Fallout 3 Hints

GOTY Ultimate Playthru

• 1 of 14: Now that the Game of the Year (GOTY) edition of Fallout 3 is out, it's time for all true fans of the game to do an ultimate playthru. That's where you have all five game add-ons and the latest patch installed, are playing on the highest difficulty setting, and don't use any cheats at all -- except the one that raises the level limit.
• 2 of 14: Raising the level limit up way high changes a lot of things when it comes to planning and developing your character. The perks that give bonus XP become way more valuable, perks you'd never take before (like Here and Now) become desirable, and so on. Read on to learn how to get your ultimate playthru going.
• 3 of 14: Start by using the instructions given in the question below to set the level limit to something totally huge and unreachable, like 999.
  • How can I use the G.E.C.K. program to change the max character level?
• 4 of 14: When you create your character, choose to be a girl so you can get the Black Widow perk later. As for your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, use the values below.
  
  Strength: 7
  Perception: 6
  Endurance: 7
  Charisma: 1
  Intelligence: 6
  Agility: 6
  Luck: 7
• 5 of 14: For tag skills, choose Small Guns, Lockpick, and Repair. Those will be the most immediately useful ones.
• 6 of 14: See below for perk-taking advice for the first 30 level-ups. Read through it thoroughly, since you'll need to use it to figure out where to allocate your skill points on early level-ups.
  • Perk Tips
• 7 of 14: Go straight to Megaton after exiting Vault 101 and loot the place using the Megaton Tour, not neglecting to do the "The Power of the Atom" misc. quest to get yourself a home there. You'll then have a convenient location to store stuff, and will also be able to sleep an hour on your bed to get the Well Rested XP bonus. Next, do the Springvale Tour and Springvale School Tour for extra loot and combat XP.
  • Well Rested Tips
• 8 of 14: Also, go to the Super-Duper Mart (location 1 on the Zone 9 Map) using the random encounter tip below to get the unique alien blaster named Firelance. You don't really have to get it, and may prefer to skip it, but it would be very handy to have with you for when combat gets unexpectedly hard and you have to quickly finish off a tough enemy. You could instead go for the non-random Alien Blaster, but it'll be more dangerous to get to.
  • Random Encounter Tip
• 9 of 14: Next, go do the "Tenpenny Tower" misc. quest, opting to help the ghouls invade in order to get massive amounts of XP and loot, plus the useful ghoul mask. Also be sure to get the two available dart gun schematics so you can start making those super-useful weapons. And while you're in the neighborhood, go grab the Lucky Shades and start wearing them. (You might want to do that before starting on the quest.)
• 10 of 14: After you're done with all of that, it's time to do the Operation: Anchorage game add-on's quests so you can get its reward items, especially the Chinese stealth armor. That'll be of unlimited use in stealing items undetected, sneaking around the wasteland to discover new locations while avoiding unwanted combats, and sneak-attacking enemies when you want combat XP. (You'll have to be careful about that last one until you get the Silent Running perk at level 12, though.)
• 11 of 14: Go around discovering new locations and getting combat XP until you reach level 12. One way to get a huge chunk of easy XP is to go to Paradise Falls and do the "Rescue from Paradise" misc. quest. After you're level 12, get at least two of the Shishkebab Schematics so you can start making those great melee sneak-attack weapons.
• 12 of 14: Go sneaking around the wasteland to find most of the bobbleheads, then do The Pitt add-on's quests to get the Perforator weapon, and the Mothership Zeta add-on's quests to get new alien weapons and more alien power cell ammo (and the Xenotech perk). Also, be sure to do the misc. quests "Big Trouble in Big Town" (to get the Lucky 8 Ball), "Oasis" (to get the perk that increases damage resistance), "Those!" (to get a Strength-increasing perk), and at least get a good start on "The Wasteland Survival Guide" (for its many rewards). You can do all that in whatever order you prefer.
• 13 of 14: Then go for the big XP by getting on with the main quest series. Be sure not to skip any of its skippable quests, since doing so will skip their XP rewards. You might want to go ahead and finish the main quest series now, since the Broken Steel add-on ensures that you can play on afterwards.
• 14 of 14: After that, do all the quests that are left, including the ones in the add-on games. That'll get you lots of XP and unique item rewards. If you feel like playing on after that, you can keep leveling up and improving your character for as long as you want. (Remember that the enemies in most areas respawn every 3 to 5 game days, allowing for theoretically infinite combat XP and loot.)

• Show another hint
• There are no more hints.

• Up One Level