Perks

Fallout 3 Guide - Statistics Explained

Perks

 Level 2 Perks

Intense Training: 10 Ranks
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES

This perk allows the player to increase their SPECIAL stats by 1.  This can be very useful, especially if you need to have a certain value of a stat in order to learn an other useful perk.

Black Widow/Lady Killer: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: MAYBE

If you are male you can get the Lady Killer perk, if you are female you can get the Black Widow perk.  This grants you 10% damage on targets of the opposite gender, so if you're female you do 10% damage on all male raiders, etc.  Needless to say, Black Widow is much more useful than Lady Killer, simply cause there aren't many female NPC's in the game.  You also get additional dialogue options here and there.  Even so, the usefulness of this perk must be questioned and in any case, only the Black Widow perk has a good use.

Daddy's Boy/Girl: 3 Ranks
Requirements: INT = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
This perk adds 5 Science and 5 Medicine per rank.

Gun Nut: 3 Ranks
Requirements: AGL = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
This perk adds 5 Small Guns and 5 Repair per rank.

Little Leager: 3 Ranks
Requirements: STR = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
This perk adds 5 Melee and 5 Explosives per rank.

Swift Learner: 3 Ranks
Requirements: INT = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it only gets you faster to Level 20, while you can get to Level 20 in due time anyway.  This perk takes up valuable space for other perks.
This perk increases your earned EXP by 10% every rank.

Thief: 3 Ranks
Requirements: AGL = 4 , PER = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
This perk adds 5 Sneak and 5 Lockpick per rank.

Level 4 Perks

Child at Heart: 1 Rank
Requirements: CHR = 4
Useful: MAYBE

This perk makes you good with children, which can lead to much more pleasant conversations.  Unfortunately it's only useful in a few places, most prominently Little Lamplight.

Comprehension: 1 Rank
Requirements: INT = 4
Useful: YES/MUST-HAVE

You should get this perk no matter what you do.  It doubles the amount of skill points you gain from reading Skill Books.  Normally you get 1 point by reading a Skill Book, now you get 2.  This allows you to get 50 points per skill by just reading Books, instead of the regular 25!

Educated: 1 Rank
Requirements: INT = 4
Useful: NO/MAYBE

This perk adds a 3 Skill points to be distributed every Level Up.  This may seem much over the course of time, but even then we're only talking about 48 extra skill points.  I highly suggest you do NOT take this perk.

Entomologist: 1 Rank
Requirements: INT = 4 , Science = 40
Useful: YES/MAYBE

This perk increases your damage by 50% against any type of insect.  This may seem futile at first, but just wait until you encounter Giant Radscorpions!  Even though those may be a pest at times, it's worth wondering if this is really a perk worth investing in.
Affected creatures (all types) are: Radroach, Giant Ants, Radscorpions.

Iron Fist: 3 Ranks
Requirements: STR = 4
Useful: MAYBE

This perk boosts your Unarmed Damage by 5 every rank.  I don't know if this is worth investing in.  Naturally, if you don't bother with Unarmed fighting, you should leave this alone.  But even if you are in love with your fists, this requires a whopping of 3 perks to get any use out of it, and it pretty much also requires you to give up the most useful perk in the game at Level 20 (Grim Reaper's Sprint) so you can take the Ninja perk.  That's a lot of sacrifices.

Scoundrel: 3 Ranks
Requirements: CHR = 4
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
This perk adds 5 Speech and 5 Barter per rank.

Level 6 Perks

Bloody Mess: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES

This perk grants you a permanent 5% damage on any target, and sometimes blows up a target (with gory blood and limbs all over the place).  You can still search any of your targets, and your loot isn't affected.  A useful perk, although the animation bores many after a while.

Demolition Expert: 3 Ranks
Requirements: Explosives = 50
Useful: MAYBE

This perk increases your Grenades, Mines and Missiles damage by 20% per rank.  It's quite a lot, but it is also unlikely that you will spend three ranks on this perk, and it's often not necessary to invest in this perk.  If you are playing on Very Hard you may want to put a rank (read: ONE) in it, otherwise no.

