Stats bonus

[jokaro]

What does the different stats affect in game.

Is this wiki page still valid? http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Stats

One thing I think is missing is that strength affects what bows you are able to use. Is there more such undocumented effects?

What is your recommendations for the different stats and why?

My thoughts:

• A strength value of at least 10 but more is good to have
• Dexterity is only needed early game as late game is more determined by skills, so 8 is fine.
• Intelligence seems to be one of the most useful so I usually put a 12 here.
• A perception value of at least 10 is needed to detect sink holes and mines. But that doesn’t allow any eye enc.

[deknegt]

I find intelligence really neglible, because having it above-average affects only a handful of skill books you can read. Other than that it’s mostly the speed at which you learn stuff (which can me mitigated with Fast Reader/Learner).

Strength is a generally useful stat to have, since bashing weapons are generally the most useful early/mid game damage dealers out there. Add to that a bit more carrying weight and some more health, you got yourselves the most useful stat in the game. Get strength, get melee/bash, get aluminum bat, ???, profit

If you’re gonna get guns, Dexterity is a pretty useful stat to have. And it also affects your melee-to-hit, so it can be useful. But nothing that Strength and general experience doesn’t cover. I keep it at average.

Perception same for me. I don’t often wander the wild and when I do I have trapping and survival at a decent level to spot any sort of traps and disarm them. So I don’t need a high perception.

My current pre-set has 9-9-9-8 in stats. I personally feel that getting a few good traits and starting skills instead is much more useful than starting stats. Might be a stupid idea, but I roll with it and more often than not I can survive the first few days and afterwards you become self sufficient with only your own idiocy and hubris that can kill you.

[Barhandar]

I find intelligence really neglible, because having it above-average affects only a handful of skill books you can read. Other than that it’s mostly the speed at which you learn stuff (which can me mitigated with Fast Reader/Learner).

Intelligence is a primary factor in installing bionics.

My current pre-set has 9-9-9-8 in stats. I personally feel that getting a few good traits and starting skills instead is much more useful than starting stats. Might be a stupid idea, but I roll with it and more often than not I can survive the first few days and afterwards you become self sufficient with only your own idiocy and hubris that can kill you.

There are only three ways to permanently(ish) raise your primary stats, and one of them is a luck-based easter ‘egg’. High-stat-low-skill start is harder and demands more player skill, but is much more effective late-game.

[Nathan]

[quote=“jokaro, post:1, topic:7480”]What does the different stats affect in game.

Is this wiki page still valid? http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Stats

One thing I think is missing is that strength affects what bows you are able to use. Is there more such undocumented effects?

What is your recommendations for the different stats and why?

My thoughts:

• A strength value of at least 10 but more is good to have
• Dexterity is only needed early game as late game is more determined by skills, so 8 is fine.
• Intelligence seems to be one of the most useful so I usually put a 12 here.
• A perception value of at least 10 is needed to detect sink holes and mines. But that doesn’t allow any eye enc.[/quote]

Strength and Int are the two most commonly used so boosting those is good. Perception, you can avoid sinkholes by just not walking into swamps, and mine fields tend to have some features that give them away as well. If traps were more randomly placed it would be better, but I don’t think you’ll ever run into a trap in a city for example. Dexterity I agree with, but I’ll try to raise it all the same.

Intelligence is a primary factor in installing bionics.

It effects skill rust, and I'm fairly certain it effects crafting failure chance as well.

[incide]

For a novice player seeking to survive the early game, Str>=11, Dex>=9, 11 in Per and whatever you wish in Int. Str will grant you ability to survive melee and finish opponents quicker, Dex will help you hit the opponents if your skills are too low or you have torso encumbrance, and Per will help you not wander into minefields even if there’s sunlight glare. Int is important for shortening the time to get skills up, but your char will quickly die anyway, so that’s not a problem. Obviously, scoundrel/survivalist profession, cheaty traits like truth teller or ugly, and don’t forget about fleet-footed to ease the things. Again, you’ll die anyway, but this setup is the easiest to learn.

