The 00 Courier

[PizzaSHARK]

I recently started a new game of NV and I'm going with a general character concept. I like the concept and it's been pretty fun to play so far, so I thought I'd share it with everyone. I imagine that this concept would play out just fine even in the vanilla game, but for reference purposes the primary mods affecting balance and gameplay that I'm using are Servalion's The 00 Commando (or more accurately, Gribbleshnibit8's re-write of that mod) and Arwen_Eve's Arwen_NV_Realism_Tweaks.

 

That said, I'm breaking the rules with console commands and things like that.

 

First, if you want to do what I've done, you'll need to know how to use basic console commands. Nukapedia (fallout.wikia.com) can teach you everything you need to know, but basically all you'll need to know are what base IDs are, how to pull up the console (press the tilde or grave key, which is normally next to the "1" key on your keyboard), and the specific commands needed to edit your character's skills and attributes (generally, it's player.modav "value" "amount", so for example player.modav energyweapons 5 would increase my Energy Weapons skill by 5), and to give your character the starting items (player.additem "base ID" "quantity"; you can look up base IDs on Nukapedia.)

 

Anyway, here's the gist of the character concept:

 

The character is in their late thirties to early fifties (wherever in that general area you prefer) and is a veteran courier; if you want to be more specific you can give them a backstory and whatever else to really role-play it, but this is just a basic concept. Importantly, I just want to make it so that this character isn't some newbie courier, he or she's been doing it for a long time (depending on age, probably ten or more years.)

 

The older age is important because it has relevance on our attributes. And, as the concept name implies, this character's weapon of choice is the shotgun.

 

The character's three tag skills are Guns, Repair, and Survival. Guns because, well, that's what a shotgun is. Repair because a Courier likely spends most of their time on the road, and they need to keep their equipment in good working order - they can't just drag their broken gun or armor or needed equipment to the local Old Lady Gibson to get it fixed. Survival because they are out there crossing the wasteland and probably spend more nights under the stars than under a roof - this means feeding themself, getting water, and dealing with wasteland critters is a normal part of their day.

 

Traits are optional. I like Trigger Discipline and Wild Wasteland for gameplay reasons, but it's really up to you. I didn't think any of them screamed out "PICK ME!" for this character concept. Wild Wasteland doesn't really jive with a realistic character concept... but it's fun, so whatever.

 

Now, because we're assuming this character is a veteran Courier, we're giving them some better equipment to start with (nothing fancy, but better than a half-broken 9mm Pistol and handful of bullets) and I'm going to use set skills (through the player.modav command) rather than skills derived through attributes and tag bonuses. On the other hand, I'm choosing to interpret the level up system as the character continuing to improve existing skills, not so much learning new ones entirely - this isn't the first time our courier's used a gun, they're just getting that much better with a particular skill they already had beforehand.

 

Now, our starting equipment is:

 

Leather armor

Hat of your choice, or none

Caravan Shotgun

40 20ga shotgun shells

4 Stimpaks

1 Caravan Lunch

1 Purified Water

 

And you keep whatever it is Doc gave you (with these tag skills, it'll be a beat up 9mm Pistol with some 9mm bullets.) I'm personally choosing to make my game harder by not stealing from people that don't hate me (no problems taking s*** from people that are trying to kill me, though, like Powder Gangers; or the people of Goodsprings if you side with the Powder Gangers), but that's up to you.

 

Essentially, we're giving our character one of the pre-order packs. Shotgun's our courier's weapon of choice, they've got enough ammo to deal with any raiders or critters they might have to defend themselves and their package(s) from, and enough food and water for what should only be about one day's worth of travel (from Primm to the New Vegas gate, since it's implied you got the job from Johnson Nash and were taking I-15 northbound along Goodsprings to reach New Vegas when you got ambushed.) I'm assuming that Benny and his buddies were just planning on burying you with your stuff, rather than stealing it - the Great Khans have better equipment than what I'm giving you, and Benny's the head Chairman, so it's not like they're in any need to take your stuff and pawn it off unless they were maybe hungry or thirsty (in which case we'll just say Doc gave you some food and water in addition to a few stimpaks.)