Fortune Finder: 1 Rank
Requirements: LCK = 5
Useful: NO

This perk increases the amount of Bottle Caps you find in desks, cabinets, and so on.  Sounds useful, isn't useful.  Especially not later on when you have various sources for making much more money much quicker.

Gunslinger: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: MAYBE

This perk increases your accuracy in VATS by 25% whenever you're using a Small Gun.  Weapons that fall under this category are: .32 Pistol, Scoped .44 Magnum, (Silenced) 10mm Pistol, 10mm Submachine Gun, Chinese Pistol, Sawed-Off Shotgun, Dart Gun, Laser Pistol, Plasma Pistol, Alien Blaster, Mesmetron.
You may think, ‘WOW', a 25% increase in accuracy with all those guns, but be careful.  If you have an initial 10% hit chance, this perk will bring it up to 12.5%.  Besides, many of those pistols are worthless later in-game.  Magnums are still useful, but to justify this perk only for those ..

Lead Belly: 1 Rank
Requirements: END = 5
Useful: NO

This perk decreases your radiation poisoning by 50% when drinking from sinks, using toilets, drinking outside water, etc. Doesn't sound very useful, and well, it's not useful either.  You can always drink the water anyway and deal with the radiation later - or even use a RadAway.  It's no big deal - at all.

Toughness: 1 Rank
Requirements: END = 5
Useful: YES!

This instantly grants you an additional 10 Defense Rating (DR).  Take it!

Level 8 Perks

Commando: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES

This is much alike the Gunslinger perk, except this perk increases your accuracy in VATS by 25% for Rifles.  These are much more powerful and much more used in later combat than guns, which makes this an excellent perk to take.  Rifles are considered to be: Assault Rifle, Chinese Assault Rifle, Hunting Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Laser Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Railway Rifle.

Impartial Mediation: 1 Rank
Requirements: CHR = 5
Useful: NO

This perk gives a 30% increase in chance when you attempt Speech Challenges.  Keep in mind that you can always save your game beforehand and do several attempts if you find something truly important, or you can distribute a few extra skill points to Speech to ensure a decent Speech Skill.  This just isn't very useful.

Rad Resistance: 1 Rank
Requirements: END = 5
Useful: NO

This increases you Radiation Resistance by a permanent 25%.  This isn't too shabby, but it's not really all that useful.  If you're facing radiation trouble you can snack some Rad-X and boost your resistance by 45% instantly.  Combined with radiation suits and quest perks, this can easily add up to 95%.  There's no need for additional protection.  Besides, radiation doesn't kill, bullets do.  (Well, OK, Radiation can kill, but only when you reach 1000!)

Scrounger: 1 Rank
Requirements: LCK = 5
Useful: MAYBE

Where Fortune Finder focused on increasing Caps whenever you open up cabinets and such, Scrounger increases your ammunition found in Ammo Boxes, Mine Boxes and every variation of boxes where you can find ammo.  I personally took this perk while having in mind to sell loads of ammo for money, and never running out of ammo either.
The truth is, money and ammo won't be your biggest problems later on.  It's best leaving this perk so you can take a more useful one.

Size Matters: 3 Ranks
Requirements: END = 5
Useful: NO

This perk has limited usefulness because it increases skill points.  Any skill point bonuses can also be gotten by levelling up and distributing skill points, as well by reading Skill Books are by getting bonuses from more useful perks.
Note: You can get infinite Big Guns Skill Books by respawning the raider with a
flamethrower in Bethesda Ruins East.  Just wait three days and a few hours and re-enter the building.  This may get removed with later patches.  Please notify me when it is removed.
This perk adds 15 to Big Guns Skill.

Strong Back: 1 Rank
Requirements: STR = 5 , END = 5
Useful: YES

This perk increases your Carry Weight by 50!  I don't see why this perk gets completely hammered by people, because it's much better than most perks.  While it's true you can do without this, its usefulness makes things so much more convenient.  You can carry a wider arsenal of weapons, drag those extra goodies to a nearby merchant, equip heavy armor more easily, etc.

