I think that I can claim to be fairly experienced in Fallout 3 with character-building and such, but I'm new to the original Interplay games. I've played a bit, but I haven't gone at all in-depth yet. So I'm just wondering -- how different are the stats? Not as in differences in the system, but differences in how valuable skills are.

Some specific questions: In FO3, Intelligence is important because it allows you to level your skills more per level. Is it the same here? Agility is not so important in Bethesda's game because, although VATS is important, a low Agility can suffice, so other attributed can be increased further. In the originals, AP are actually used to move around and perform actions in battle, so is Agility therefore more pertinent? In FO3, Intense training and the bobbleheads can greatly raise your attributes (and potentially max them out if you forgo several other perks). In the originals, is this true, or do your SPECIAL attributed more or less stay the way you assign them in character creation?

I'd ask more, but I'm the type of person who could write a book of questions about any given subject. If someone could just answer some above questions and perhaps offer other significant tips and/or differences between the two statistic systems, it'd be appreciated somewhat.

All SPECIAL stats are all valuable in the earlier FOs, but it depends on how you want to develop your character. Intelligence is generally important for all characters, especially if you want a character capable of talking.(IMO). I find that Agility is more valuable for characters who have lower endurance (Ability to run, get out of range, or kill them before they kill you). Endurance and Strength works in basic rpg sense, health and resistance while strength deals with damage output for melee, how much you can carry, and other factors (Note, heavy weapons tend to have Strength checks). Perception can lead to some humorous situations as they can effect your examine descriptions, the description you get when you first enter a town, etc. And some perks will raise your SPECIAL/Skill attributes but I believe most of them are temporary increases for certain situations.

Also, for character development, you'll want a form of balance. Having a skill at 1 will generally lead to some complications later in the game, I generally don't place any attributes under 4. And finally, the best choice is experimentation. Don't be afraid to reroll your character and start again. Hell, after playing both games multiple times, I still find myself screwing up in character creation and restarting...even though it tends to be rare after your first few characters.

Well, to be honest, the difference between stats in original Fallouts and F3 is HUGE.

Strength - determines carry weight and melee damage, plus amount of starting HitPoints a effectiveness with throwing weapons.

Perception - determines effectiveness with ALL Ranged weapons(Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons) - Perception lower than 6 means your effective range is quite limited.

Endurance - determines amount of HitPoints, Radiation Resistance and Poison Resistance.

Charisma - determines maximal number of followers( charisma/2 rounded down).

Intelligence - determines number of Skill Points per level AND NUMBER OF DIALOGUE OPTIONS.
- character with Intelligence lower than 4 means your character is unable to speak coherently and a lot of quests are unavailable(but its definitely worth a try - some dialogues are hilarious)

Agility - determines number of ActionPoints(VERY IMPORTANT) and ArmourClass.

Luck - determines Critical Chance and chance to discover Special Encounters.

In Fallout 1, stats can be raised only by 1 point each(except for the +3 raise from Power Armor) - Strength, Perception, Endurance, Intelligence, Agility can be raised by EXPENSIVE operations,
Charisma can be raised at a certain special encounter and Luck can be raised by a certain NPC(if you let him lay Tarots).

In Fallout 2, there are more ways to raise stats.
- you can raise every stat by 1 point each with Perks(unlike F3, where you can raise one stat multiple times)
- in game, you can find 4 modules which can be used to perform operations in San Francisco to raise Strength, Perception, Charisma and Intelligence by 1 point.
- Luck can be raised by 1-2 points(or lowered by 1 point) by a certain NPC, if you let her perform Zeta Scan.
- you can raise charisma by 1 point by wearing Mirrored Shades in one of your weapon slots
- Power Armor raise Strength by 3 points and Advanced Power Armor by 4 points.

During character creation, you can choose Trait Gifted(F1 and F2), which raise ALL STATS by 1 point but side effect is, that you will receive 5 SkillPoints less at Level-Ups and ALL Skills are lowered by 10% at startup.

But as Omeene already mentioned, all depends on what kind of character you want to play.
If you want good Sniper, Perception 8+ is a must, Endurance and Strength 6+ for Melee specialists.
Agility 10 can be taken with every build. Intelligence should never be lower than 6.....

Yeah, all special attributes is more important in fo 1 and 2 than in fallout 3. Exept intelligence and luck is nearly equal important in all 3 games. Agility was useless in fo3, as it doesn nessessary give even one extra shot to weapons in vats.(around 25-33% higher ap in 10 agi than in 1 agi.)


In those original fallouts, you should have always agility so you could run away from monsters or attack more often. Making it lower than 5, cripples your character greatly. Most useless special is charisma. Strenght isnt either very important, as you get it from powerarmor and from memory chip(fo2) or with surgery(fo1).


You can have all special attributes maxed too. Just pick at start maximum of luck, intelligence and endurance to make levels gain benefit as possible. Other attributes are optional. Then take gambling atleast to 80, so you will get infinite amount of money and you can buy drugs much as you want to and at every battle, just buff you out with jet, buffout, mentats etc. and you have all special skills at 10. (drugs are cumulative in older fallouts, so if you take 2 buffouts, you will get +4 strengt and +4 agility.)

Power Armour also raises strength in FO1.