[Karl harris]

Hi everyone, looked around a little and noticed there was no 'Create a Perk' thread (unless its been buried, in which case I cannot find it).

I thought it would be cool to see what ideas players have for perks and how these perks could be integrated into the game. With upcoming DLC, who knows, Bethesda may take inspiration from your ideas. This could also be a space to voice your opinion on the return of some perks.

I'll keep a list of perks people want back here as well:

-And Stay Back!

-Animal Friend (like the old versions)

-Child at Heart

-Contract killer

-Cowboy

-Grunt

-Handloader

-Junk Rounds

-Lawbringer

-Shotgun Surgeon

-Trigger Discipline

-Wild Wasteland

My perk ideas (these are not spoilers):

Spoiler

-Adrenaline Junky (Endurance):

Rank 1: Melee damage increases progressively when at 50% or less health.

Rank 2: Being within 5m of an enemy causes their accuracy to faulter, and may cause some to flinch on the spot.

Rank 3: Being within 5m of an enemy causes your damage resistance to increase.

Rank 4: Taking damage will increase melee damage output, resetting whenever you hit someone, or if you leave combat or enter 'caution' mode.

-Anarchy Rules (Strength):

Rank 1: Can now build Raider-esque aesthetic items. Can attract ex-Raiders as settlers via Bars to bolster your private force. Ex-Raiders reduce happiness in settlements, but are significantly stronger than traditional settlers, and can go out on Raids to earn you large income bonuses by assigning them to Raiding jobs.

Rank 2: Can now build Super-Mutant-esque aesthetic items. Combat arenas can now be constructed, and will raise the happiness of Ex-Raiders significantly. Can compete in Combat Arenas and earn caps from winning fights, Combat Arenas will, themselves, produce income.

Rank 3: Can now build creature pens for Mirelurks, Molerats, Radstags, Yao Guais, and use them as farms, requiring that you obtain 'pristine' eggs from their lairs for their construction. Can now enter the slave-trade and assign your ex-Raiders as slave-hunters.

-Chem Saboteur (Intelligence):

Rank 1: Can combine chems and Grenades to create 'concoctions'. Can also spike NPCs Chem-Stashes and assassinate them.

Rank 2: Can combine Syringes and Grenades to create 'concoctions'.

Rank 3: 'Concoctions' AoE is doubled in size and will no longer-effect you or your companions.

-Cybernetics Integration (Intelligence - Requires Institute Allignment):

Rank 1: Can now wear and mod Cybernetic attachments for your legs and arms.

Rank 2: Can now wear and mod Cybernetic attachments for your torso and head.

Rank 3: Gain access to enhanced modifications.

-Deadly Demeanour (Strength):

Rank 1: Can intimidate Humans/Ghouls in conversations to get information out of them. Doing so can backfire and cause them to attack you. Doing so infront of security causes immediate backfire.

Rank 2: Can intimidate sellers to reduce prices by 20%. Can only be done ONCE each in game month per seller. Can backfire, and will backfire in the presence of security. Can intimidate Mutants/Synths in conversations.

Rank 3: You can now 'bully' any NPC, and force them to perform certain actions for you such as Steal or give you items from their inventory. Doing so can backfire.

Rank 4: Can activate the perk to cause all NPCs to flee a small area for a short time period, including security, allowing you to investigate an area, or steal uninterrupted.

-Geek-Speak (Intelligence):

Rank 1: You are a technical genius, gain special speech options when talking to scientists.

Rank 2: Can confuse robots in conversations and defy their logic. Be wary it can backfire!

Rank 3: Can flirt with scientists and build special relationships (limited to one per town) which provides free goods and favours. Be wary, a scorned scientist is a deadly one!

Rank 4: All settlements you control can now attract a 'Scientist' specialist, who will produce certain chems at a steady rate. Scientists will also act as Rank 4 merchants if assigned to Clinics.

-Intel Officer (Agility - Requires Railroad allignment).

Rank 1: Can now distinguish humans apart from synths.

