Having played all fallouts so many times, i stopped trying to keep count, i realized that i should play a melee goon for the heck of it. Naturally in FoT this idea cannot be employed for the sheer impossibility of actually beating a Behemoth silly with fists, as well as the super mutants with various burst weapons presenting a problem. ( i never played fot in anything else than CTB) But fallout 2 may prove a different matter. Although i know i will largely be annoyed by having to run towards the opponents who keep sliding gazilion hexes away after a blow, i suppose being a barbarian will have its merits in some way.So now cant decide between super sledge or mega power fist styles. The latter is enforced by the convenience of one hander trait becoming quite useful and the bonus HtH Evade perk being a nice bonus. Melee weapons are superior at start, but no self respecting player thinks short-term. Also you look nice with a super sledge - i imagine staring at your character without him holding something imposingly intimidating gets quite boring.Anyway i just wanna hear your opinions on the matter and which of the 2 skills you prefer for a melee-er.As a sidequestion, i never understood what the heavy handed trait's negative side does.
The description doesnt say it modifies the chance to crit so im guessing it penalizes your rolls on the critical hit table, which makes it absolutely worthless. I'd suggest Unarmed in the unmodded version.Super Sledge has Knockback, which is a pain for a pure meleer as you have to run back in to range.
- A truly horrible guide, that gives out the stench of being written by someone who has played fallout once and thinks everyone else has too. The remarks of the type 'since we make a melee character the most obvious traits to pick would be bruiser and heavy handed, right? Make me curve my lips.
- Apr 20, 2014 Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics and TORN edit edit source You get +4 points of melee damage. Since you inflict more damage consistently with Heavy Handed though, Critical Hits are less of an issue, unless the player relies on Sneak attack criticals as a major source of damage or if the character criticals often due to perks.
Mathematically, Heavy Handed will provide a net benefit if where each component is considered after all modifiers except Heavy Handed. For example, a character with 5 luck armed with a machete has a 7.5% critical chance and does 11 critical damage, equal to the base damage. This satisfies the above condition, and expecting a critical hit.
It's good for a combined char though.On the other hand, the Mega Power Fist doesn't and it also has an intrinsic armour piercing effect. It also costs fewer AP to use. Unarmed also gives you access to a bunch of special 'bare fists only' attacks. Some have serious armour piercing levels and huge bonuses to crit chance but cost a lot of AP. I like them Unarmed also has the very slight advantage of your character not fiddling about putting his weapon away then taking it out again every time you use an object.The Bonus HtH Attacks Perk counts all Hand-to-Hand attacks. That's Unarmed AND Melee. Either will cost 1AP less per use.Heavy Handed penalises your rolls on the crit severity table, reducing your chances of good crits like KO, blindness, knock down and insta-kill.
Not my favourite trait.On the other side of things, Finesse reduces all your damage by 30% but gives a 10% greater chance of causing a critical. It has no effect on the severity though. Edited the original post to indicate i was talking about the HtH evade perk.Why do you say in the unmodded game? Im playing megamod 2.33 but i cant see a reason why that should be a factor to tip teh scales to the melee weapons favor. About the finesse trait - i think its a hugely overrated thing - you score criticals more often, big whoop. You do however end up with alot less damage on hits that do not crit and hits that DO crit cause less damage than they should, because the trait lowers the general damage you cause.
Which means that in the event of a critical your damage modifiers are lowered by finesse. HtH evade only works with 2 enpty items slots, so it's unusable with the Power Fist.For Finesse, it's worth it for a sniper or precision char. Always going for the eyes or head, that incrased crit chance leads to more knockouts, blinds, armor ignoring hits and instakills. Against the tougher foes that's more valuable than +30% dmg IMO. Blinded and KOed foes can't hit you.I say unmodded because I use the Restoration pack and the Fallout Weapons Redone mod. Weapons Redone buffs melee weapons quite a bit, as well as fixing Lasers and Throwing to be useful. The trick is to change Finesse for another perk in the end game using the perk Mutate!
