Forum:Level 20 max and perks

is this right?.. once you get to lvl 20 and lvl you get to choose another perk and so on until you have all of them???

Nope, 20 max, nothing after that. Firelance 02:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

So once you reach level 20,you never level up again?? HuangLee 22:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

After level 20 you stop leveling. No more perks(Besides quests). No more Skill points (besides books). Until Broken steel comes out. Then you will be able to level to 30.--NeoScott 01:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

So what happens when you gain XP?Can you still increase your skills?? HuangLee 01:05, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope, unless through Bobbleheads, skill books, or quest-related perks. You just don't gain XP. --Solbur 01:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

this truly sux i spent all this time in the game and i can not level up anymore y not ok plaese bethesda made a wonderful game but fix this okay if i knew that we didn't level up past level 20 then i would have played completely different.

This is why I've taken a new tactic to minimize my XP earning. I like to enjoy the characters' struggle more, instead of quickly having that SuperWanderer just striding over the land and all its creatures, with nothing to worry about except followers getting killed, and that rare, accidental lethal fall. IMHO, the game's main failing (besides the many bugs and glitches... it froze twice within an hour's time on me yesterday), is that the characters level way too quickly, instead of having time to savor each level's adventures. And changing the difficulty to Easy doesn't help, it just removes most of the challenge. Its fine to level up at normal speed to a certain point, like around lvls 6 - 8, so you can quickly get some important skills up to effective levels, and perks like Educated and Comprehension. Though with some characters I purposely even avoid these to make it even more challenging. But Sneak & Repair are highly desirable, and Small Guns (or Energy Weapons, but they're more rare) is very important for most of my playstyle, below. These tactics, in no particular order, are:

a) A primary and very important note is that for any enemy, you must personally and directly do at least 30% of the damage to it, or when its killed you won't get the XP. This also makes the Dart Gun, which otherwise does quite a bit of poison damage to lesser foes, still effective against tough ones. Its useful for crippling Deathclaws, Super Mutant Behemoths and maybe Masters, and Giant Radscorpions (since they are at least partially immune to the poison after-effects), plus foes who are already near-death. All this without getting the XP for killing it. It should work on "boss-type" non-robotic enemies, but I can't think of any others with enough health to avoid that 30%. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken on that!!)

b) Avoiding foes, however done, is the best, most effective way to avoid XP earning. However, if you want their gear, then you have to somehow engage them. Avoid non-gear-carrying enemies whenever possible, most especially turrets. Its not even good to hack turrets to make them attack other enemies, because you'll most likely gain more XP from getting into the terminal than you would've from all the foes killed, even when afterward deactivating a surviving turret instead of destroying it. Greasing Radroaches & Bloatflies, and later Molerats and Dogs, is fine, once you've achieved the minimum level that you no longer earn XP from them.

c) Avoid picking locks and hacking terminals whenever possible. Save before lock picking & hacking, and then if you find what's revealed dissatisfying, just reload your save and avoid it. If you know a key's available instead, always get that first. Avoid Speech tests whenever possible, as well.

d) Avoid disarming mines and traps as much as you can. Once detected, simply back off and shoot them. Although if you don't have a follower with you, its fun to just run pell-mell across a minefield, hearing the beep-beep-booms behind you. (Don't waste a perk on Light Step either.) For those poor bastards that run up to you and plead for you to disarm the explosive on their bodies... oh well!

e) This tactic is awesome and incredibly satisfying! Always use the environment, most especially I'm referring to the wrecked vehicles littering the Wasteland. But I also mean those silver, box-shaped generator things mostly found inside places. (But there is a VERY important one at Evergreen Mills...) Wait 'til the foe(s) pass near it, or maneuver them into its proximity. Like alerting them at a proper distance and then running away from them, past the explosive object, and use various tactics to blow it up when they get near it. One super-fun way is to run right towards a car while they pursue, shooting into it just enough, and then jump right up on its hood/trunk and run straight over, using timing to then catch the bad guys behind when it explodes. Obviously you'll have to experiment and learn the timing with different weapons & explosive objects. Remember, a car without a hood is dead and won't explode. I've yet to find a bus or truck cab that doesn't go up, albeit with a lot more "coaxing", but man is it worth it.

f) Have followers, the more the merrier, and let them go after foes whenever possible, ie. that they probably won't be killed by. Make sure they all have ~10 stimpacks, and be very proactive with Dogmeat, watching his health and moving in to heal him frequently. This tactic works best if you're sneaking because foes don't go after you once they've engaged another target. If you have followers that are just nastied up, like especially Charon (with good armor), Star Paladin Cross (with a good weapon) and/or (good lord!) Fawkes, this just becomes a fun show for you to enjoy. Giving a lesser companion, like Clover or Butch, a Dart Gun can be quite effective, especially if you've got quite a few other companions. Jericho can be effective with both good armor & weapon, assuming you can put up with his mouth. heh Sergeant RL-3 is interesting as he's the only companion who's level is not based on yours, but is always at 9th level. Plus, like Fawkes, you can't change its armor & weapon. But it can still be effective, however, so don't dismiss it, plus it can carry a crapload of stuff you take. Dogmeat is just fun & interesting, and useful for finding the many weapons you shoot out of hands (see below). You manage him differently than all the other followers, since you can help him heal at any time. He doesn't do a lot of damage, but one you've divested a Raider or other human of all their weapons, just relax and watch the canine take them apart, mouthful by mouthful.

