Changing Specs after Goodsprings




Image If you start to cross the invisible border surrounding Goodsprings, you get this warning: 

You do not get the warning until after passing the stone outcropping on the right. So when you get to the point shown here, stop and Wait until between noon and 6 p.m. Playing Early Bird, that time span is when your Specials and Skills are shown at their base levels, which is usually what is displayed when you are modifying them.  
Shown below are the Specials to which we are changing.
In Doc's, we used 3,5,1,8,10,6,7. See Specials for details.
 
You should also go to Apparel and make sure you don't have anything on which you will not be wearing all the time and which have "Effects". In our pictures here, a Hat with PER+1 is left on because normally we are either wearing that hat or Boone's beret. The Trader gear items each add +5 to Barter, so we took them off before changing specs.  
When you have made the above changes, save so that if you want to skip Goodsprings and continue play with new specs, you can load this point.

When Rebuilding your Character, first you have to re-enter your image, which is a nuisance, then you go through entering your specs.  
Immediately after completion of entering your image, click the save button. If you are too slow, it will continue on to changing specs. But if you save, then if you ever want to change your specs for a new game without having to re-enter your image, you can start with that save.

You have to give the Fallout makers credit for allowing us to save at any time and load any save to continue playing from that point.



Changing Specs to Early Bird and Good Natured:

Image
Above are our basic points plus one for a cap.

These are the basic skills. Those with "(+)" each got
2 extra points from wearing a cap with PER = +1.

On level 2, I added all 15 points to Lockpick.
The goal is to get LP up to 48 so that when +2 is
added for the Cap-PER and +5 for EB and then
+20 for the Lockpick magazine, LP=75 which is
needed to unlock the desk in Lonesome Road.



Level 3 Specials with Early Bird and PER's +1.

Lockpick is now at 48 per the above and Science is 34 and will get +1 from Luck.
The total of 35 is needed to pass the Speech check when getting ED-E in LR. 
 

On the way to Lonesome Road, I sniped geckos for XP every chance I got. 
With Good Natured, this got me to Level 4. With Skilled, I didn't get to L4 until after getting into LR.
Comprehension perk requires L4 and raises the effect of Skill mags from 10 to 20 and Skill books to 4.
So GN's getting Comprehension first didn't matter in this case, but when I hacked the desk and the ammo box in the closet downstairs, I got Level 5 in GN but not in SK.
This allowed me to increase Barter from 40 to 55, giving me quite a few more caps than in Skilled.

Trading loot to get the Riot gear and lots of caps:


As you can see, I started the trade with 3023 caps and ended with nearly15000.
(Note that when it ran out of the first 6k caps. It came up with 6k more without Waiting.)
The Nail Gun's value is about 5000 caps and it was only about 2000 when I picked it up.
ED-E repaired all the weapons to their max value, but the Nail Guns benefitted most. 
The only drawback is having to Wait 24 hours between repairs,
but it only took 15-30 minutes to repair them all for a LOT of loot.
For more info, see this page.

The Riot Gear has DT of 20 with +5 Guns and +1 AGL.
I don't get the Riot helment because I don't like what it does to your vision.
In the trailer on the way to LR and in LR itself, I got a ton of Weapon Repair Kit components
which actually weigh a ton, so I let ED-E carry them until I've sold all my loot in LR.

This little foray into Lonesome Road yielded armor with specs good enough for the rest of the game, a circuit board I can give to Primm's ED-E which allows it to repair weapons, and lots of caps. 
I back out before I have to fight anything. After the room with the hackable desk is another room up some stairs which has some good loot. The next room after that one has nothing worth dying for (multiple times), so I head for the commisary machine and the leave LR to continue the walkthrough.

Changing from Good Natured to Skilled Steals XP:

If you look at the Specials picture for EB and GN further up this page, you will see that I'm leaving Goodsprings with XP of 881.

But when I change the Trait from Good Natured to Skilled, it reduces my XP to 793, as seen in the picture below. The difference in the two is 88, or 10% of GN's 881. Since Skilled gives 10% less XP earned in exchange for the +5 it gives to all Specials, it appears that the game has taken back the 10% extra earned by GN in Goodsprings.

I've played about a million games of FONV since 2010 and until Dec. 2024, never noticed that the XP changes if you change Traits when leaving GS. It was my understanding that it would NOT change the XP you've earned in GS; otherwise, what is the point in being able to change the Trait when leaving GS?

The only reason I can see to use Skilled is that Good Natured does not give any points to energy weapons, but if you plan to use Skilled after Goodsprings, you might as well use it in GS too, even though there is only one dinky energy weapon in GS. If you are not using energy weapons, there is really no reason to use Skilled.

Doubling Skilled Bonus:

It is said on the Internet that if you start the game with Skilled and repeat it when leaving GS, it would double the positive effect (from +5 per Skill to +10) without changing the negative effect which stays at -10% to XP earned.

I tested this and by the time I finished Lonesome Road, my level and XP were behind what they are when I use Good Natured.

But a bigger surprise was that the game took away 10% of XP earned in GS just as it did when I changed from Good Natured to Skilled. Presumably, it already takes away the 10% of XP earned when it is earned, which means that it's taking away the Goodsprings XP twice.

Before and after redoing specs. The "XP 777" in the upper right corner changes to 700.

Changing Good Natured to Skilled when Leaving GS:

This does not involve a ton of strategy. I use the same SPECIALs for both. I work at getting Lockpick to where I can unlock the desk and the ammo box in the closet in the closet in the floor below the desk. I also get Science to 35 for getting ED-E.

The main difference in alloting points to Skills is that with GN, the Energy Weapons skill can be ignored while in SK, you have to build it up while still building up Guns because you have to level up a lot to get some good Energy Weapons.

Here are the screens from using Skilled. The first one shows the Specials being used and the next 3 show Skills after going up to levels 2, 3, and 4. The descriptions are omitted because they are about the same as for Goodnatured.

 

Walkthrough