The better change is when you get sniper, so you switch Finesse to Fast Shot and voila, you now shoot faster and critical all-around!But, in the early game, Finesse sucks until you get your first Hunting Rifle, then people should fear for the safety of their eyes.Well, the choice between Melee and Unarmed is pretty dificult. I think Melee is better for the early game, but Unarmed is better in the end game. You can chose Melee and make it your primary combat skill until San Francisco, then get some training from Lo Pan or The Dragon, box in New Reno, hit the punchbags in the SAD, after you get it above 100%, spend some skill points in Unarmed and if possible, use the perk TAG!, which will give you LOTS of free skillpoints and a fourth tag!
You can choose up to two traits. Traits have both good points and bad points. Be careful in choosing traits because after you select, there's no going back.NameDescriptionFast MetabolismYour body is much less resistant to poison and radiation, but it heals faster. Don't take this one: you'll want some poison resistance and you'll have to take two RadX's to get complete radiation resistance with or without this perk (unless you have the Rad Resistance perk or 10 endurance and Power Armor), and that there are plenty of stimpacks lying around. Don't take this one.BruiserYour strength is increased by two but your actions points are decreased by two. Not a good one. You'll need all the action points that you have.Small FrameYour agility is increased by one but your carry weight drops by 30 pounds.
It isn't too bad, but the carry weight decrease hurts in the beginning. It's worth it for the agility increase.One HanderYou are good with one-handed weapons but are bad with two handed weapons. Not a good choice, since the best weapons are two handed.FinesseYour normal attacks do 30% less damage but your critical chance is increased by 10%. Not too bad of a tradeoff, but I didn't tag this one. And critical damage isn't affected.KamikazeDepletes your armor class to what you are wearing but increases sequence by 5. It isn't that great because 6 perception is adequate enough for sequence.Heavy HandedYour melee damage is increased by 4 but criticals do 30% less damage.
Good in the beginning, and criticals do heaps of damage anyway. But it isn't good in the end, where super mutants and deathclaws lurk around.Fast ShotYou can't aim, but your total cost is decreased by one.
Set Free
It isn't a bad tradeoff if you have high critical chance, and works really well with the perks 'Bonus Ranged Attack,' 'Sniper,' or 'Slayer.' The turbo plasma rifle will cost 2 AP's to shoot and the super sledgehammer will only cost 1 AP with those perks. Since most of the aforementioned perks come up in the end, it is good to pass this one by.Bloody MessYou will always see a grotesque death animation whenever you kill a critter. There really isn't a downside to this, so you can take this one if you want to.JinxedEverybody makes more critical failures, but so do you! If you have 9 or 10 Luck, you'll make few critical failures. Only take it if you have 9 or 10 Luck. It happens a lot more to your enemies and NPC allies rather than yourself.Good NaturedYour combat skills are decreased by 10%, but speech, doctor, science, etc.
Fallout 2 Heavy Handed Guitar
Are increased by 15%. Not that great. You'll need high combat skills while 70% or so in the non-combat areas will let you go through the game easily.Chem ReliantYour addiction rate is increased by 200%, but your withdrawal rate is only 50%. Some drugs, like RadAway, have a 10% addiction rate and no withdrawal.so, it isn't worth it.Chem ResistantYour addiction rate is 50% of normal, but chems only last for half as long. Not too bad, since combat doesn't take a long time on the Fallout clock.Sex AppealTo NPCs of the opposite sex, your Charisma is increased by one.
The inverse holds true for NPC's of the same sex.SkilledYou get 5 extra skill points per level, but you get a perk every four levels. You'll want those perks as early as possible. They are quite useful.
Pass this one on.GiftedAll of your primary stats are increased by one, but you get 5 fewer skill points per level and your secondary skills are lowered by 10%. This is among the best traits, since there are only a few skills that you really need to work on.
Currently I have +1950 mem (4779) -200 core (1736), it gives me 25.3 Mh/s via claymore eth-only. Currently it has been mining for almost 2 hours, 0 rejected shares (it's ok even in dual mode).