 

Now, our attributes and skills will look something like:

 

5 Strength

5 Perception

6 Endurance

4 Charisma

6 Intelligence

4 Agility

7 Luck

 

For a total of 37 points (35 base points and we're giving our courier 2 bonus points because you're the player character; 5 points is way too many.) Shotguns require some strength to use, but your age is starting to show. You're older, but your eyes and ears still work fine. A courier's job involves a lot of travel and enduring the harshness of wasteland, so you're hardier than your average rancher or prospector. Couriers just deliver things, they don't sell them, so charm isn't your specialty. Couriers need to be smart enough to read maps... and know when their employer's trying to short them their share of the pay. You're getting older, and it's starting to show - you aren't as quick or nimble as you used to be. And lastly, surviving as long as you have in a job as dangerous as a courier's requires a certain degree of luck.

 

There are thirteen skills, and I'm going to use an arbitrary number of 10 to indicate competence in a given skill (again, I'm looking at XP/skill points as gauging your improvement in a skill you already knew, not learning a completely new skill) and since we're the player character, we're extra special and get an extra 10 points to play with, for a starting total of 140 skill points. I'm divvying them up as:

 

10 Barter

05 Energy Weapons

10 Explosives

30 Guns

05 Lockpick

10 Medicine

05 Melee Weapons

20 Repair

05 Science

05 Sneak

05 Speech

25 Survival

05 Unarmed

 

140 points total. Energy weapons and other science-y things were never important to being a courier, so your knowledge of that sort of thing is below average. As your body slows down, your competence at close combat and delicate movements like sneaking around and fiddling with locks has taken a hit. You never learned how to talk to people really well, but you learned enough about trade to ensure you at least aren't getting ripped off too badly. You've got a passing knowledge of simple, common explosives that you might encounter on occasion and you at least know enough about medicine to apply a simple bandage and jab yourself with a stimpak; more serious things, you just found an actual doctor for. You've learned more than most about maintaining guns and other equipment since you're often forced to do these things yourself, you're more than capable of hunting up your supper, and your skill with a shotgun and other common guns is noteworthy.

 

 

I'm also giving this character three free perks, related to the three tag skills. These perks are Shotgun Surgeon for guns, Junk Rounds for repair, and Alertness (requires Lonesome Road DLC) for survival.

 

Shotgun surgeon should be self-explanatory - we're assuming our character is a veteran courier with years of experience with shotguns. Junk Rounds won't actually be usable with our starting Repair (all of the recipes require 45 Repair), but it saves us buying the perk later and while I'd like to give the character Jury Rigging instead, I think that'd be way too overpowered. Alertness is a survival-related skill that also emphasizes our character's slowing down and adopting caution over action as their body begins to feel its age; by slowing down and paying attention, our character is better-able to detect threats and avoid them (or engage them from an advantage...)

 

 

As for actual gameplay elements, I'm leaving these largely up to the user. Arwen's tweaks already emphasizes inventory management with the encumbrance module combined with our merely average Strength stat. I'm also choosing to not use rifles of any kind, at all; shotguns and pistols only. I'm reasoning that if you're wandering around the wasteland already carrying a couple of meals and a few bottles of water, plus some minor medical supplies, maybe a couple of mines or grenades, and maybe even some light reading material, you're gonna have trouble finding space in your pack or on your harness for two large guns... but you've got plenty of space on your thighs for a pistol's holster and a couple of small pouches to carry some extra magazines for it, right?

[Mishaxhi]

I actually end up using the single shotgun heavily on shotgun runs. With the 00 mod it's deadly, even at range. Not overpowered, but the shots count a lot more than the caravan shotgun.

Plus the caravan shotguns terrible sights annoy me. Oh well, they all pale in comparison to the badboy that is the lever action shotgun anyway.