Or does it stay the same throughout the game?

SPECIAL is fixed, but can be temporarily boosted with special items, certain apparel, etc.

Well, I didn't know this.


Luckily, I'm only about 2 hours in.

there are SPECIAL bobbleheads and you have 10 intense training you can take, so between the bobbleheads and 10 intense training perks thats a total of 17 more points you can add to your special, its almost too much really but i usually take all 10.

Sadly you can easily max it out. With Broken Steel you can get a perk that sets all attributes to 9 and go and find all the bobbleheads to seal the deal. Of course, there is no reason to seeing how SPECIAL is pretty useless.

How is SPECIAL useless?

Because it doesn't have as much effect on your character as your individual skills do, of course your skills are increased (or decreased) by your SPECIAL so they in some ways walk hand-in-hand.

Essentially this. You can play the game just fine if you set all of your stats to one with console commands. The game really doesn't take your SPECIAL into account, it's sorta there. There are a few checks here or there, but nothing that makes or breaks the game.

No, this isn't true. Well, unless you've done an entire playthrough with all of your SPECIAL at 1 and had a good time doing it I don't believe you really have a good understanding of FO3 and what you can and cannot do with the SPECIAL. Whereas I've played at least 20 characters and have done almost everything I could think of with my SPECIAL and do understand what they mean and could bore you to tears telling you how they all affect what your character can/cannot do. I'll spare you all of those details.

And although skills do also affect a lot of things, there are some things that some of the SPECIAL affect that skills do not. I'm not saying that every SPECIAL is important. For instance, I firmly believe that Perception after 4, except for the Perks that players who use VATS need it for, is completely useless. I wouldn't want to play with it at 1 though. Below 3 and I feel blind. I like my blips. And Luck, which affects Critical Chance is my favorite SPECIAL, and I almost always play with it at 8 or above, because I really like to carry weapons with a high crit rate and blow baddies heads to bits. Neither of those SPECIAL and the benefits I get overlap with skills and neither of those benefits could be gotten at a level of 1.

You can add to your SPECIAL when you level up, by choosing the Intense Training Perk, then you will be allowed to add one point to your SPECIAL, wherever you may please.

It's actually quite useful. yes, Perception and Charisma don't really do [censored], but Strength, Luck, and Intellegence are extremely good to have points in (For carry weight, skill points, and Crits)