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This is an overview article, listing content appearing across multiple games. |
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Skills are learned abilities of a character. The skill level shows how good the character is at that skill. Skill levels can be increased by allocating skill points earned from gaining levels. Skills can also be improved by reading specific books or completing quests within the games.
Contents
List of skills
Combat skills
| Skill | Fallout | Fallout 2 | Tactics | Fallout 3 | New Vegas | Fallout: The Roleplaying Game |
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| Big Guns | 
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| Small Guns |
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| Guns |
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| Energy Weapons |
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| Heavy Weapons |
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| Throwing |
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| Traps |
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| Explosives |
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| Melee |
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| Melee Weapons |
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| Unarmed |
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Active skills
| Skill | Fallout | Fallout 2 | Tactics | Fallout 3 | New Vegas | Fallout: The Roleplaying Game |
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| Athletics |
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| Chemistry |
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| Doctor |
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| Engineering |
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| First Aid |
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| Gunsmith |
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| Hacking |
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| Medicine |
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| Lockpick |
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| Pickpocket |
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| Repair |
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| Science |
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| Sneak |
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| Steal |
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| Survival |
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| Traps |
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Passive skills
| Skill | Fallout | Fallout 2 | Tactics | Fallout 3 | New Vegas | Fallout: The Roleplaying Game |
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| Barter |
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| Gambling |
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| Outdoorsman |
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| Pilot |
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| Speech |
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Weapons use
Each weapon class has a different skill that governs its use.
| Name | Details |
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| Heavy Weapons / Big Guns |
Very large and/or heavy weapons (miniguns) |
| Energy Weapons | Directed-energy weapons (laser rifles) |
| Explosives | Thrown or placed explosives (land mines) |
| Firearms / Guns |
All gunpowder firearm class weapons |
| Melee / Melee Weapons |
Stand-off hand held striking weapons (clubs) |
| Pistols / Small Guns |
Small firearms (plasma pistols) |
| Rifles / Small Guns |
Small firearms (assault rifles) |
| Throwing | All thrown weapons (spears) |
| Traps | Placed explosives (plastic explosives) |
| Melee / Unarmed |
Striking weapons on the hand or arm (gauntlets) |
Mechanics
For most skills, the success of an action governed by one is determined by either directly checking skill level against a threshold or with a skill roll. Rolls are used for most intrinsically random actions like hits in combat and random encounters.
With Speech, direct checks are used as well as rolls in Fallout and Fallout 2, with direct checks completely taking over in later installments. Skills governing the success of game play actions with low degree of random chance (like lockpicking) used rolls in classic games but were likewise replaced.
Skill roll
A skill roll (also called "skill challenge" or "skill check") emulates the way skill checks are done in traditional pen-and-paper RPGs. A random number from 1 to 100 is generated. If it is lower or equal to the skill level, the action is a success. So, for an unmodified check, skill level is effectively a chance of success for a relevant action.
A check can have a modifier that the skill level is adjusted by for the purpose of the check. So a positive modifier makes the action easier while a negative one makes it harder. Combat skills use automatically calculated modifiers from e.g. the ambient darkness level. Modifiers for checks associated with specific object or logic (like a dialogue option) are set explicitly. Since skills can grow up to 300%, the hardest challenges can have modifiers of as much as -100.
Some skills also limit the success rate by 95% no matter what. A few skills can also generate critical successes and critical failures. For combat skills, the effect is determined by Critical Hit and Failure tables.
Notes
- In Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, skills work like perks in other Fallout games.
- In Fallout 4, skills were replaced entirely by perks.
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