r/WhoWouldWinWorkshop • u/Skulenta • 16d ago
Games Courier
CONTEXT: For this thread, I will focus mainly on the feats and applications of the Courier's SPECIAL attributes and associated skills at varying levels. I will not include abilities acquired from perks, traits, implants, apparel, weapons or chems. The reason is because the game's roleplaying mechanics are extremely complex with a lot of variables in build making, so I had to draw a line somewhere.
Pip-Boy
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
Strength
Basic Effects
- Improves the Courier's carry weight with a base carry weight of 200lbs at 5 Strength to a max carry weight of 250lbs at the highest Strength level. Going over the limit will overencumber the Courier, preventing them from running and using fast travel. Besides that, there is practically no limit to the amount of items the Courier can carry once overencumbered.
- Effects the Courier's ability to wield weapons with bulkier weapons requiring greater Strength levels.
Interactions
- Convinces a drug dealer into handing over his chems for free.
- Renders a man unconscious with a sleeper hold.
- Intimidates a group of gangsters into backing off.
Melee Weapons
Modifies the Courier's combat effectiveness with Melee Weapons, including thrown weapons like spears.
Basic Effects
- Can perform a variety of special attacks based on the weapon used.
Interactions
Perception
Interactions
- 6 Perception to correctly identify the bloodstain in the Hoover Dam visitor center supply closet as that of an NCR engineer during You'll Know It When It Happens.
- Correctly interprets a mute woman's sign language.
- Recognizes that a man isn't sweating due to the heat but because he's nervous about something.
- Makes an woman admit that she's agoraphobic.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 8 Perception to identify the tonal makeup of Doctor 8's broadcasts, trigging On the Same Wavelength (bypasses Science requirement).
Energy Weapons
Affects the Courier's accuracy and damage input when using Energy Weapons, including lasers, plasma shooters, sonic emitters and flame-based weapons.
Interactions
Lockpick
Interactions
- Dead Money 35 Lockpick to persuade God to follow the Courier during Find Collar 8: "Dog".
- 50 Lockpick to unlock the truck door at Cottonwood overlook during the quest Eye for an Eye.
- Dead Money 75 Lockpick to taunt Elijah about unlocking the Sierra Madre vault and getting him to personally intervene during Heist of the Centuries.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 75 Lockpick to inform Klein that the Sonic emitter works like an electronic lockpick to get into Mobius's Forbidden Zone.
Explosives
Affects the Courier's ability to use explosive weapons such as grenades, mines and projectile weapons that fire explosive ammunition. It also affects their ability to disarm a range of explosive traps.
Interactions
- Explains how the explosive Dean Domino placed under their seat could kill them both.
- Defuses a bomb hidden inside a monorail.
- Teaches the Legion how to disarm frag mines.
- Either safely deactivates or triggers an explosive collar.
- Uses C4 explosives to blow up a mound of sulfur deposits with or without destroying the vault it's located in.
- Either plants or defuses a bomb on the President's vertibird.
- Teaches ED-E how to make flamer fuel and satchel charges.
- Teaches a group of NCR troopers how to use grenades effectively.
- Identifies the destruction at Hopeville as being caused by an underground detonation.
Endurance
Basic Effects
- Affects the Courier's resistances to poison and radiation.
- Affects the Courier's maximum hitpoints.
- Allows the Courier to passively regain health if their Endurance is high enough.
- Determines how many implants the Courier can get to boost their primary attributes.
Unarmed
- Smashes a generator.
- Renders a man unconscious with a nerve strike.
- Convinces a high-ranking Legionnaire to teach them a special move.
Survival
Allows the Courier's to craft recipes at campfires and increases the health gained from consuming food and drink.
- Advises a woman on how to make healing powder more efficiently.
- Convinces a caravanner to allow you a higher carry weight on your trip.
- Persuades a "badass" to give you the schematics of a special ammo type.
- Teaches a chem dealer to make Hydra.
- Improvises an imitation human flesh pie without needing the recipe.
Charisma
Governs the Courier's ability to influence other characters. It also provides damage and armor bonuses to the Courier's companions.
Interactions
- Bonds with a group of children to gain favor with their faction.
- Convinces an undercover ranger of their innocence when caught delivering drugs.
Barter
Affects prices for the buying and selling of items with merchants.
Interactions
Barter regularly comes up in quests when demanding additional fees from quest givers and reducing prices when bargaining with other NPCs. These examples won't be included below for the sake of brevity and variety.
- Convinces a weapons merchant to part with some supplies to help the town he lives in or their enemy faction.
- Advises a weapon supplier on how to secure extra supplies.
- Convinces a chem dealer of the monetary benefits of selling medicinal chems.
- Proposes a book deal to an uppity chef to get him to share his recipes.
- Gets an NCR major to send additional units to the town of Primm since it gives them more control over trade routes.
- Gets a drug smuggler to part with his supplies for free.
- Convinces a doctor to sell the few medical supplies he has.
- Convinces a ghoul bodyguard to become a prostitute because it gives her access to cheaper alcohol.
- Gains access to a weapons merchant's hidden inventory at a discount in exchange for performing odd jobs.
- Earns a mysterious weapon as compensation for giving a job offer.
- Releases a ghoul stand-up comic from his contract via racism.
- Convinces an undercover ranger to accept the drug trafficker he's busting as an informant.
- Gets the boss of a trading company to release an employee with full pay, citing the possibility of making a new trading partner in the faction she's defecting to.
- Challenges an alcoholic caravan owner to a drinking contest in order to buy out her business.
