Skills determine how good you are at various activities, anything from picking locks, hacking computers, attacking with various weapons, sneaking, interacting with NPCs and so forth. Your skills are every bit as important as your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes and your perks. They’re good stuff… but where do they come from? Lots of sources, and we’ll cover them all here.

Base

You start out with two points in each skill. Each skill will also gain an additional two skill points per point of related S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute. The exception is your Luck attribute, which has no related skills. Instead, Luck improves ALL your skills by one point for every odd point of Luck (1, 3, 5, 7, 9).

Tag!

During character creation you will select three skills to Tag! Each skill you Tag! increases by 15 points.

Leveling

You gain ten skill points per level, plus your Intelligence score.

Bobbleheads

Each skill has an associated Bobblehead scattered throughout the Wasteland. Obtaining said Bobblehead will increase the related skill by ten points. Free and easy skill points… plan on obtaining them all ahead of time, and don’t increase your skill above 90 before grabbing the Bobblehead, or you’re just wasting points.

Books

In addition to perks, leveling, Intelligence, and Bobbleheads, you can get skill bonuses from books you’ll find throughout the game. These books each give you a one point bonus to a specific skill, depending on the book. This cannot increase your skill level above 100. In the game there are twenty-five of each skill book (except for Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor , of which there are only twenty-three.)