Detailing the character system in their latest post about Fallout 4, Bethesda says, “Our games are about making the kind of character you want, doing what you want, and having the game allow and reward whatever playstyle you chose.”
Wanting the choice of SPECIALs to be as meaningful as possible, the first decision you make very early in the game is the starting value from 1 to 10 of your 7 SPECIALs: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck:
When selecting your starting SPECIALs, you can assign 28 points. This makes it difficult to initially max out certain SPECIALs, but you can still start with a 10 if you choose to neglect others. Even though you pick your SPECIALS early before the bombs fall, we do let you change them when exiting the Vault into the Wasteland, after you’ve played for a little.
Comparing Fallout 4 to previous Bethesda games, levelling is experience point (XP) based like Fallout 3, not skill-based like Skyrim. However, levelling speed is closer to Skyrim, and not as slow as Fallout 3, meaning you can level up and select a Perk faster. As Bethesda previously confirmed, there is no level cap in Fallout 4 and “we’ve balanced the game to keep the content and challenge going for higher levels.”
When you level up, you select a Perk from this chart within the game:
Each SPECIAL has 10 perks, meaning there are 70 base Perks, and when you add in Perk ranks, the number increases to over 270.
As an added bonus for those who pre-order Fallout 4, every copy comes with a Perk poster.
Fallout 4 launches on November 10 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
You can learn more about Fallout 4’s character system by following the link below.
[Source: Bethesda]
