Helloooo everyone, I’m loving the game so far. I’ve been probably been playing for about a couple weeks now. The longest I’ve survived is only about 3 days, just because I get really antsy and like to go on zombie killing rampages.
So to get to the main point of this thread. I was thinking everyone could share how they build their characters. Or maybe just some cool goofy kind of classes like say a nerd character, 15 int, fast learner, level 4 computer skill. Stuff like that.
If this thread gets really popular I’ll probably feature really cool builds and such that I find along the way.
My Most successful Build:
Class Name: Well rounded, handgunner
Stats:
Str - 9
Dex - 9
Int - 9
Per - 9
Good traits:
Fast learner
Quick
Fleet footed
Robust genetics
Bad traits:
Heavy Sleeper
Addictive Personality
Trigger Happy
Weak Stomach
Hp ignorant
Truth Teller
Ugly
Skills:
Melee: 1 point
Firearms: 1 point
Handguns: 1 point
started with 24 points and learning to cut down, i run with skill-less quick fast learning night-vision truth telling wool allergic optimists. sometimes trigger happy, heavy sleeper gourmand types with huge bellies.
Good traits:
Quick
Robust Genetics (to try it out)
Bad Traits:
Addictive personality
Trigger Happy
Truth teller
ugly
Stats:
Melee 1 point
survival 1 point
Notes:
A good melee focused survivor that I have had some success with in static spawn, skirt the edges of town to start and get some weapons a pot ect.
My most successful build so far: the longest I’ve gone with this build was up to the end of Summer.
Class Name: Hunter Bailey (Eh, I name the classes after the characters I make. I use the same name every time. Also, the name came from a few minutes of dicking around with the random name generator.)
Stats:
Str - 12
Dex - 8
Int - 10
Per - 10
Good traits:
Quick
Night Vision
Light Step
Robust Genetics
Bad traits:
Heavy Sleeper
Glass Jaw
Lightweight
Addictive Personality
Trigger Happy
Truth Teller
Skills:
Archery: 1 point
Mechanics: 1 point
Survival: 1 point
Notes:
I use bows as a main weapon, followed by melee in emergency situations. Nocturnal raiding is a happy past time, as well as building my own base/cabin in the middle of forests. Points in Archery + Survival allows me to make longbows and arrows on the get go. Mechanics allows me to make a crowbar for early game house raiding/crate opening. Plus it makes it easier to play around with vehicles.
Fast Healer
Night Vision
Fast Reader
Fast Learner
Animal Empathy
Glass Jaw
Addictive Personality
Trigger Happy
HP Ignorant
Truth Teller
Dodge: ****
Melee: **
Mechanics: **
I feel that having dodge up to level 4 is a HUGE bonus early and worth the point cost. I’ve been getting good results with this guy, he’s competent at melee and once I raid a library and find a cabin or waste treatment facility in the wilderness, he can handle himself more or less. I would get some survival skill points in there but it seems like for most of my characters it doesn’t take long to get that skill up enough when you’re constantly hounded by wolves and cougars. I’ve been trying to start working with cars but your mileage may vary, in which case I would recommend throwing that point into first aid rather than survival. Until I read the Big Book of First Aid the effects of medkits are lackluster.
Get a gun early and wreck stuff. A little bit of dodge to help survival until one is found. Ideally you want a rifle, once you have one and plenty of ammunition you are immortal.
Generally my builds are
Str,dex,int,per all the same between 10-13 varies on the amout of points I allow myself at creation
traits-positive
quick - a must have
robust genetics - pretty much any character I play if they last long enough will be heavily mutated so this helps keep the mutations more benign
Nightvision - occasionally, high chance to mutate up to full nightvision
Negative traits:
Lightweight
Addictive personality
Trigger happy
Heavy sleeper
Ugly - free point basically
Smelly - a not quite free point, zombies tend to find me really easy even at night standing still for a while
Truth teller - free point basically
I rarely spend points in skills, stats don’t change outside of some mutations/bionics, skills are easy enough to raise
if we spawned with random stuff depending on the skills you start with then I would maybe consider investing skill at character creation.
