nov 28, 2015 12:51 am

"Hi, I'm Rod. You're a big boy, aren't you? That vault suit is tight in all the right places. Boxers, or briefs? Or, you know, something taken from a washing line?"

Back-story: Buffout.

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Jon O
 
Posts: 3270
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 9:48 pm

Post » Fri Nov 27, 2015 1:41 pm

Warning, wall of text incoming :D . None of it is very original, but at least I get to indulge my graphomania :bonk:

Dr. Jones

Spoiler
A non-hostile supermutant companion. Before becoming a supermutant he was a brilliant young scientist, and retains a talent for science as well as some of the extensive scientific knowledge he had. However he doesn't remember anything about his pre-mutation life except that people called him Dr. Jones. Unlike Fawkes he struggles with his nature and sometimes needs to be stopped from smashing things when he gets frustrated, he's also naive about many things. Apart from being a strong fighter he gives the player a bonus to science when he's a companion, maybe some kind of crafting bonus. Also whenever the PC can threaten someone in dialog he gives a bonus to chance of success.
Quest
Spoiler
Eventually Dr. Jones will start feeling unhappy and isolated because he wants to be with others of his kind but all other supermutants he's met are mindless and agressive. Also mostly everyone in the wasteland fears and distrusts him because of who he is.
If the PC joins the Institute he will decide that he wants to conduct some scientific research into restoring intelligence to other supermutants. He'll ask the player to help him set up a lab and get information about FEV and other things that will help his research. When he and PC have gathered what he needs to get started he'll begin his research and will give the PC an additional science based bonus.
If the PC joins BoS, Dr. Jones will hear from someone in the Brotherhood about supermutants who retained their intelligence, maybe on the West Coast or in the Mojave, maybe somewhere closer and will want to go there immediately. PC can talk him out of it but he'll then want to set up an expedition to go there and will ask PC to help him find others who want to go there, get weapons, provisions and everything needed for such a journey. After finding some people who want to go with Dr. Jones the quest is completed and the player gets some kind of exploration based bonus, but the journey is delayed until all the necessary preparations have been made (until the end of the game).
Finally the PC can persuade him that he'll never find any company he can belong to and he's better off sticking with the PC. This will get Dr. Jones some kind of combat bonus, because travelling with the PC involves a lot of fighting.

Jeremy

Spoiler
He is a famous scavenger, known for looting places everyone else is too afraid to go near. If a player clears a location known to be dangerous, he will enthusiastically agree to join forces or maybe offer it himself. It will soon become clear that he is not really interested in caps and loot but in danger and action. He's basically a thrill seeker and doesn't care too much if he lives or dies although there will be situations even he will want to avoid. An excellent and tough fighter but reckless most of the time, can also find humour in situations others would find too life threatening, prefers to kill enemies with explosives or heavy weapons (rockets, mini mukes etc). Will complain if you recruit him and then leave him in the base for too long, if you ignore his complaints will leave to find his own adventures. Gets a bonus fighting especially tough enemies.
Quest
Spoiler
After some travelling together will open up about his past. When he was young raiders killed everyone but him in his settlement, including his whole family. Hevily traumatised, he escaped and found his way to another settlement but all he could think about was revenge on the raiders. Eventually he tracked down the gang that attacked his settlement and methodically hunted down everyone in that gang. His revenge complete, he realised he didn't really have anything else he cared about in life so he just wondered the Wasteland tempting death. You can tell him that in the Wasteland this is as good a way to live as any and he will get a further combat bonus. Alternatively you can help him find things and people to care about, it will take time and he will be reluctant at first but your efforts will be successful eventually and he will get some kind of noncombat bonus (maybe crafting?) and will no longer complain if you leave him at the base.

Doris

Spoiler
Orphaned from a very young age she has survived all kinds of dangers, raider attacks, mutated animals, members of all factions tried to take advantage of her, she was captured by raiders at one point but escaped, etc etc. When you meet her she is a young woman and very damaged from everything she's had to live through. She never knew her real name, Doris is a name she found on some pre-war commercial holotape and decided to keep for herself. She is fiercely loyal to and really protective of the PC, as just about the only person who was ever nice to her, but sees pretty much everyone else as a threat, and is really paranoid and trigger happy when she feels threatened. Also the PC fascinates her as a person from the pre-war time, a time she sees as a fairytale utopia. She is very good at attacking from stealth and gives a bonus to detecting enemies, also she has some kind of bonus to damage resistance or health regen when her health gets low.
Quest

Spoiler

She will keep asking the PC about their pre-war life and what it was like and will refuse to believe anything negative you tell her about that time. She will tell the PC how much she wished she lived at that time instead of now. You can then tell her that that time is gone and will never return, she will then become even more paranoid and defensive of everything else in the Wasteland but will get some bonuses towards defending the PC in combat, something like increased combat strength if PC's health is low. Alternatively you can restore a house for her at your home base to something close to a pre-war condition and get all kinds of pre-war stuff to create a piece of pre-war life for her. She will then become happer and calmer but also more detached from the post-apocalyptic reality, her mind increasingly in the past as she imagines it. Not sure what sort of bonus this would give.

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Bek Rideout
 
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Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 7:00 pm

Post » Fri Nov 27, 2015 10:56 pm

I can see a couple options. One would turn your spouse into really your sister/brother. The kid is their kid, but you are helping out. So you would grab all the data at character generation. It'd please all the folks that want to play a single guy/girl or gay.

And it'd be neat to see how much of the voiced dialog you could salvage to flesh out the companion.

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michael flanigan
 
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Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:33 pm

Post » Fri Nov 27, 2015 10:39 am

I want a companion who is EXACTLY like Ronda Rousey, beautiful and bad ass!! If you don't know who she is then you've been living under a rock. Google her...then YouTube her...you'll understand why!

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Meghan Terry
 
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Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:53 am

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