Bobbleheads might be good for a point or two along the way, but anyone know how we will bump our SPECIAL's by other means?

Seems they will be more important than ever. I would hate to burn through most of the content hunting bobbleheads just to try better perks.

You can pick a SPECIAL every level

Edit: Choose between a SPECIAL or a Perk every level

I'll probably do a 2 perks to every 1 SPECIAL upgrade. We don't know exactly how magazines will work and that will also figure into my consideration.

Good to know! Now I won't max something early to get a desired perk and waste the freebies from mags (or bobbles- I forget).

I read somewhere that levels peak out at 51. Some perks seem to have incremental values (I assume from spending more points into the same perk).

If I get this right- we could easily burn up 51 points maxing out a very limited number of perks.

Am I missing something else? Sorry if my questions seem academic to savvy users.

There's no level cap at all. There's a rumor that our health stops increasing after level 51, but that's unconfirmed. You can totally level well into the 300 odd levels to gwt all of the perks... although at that point I imagine you'll be out of things to do by then.

Magazines have unique perks, and some (e.g. grognak comic books) have incremental perks that level as you read more of those magazines. I know this was confirmed somewhere, but I don't know the source.

I think that SOME magazines have unique perks. Not all. "Some of these grant an individual Perk, while others up the rank of a Perk associated with that magazine." It's possible though total speculation that this could affect standard perks. (Gun nut or Medical?)

no they are all unique... what they mean by that is that some magazine will give you the perk right away in its final finished form.. while other magazines need to be gathered in order to upgrade the base perk

like with the barbarian perk.. the first issue gives the perk.. but if you find more issues it ranks the perk that the first magazine gave you up instead of giving you a new one.

Yeah, there are over a hundred magazine perks. I doubt any of them will be perks from the perk chart - that would really imbalance what they've done with SPECIAL and level requirements.

And some perks will be level locked. So you'll probably have times where there aren't any perks you'll want to take and so you can choose to stick that point into stats instead.. maybe you can save points up as well and then just spend them when you need them. I have no knowledge about that.

Pretty sure you can. The video shows that you can exit out of the chart without picking a perk, and it shows the number of perks you have accumulated. Besides, why would they force you to pick a perk immediately? This system doesn't have anything like the older systems that necessitated that.

Oh yeah, since no one's seemed to post it yet and it's really the crux of this discussion: https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/fallout-4s-character-system/2015/09/24/31

Here's a question. There seems to be less SPECIAL points to spend this time around. What level is considered "average" for a stat in Fallout 4? New Vegas's love-tester machine at least gave us some sort of idea, with the various levels described. "13 pitch black cats, Two-Headed Coin Flip" in the case of Luck. But is 5 the "average" level? I'm just going by how the player's stats were distributed in the gameplay demo. Lots of 3s.

if you evenly distribute the points between all stats on character creation, they will all start at 4. so by that tidbit of knowledge we can assume that 4 is the "avarage" level.

The only reason I was unsure is because storing up points can be kind of used in cheaty manner. Just stack up the points until you reach something that needs a requirement. .. reload, spend points. Obviously not the most efficient way to build a character.

You mean like in Skyrim? That's exactly how Skyrim worked. You had perk trees and the system REQUIRED you save perks for later otherwise you'd end up wasting them on things worthless to your build.

I'm still trying to figure out if bobbleheads will give us SPECIAL points still, or if they now do something new.

since perks have MUCH stronger effects than special increases, and specials are basically there to get to the perks i think youll benefit the most if you choose your special in a way that you dont have to increase them for a long while...

imo the smartest thing to do is choosing your special so that you are not gated somewhere and can use any ability / content in the game you like...

The bobble heads MIGHT increase special... or they might just give you a free perk point you can spend anyway you like. Or they give some other unique bonus that can't be duplicated by leveling. I'm going to wager on it being one of the latter two.

We also shouldn't discount the existence of cybernetic implants also being used to increase special points.

I guess so.. It's been so long since "legendary" was introduced I really can't remember how I played before it. There's really no way to waste points in legendary. "Oh no, I'm out of points, guess i'll go craft some stuff."

Edit: forgot to say that I was commenting on required stats and perks for quests in that last post. Skyrim never really locked you out of quests because you didn't have a perk, skill or stat. The only thing I can remember were the mage spells.. Fallout has (in the past at least) had a butt load of events that you can't do unless a skill or stat is at the right level to unlock that quest. Don't have science up to 50?.. oh, well, can't have that conversation and get that quest. .. That's what I meant when I said it can be used in a cheaty manner ( if that system still holds for F4. )

Example: You're level 32, you've saved up 12 points because you're saving them for your actual character build... but then you come across a mission that requires a science perk level of 3. You learn that this mission unlocks a major uber weapon.. but you weren't buidling a scientist. However, it would only take you 9 points to get there. The temptation now is .. stick with your character build or unlock what you need to to get that mega uber weapon.

I'd feel super weird if we could get implants in a run down clinic in New Vegas, but not a research facility with Enclave level tech.

I don't remember ever coming across a quest that required a certain skill level or perk to complete, let alone start. All of the checks were for shortcuts or alternate paths.

And we don't even know if we require extra ranks of the Hacking/Lockpicking perks to even attempt harder locks, or if it's like Skyrim and we can attempt all locks at any point in the game.

I'm hoping lockpicking and hacking are like skryim. I hated being level locked out of even attempting to do something. "I'm sorry, you too stupid to put bobby pin in hole right now,. come back later."

even better, when you did come back, that "very hard" lock that needed 100 lockpicking to unlock you found a while back had crap in it for loot: a clipboard, 5 caps, and a chinese pistol, or a laser pistol if you got lucky, and a couple rounds of commonplace ammo.

Yeah, that was pretty bad as well. It hardly ever felt like the prize was worth the effort it took to get it.