For an advanced player seeking an easy mid-late game, 13/11/12/10, negative traits to max, a couple of positive traits, no skills and a profession on the cheaper side, or even a negative one like shower victim, if you are confident in your early-game survival capabilities. Str is useful overall, as it will ease early-game melee and late-game weight carrying problems. Dex initially sucks, but will become more important when you start actively using long-range weaponry. 10 Per will allow you to see nearly all traps if you’ve got glare protection on. 12 Int is super-important for reducing the grind, as book-grinding, car-dismantling and electronics assembly/disassembly for upping the skills is the most boring thing in the game.

For a roleplayer or an expert, all bets are off. For example, 4/4/4/4 (aka a child) is godawful, but can be salvaged with a really careful game and lucky finds like a gun-nut basement. Shotguns are nearly an only possibility to dish out damage, as you won’t be able to hit shit with anything else thanks to dex and per. If you want to make this stuff at least a bit easier, go fleet-footed/parkour/quick to run away from most scary things and don’t forget about addiction resistant, because pills will frequently save your bacon. Plus, you’ll have an unforgettable mental image of a cocaine-snorting, meth-fueled kid pummeling hordes of zombies with a Saiga (essentially, a kalashnikov firing 12-gauge, the only magazine-fed shotgun in the game). Enjoy.

[Arek_PL]

why child will have 4 perception?

[incide]

why child will have 4 perception?

Well, we could say it’s a, uhh, special child.
Although I remember myself not noticing a whole lot of things around me when I was a kid. Acute hearing and normal vision, but overall dreaminess and inability to concentrate, wandering off on random thoughts and so on. Sure, it is a stretch when applied to gun accuracy, but it sure as hell would affect trap detection.

[Arek_PL]

yes kids look at everything and cant focus on something but 4 is too smal 6-7 its enought

[Coolthulhu]

Why not go low on perception? It doesn’t do much.

It affects ranged accuracy, but only as much as dexterity (a much more useful stat).
It helps with trap detection and digging into magma, but traps are better handled by their skill and digging into magma isn’t something you do often.
It also allows you to see more items in list item menu (“V” by default), but even at 4 perception it has a reasonable range of 20.
Finally, low perception impairs throwing (separate penalty from the ranged one). I don’t throw much because throwables have low stats, training throwing is a chore and at low throwing it’s better to switch to a pistol/bow and fire some bullets/arrows instead. Well, except for grenades, but those don’t need that extra accuracy.

Every other stat does much more. You also can put those extra points in amazing traits like fleet-footed, quick, night vision and robust genetics, which will make mutating so much more rewarding and safe.

[TinHead]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:9, topic:7480”]Why not go low on perception? It doesn’t do much.

It affects ranged accuracy, but only as much as dexterity (a much more useful stat).
It helps with trap detection and digging into magma, but traps are better handled by their skill and digging into magma isn’t something you do often.
It also allows you to see more items in list item menu (“V” by default), but even at 4 perception it has a reasonable range of 20.
Finally, low perception impairs throwing (separate penalty from the ranged one). I don’t throw much because throwables have low stats, training throwing is a chore and at low throwing it’s better to switch to a pistol/bow and fire some bullets/arrows instead. Well, except for grenades, but those don’t need that extra accuracy.

Every other stat does much more. You also can put those extra points in amazing traits like fleet-footed, quick, night vision and robust genetics, which will make mutating so much more rewarding and safe.[/quote]
What.
Why are you even saying this.
People can die from low perception… Take a look at PROOF!!!

DOUBT ME??
DOUBT THIS!!!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Honestly though, High perception is AMAZING
First off, if your about to die via minefield, YOU’LL SEE THE MINES!!! (:
Second off, YOU CAN SNIPER!! (:
Third off, You don’t die via Landmine. (: (:
1337 Perception player YOLO SWAG, YOLO!

[jimboblordofeskimos]

If im powergaming for a strong late game build the only thing I dont cheap out on is raw stats.
Skills can always be gained, extra points for better starting gear from a profession is wasted points by mid/late game and apart from night vision, there isnt much in positive traits that cant be worked around.
The quick/fleet footed traits are ok to learn with, but generally I find for the cost of 3 points id rather have just more stats, you end up with a much stronger char later game.

