Oye there, wasteland lads and lasses! Wasteland 2 is coming and hopefully will be a good game. Hopefully – the last video didn't inspire too much faith, even with a disco bot. Anyways, now's the time for texts and texts about the second most important – after loot – aspect of RPGs: character attributes.
First come the imaginatively named attributes. The devs promise that you'll start with smaller values (wasteland malnutrition?) than you're used to, but you'll be able to raise them in game. The opportunities will be rare, since, as they say, the changes might be dramatic. As it can be expected, attribute values will play into skill checks and things like that. 'ave a butcher's at this copy-paste:
*Coordination (CO): General coordination and ability to operate firearms. Determines action points (AP) and increases your critical hit chance at range.
Luck (LK): Luck of the roll. Improves crits with weapons, gives you a chance to get an additional AP during your turn and affects many other interactions throughout the wasteland.
Awareness (AW): Ability to notice events happening around you. Increases initiative in combat (turn order), increases evasion rate.
Strength (ST): Pure physical strength. Increases your maximum constitution earned per level, increases close combat damage, increases carry weight.
Speed (SP): Physical speed and movement rate. Increases movement per AP in combat, reduces length of skill usage progress meters.
Intelligence (IQ): Knowledge, wisdom and general problem-solving. Increases skill points gained per level.
Charisma (CHR): Charm, personality and swagger. How NPCs perceive your likeability or persuasiveness.
The mad scramble to escape the shadow of SPECIAL is cute. On the other hand, probably no game went broke over the attribute system alone. Awright, now for where the radioactive meat is: the skills!
Skills go from 1 to 10, with 1 being the most novice of the novices and 10 signifying that your truly hold mad skillz. Once you unlock them with SP (skill points), you can use SP to increase them. Some also increase with use (hey, Morrowind!) or give bonuses to other checks.
Combat Skills
Blunt Weapons: Generally have higher damage but a tighter damage range.
Bladed Weapons: Have lower damage but a greater range and higher crit max (JcDent: probably only ever used by crazies – who brings a club or sword to a gun fight?).
Anti-Tank-Weapons: Generally do massive explosive damage but ammo is rare and blast radius makes them hard to use in certain combat situations. Can also be used to get through some pesky doors. (JcDent: In Silent Storm, they were used to get through pesky anything)
Submachine Guns: Have a lower range and lower critical chance, for a more hail-of-bullets approach. Ammo tends to be cheaper and more plentiful than for the higher caliber automatics.
Shotguns: Have shorter range but great stopping power.
Energy Weapons: Usefulness varies based on your opponent, as energy weapons are less effective against flesh. If your opponent is heavily decked out in metal armor the weapon heats up his gear. The higher the armor of your target, the more damage it will deal. Think pressure cooker. It's nasty.
Assault Rifles: Are very versatile and powerful weapons, but ammo is harder to find. Assault rifles use higher caliber rounds with more penetration value than smaller arms.
Sniper Rifle: Ideal in open fields due to their long range and heavy damage, but not necessarily stellar in cramped corridors. Ammo is very expensive. Make your shots count as the AP cost is very high.
Handguns: Includes pistols and revolvers. Like SMGs, ammo is common enough to make this the go-to weapon for many rangers, but they are single shot only, trading that for a higher crit value.
Information Skills
Usually used when you're not getting shot at and in various skill checks that are so beloved by table top RPG fans.
Picklock: Chance of success and speed at picking conventional locks.
Safecrack: Chance of success and speed at picking safe locks, including on vault doors. (JcDent: seems rather...specific)
Alarm Disarm: Ability to disarm alarms, but also to fix faulty wiring on security doors and open them directly.
Toaster Repair: Fix broken toasters and who doesn't need that? (JcDent: OK, now that's specific!)
Computer Tech: Skill at hacking computers, which gives access to a variety of possibilities. You can gain information you couldn't otherwise, or remotely activate a security system or camera. Some computers may give you the ability to activate or reprogram security doors.
Synth Tech: With synth tech you can repair and reprogram synthetics and other robots, turning them to your side in combat.
Demolitions: The ability to use demolitions in and out of combat. Out of combat, its most common use is to break down doors or clear barriers that do not give way to picklock or brute force, but this unsubtle means of entry is sure to be noticed. In combat, lots of destruction.
Brute Force: Determines your skill at applying your raw strength to break some things. Lacks the subtlety of picklock and the raw force of demolitions.
Move Silently: The ability to sneak around unnoticed.
Salvaging: How effective you are at finding usable items in what would normally be considered piles of junk. A ranger who is good at salvaging can find many useful items that might be skipped over by a normal person.
Kiss Ass: Dialogue skill involving flattery, seduction, and well... ass kissing.
Hard Ass: Dialogue skill involving intimidation and aggressive speech.
Smart Ass: Dialogue skill involving persuasion. ***The "Ass Trio" names are placeholders but somehow they've taken hold around the office.***
General Skills
These don't run the show, but are important to things like medicine and crafting.
Barter: Ability to negotiate for better purchase prices and higher sales prices for your goods.
Outdoorsman: Primarily used on the world map to determine your ability to conserve water as you travel, as well as expand your options for when you spot random encounters.
Leadership: The ability to lead a team, best used by a single PC who gives a buff in combat to PCs and friendly NPCs around him. Multiple leaders around the same skill level can cause a negative reaction. Also determines how much companion NPCs will listen to you vs. doing their own thing.
Cliff Clavin Backer Skill: The skill exclusive to the early backers of this project, it adds flavor text to the game world.
Animal Whisperer: The ability to influence animals into staying passive, running away or following you. (JcDent: Hey, I'm useless, much like Wilderness in Fallout!)
Field Medic: This skill lets you quickly patch up guys during combat, recovering some CON by using medical equipment.
Surgeon: Allows you to provide help to rangers who have major status effects or have gone unconscious or worse. Can be used in combat but due to the amount of time it takes, will force you to protect your surgeon from being overly exposed.
Weaponsmithing: The ability to craft and mod weaponry to increase its performance.
Field Stripping: The ability to strip weaponry you find into parts to use for improving your own weapons.
Perception: Can be used actively to notice enemies through thin walls, uncovering them for a short period of time. The skill also shows you the perception cone of enemies to help you sneak or get to a better starting position prior to combat. As a passive, it helps to identify things that might be out of the ordinary, including finding booby traps.
?????? - A few other skills that can be unlocked throughout the game.
There're also mentions about a Beta: first, they'll take weeks to check for bugs, then they'll allow a super special group of Windows gamers to check for them too.