Back when HP Ignorant was available. 9 starting points, justified as martial-arts instructor NPCs simply aren’t gonna happen in the versions I have.
11 St
10 Dx
12 In
10 Pe
Heavy Sleeper
Insomniac
Trigger Happy
HP Ignorant
Truth Teller
I used to take Ugly, but didn’t like starting with that mutation tree already going. Since mutations have a NPC-reaction adjustment attached, becoming specifically more deformed feels like it ought to carry a stat/speed penalty or something. Truth Teller is a RP thing, since if I’m Not. Going. To. Lie. I may as well get the points for it.
Poison Resistant
Light Step
Night Vision
Robust Genetics
Martial Arts Training (usually taekwondo)
Poison Resist is nice against insects, and helps encourage Venom when I decide to hit the Mutagen. Same with Night Vision. Light step/NV are my anti-zed. Robust Genetics because I lurve me my GURPS Bio-Tech. If you don’t want the Martial Arts or if trainers are actually available in the new versions, cutting it lets you start from the default point value; taekwondo probably isn’t the best possible MA but I took a little bit of it IRL and I’ve managed to punch out a graboid using it, so it can’t be all bad.
** Dodge
Can’t learn it from a book and it’s probably the riskiest skill to train. Besides, if I get ambushed with a pack on I’d rather be dodging from skill 0 than -2.
this works well with my desktop layout. if the window top off screen for you, press " Alt-Space ‘m’ Enter " when cata starts and it will take up most of the screen (windows ‘bar’ not always on top)
i make a ./data/normal and a ./data/small folder where i keep the masters for options/fontdata and copy them into ./data as needed to simulate the missing map-zoom feature. even smaller sizes can be used to let you make screenshots of the map.
Um, I dunno. I just increase the initial points by a pinch, pick the Learner trait and make a crowbar, since I like melee chars. I’m also ready to fix cars and fire a gun if it means to live another day. All of this mainly because before o-nine-hundred AM I’m already bashing the head on the dead. I just like having two digits on all my ability scores.
If I keep several points from spending them on skills, I play a minimalistic game only to be completely ready for the summer season of bringing down spires, scorching towns and swinging a maul with 12+ STR.
My vices are mostly standard, sometimes it’s just Trigger Happy plus Wool Allergy, sometimes half a dozen of them.
Illiterate
Forgetful
Poor Hearing
Heavy Sleeper
Smelly
The early game revolves around finding booze to manage pain with, getting drunk, and hauling stuff back to base. Later, you can use gourmand cooked meat and drugs to up your focus to make learning possible. At least he makes a decent mechanic, with enough strength to move the heaviest components.
Limited intelligence means that stupid stuff happens. Literacy isn’t even an option at this point. You’ll be exploding/ramming walls to bypass locked doors, meleeing turrets because you can’t make EMP grenades. He has so many hitpoints that you can train traps with beartraps and later recover landmines in relative safety. He’s also one of the few characters able to use a sledgehammer to it’s fullest potential, but cleaving 7 zombie children at a time is apparently “depressing”
I like to min max an unarmed oriented build so:
14 Str
14 Dex
8 Int
10 Perception
Fast Learner
Self Defense Training (Krav Maga for a good balance of offense/defense).
Heavy Sleeper
Poor Hearing
Lightweight
Addictive personality
Trigger Happy (I do use guns on occasion for some enemies so it is still relevant)
Smelly
Truth Teller (I have static npcs on)
Profession: Hobo (used to be Chain smoker, just for the extra points).
Works fairly well after the initial few days of hallucinations and shakes. Still trying to figure out a good solution for dealing with shockers, copbots, and turrets (My mortal enemy!) cause unarmed is not so great vs them. Usually end up installing a Fusion Arm Blaster as soon as I can afford to use it so not really big on bows.