Level 10 Perks

Animal Friend: 2 Ranks
Requirements: CHR = 6
Useful: MAYBE

Rank 1: Animals don't attack you.
Rank 2: Animals help you in combat against non-animal enemies.
Animals are: Dogs, Brahmin, Mole Rats and Yao Guai.
Fact is, this perk is quite useful because Yao Guai are fierce enemies.  Help from those nasty bears would surely be appreciated by anyone.  However, the thing is that it's generally not very wise to have such high Charisma as is required to get this perk, simply because all the other stats have a priority.  Therefore, many will have to skip this perk.  Don't worry though, I don't think putting two ranks in this would be worth it anyway - there's so many other great perks at this point!

Finesse: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES!

This increases your Critical Chance by 5% (equal to 5 LUCK).  Very, very useful.

Here and Now: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

This instantly allows you to gain another Level.  However, you will reach Lvl 20 anyhow if you play consistently, so there's no point in speeding things up, especially not because you're sacrificing other great perks.

Mister Sandman: 1 Rank
Requirements: Sneak = 60
Useful: MAYBE

Allows you to sneak up on sleeping adult humans and instantly kill them.  Sounds wicked,  and is perhaps a little wicked, but there are not many instances where you will really get a use out of this.
Note: You can however use this perk to receive infinite EXP by performing it
continuously on the kid in Andale, Smith's House, Bedroom upstairs.
Aside from that glitch (which is likely to be removed soon), there is absolutely no reason to pick this perk.  And even the glitch only gets you faster to Lvl 20 where you'll get in time anyway.

Mysterious Stranger: 1 Rank
Requirements: LCK = 6
Useful: NO

If, when VATS ends and your opponent lives with 150 HP or less, there is a 10% chance that the Mysterious Stranger finishes him off.  Sounds awesome, is cool, but it can interfere with the greatest perk in the game: Grim Reaper's Sprint, so I naturally advise against it.  Sorry, Mr. Stranger!

Nerd Rage: 1 Rank
Requirements: INT = 5 , Science = 50
Useful: NOT REALLY

When your HP drops below 20% (and there you already have the con of this perk), your STR is raised to 10 and you receive an increase of 50 Defense Rating (DR).
While the added bonuses are insane (50 DR, WOW!), you get the itchy feeling you really should heal when your health bar is at like 15% away from death.  Since there usually is a good reason to heal in a tough battle, the effects of Nerd Rage never last very long, which makes it a perk that isn't all that useful.
Besides, with a good character build you can easily have a natural 10 STR, and your DR will be no less than 16 away from the maximum DR (max is 85).  In this case that means that the added bonus is actually only a DR of 16 at most.

Night Person: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

You gain a bonus of 2 INT and 2 PER whenever the sun is down (18.00 - 06.00).  This is absolutely garbage, because if you need temporary increases you might as well use chems, and the increase won't do you much good in general, as in, you're not going to see any significant increases during gameplay.

Level 12 Perks

Cannibal: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

This allows you to feed on corpses: You gain 25 Health and lose 1 Karma every time you feast on the flesh of the deceased.  If you're caught in the act there is a good chance you'll be attacked by people.  Useful?  Meh.  No.

Fast Metabolism: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

Increases Stimpak efficiency by 20%.  That's nice, but do we really need it?

Life Giver: 1 Rank
Requirements: END = 6
Useful: MAYBE

Instantly raises your Max HP by 30.  Needless to say this is a unique bonus that can't be gotten through other means, but if your END is already at max you can see this as a mere 10% increase.  It's useful, yes, but at this point the game requires you to make tough choices between perks.  Do you really need this 30 extra health, or are you better off picking a different perk?