Rank 2: Can now spread rumours around in populated areas to divert security and enemies from an area.

Rank 3: Rumours you spread can now be devestating to the target, and can cause settlements to kick members of the population out, or kill them for you.

-Nuclear Arsenal (Perception - Requires allignment with BoS):

Rank 1: Gain access to unique Fatman and Missle Launcher mods.

Rank 2: Gain access to Power-Armour Missle & Grenade Launcher shoulder mods (activatable via VATS).

Rank 3: Gain access to advanced Nuclear Payload Grenades & Mines.

-Slinger (Perception):

Rank 1: Can throw 'Fast' Melee weapons for 3x Damage. Bladed weapon will impale the enemy until removed resulting in a Bleed effect, non-bladed will cause the enemy to stagger/fall. Note weapons cannot be removed from thick skinned enemies such as Deathclaw's or Power Armour wielding foes until killed.

Rank 2: Can throw 'Medium' Melee weapons for 2.5x Damage. Bleed and Stagger effects are increased.

Rank 3: Can throw 'Heavy' Melee weapons for 2x Damage. Kills via thrown weapons have a chance of splattering enemies, causing AoE damage.

Rank 4: Extracting thrown weapons will perform significant damage and maim the enemy. If the damage causes health to drop to near-death the enemy will die immediately.

-Syringe-Master (Intelligence):

Rank 1: All syringes are now 50% more effective/longer in duration. Gain access to novel Poisons.

Rank 2: All syringes are now 100% more effective/longer in duration. Gain access to Explosive Syringes.

Rank 3: All syringes are now 200% more effective/longer in duration. Gain access to Hack-Syringes (Robot/Power Armour targeting effects).

Bring-back Perks:

-Child at Heart.

-Contract Killer.

-Lawbringer.

[Tanya Parra]

-Explorer. (returning from previous games: shows all Locations on map but you can still only fast travel to places you have been)

Yes, largely useless and kind of defeats the ~point~ of actually exploring, but at level 85 I have very little else I -want- to spend perks on, but Explorer would let me see all the locations I managed to bypass, which might lead to content I did not know was there because I happened to always avoid it.

[Ymani Hood]

Could be added in as sort of a Rank 2 VANS perk? I can see why you would want it, and at lvl 70 it would interest me as well.

[Rach B]

Caravan perk - you can play caravan with NPCs.

[adame]

Had been perfect as an high level upgrade for VANS, say level 40 or higher to take.

[Jack]

Survivalist - about a rank 3-4 END perk.

Rank 1: harvest double from wasteland animal/creatures

Rank 2 unlocks rare recipes that allows you to combine two 'cooked' meats into a meal for an added bonus. Meal would be an added option in cooking now (only accessible if you have rank 2 of the perk ofc.


I would like the ability to highlight corpses. This could either be its own perk - Necrovision, or rolled into either awareness or VANS as a rank 2.


Collector perk - again this could be its own or a high level rank 3 for either awareness or VANS. Highlights rare items like magazines, bobblehead, Unique weapons.


I would like a poison resistance perk, could be its very own perk but I would prefer it rolled into lead belly.

Slight addition rework of lead belly:

Rank 1 removes radiation poisoning from food, Ads minor resistance to poison

Rank 2 removes radiation poisoning from water, adds medium poison resistance

Rank 3 adds major poison resistance


Another perk I would like to see is the ability to craft gold/sliver inlays into weapons mostly aesthetic but does increase weapon value. Could be its own perk but would be best if they added it to blacksmith.

Slight addition to Blacksmith perk:

Rank 1&2 of blacksmith allows to you add aesthetic silver inlays of various deaigns (requires X amount of silver scrap) to your weapons, greatly increases weapon value.

Rank 3&4adds gold inlays (better move valuable as rank increases)

[sally coker]

I don't need anything new, and we don't have to look very far:


Handloader


Shotgun Surgeon


And Stay Back!


Cowboy (Chah, right...when pigs fly out of Todd's butt)


Grunt

[Anna Kyselova]

Yup, would be a completionists dream come true as well.