You want high int for installing cbms and faster learning (fast learner might up your learning, but does nothing for cbm installs), high str for more damage/hp. You want at least decent dex for a melee char, for gun use you want both high dex and per.

The semi recent additions of stronger turrets at mil bases, roadblocks and more nasty robots make a char that is capable of long range sniping pretty much essential unless you are willing to take some huge risks or have a full suite of cbms.

So, yeah, for a really strong char you want high everything really. A general overview of the sort of char I play with is:
12+ STR, 10 DEX, 12+ INT, 10 PER, tailor, Night vision, stylish, 1 point dodge, 12 points bad traits.
This sort of char can do pretty much everything well, stylish will help raise skills much faster, fight with guns/bows/melee/fists well with minimal training, nice heavy hp, decent cbm install by late game and with a little bit of work be fairly competent at long range sniping. My chances of dying by standing on random land mines is also pretty low.

[Coolthulhu]

Land mines are better avoided by out of game perception: those mounds are rather visible. If this fails, there’s always the trapping skill, that neutralizes minefields once you read “Compleat Trapper”, even at 4 per (trapping matters 2x as much as per here).

While dex and per ranged penalties are applied separately, statistically it doesn’t matter much (12+8 gets a 1d5-1 roll at dispersion, 10+10 gets a 2d3-2). That 2 dex won’t save lives, but has many more uses than that 2 per.

Unless you expect to get 12 in both dex and per (CBMs, mutations), there’s no reason not to take 12 dex at the cost of few points out of per. And if we’re talking about characters that expect to reach late game this late, those better start out as tweakers, hobos or infected shower victims.

[jcd]

when not rp’ing, i do the 8/8/8/8 build (or 10/8/8/8) as i plan to mutate into alpha later on. (if i survive) (15/15/15/15 is pretty good)
instead, i dump points to traits, and pick a proffesion that i like.

[Barhandar]

Land mines are better avoided by out of game perception: those mounds are rather visible.

Random offroad minefields don’t have mounds. Only rare ‘destroyed road’ tile has mounds for its mines.
And they can be anywhere. ANYWHERE!

[TinHead]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:12, topic:7480”]Land mines are better avoided by out of game perception: those mounds are rather visible.

Random offroad minefields don’t have mounds. Only rare ‘destroyed road’ tile has mounds for its mines.
And they can be anywhere. ANYWHERE![/quote]
Don’t be like the titanic people, oh and whatever you do…
DON’T EVER RUN TOWARDS MOUNDS OF DIRT

[charcharmunro]

Alternatively, find Alpha recipe. Make Alpha serum. Inject until satisfied.

[vultures]

I loved what Incide’s been writing about. Altough I’ve tried a similar thing (STR5, DEX5, INT6, PER5) it never spoke to me like it was a child! Since the average character absolution is 9-9-9-9 (picking up a trait or two in the process), my concept is more of a clumsy, cartoon character - perhaps like the next door chubby Baldwin from the Neighbors from Hell franchise. Guess it could also mean someone’s least favoured aunt if the tables turned towards the female portion of the crowd.

The idea was to get really, really buffed on stimulants before attempting to raid a town for supplies. The step where I’ve actually failed is the one where the character must get mutagens and evolve into something more menacing.
So, dare ya. Double, dozenubble dare ya.

[ArcanErasmus]

I am in the camp that stats are everything. If you really want to survive all you need are raw stats and a decent start, and you can spend a week later on to read through all the books you could barely hold after clearing a library or school.

Plus, you don’t have to worry about skills rusting when you don’t have any!

Unrelated note: Is there any danger to the fact that I have filled an entire trunk slot in my car with disarmed landmines? I get nervous every time I even look at them, but they feel like trophies…

[Barhandar]

Unrelated note: Is there any danger to the fact that I have filled an entire trunk slot in my car with disarmed landmines? I get nervous every time I even look at them, but they feel like trophies…

Suprisingly, no, they don’t have COOKOFF tag.