Rise From Your Grave!

Begin your adventure in Fallout: New Vegas! Learn how to customize your character, assign SPECIAL stats, choose traits, and navigate the initial steps of the 'Ain't That a Kick in the Head' quest.

Your adventures in the Mohave start out inauspiciously enough; after your latest delivery goes horribly wrong, you’re left for dead by a sharply-dressed man and his goons. Fortunately for you, you’re rescued by the kindly Doc Mitchell, whose efforts to help make sure you’re fully recovered serve as this game’s character creation process. Follow his instructions to customize your appearance, then hit the “Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester” to assign your SPECIAL Attributes. These are covered in greater detail in the Character Creation section of the guide, but if you want to just follow along without all the messy explanations, assign your Attribute Points as follows:

SPECIAL Attribute Starting Score:

• Strength: 5
• Perception: 5
• Endurance: 8
• Charisma: 1
• Intelligence: 6
• Agility: 7
• Luck: 8

Assign your SPECIAL Attributes as you see fit and assign whatever traits you wish to begin the game with. You’ll get a chance to modify your characters shortly.

Once done, follow Doc Mitchell into another room and endure a word-association test and a rorschach test which serve to set your Tag! skills. These skills get a +15 bonus when starting out, making them most likely your highest skills at the moment. Again, this is all covered in greater detail in the Character Creation section of the guide, but for those who can’t be bothered to read it, start out by tagging the Science, Lockpick and either Speech or Survival (only Tag! Survival if you plan to play the game in Hardcore Mode).

Lastly, Doc Mitchell will ask you to fill out a form about your medical history, which allows you to pick your traits. Traits are like perks, except they typically have a downside (whereas perks are usually solely beneficial). Not all perks are created equal, and neither are all traits; definitely pick the Skilled trait (by and far the best trait in the game) and up to one other trait of your choosing. Small Frame is probably the best of the remaining, as it boosts your Agility without imposing a significant handicap.

Follow Doc Mitchell to the door and he’ll give you whatever gear you had on you before you decided to headbutt a bullet, as well as his old Pip-Boy 3000 and some clothes. Then he’ll proceed to give you some advice on who is worth talking to around town before finally letting you go. Pick whether you want to play the game in Hardcore Mode, then leave the doctor’s office.

Quest Completed: Ain't That a Kick in the Head

Tutorial: Pip-Boy 3000

Before you get on with things, let’s first take a look at the Pip-Boy 3000. If you’re not familiar with how this thing works… well, you need to be, as it’s your character screen, inventory, quest screen and map all in one. To bring it up, press [Circle] (PS3) or [B] (Xbox) and note the three tabs on the bottom, which can be navigated with [L1] and [R1].

The first tab, “STATS”, has all your vital character information. CND shows your current status, particularly the damage each part of your body has taken. If a limb loses condition, it’ll stop functioning, affecting your movement speed, causing you to have blurred vision, and other unfortunate side-effects. RAD shows you your RAD count; the more RADS you have, the more irradiated you are, the more penalties you’ll suffer, as follows:

RADS Effects:

• 200: -1 EN
• 400: -2 EN, -1 AG
• 600: -3 EN, -2 AG, -1 ST
• 800: -3 EN, -2 AG, -2 ST
• 1000: Death!

Finally, the EFF tab shows what active effects you have, either from injuries, radiation poisoning, water, food or sleep deprivation, or bonuses gained from attire. H20, FOD and SLP show thirst, hungry and tired your character is, on a scale from one to one thousand. The lower the better.

The second tab, “ITEMS”, is your inventory, where you can equip, drop, or repair weapons and armor, use “Aid” items, or manage miscellaneous items and ammo. As weapons and armor are used, their status will deteriorate, being less effective in combat. Weapons will jam more while reloading and deal less damage as their condition worsens, and damaged armor will protect against less damage. To Repair items, press [Triangle] (PS3) or [Y] (Xbox 360). You must have a similar item to the one being repaired to be able to salvage the former for parts (consuming it in the process) to repair the other.

In this third screen, “DATA”, you’ll find your maps (both local and world), a “Quest” tab (you should have the quests Back in the Saddle and They Went That-a-Way active) a “Misc” tab (with the note Mojave Express Delivery Order in it, which describes the details of your last, fateful job) and finally, the “Radio” tab, where you can tune into the unfortunately limited broadcasts in the Mojave. In the “Misc” tab you can toggle between Notes, Active Quest Notes, and Challenges. Completing challenges, either by killing or damaging foes or by doing other miscellaneous actions (disarming mines, picking pockets, hacking terminals, discovering locations, etc.) can earn you trophies/achievements and XP.

Most importantly, hold down the [Circle]/[B] (PS3)/(Xbox 360) buttons to toggle your Pip-Boy light on and off. If you’re trying to see stuff nearby, it’s great. If you’re trying to sneak, turn it off.

With all that done, search Doc Mitchell’s house. There are some First Aid Boxes you can loot, a Gun Box with a Laser Pistol in it and an Ammo Box on some metal shelves. This loot is welcome, if for nothing else than the Caps they can be sold for. There’s also a Broken 9mm Submachine Gun on a Sunset Sarsaparilla Crate, but you’ll need a Repair skill to fix it.