Yeah I think that would be helpful for when you go and loose that legendary you just killed off. Would be nice if it was part of VATS as another thread is suggesting.

For the collector perk I think there is a mod that does something like that. On console myself so cant use it, but it basically makes magazines and perks glow-in-the-dark. Could be useful if Bethesda just took the mod and integrated it since it does the job quite well if you go by the download numbers on Nexus.

I like that, reminds me of a game 'Black' that came out towards the end of the PS2 lifespan. The completionist would eventually unlock a 'black' edition of a gun, but I think you could get gold and silver weapons as well by achieving some kill-count. Its too bad that game was never completed, left on a massive cliffhanger and always wanted to know what happened.

Hand Loader was a pretty cool perk, too bad ammo-crafting has been removed from the game for FO4.

The Shotgun Surgeon perk would make a cool return if shotguns stop recieving the benefits from the Rifleman perk. It feels like that perk covers too many weapons as is anyway. I would say 'And Stay Back' should be like a late perk addition for Shotgun Surgeon rather than its own perk though.

The cowboy perk I personally didnt like too much but I can see why you want its return. I just felt like its benefits where all over the place.

I didnt know about the grunt perk until looking it up, again it just feels all over the place looking at its description. I can see why someone would want it, would be cool if it makes a return WITH unique dialogue options to recreate the 'character' build idea.

In fact it could be cool if taking any perk with similarities to Grunt and Cowboy blocks taking the other perks, and then add in a few more that act similarly granting a number of bonuses with unique dialogue.

[Ice Fire]

Perk of ice and fire: increases freezing and fire damage would be under intelligence and higher levels cause burning to have a chance of enimies running in random directions shouting "I'm on fire" and freezing has a chance to cripple limbs from frost bite.

[Pixie]

Sounds like a fun perk. Only downside I see is that it needs Legendaries with the Freeze/Burn mods attached.

[El Khatiri]

Yea, totally agree! I always took the Handloader perk. Plus, I really miss my shotgun perks!!

[phillip crookes]

Time manipulation perk.

When using this you will automaticly consume Jets if they are in the inventory. Has a cooldown of 24 hours.

1st rank at level 20, needs 4 agility: Slows down time for 10 seconds to the point that you can actually see bullets heading towards you, and can even dodge some if you are quick enough. Rockets, mininukes and other slower moving projectiles can be easily dodged. Uses 2 Jets

2nd rank at level 30, needs 6 agility: Slows down time even more for 11 seconds to the point that you can dodge bullets easier. Uses 3 Jets

3rd rank at level 40, needs 8 agility: Slows down time even more for 12 second to the point that you can easily dodge bullets. This rate of passing time will be called bullet time. Uses 4 Jets

4th rank at level 50, needs 10 agility: Slows down time for 13 seconds to bullet time, except time is being slowed down to the extreme, automatically, whenever a projectile traveling faster than a bullet is heading towards you and impact is imminent (lasers, plasma etc), giving you a chance to evade it; once you considered you evaded it, you can go back to bullet time with the push of a button. Uses 5 Jets

You will move faster and faster with each rank, allowing you to dodge bullets and laser beams. To you, movement, shooting speed/melee weapon swinging will look like ussual, not slowed down like when using a Jet.

Might sound crazy. Perk is inspired from Max Payne.

[Amy Masters]

Teleportation grenades!

You unlock the ability to create teleportaion grenades in the workshop or buy them at stalls. You throw the grenade and when it 'blows up' you teleport to whereever it is, wherever the grenade lands.

Could be a cool little perk.

I understand this could just be a weapon but, making it a perk makes it special and harder to reach, you actively have to choose it.

Obviously some areas of the game are unreachable and would crash the game maybe so, the grenade just wouldn't detonate in that case, much like artillery when you're out of reach, it just tells you at the top left of the screen.

What do you think?

