Books and intelligence

[JR Jansen]

I think that books should have an intelligence requirement just as weapons have a strength requirement. I wouldn't put them to high so that a character with an average intelligence is able to use them fully. The only exception, imo, should be the science books. I always found it weird that a character who is barely able to progress above baby talk, would be able to use and gain as much knowledge (percentage wise) as a character with a high intelligence. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to use them but just as it is with weapons, you incure a penalty. I mean that you should always be able to learn something from a book, even if it is only by looking at the pretty pictures but you should at least be able to understand the text to gain the full amount. Let's say that a book has an intelligence requirement of 5. A character with that amount of intelligence would gain, let's say a bonus of 5 to the related skill. For every point of intelligence lower then 5, you incure a penalty of 1.
Might make for even more roleplaying.

JR

Nunc ut nunquam

 

[Guest]

That makes sense...

It does seem unlikely that someone almost incapable of speech would glean much knowledge from a book.

I don't have anything to contribute right now, but you have a good idea.

 

[Locke Taelos]

Hey, that gives me an idea!

Increase the amount of books in the Fallout series.

Lets see here we have Guns and Ammo, we have Big Book of Science, we have that mechanics one, we have the scouting one, we have the first aid handbook or whatever. Yeah thats all crap. Why? Because its generic! I need some science skills so what do I do? I automatically find a convienient BIG BOOK O' SCIENCE. Which is stupid because you can only use the book once. I don't know about you, but in college (thank GOD!)if I read a chapter and I don't understand something it doesn't disappear forever. That's far to expensive. But instead, I read over it again.

So maybe Fallout should incorporate like a smarter version of The Sims, where you have a progress percentage of what you're learning.

For example:

Lets say that Mean Joe Green, a blue collar worker in the town of Klamath wants to pick up some phat mechanical skills. This in turn would effect his repair percentage. So whats he do? He goes over to his friendly neighborhood general storekeeper and buys a Modern Mechanics magazine. Now, I find magazines worthless. They tell you a few feature things and the rest is advertisements and crap. So I can see why you'd get rid of that after awhile. So he reads it and lets say that he gains maybe 5% more than what he used to know. That's still to much if you ask me though.

However, maybe he'll buy "Bob Villa's: How to be Mr. Fixit Like Me?" which would be a book. Well your guy would just read a chapter. Perhaps how many chapters he can read depends on what level he is and also what his level of intelligence is. (I have a theory on how someone should be able to actually upgrade their intelligence attribute too. Which I'll discuss later.) So lets say he has an intelligence of 5, which is pretty average.

Okay, so he reads it the first time and he'll get this response, "You have no friggin idea what you just read." And then you won't be able to read something again until like the next day or whatever. Or maybe a week, whatever the case some amount of time should occur before your guy wants to excercise his noggin again.

So time comes and he picks up the book and tries again. And you'll get a bit more progress. "You have some basic understanding." And of course, more time would pass before you could pick it up again. "You have increased your knowledge in this." And of course you'd keep going until, "Viola! You have mastered Chapter 1!" And then you'd get a bonus of like 10%.

Now you could handle books in several different ways. You could hide various chapters of books all over the place making the player scavenge to have understanding. Or you could just simply make the person keep trying to read the book. The next time he picks it up he starts back from square one only reading chapter 2 or something. It'd take longer to master it since its more indepth.

And just like some perks which require specific levels, perhaps certain chapters require specific levels as well. Perhaps chapter 1 would give you 10%, chapter 2 would give you 15...3...20...

You probably wouldn't even have to read the whole book. But maybe if they do, they'll get a special perk or something, I dunno.

NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT, as ol' Cockroach says.

How about children's books in Fallout 3? Children's books would be used to increase the intelligence of people roleplaying complete morons. I mean, I, like everybody else, though it'd be friggin hilarious to play through the game as an imbecile, but as everyone attacks you, ignores you, or you just don't get anywhere in the game it gets old fast.

So what do you do? Go gather children's books and gain intelligence. Perhaps there would be even more advanced books, maybe you could fit them in that 50's cliche too.

Wouldn't it be funny to see your guy, BLOODBATH, reading outloud such great phrases as:

"See Dick. See Dick Run. See Jane. Jane is happy. Look! There is Spot. Spot is a dog."

Heh heh heh.

Bloodbath gained 1 intelligence.
Dog attacks Bloodbath in the head for 22hp.
Bloodbath loses 1 intelligence.
Bloodbath hits Dog for 56hp.
Dog joins the great kennel in the sky.

"Ugh. See Dick. See Dick Run. See Jane. Jane is happy. Look! There is Spot. Spot is a...dog...AAAAARGH! ME HATE BOOK! ME HATE BOOK! BOOK DIE!"

Well anyways, you could then add college books and get any character which has the right level and or intelligence, to get up to an intelligence of 10 just because you spent more time applying yourself.

Perhaps you'd want to penalize some of your other skills or attributes since you decided to take time and study other than bonking people on the head or doing somersaults.



"I don't know what World War 3 will be fought with, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.