f.1) late addition I forgot to add this, about Dogmeat. He's very useful in helping you avoid unwanted XP, in the matter of picking locked containers. Said containers can fetch you 20 to 60 XP depending on the lock difficulty, and more than a few times have leveled me. Telling Dogmeat to Find (such & such) he can bypass closed, even locked, containers and retrieve for you the object type you specified, within. If you know what's in the container, like all ammo cases contain ammo, then you can be sure he'll get it for you, as all ammo cases contain only useful, weightless, sellable ammo of all types. Note that you might want to have him Find again, as some cases have 2 different types of ammo. With other containers, locked metal boxes for instance, you'll just have to run the gamut of what he can Find and see what turns up. Side note that Dogmeat's extremely useful in getting you items that you simply don't have to skill to lockpick past yet, especially like the Victory Rifle behind its Very Hard lock.

g) Let your followers do as much as they can, but against nasty, non-humanoid critters like Sentry Bots, Deathclaws & Yao Guai, you'll probably have to step in. But still, use the environment (from stealth whenever possible) and having Animal Friend (lvl 2 especially) is quite helpful. In fact, Animal Friend is a VERY useful perk for this playstyle, even at lvl 1. You can get all the way through both the Yao Guai Tunnels and the Cave to get their respective goodies without a worry, and XP, from them. Animal Friend lvl 2 has animals that are pretty far from you act as temporary combat followers, thus distracting the main foe and freeing you from both getting the Animal's XP, as well as the targets they slay for you.

h) To maximize your & especially your followers' safety, and this is the #1 fun part of this playstyle, target the (humanoid) foes' weapon and shoot it out of their hands. Do this repeatedly, as they'll continually seek other viable weapons, until they're left with nothing to fight with except unarmed. (You can't dislodge unarmed weapons from them.) Use a weapon with good range and a low spread, that does decent damage, to "kill" the target weapon and make it non-reusable. But I've also been effective at disarming with as weak a weapon as the Dart Gun and .32, though the weapon can be picked up again and used. You also want something with low AP usage, especially against crowds, as you'll be exclusively using VATS. Early on the Hunting Rifle works well. Any .44 is effective too, its just the relative rarity of ammo and weapons for repairing that puts a kink in that idea. Sniper Rifles are extremely effective, but have the same drawbacks, even worse than .44's, and plus their high AP cost makes them best used vs. solitary foes. However, the Victory Rifle still knocks the foe down when used this way. I think the Gauss Rifle does too, but haven't tried it. Lasers are great for disarming all-around, especially handling crowds what with their low AP cost, but in general do less damage. I prefer the Railway Rifle, but course the Lincoln Repeater is the lord & master of disarming & weapon-breaking, but then, its pretty much the most nasty weapon in general. Keep close track of your foes, always going for missile launchers first, they're easy to hit, but also, if someone readies a grenade, quickly target the explosive while its still in their hand. That'll most probably kill them, and also earn you no XP. It should harm nearby foes too, but it might hurt some of your closeby followers as well. But it would've done that much worse anyways if they'd thrown it. If they do throw it, you can always target it in mid-air, which will also harm the attacker. Just like any battle, you'll want plenty of APs to work with. With this tactic, however, you're aiming at much more difficult targets so expect to be missing more often. Smaller weapons, up to about the size of SMGs, are the most difficult. Larger than that, they get much easier to hit. If you intend to recover the weapon for use, then try shooting single shots, instead of a bunch of lined up ones. Track where it flies to, and run and grab it ASAP. I also think this reduces the chance of harming the enemy. (heh, that's irony!)

Using these tactics, last night my lowest-level character, with just Dogmeat, managed to clear out all the Raiders from Fairfax Ruins, The Overlook Drive-In and the Cliffside Cavern and only get 22 XP from all of it by accidentally shooting a Raider through his gun (still don't know how that happened). Note that I could NOT get through the adjoining Yao Guai Cave bloodlessly, as she does not have Animal Friend and those passageways are way too narrow to Sneak through, but at least I mitigated all the other XP I'd have earned from the Raiders and traps/mines.

(i) Very, very difficult, but avoid quests whenever possible. Or at least avoid as much of the quests' rewards as you can. For example, in the quest Those! , you can easily avoid that final 300 XP quest reward by simply not completing the quest. Do everything up to finding Bryan Wilks a home, telling him you will. Then just leave it. Don't talk to Vera at Rivet City about him. There's many other quests that can be avoided, but you can still go for the goodies involved with the quest. Many quests can be avoided just by taking what you want, and not going through with the quest, like Sydney's Ultra SMG, Reilly's Ranger Battle Armor & Eugene, and of course so much more. Using the tactics above will let you get through these with the minimum of blood directly on your hands. If you do the Main Quest, for whatever reason (my main one is to get Fawkes and Star Paladin Cross and to bring in the Enclave), you'll get ridiculous masses of XP. You can avoid combats and lock picking and traps and so one to the max, but you're still going to get those fat wads of XP for moving forward through the quest tree. So, you have to make a choice, stay as low level as possible, or gain the many benefits of doing quests. *shrug*

I see that these tactics are different enough to merit their own Playstyle, and should probably have a name. Hmm, I would call this the Master of Misdirection Playstyle, perhaps? YMMV

--Wally 18:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC)