Fallout 3 Hints

General Follower Tips

• 1 of 11: The most important thing to know about followers is that you usually won't get any XP for kills that they make. You sometimes will, but not often. If you're wanting to get all the XP from an area's combats, don't go there with a follower. (Note that damaging enemies some yourself seems to slightly help your odds of getting XP if a follower kills them.)
• 2 of 11: Followers are really useful when you're wanting to clear an area of hostiles so you can loot it, and don't care about getting any combat XP. This is usually the case after you've gotten to the game's max level (which defaults to 20), but may happen earlier if you really want to loot an area that you can't clear by yourself.
• 3 of 11: If you stick close to your follower, you can often use him as a distraction for enemies, allowing you to get in lots of free close-range attacks without getting injured. You can usually manage to do enough damage to get XP when the enemy dies. Due to this, you may want to go ahead and pick up a follower early in the game and keep him with you at all times. (Note that Dogmeat is ideal to use as a distraction follower, since he has lots of hit points and a not-very-powerful attack, and you can easily shoot over him.)
• 4 of 11: Every follower (except Dogmeat) has an unlimited-ammo ranged weapon. When you have them use it, they won't ever run out of ammo. That allows you to clear an area without expending much of your own ammo.
• 5 of 11: Followers aren't invincible, though they do instantly regain full health and limb condition after a combat is over, provided they're still alive. They can heal during combat if they have stimpaks (which they won't unless you give them some while trading equipment), but that's rarely necessary. Only give them stimpaks when they keep getting killed in a combat that you can't or don't want to avoid.
  • Is there a way to make followers invincible?
• 6 of 11: You can give your followers new weapons and ammo, but they may not choose to use them. And if they do, they'll use up the weapon's ammo, meaning you'll have to keep them supplied in it. It's usually best to just let them use their personal unlimited-ammo ranged weapon.
• 7 of 11: If you want your follower to use grenades, you can give some to him during an equipment trade, but it's usually best not to. He won't be very careful with the grenades, and you'll end up being damaged by them fairly often.
• 8 of 11: Most followers can also be given armor and helmets to wear. They'll equip new armor and helmet items that have a better damage resistance than what they've already got. The good news is that you don't have to keep repairing the armor you give them, since its condition will never degrade.
  • Bonus Glitch Note
• 9 of 11: Also, they can wear any type of power armor, even if you can't due to lack of training. So if you come across some power armor that you can't or don't want to wear, give it to your follower so he can wear it.
• 10 of 11: Besides equipment, you can unload excess loot onto followers to lighten your load, but there is a limit to how much the game will let you dump on them. Still, it's a lot better than just having your own carry-weight limit to work with. (Note that when the game says a follower can't carry any more, you can sometimes give him a few more items by exiting conversation and then trading equipment with him again.)
• 11 of 11: You can always talk to a follower and tell him to stay where he is or leave your company. If you have him leave you, he'll start off to a place (usually where you first hired him) where he'll wait for you to rehire him. It'll take him some time to get there, so don't dismiss a follower unless you know you're through with him for awhile. (And be sure to go through his inventory first to see if there's anything you want to reclaim.)

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