Pyromaniac: 1 Rank
Requirements: Explosives = 60
Useful: MAYBE

This perk increases fire-based weapons their damage by 50%.  That's a big damage boost, but first let's go over the weapons that fall in this category:
Flamer, Nuka-Grenade, Shiskebab, ‘Firelance' Alien Blaster and Zhu-Rong v418 Chinese Pistol.
That's a tiny group of weapons, so decide for yourself if you plan on using one of them.  The Shiskebab becomes one of the best Melee Weapons with the perk, but that's about it.

Robotics Expert: 1 Rank
Requirements: Science = 50
Useful: MAYBE

Increases damage versus robotic enemies by 25%, and allows you to deactivate any robot when you have successfully sneaked up on them.
Sounds useful, especially and mainly against Sentry Bots, but there aren't many Sentry Bots in the game.  Pulse Grenades can often be found nearby or in areas that rely on robotic security, and those work great on their own.  I don't think the ‘sneaking' up on a robot is that much of a bonus either, because if you can sneak up on a robot, you might as well put a few ‘sneaky bullets' or grenades through its circuits.

Silent Running: 1 Rank
Requirements: AGL 6 , Sneak = 60
Useful: YES

With this perk you'll make no noise when running at full speed while crouching.  This makes it much, much easier to go for stealth kills, even when you're not a stealth expert (yet).  I highly recommend taking this.

Sniper: 1 Rank
Requirements: PER 6 , AGL 6
Useful: YES

Increases your accuracy in VATS for headshots by 25%.  In other words, you gain 25% in accuracy when you select a target's head.  Since you'll be relying a lot on headshots, especially lethal headshots from great distances, this is a great perk to pick.

 Level 14 Perks

Adamantium Skeleton: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

Your limbs only take 50% of the regular damage.  Sounds useful, but disappoints.  The main use in this lies not in when you get bitten or shot by enemies, because that rarely cripples a limb, but rather when you fall from very high or when you step on a mine.  In both cases this is a result of recklessness, and you will want to reload a previous save game.  Or if you aren't all that reckless, this perk doesn't have much use either, because limbs don't represent your vital health - at all.

Chemist: 1 Rank
Requirements: Medicine = 60
Useful: YES

Chems last twice as long with this perk!  This affects the following items:
Buffout, Jet, Mentats, Med-X, Rad-X, Psycho, RadAway, Stealth Boy, Ultrajet, Ant Queen Pheromones, Yao Guai Meat.
This is a very useful perk, but it is best combined with the Chem Resistant perk.  I suggest you only take this perk if you take that one as well.  There are many other useful perks at that point, however, so pick wisely.

Contract Killer: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

With this perk you can loot ears from good characters.  There are not many good characters, and if there are you wouldn't want to kill them anyway.  Besides, even if you would, you can only trade their ear for a measly 5 caps.

Cyborg: 1 Rank
Requirements: Science 60 , Medicine = 60
Useful: YES/MUST-HAVE

Adds 10 Damage Resistance (DR), 10 Poison & Radiation Resistance, and add a 10 Skill Points to Energy Weapons.  It's like four perks in one.

Lawbringer: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

The same principle applies as with the Contract Killer, except you loot fingers from evil characters now (of which more exist).  You can sell these fingers for 5 Caps to a special vendor.  In short, it's worthless.

Light Step: 1 Rank
Requirements: AGL 6 , PER 6
Useful: NO

With this perk, you never set off any Mines or Traps.  Eh, would you normally set off many traps?  Have you encountered many annoying traps?  Would you start over or save many times nearby difficult passageways with mines and traps?  This perk doesn't have a lot of added value, and it's generally regarded as useless.

Master Trader: 1 Rank
Requirements: CHR = 6 , Barter = 60
Useful: NO

This reduces all bought items by 25%.  Money is no longer an issue at this point of the game, besides, this perk is not worth it to raise Charisma to 6 points.  Not at all, actually.  The other way around, you'll likely won't even be able to choose this perk because of your low CHR.

Level 16 Perks

Action Boy/Girl: 1 Rank
Requirements: AGL = 6
Useful: YES

Increases your VATS Action Points by 25.  This is an enormous increase and basically allows you to fire an additional shot in VATS.  Worth it.

