TELL US ALL ABOUT YOU!

STEP 1: RECORD YOUR ORIGIN:

VAULT DWELLER When the bombs were falling, you or your predecessors were lucky enough to be safely secured in one of the one hundred and twenty-two Vault-Tec facilities, deep underground protected by thick blast doors and layers of rock and concrete. Your family either had enough money to buy their space or were randomly selected to enter the vault to be saved from the nuclear devastation above—perhaps only to be condemned to immoral experiments run by Vault-Tec on unwitting participants. You are free from mutation and disease. The VaultTec program has afforded you a safe home for some time, but not without some cost. The vault you came from used you as a human test subject, manipulating your understanding of the world and your behaviour in order to study you. That’s left you with a profound psychological change, compared to the survivors on the surface you now know, and affects how you make your way through the wasteland. Whether through design or poor planning, many of the vaults were not well stocked or prepared for the long wait until nuclear fallout had reached safe levels outside, and many fell into disrepair or out of supplies. Due to these shortcomings, many vault dwellers sought help from the surface, and many vaults opened in order to allow supplies to reach them. By opening their vault doors, the isolated societies inside opened themselves up to mixing with the survivors above, and established a permanent connection with the surface—the most notable example being the residents of Vault 15, who split up and went on to establish the settlement Shady Sands, as well as the raiding gangs of the Jackals, Vipers, and Khans when their vault opened.

Trait: Vault Kid Your healthier start to life at the hands of trained doctors and sophisticated auto-docs means you reduce the difficulty of all END tests to resist the effects of disease. In addition, your carefully-planned upbringing means you have one additional tag skill of your choice. You may also work with the Gamemaster to determine what sort of experiment took place within your Vault. Once per quest, the GM may introduce a complication which reflects the nature of the experiment you unwittingly took part in, or introduce a complication related to your early life of isolation and confinement within the Vault. If the GM does this, you immediately regain one Luck Point.

STEP 2: INCREASE S.P.E.C.I.A.L. ATTRIBUTES:

At the beginning of creating your character, every S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute starts with a rank of 5 (unless your origin in Step 1: Origin alters this). You have 5 points to spend to increase your attributes, and each point spent increases a single attribute by 1. Use these points to buy ranks in any S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute. No attribute may be increased above 10, although your Origin may alter this maximum for some attributes. You may reduce a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute rank to 4, to gain a point to spend on another S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute. Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes provide part of your target number for skill tests, and contribute to most of your derived statistics. S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Attribute Arrays: Some players favour balance over specializing too much, while others prefer to focus their characters in a singular purpose, maximizing their attributes and skills in one task at the expense of versatility. You can use the pre-created arrays below to assign values to your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, in any order. These values already include the starting 5 points, but do not account for your character’s origin.

Balanced: 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5

Focused: 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4, 4

Specialized: 9, 8, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4

STEP 3: TAG SKILLS AND BUY SKILL RANKS:

Next, choose three skills to be your tag skills. Tag skills are the most important skills to your character, and represent specific areas of expertise and knowledge that your character possesses. Your origin may grant you an additional tag skill. When using a tag skill, you score a critical success on any die which rolls equal to or under the skill’s rank. Each of your tag skills begins at rank 2. Every other skill begins at rank 0. You may then buy ranks in your other skills. You have a total number of skill points equal to 9 plus your Intelligence, and each skill point may be spent to buy one rank in any skill. During character creation, you cannot increase any skill to a rank above 3, unless you’re creating a character of level 3 or above. Skills have a maximum rank of 6. You cannot increase a skill rank above 6 by any means.

STEP 4: CHOOSE YOUR FIRST PERK:

A character is more than the sum of their parts, and a character’s attributes and skills alone do not give a full picture of what they are truly capable of. Your character has an edge, called perks. Perks are the specific advantages of your personal approach to challenges. They take the form of a mechanical bonus—re-rolls, bonus Action Points, or skill substitutions—that apply to a specific circumstance. Many perks have one or more requirements. These requirements must be met before you can select the perk for your character, like having a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute at a minimum rank. Each perk has a condition and a benefit. The condition describes the circumstances in which the perk can be used, and the benefit describes what you can do with the perk. You can choose a single perk from the perks list that you meet the requirements for. Some perks have multiple ranks which can be selected—each rank counts as a single perk choice during character creation and progression.

STEP 5: DERIVED STATISTICS:

Once the previous steps are complete, calculate your derived statistics. These are passive values that are used when you’re the target of an attack, the subject of a skill test, or just exploring the wastes.

CARRY WEIGHT Your carry weight measures how much gear you can carry. You can carry a base of 150 pounds of equipment, plus your Strength attribute multiplied by 10. Carry weight (lbs.) = 150 + (STR × 10) You can carry more by choosing the relevant perks and increasing your Strength attribute, as well as by using equipment with extra carrying space. Mister Handy robots calculate carry weight differently: they have a maximum carry weight of 150 lbs., and each pincer can only lift 40 lbs. of weight.

DAMAGE RESISTANCE Your resistance to different types of damage is determined by your equipment and your perks.

Your base physical Damage Resistance is 0, but may be increased by the armour you wear and the perks you select.

Your base energy Damage Resistance is 0, but may be increased by the armour you wear and the perks you select.

Your radiation Damage Resistance is 0, but may be increased by the armour you wear and the perks you select.

Your poison Damage Resistance is 0, but may be increased by the perks you select.

DEFENCE Your Defence statistic is the basic difficulty of any attacks made against you. It is based on your Agility attribute:

If your Agility is 8 or less, your Defence is 1.

If your Agility is 9 or higher, your Defence is 2.

INITIATIVE Your initiative determines how quickly you act in combat. Add your PER + AGI together.

HEALTH POINTS Health points tell you how much damage you can withstand. Your maximum health point total at first level is equal to your END + LCK.

MELEE DAMAGE Your melee damage statistic lists any bonus damage you do with melee weapons or unarmed attacks, due to having a high Strength attribute.

If you have a Strength of 6 or less, you gain no bonus.

Strength 7–8: +1d6 

Strength 9–10: +2d6 

Strength 11+: +3d6

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