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Practical knowledge of the outdoors, and the ability to live off the land. The knowledge of plants and animals.— In-game description

Outdoorsman is a skill in Fallout, Fallout 2, Van Buren and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. Fallout: New Vegas adds a skill called Survival which is very similar.

Initial level[]

Fallout[]

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 and Intelligence of 5.

Fallout 2[]

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 and Intelligence of 5.

Description[]

In Fallout, Outdoorsman is used in random encounters that involve dehydration and rockfalls, to see how many hours it takes (dehydration only) and how much damage is given, if any (dehydration and rockfalls).

In Fallout 2, the Outdoorsman skill can allow the player to bypass random encounters.

Avoiding random encounters[]

This section is transcluded from Fallout 2 random encounters. To change it, please edit the transcluded page.

Since many random encounters involve hostile creatures, they player may want to bypass the random encounter and continue on with their journey.[1] The player has two independent chances to avoid random encounters. First, the player may be able to detect the encounter before the encounter detects them, primarily using their Outdoorsman skill. If that fails, the player may be able to drive past the random encounter if they are in the Highwayman.

Using the Outdoorsman skill[]

The player may be able to detect the random encounter before the random encounter detects them. The formula is as follows.[2][3]

is the highest Outdoorsman skill among the Chosen One and their companions. If a companion has a higher Outdoorsman skill than the Chosen One, the companion's Outdoorsman skill will be used in the above calculation. Sulik is the only companion to have a significant Outdoorsman skill (80% at his highest level).

is a +20% bonus if the Chosen One is carrying a motion sensor in their inventory while traveling on the world map. A motion sensor does nothing in the inventory of a companion.

refers to the fact that that the effective Outdoorsman skill (chance of success before negative modifiers are applied) is capped at 95%. This means there is no need to raise the Outdoorsman skill above 95%. If the Chosen One will always carry a motion sensor, there is no need to raise the Outdoorsman skill above 75%.

is the difficulty of the random encounters on that individual tile of the world map. They range from a 0% difficulty modifier to a 70% difficulty modifer. Random encounter difficulty values can be found in WORLDMAP.TXT or on the following page.

Using the Highwayman[]

If the player is unable to detect the random encounter before the random encounter detects them, the player may be able to drive past the random encounter if they are in the Highwayman. This has a 50% chance of success and is independent of any other calculation.

Example[]

Let's use an example situation where the Chosen One has an Outdoorsman skill of 130%, has a motion sensor in their inventory, and is driving the Highwayman across the toughest area of the world map (70% difficulty modifier). First, the Chosen One would try to avoid the random encounter using their Outdoorsman skill, with a success rate of 25%.

If that failed, the Chosen One would then try to try to avoid the random encounter by driving pass it on their Highwayman, with an independent success rate of 50%.

In the example above, the total chance to avoid the random encounter would be 62.5%.

Ways to increase[]

  • Read a Scout Handbook. They increase Outdoorsman skill depending on current skill level, ranging from 6-7 points at low skill levels (20-30%) to 1-2 points at high skill levels (70-90%). Double the amount if the skill is tagged. A maximum skill of 91% can be reached this way.
  • (Fallout 2) Talk with Slim Picket. Depending on Barter skill, 5% worth of Outdoorsman can be bought for $100 or $50.
  • (Fallout 2) Save Smiley the trapper. Once he is returned to Klamath, he can give a 1% to 6% increase in Outdoorsman skills.
  • (Fallout) Talk to Tycho about his life.

Behind the scenes[]

  • The icon is most probably a reference to the Looney Tunes, as the Vault Boy is dressed as Elmer Fudd and is hunting a mutated version of Bugs Bunny.
  • The Fallout scripts contain two other uses for Outdoorsman, however, neither are used in the game. The first is a message displayed when discovering a mutated fruit. The other is for generating messages about where the radscorpions came from in random encounters.

References[]

  1. "Depending on your Outdoorsman skill, some Perks and whether or not you have the Motion Sensor, you may be able to detect a random encounter before it detects you. In this case, you are given the option of bypassing the encounter and continuing your journey, or going ahead with the encounter." pg. 62 of the Fallout 2 manual
  2. "It seems that your effective Outdoorsman skill (chance of success before negative modifiers are applied) cannot exceed 95%, meaning there's no point in raising the skill beyond that, or carrying a Motion Sensor if you're already at that skill level." (The Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide)
  3. "The game takes your Outdoorsman skill (or a party member if any of theirs is higher), adds + 20 to that if you have the motion sensor (will add the bonus to a party member even if it's in your back pack). The sum will be capped off at 95 if the total exceeds that. Then it will subtract the encounter difficulty (between 0 and 70 depending on map tile), and what is left is your chance to avoid an encounter."'"I'm sure you already know the following bit, but just to be clear. If you look in WORLDMAP.TXT you can see that the world map is divided into 20 tiles (each containing 42 map squares). At the top of each tile section you will find the 'encounter_difficulty' for that set of map squares."'"So let's say you have Outdoorsman at 95 (with or without the motion sensor) and you are running around in a tile with an encounter difficulty of 0, you will have a 95% chance to avoid trouble. If you are in the toughest areas however (difficulty 70), you will only have a 25% chance to skip the encounter. The Outdoorsman skill (+ motion sensor) obviously has to be higher than the encounter difficulty, or there is no chance at all."'"Your trusty old car also comes with it's own built in encounter skipping system. But unfortunately for you it only works half the time. So if you are driving around in the car and you first fail the Outdoorsman check, the car will do a 50/50 roll (not a skill check), and if you pass, you can skip the encounter."'"Also, you get experience points for avoiding an encounter with the help of your Outdoorsman skill, but you get none from the car check. I suppose the logic is that it takes no skill to just put your foot down and accelerate away. Either that or the devs just forgot the XP (It's not like that kind of thing hasn't happened before)."(No Mutants Allowed thread)
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