JE Sawyer's ideas on Fallout 3 skillz

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 11:56 am

Agility for the prestidigitation factor, if you've got the ability of a magician then you can hide cards up your sleeve, cut in loaded dice without anyone noticing, and a host of other hand-is-quicker-than-the-eye moves.

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 12:12 pm

Heh, that's cheating.

I don't think gambling as a skill is that bad, but the way it was handled in Fallout 1 and 2 was bad. It was a useless skill because you had no real use for money, and if you did, you could just sell useless junk for good money. Excessive amount of money destroyed the use of bartering skill too. Maybe there should be new uses for gambling, instead of just getting quick cash. Like gambling for items with merchants, an alternative for bartering. Gambling could also win you friends and reputation if you manage to win all the money from a casino. Anyway, changes are needed if they are to include gambling in Fallout 3.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 1:27 pm

gambling could always tie you in to story awards. If you win so much at a poker game, for instance, you might get invited to a high-stakes poker game in the back room and meet some of the town's major players. You might even get a few sidequests and some xp for that.

Doyle · Post by **Doyle** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 6:03 am

Vasikka + Atoga = Arcanum. I never much bothered to put those precious character points into Gambling, but it seems like Arcanum handled it a bit like they described.

Regarding weapons, does anyone else find JE's division between small guns and big guns a little sensless? A hunting rifle is definitely not in the same class as a minigun or a rocket launcher. Maybe he just simplified the description too much, though.

axelgreese · Post by **axelgreese** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 6:31 am

Doyle wrote:Regarding weapons, does anyone else find JE's division between small guns and big guns a little sensless? A hunting rifle is definitely not in the same class as a minigun or a rocket launcher. Maybe he just simplified the description too much, though.

Well there is also a difference between how one fires a pistol and how one fires a sniper rilfe as well but they were both lumped together in FO/FO2 and that worked okay. Altough I do admit it is a bit wierd. It didn't bother me though, but what would bother me is having a dozen or two weapon skills. Afterall, fallout is about more than just combat. If you're just in it for the combat then you can always play JA2 or the like.

Doyle · Post by **Doyle** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 6:40 am

It's not just odd, though, it seems like it would be difficult to balance if his description were accurate. Who knows? Maybe they'd just have options for both from the beginning.

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:24 am

If you look at Fallout 1 & 2, rifles were classified as Small Guns. Flamers, miniguns, heavy machineguns and rocket launchers were in the Big Guns category, as they should be. The question is, should the Small Guns -skill be divided into Pistols and Rifles and should they also include energy weapons instead of an own skill for them? JE's suggestion of energy weapons connected with the science skill, and not having an own skill, sounds reasonable.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 2:02 pm

If it ain't broke, don't even try to fix it.