[Marie Maillos]

Home Base - Additional damage resistance when you're near an allied settlement. Each rank increases DR

Criminal Scum - Chance for AoE intimidation after committing a crime. People won't try to take their stuff back if it's stolen -> People won't attack you if you murder someone --> increased area of effect

Personal Army - Send settlers/Minutemen to do 'under attack' quests for you and you get half the quest's exp --> Send them to do Preston's radiant quests for half the quest's exp --> Send them to get full quest exp

Human shield - When your health is low, there is a chance attacks on you will be transferred to your companion. Perks raise the threshold or increase the chance

Marathon - Sprinting drains AP slower with each perk

Chain Reaction - Additional exp for each enemy killed within 20 seconds of each other, and without taking damage

Weapon of Choice - Do additional damage with named weapons

Focused Chi - doubled range of fists and melee weapons

Audiophile - Increased range of radio signals and a map marker showing the source. Special access to an all-music version of Diamond City Radio.

Quirks

Vegetarian - Double the benefits from Vegetables and vegetable dishes, with meats reduced to 1/4

Carnivore - Opposite of vegetarian

Feel the Burn - Increased burning damage and decreased freezing damage

Stay Cool - Opposite of Feel the Burn

Bring back Trigger Discipline and Junk Rounds

[SiLa]

I remember the good old days of freaky-ass Max Payne, was a great game and their new IP Quantic Break looks awesome (dont have XBOX One to play it though).

I'll be honest I dont like that it consumes multiple Jet or has a daily cooldown, personally I think it'd be better if it just altered Jets effects and leave it at that. Could be great if it also gave you cool speech options with Jet users like Hancock, but comes with the side effect of a permanent Jet addiction which grows more problematic with each rank. Would be a nice trade off for something potentially OP.

I like that idea a lot, would be cool if it required an allignment with the Institute, and bundled with three other faction-specific perks.

I like all of these, but I especially love Criminal Scum! Sounds like it could be attached with some cool RPG elements. Would make me feel like a badass, robbing people wherever I go

I also like Audiophile quite a bit, just cause it drove me absolutely insane trying to find some of the hidden hatches.

[Eoh]

Butcher.


Seems daft to me(and this is apparent in lots of games by lots of different Devs, not just beth)but why when I hunt a large animal such as for example a radstag, why do I get only one poxy piece of meat? With the butcher perk you 'butcher' the whole animal, you get lots of meat, you even get to keep the bones.

[Jesus Sanchez]

I liked the old Fallout 3/FNV version of the "animal friend" perk, where most of the animals are non-hostile unless attacked (ie they don't need to be "pacified" as in F4).

It doesn't feel right to go around slaughtering all these animals that have struggled to survive and re-establish themselves in the wake of the apocalypse - presumably they are vital for the recovery of the wasteland ecology and thus a benefit for us humans?

I used to quite like passing by a family of Yao Guais foraging around their den, or a colony of mole rats snuffling in their tunnels. O.k. deathclaws, radscorpions, bloatflies and giant mosquitoes are always going to get some buckshot, but there are plenty of them to keep the game lively.

[Mark Churchman]

I would LOVE a perk that would highlight bodies until they have been looted. Ideally by highlighting them the same way that the second rank of the Scrapper perk highlights items that contain components you have tagged. I often snipe things from very far away and it's often impossible for me to find the body to loot.

I also would really like a second rank of the Awareness perk that would show the actual armor values for each body part. I was hoping that's what it did when I took it so I would know where to target. As it is, I feel like the perk is pretty useless. Actually, instead of a second rank that does this I think the first rank should do it.

[katie TWAVA]

I got one...it's always bothered me a little that while wearing power armor, you could not sprint unlimitedly (of course burn up power cores, but AP?) you're in power armor why the drain of AP, makes no sense to me...so yea, have a perk for that..

