The number of players who will buy New Vegas without having played Fallout 3 is probably going to be relatively small, so it's safe to take off the training wheels and let us make some game-changing decisions. Thankfully, Obsidian has capitalized on the fact that gamers have now been re-introduced to Fallout, and so New Vegas is the perfect opportunity to bring back traits. A pacifist player could choose Good Natured, which boosts your starting First Aid, Doctor, Speech and Barter skills but reduces your weapon skills and Skilled, which gives you extra skill points every level but reduces your perk frequency to one every four levels to build a character who can talk or buy his way out of most situations.

Or you might choose Fast Shot, which reduces the number of action points required to attack but disables your ability to target specific body parts, with One Hander, which sharpens your accuracy with one-handed weapons but reduces your aim with two-handed equipment to create an expert gunslinger who'll fill enemies with lead before they know what hit'em. You could choose a trait like Bruiser, which increases your strength stat but reduced your action points and combine that with Gifted, which increases all seven of your SPECIAL stats but reduces your skillpoints, creating a slow but powerful melee character with a lot of potential at higher levels-though you'd be reliant on finding skill-boosting books to realize it. Choosing a pair of character-altering modifiers at the outset of your quest defined both your strengths and your weaknesses, and thus your play style. In Fallout 1 and 2, traits were game-changers that made every play-through different from the last.

Fallout new vegas more traits