Books and Magazines

Reading books and magazines is an important way for characters to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to help better prepare themselves for the challenges they face out in the wasteland. In game terms (and rather unlike Fallout: New Vegas), both books and magazines will permanently grant a character skill points, with each type of book or magazine being tied to a specific skill.

A book is capable of granting multiple skill points over a long period of time as a character gradually reads through and annotates the pages, in effect making the book their own and serving to make that book less useful to any other character that might come along later and try to glean information from it. In other words, books are capable of granting a skill point multiple times – up to 1+1d4 times if the book is relatively unused or new, representing the variable length of different editions or copies of a text, each time granting a single skill point in addition to any bonus skill points granted by perks, traits or hindrances. They can be traded amongst characters after one or another has finished learning what they can from a book, but the new possessor will find that they cannot use the book to the same extent as their predecessor. Each time a book is used and traded, the number of times it can provide skill points to its new owner decreases by one (1d4, 1d4-1, etc.). Used books are only worth half as much as “new” or un-annotated books.

A character who has read through a particular edition of a book cannot gain any further information from a different copy of the same edition. Only more robust copies – perhaps bootleg editions that escaped censorship by the ministry of image, for example – would be able to provide additional skill points on the same subject matter.

Magazines, on the other hoof, are shorter, substantially more casual affairs. When a character reads through a magazine, it is not necessarily destroyed or defaced in any way, but only grants them skill points once (with the number of skill points still being equal to 1 + any additions from perks, traits or hindrances).

Gaining the benefit of skill points from a book generally requires that the character have at least 25 ranks in the skill to begin with, representing knowledge of at least some of the nuances of the subject matter. Magazines, however, have no requirements for a character to receive their benefit. A list of books and magazines with associated values, weights, and the skills they apply to or otherwise contain information about is provided below. There is at least one book and one magazine associated with each skill, but there is no upper limit to how many books or magazines exist that may relate to an individual skill; GMs should feel free to create their own titles. Non-skill benefits like those provided by the Egghead’s Guide to Running or Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone only are obtained by the character after the book is completely finished. Spell- or recipe-learning benefits may occur after the book is finished or with each reading, GM’s discretion.

Books and magazines marked as “(Adult)”come with added bonus content that may have absolutely nothing to do with skills. Just tell your party members that you kept it for the articles!

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 877