[Samantha Wood]

>> Unloader:

Rank 1: Using a toilet bowl in the morning (4AM - 9AM) will grant you extra XP and +1 Luck for 1 hour

Rank 2: Using a toilet bowl in the evening (6PM - 11PM) will grant you extra 25% Health and +1 Luck for 1 hour

Rank 3: Ability to build clean toilet bowl in your settlement and using them will replenish your Health and +1 Perception for 1 hour

Rank 4: Nature may call you anytime. Use any bushes to unload your waste while there's no enemy around. Unloading waste outdoor will replenish your Health.

Bonuses only can be obtained once in 10 hours

>> Fresh Meal:

Rank 1: Taking breakfast (4AM - 9AM) will grant you +1 Strength, +1 Perception, +1 Luck, +1 Charisma, +2 Endurance for 2 hours

Rank 2: Taking lunch (12PM - 3PM) will grant you +1 Strength and Health regeneration for 1 hour

Rank 3: Taking dinner (6PM - 9PM) will grant you +1 Perception and faster AP regeneration for 1 hour

Rank 4: Eating is important! Replenish 5% health more and cure 10% of your Rads by eating any food at any time

Bonuses only can be obtained once in 10 hours

>> Got Your Back:

Rank 1: Equipping your human companion with Sniper Rifle and telling them stay will give you Sniper backup as long as you are within 200m range

Rank 2: Sniper companions have more accuracy and 5% chance of more headshots and limb shots

Rank 3: Call your sniper back to you with a companion secret code. Aim your crosshair wherever they're located and press X to give the code to come back to you

Rank 4: Mayday! Mayday! Give your companion a missile launcher and they will rain down emergency missiles when you're health is below 20%. Friend's missiles may damage player so make sure to stay clear. Only works outdoor.

[[ becca ]]

Agreed, I think the new version, especially since it requires a gun (as far as I know) is a bit of a downgrade from the original. Would be nice if an additional rank was added which made the gun thing unnecessary.

Seems this has been suggested a few times, at least one other thread and one commenter here want this. Would be nice to see it in the game.

All of these would be great. Throw in the appropriate SFX and they'd be awesome.

Some other ideas I had (not actually spoilers):

Spoiler

-Rule Breaker (Luck 10):

Rank 1: The Luck SPECIAL may modulate two stats as though it was the relevant SPECIAL, however, it may also reduce two stats. The rolls are performed each day, or after sleeping. Stats changed are not shown to the player.

Rank 2: Up to four additional stats may now be positively affected.

Rank 3: It will never reduce stats, and will always raise at least one additional stat.

-Printing Press (Int 10).

Rank 1: Effects from magazines are increased by 20%.

Rank 2: Burnt pages of magazines can now be collected and put together to remake old magazines, allowing you to recreate old 'lost' magazines which provide comparitively small bonuses.

-Fantasia (Luck 10).

Rank 1: Events from any magazine you have collected may now take place in the wastes around you; watch Grognak battle with Jungle Bats with the relevant Grognak the Barbarian issue, or psychotic surgeons take apart poor wasteland wanderers with the Massacheutics Surgical Journal.

Rank 2: By collecting all of any comic book collections, the primary character in question may appear to aid you in battle from time to time.

-Jinxed (Luck 10).

Rank 1: Enemies you face in combat may occasionally fall over and befall all manners of terrible luck. Your critical meter will fill 10% slower from taking this perk.

Rank 2: Enemies will more frequently suffer from bad luck.

[Symone Velez]

i liked fnv's "wild wasteland"

[JeSsy ArEllano]

I never chose it but kinda regret not doing so. Might go back and try a wacky lucky/char build with wild wasteland and shoot myself in the foot with high difficulty...

Watched a few vids on youtube of what it did and it always caught my interest.

EDIT:

Updated the first post to include a list of perks people want back.

[Kayla Bee]

Good on you! That's a pretty decent list of things that should never have been dropped. Of course, many of them revert or add back some of the mechanical pieces Bethesda either decided to change or drop altogether. The list shows me in no uncertain terms that change is not necessarily equated with good...sometimes it just changes things, and many times not for the better.

[Trent Theriot]

um no, molintovs, flamer, shishkabob, cyro grenades, cryoloctor, none of them need to be legendary for that.