- Persuades the Legate to retreat by convincing him that Mojave Wasteland will suffer economically under the Legion's control.
- Bargains with General Oliver to sign Mr. House's contract and surrender Hoover Dam.
Speech
Intelligence
Increases the amount of skill points gained when leveling up.
Interactions
- An Intelligence of 3 or less will grant "special" reverse-Intelligence dialogue and actions. Instances of this include: During Come Fly With Me, the Courier can randomly mash the buttons on the launch control panel. The rockets will take off and rewards will be gained as though one passed the 55 Science check to properly input improved coordinates.
- Dead Money When talking to Dog, ask about how he arrived at the Sierra Madre (without the use of exploits, this check must be passed to complete the challenge, The Whole Sad Story).
- When approached by the mobile facial recognition scanners on the third floor of REPCONN headquarters, the Courier can inadvertently guess the security password and roam the area without acquiring a keycard.
- When convincing Arcade Gannon to become a companion, he can be recruited out of pure sympathy by saying that Freeside is very complicated and a smart guy like him could help do stuff.
- Dead Money 5 Intelligence to correctly interpret Christine's thoughts that she can slow the detonation time of the explosive collar near radios when first nearing the vicinity of one. 6 Intelligence to question how Emily Ortal was able to access the Strip during The Moon Comes Over the Tower.
- 6 Intelligence to see through the bounty hunter's facade as a traveling merchant during I Fought the Law.
- 6 Intelligence to successfully question Orris about how he managed to kill four thugs with three bullets during G.I. Blues.
- 6 Intelligence to make Frank Weathers admit to fleeing while the rest of his family were captured by Legion slavers during Left My Heart.
- 6 Intelligence to discuss with Lieutenant Romanowski about a connection between the new crop farms in Westside and the water shortage in the NCR pipelines during The White Wash.
- 6 Intelligence to successfully accuse Tom Anderson of stealing water from the NCR during The White Wash (bypasses needing to catch Hector in the act).
- Dead Money 6 Intelligence to deduce from Dog that the Ghost people can be permanently killed through either dismemberment or disintegration.
- Dead Money 6 Intelligence to successfully understand that Christine can make counterfeit Sierra Madre chips and can teach it as well, gaining the Coin Operator perk.
- Dead Money 6 Intelligence to correctly understand why Christine has been ordered to man the Puesta del Sol switching station during Trigger the Gala Event instead of Dog or Dean Domino.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 6 Intelligence to get Dr. Mobius to reveal that the Think Tank are still planning how to save themselves.
- 7 Intelligence to correctly deduce that Sergeant Bitter-Root is not being truthful about what he remembers from the Bitter Springs Massacre, getting him to reveal that he used the opportunity to settle some personal conflicts of his within the Great Khans.
- 7 Intelligence to recite an override command to the mobile facial recognition scanners on the third floor of REPCONN headquarters (bypasses keycard requirement).
- 7 Intelligence to convince First Sergeant Astor that Private Edwards is not showing signs of becoming a feral ghoul and to allow him to return during We Will All Go Together. 7 Intelligence to placate Arcade Gannon after killing Anderson during The White Wash. Success will gain 1 of 5 required "history points" to trigger For Auld Lang Syne. 7 Intelligence to successfully convince Arcade that diverting HELIOS One's power equally across the whole New Vegas grid would be the best choice when he confronts the player after first talking to Fantastic during That Lucky Old Sun. Success will gain 1 of 5 required "history points" to trigger For Auld Lang Syne.
- Dead Money 7 Intelligence to successfully suggest that Christine could use writing to communicate when first meeting her in Find Collar 12: Christine.
- Dead Money 7 Intelligence to successfully impress Christine by understanding her miming a Brotherhood of Steel symbol when first meeting her in Find Collar 12: Christine.
- Dead Money 7 Intelligence to correctly read the electrical diagram during Fires in the Sky, preventing God from blackmailing the Courier afterward (bypasses ghost harvester remains requirement).
- Honest Hearts 7 Intelligence to display an understanding of the Dead Horses's tribal dialect when first entering Angel Cave and talking to the Dead Horse Disciple of Canaan.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 7 Intelligence to point out to Mobius that the names of the Think Tank all relate to loops (and to point out the incorrect spelling of Borous's name) during the quest Old World Blues.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 7 Intelligence to correctly point out to Mobius that the three technologies needed to enter the Forbidden Zone were not chosen out of convenience during Old World Blues.
- Lonesome Road (add-on) 7 Intelligence to deduce that Ulysses took his name from the historical Ulysses rather than the mythical Ulysses, during The Job.
- 8 Intelligence to trick Silus into thinking the Courier is a Legion agent on a mission to kill him, leading to Silus revealing Caesar's brain tumor and hinting towards the truth about Ronald Curtis during I Put a Spell on You.
- Old World Blues (add-on) 9 Intelligence to completely resolve the matter of Doctor 0's name spelling and secure him as 1 of 3 required "votes" to make Dr. Klein stand down peacefully during Old World Blues (7 Intelligence results in a partial resolution that does not gain 0's required vote).
Science
Agility
Basic Effects
- Determines the number of action points that can be used in V.A.T.S.
- Effects the speed the Courier can draw, holster and reload weapons.
Guns
Sneak
Luck
Basic Effects
- Effects the Courier's chances at landing a critical strike on an opponent.
- Instead of affecting specific skills, Luck gives slight bonuses to all skills.
- Improves the Courier's odds at winning casino games.
Interactions