Better Criticals: 1 Rank
Requirements: PER = 6 , LCK = 6
Useful: YES

This perk increases the damage of Critical Hits by 50%!  That is a huge bonus and is a complete powerhouse combination with high Luck and Critical Chance.  This perk is highly recommended.

Chem Resistant: 1 Rank
Requirements: Medicine = 60
Useful: MAYBE

With this perk you have 50% less chance to become addicted to a drug.  In combination with Chemist this can be a powerful trick, but keep in mind that you can only become addicted to a drug if you take two of the same within a 30 hours span.  You can often wait and quickly speed up time to pass this span, ready to pump new Chems.  Also, the reduction is hardly a secure way to deal with Chems - you can still get addicted.
It's a good perk, but there are many other great perks around at this point.

Tag!: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: NO

Allows you to tag any skill ( 15 points).  Completely worthless by this time.

 Level 18 Perks

Computer Whiz: 1 Rank
Requirements: INT = 7 , Science = 70
Useful: NO

Whenever you get locked out of a PC (ever had that happen? Ever?) you get a 2nd chance.  I'd say this is completely worthless, because you never get locked out anyway, or you would reload your savegame.

Concentrated Fire: 1 Rank
Requirements: Small Guns = 60 , Energy Weapons = 60
Useful: NO
With this perk you gain a 5% accuracy chance every time you select a specific limb of a target again.  So if you select one arm three times, the accuracy for hitting the limb the first time is your normal accuracy, the second time it is increased by 5%, and the third time it is increased by 10%.
Sounds lame, is lame.  Use the Dart Gun at this point onward to cripple both enemy legs, and be done with it.  A 5% increase in accuracy is really, really low, especially with the mechanics above.

Infiltrator: 1 Rank
Requirements: PER = 7 , Lockpick = 70
Useful: NO

This is the counterpart of Computer Whiz.  If you for some reason break a lock and get locked out, this perk gives you a second chance.  Yay!  Nay!  One of the most worthless perks at this point.

Paralyzing Palm: 1 Rank
Requirements: Unarmed 70
Useful: YES

When unarmed, you can perform a VATS palm strike that paralyzes your opponent for 30 seconds.  Deathclaw or Knuckles also count as unarmed.  30 seconds is a long time and gives you plenty enough time to kill your opponent.  In other words, if you're facing a tough opponent from nearby (Deathclaw, Yao Guai) then this comes in handy.
Even if you're not an Unarmed person, you can easily switch from armed to unarmed in a mere second, perform the palm strike, switch back, and kill your enemy.

 Level 20 Perks

Explorer: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES, but..

This pinpoints every location on the worldmap of your Pip-Boy. A great advantage for any explorer, but at a very high cost of ignoring other Lvl 20 perks.  This alone gives you good reason to leave it alone.  Besides, you can explore it all on your own in time.

Ninja: 1 Rank
Requirements: Sneak = 80 , Melee = 80
Useful: YES

Increases your Critical Chance by 15% whenever you attack with Melee Weapons or Unarmed.  Sneak Attack Critical Hits do 25% more damage.  Needless to say this is a good perk, especially if you are a Melee Character.  If you are more of a gunman, read on..

Grim Reaper's Sprint: 1 Rank
Requirements: ---
Useful: YES!

When you kill an opponent in VATS, all your Action Points are restored, allowing you to instantly target a new enemy.  Needless to say this magnificent perk allows you to drop enemies with significant more ease than usual.  This makes it quite possibly the best perk of the game.

Solar Powered: 1 Rank
Requirements: END = 7
Useful: MAYBE

All Lvl 20 perks are useful, no doubt about it.  This perk allows you to regain 1 HP every 10 seconds you are exposed in sunlight, and an increase of 2 STR when you are in sunlight.
This perk is the least of the Lvl 20 perks.  You get a 2 STR increase, but only when in the open Wasteland, at day, and you regain 6 HP per minute.  That's not all that much, even though it's nice.  If this could be gotten earlier, then perhaps it would be picked more often, but the Reaper devastates this by a mile.

Quest Related Perks

Power Armor Training: 1 Rank
Requirements:  Proceed with the story and go through the Main Quests until you
have completed ‘The Waters of Life' Main Quest.  Talk to Elder Lyons and ask him for permission. Now locate Paladin Gunny in the Citadel.
Useful: YES
Allows you to wear any kind of Power Armor.  The stuff is heavy, though!

Dream Crusher: 1 Rank
Requirements: Tell Moira in Megaton to stop wasting her time on her Guide.
Useful: MAYBE, but..
This decreases the chance to be hit by a critical attack by 50%.  However, you aren't often hit by critical hits anyways, making this perk not all that handy.  Besides, if you complete the Guide you get access to a much better perk.

Rad Limb Healing: 1 Rank
Requirements: Achieve Advanced Radiation Poisoning (600 Rads) while doing the ‘Get Radiated' quest for Moira and the Wasteland Guide.
Useful: MAYBE
This perk is a little extra that you won't often see in use, but it heals any crippled limbs when you suffer from Advanced Radiation Poisoning (400 ).

Junior Survivor: 5 Variations
Requirements: Don't do your best during the Wasteland Survival Guide quest.
Useful: YES, but..
This perk always gives 2% Poison & Radiation Resistance.  Depending on your answers, it also gives on of the following bonuses:
Standard: 5 HP
Smart: 2 Medicine, 2 Science
Tough: 2 Damage Resistance
Sly: 2 Sneak, 2 Speech
Snide: 1 Critical Chance

The ‘Tough' responses (require STR or END) are usually the best to take, because of the unique DR bonus you can get.

Survivor Expert: 5 Variations
Requirements: Not all optional requirements were completed during the Wasteland
Survival Guide quest.
Useful: YES, but..
This perk always gives 4% Poison & Radiation Resistance.  Depending on your answers, it also gives on of the following bonuses:
Standard: 10 HP
Smart: 4 Medicine, 4 Science
Tough: 4 Damage Resistance
Sly: 4 Sneak, 4 Speech
Snide: 2 Critical Chance

The ‘Tough' responses (require STR or END) are usually the best to take, because of the unique DR bonus you can get.

Survivor Guru: 5 Variations
Requirements: All optional requirements were completed during the Wasteland Survival Guide quest.

Useful: YES
This perk always gives 6% Poison & Radiation Resistance.  Depending on your answers, it also gives on of the following bonuses:
Standard: 15 HP
Smart: 6 Medicine, 6 Science
Tough: 6 Damage Resistance
Sly: 6 Sneak, 6 Speech
Snide: 3 Critical Chance

The ‘Tough' responses (require STR or END) are usually the best to take, because of the unique DR bonus you can get.  The Survival Guru is the best of all the perks you can get from The Wasteland Survival Guide quest.

Ant Might: 1 Rank
Requirements: Complete ‘Those!' quest objectives for Doctor Lesko.
Useful: YES
You gain 25% resistance to fire, and gain a permanent 1 in STR.

Ant Sight: 1 Rank
Requirements: Complete ‘Those!' quest objectives for Doctor Lesko.
Useful: YES
You gain 25% resistance to fire, and gain a permanent 1 in PER.
Which to choose?  Depends on which of the two stats (STR or PER) you are aiming to max out at the moment.  It doesn't really matter much, you should be able to get both to 10.

Wired Reflexes: 1 Rank
Requirements: Complete ‘The Replicated Man' and head to Dr. Zimmer.
Useful: YES
Increases VATS accuracy by 10%!

Hematophagy: 1 Rank
Requirements: Complete ‘Blood Ties'.
Useful: YES

Allows you to gain 20 HP from Blood Packs instead of 1.  You can also sell them for 15 Caps.

Barkskin: 1 Rank
Requirements: Do the ‘Oasis' quest.
Useful: YES

Damage Resistance is increased by 10, and END is increased by 1.  Both are permanent increases.