Note: I am playing (GOG) Fallout Tactics with the Redux 1.3 mod, but I don't think it should affect these...

My Fallout Tactics party members have now reached level 12, and I've been saving up all (or most) of my acquired perks until now, because at level 12 the really interesting perks came available (like Gain Stats etc.). All my party members have 3 or 4 perks unused (I used the Mutate perk on three of them earlier in order to give them the Gifted trait).

So my questions:

"Divine Favor" perk will become available at level 14. Among other things, it gives a +1 to your highest stat. So how about these do special cases:

1. If your highest stat is already at level 10, will it be bumped to 11 by the Divine Favor, or will it remain at level 10, so that +1 goes waste?

I know that e.g. Gain Stat (perception, strength etc.) is supposed to have that kind of restriction, you can't bump a stat over 10 with them. It is a prerequisite that the stat you want to bump up with +1 is less than 10. But then, with e.g. Power Armors you can bump Strength over 10, so 10 does not seem to be any kind of hard limit.

Does Divine Favor have that same restriction as the Gain perks, or can you bump a 10 stat to 11 with it? I need to know that now whether I should use on Gain perk now to bump it to 10, or wait for Divine Favor to bump it (in order not to waste one perk).


2. How about if you have two highest stats at the same level, how does "Divine Favor" select the one to bump? E.g. one party member has Agility and Perception at 9 (and everything else below that), so will they both get +1, or neither one, or does it give the +1 randomnly to one of them?

The reason I am asking these is because I want to maximize perception as high as possible (in order to outsnipe enemies), so I am kinda hoping I could bump PE 9 => 11 this way, plus whatever advantages e.g. the Sharpshooter perk gives on top of that (+2 PE for shooting).

SPECIAL
Divine Favor add stat point based on that order. There is no random involved~
So you could add Gain Pe then DF to get it to 11.

Ok thanks. From here:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Tactics_primary_statistics

I got an impression that only items (like Power Armors for ST) can push a primary stat over 10, as it says "Bonuses from items can increase the statistics beyond their natural racial maximum.". So it is not just items, but at least that one perk (Divine Favor) can push it above 10 as well?

From the description of the Gain (stat) perks though, I presume they can't do the same, ie. if a primary stat is already at 10, you won't even receive the Gain perk for that stat. It says in the prerequisites that said stat must be under 10 before you can receive a Gain stat perk for it.

Then again I am unsure how useful PE over 10 is. All I know that on my earlier playthrough, when my best sniper had PE 9 and the Sharpshooter perk, still I felt enemies could shoot at him even though they were barely in range for sniper weapons. Like Security Bots with their energy weapons, how the heck can they shoot so accurately from so far distances?

So I am unsure if Perception 11 (and +2 from the Sharpshooter perk) helps with that, and I will feel like I can outsnipe all enemies once again?

Another question: does it matter for any primary stats if they are odd or even? For instance, for Endurance it is said that you get more hitpoints per level up according to this formula:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hit_Points

(Endurance/2) + 3

So how about if your endurance is 9, how is it rounded up? Do you get 7 or 8 additional hit points on level up? Are there any other stats where it doesn't make much sense to have an odd stat? I recall in Fallout 1-2 Charisma was like that, as your max number of companions would be CHA/2 and rounded down, meaning that e.g. with CHA 7 would give you the same amount of companions as CHA 6, 3.

About Luck: is there any meaningful reason to push it to 10, instead of 9? I understood that in Fallout Tactics it affects e.g.:

- How easy it is to find special encounters.
- How probably you get critical shots (maybe some other perk was also needed here), ie. if you have Luck 10, then 100% of your aimed shots will be criticial, and Luck 9 means 90% of them will be that.

Any others? Does having luck at 9 instead of 10 mean you will miss some special encounters altogether, or just that it takes a bit more time or work to find them?

Thanks, this cleared a lot. I guess I try to get perception as high as possible on all my party members. I think the lowest will be 8 for some (+Sharpshooter), but I think with at least two I'd have the chance to push it to 11 (+Sharpshooter) by first bumping it to 10 with the Gain perk, and then to 11 with the Divine Favor perk.

One more question about Divine Favor, in case you know. My party members are at level 13 and just about to reach level 14, at which point DF is supposed to become available (according to FAQs at least). Hence I have un unused perk "slot" available for those who can have it (CHA 8) so that they can have it ASAP when they reach level 14.

However, should I get it at level 14, or wait until level 15? The reason i am asking that normally they would all gain an extra perk "slot" at level 15 (perk rate 3), but if I take Divine Favor on level 14 and perk rate changes to 2, does it mean they will not receive a new perk slot until level 16?

So would it make more sense to wait until level 15 (where you get a new perk slot with perk rate 3), take Divine Favor there, and then get the next perk slot at 17? Yeah I know if is just one level, but I try to do things as well as possible this time around. After all, I restarted the whole game from the start as I felt I had done many things wrong before, especially related to perks. I was only few missions from the end... I have no idea how I can get some skills to 200. :D I usually leave them at around 126 or so because that is when they start using some insane amount of skill points (was it 3 or 4 skill points per +1 to a skill). But we will see, at least I try to push Sneak as high as possible on everyone so that they can sneak even with power armors.

Yeah I think I will just leave Luck at 8 (or later bump it to 9 with the Gain perk) on that one recruit which has high luck, and give her points to Outdoorsman so that she will be the one finding the special encounters. I guess it doesn't make that much sense to try bump it to 10, hey if something fails in Luck 9, just retry with savescumming. :) More important in Tough Guy mode i guess, where you can't savescum... Frankly, in Fallout 1-2 and Tactics I've always stood away from chems, unless really needed (RadAway). Only use normal Stimpacks as they don't cause addiction, but all others are a no no. I just don't like gettng the addiction withdrawal symptoms. I even hate it how at least in Tactics it is so easy to get addicted to RadAway, and you need to use them once in awhile to get rid of radiation, even if you use RadX as well.

Maybe they'd be very useful at some points, but I just sell them as soon as possible for good money, and buy some shiny armor or new weapon or ammo with that money....

About RadX, it is not clear to me how long it lasts, when one should get them etc. In the beginning of a mission if you know there is radiation, and it will last for the whole mission? Or should you take new ones once in a while? Is there anywhere where you can see if RadX is still effective? Yeah I've noticed that, many enemies are one (or two) hit killers even if you have the best armor in the game and have high levels (on Insane difficulty with the Redux mod). It is quite irritating because it means pretty much the only way to survive is savescumming, to get enemies either miss you or you getting good critical hits knocking enemies out (that's the only way I can kill Behemoths anyway, knock them out with a critical shot to sensors with a Pulse Rifle).

Anyway, this time around i decided to give everyone an extra buff for their HP (Gain Endurance and 2x Lifegiver early on so they get extra HP after every level up), just to see if they get some fighting chance with it. Ie. instead of outright dying from one shot, just going to low HP with it. Less need for savescumming.

Also when I get a chance, give everyone the Dodger perks and such, just to see if they survive better with them.

Ok so now that I finally got to use Divine Favor perk, I can confirm that yes you can bump one primary stat to 11 with it.

Two of my team mambers now have Perception at 11. First they had it at 8, then I used the Gifted trait to bump it to 9 (with one I had to use Mutate perk in order to give him the Gifted trait), then I bumped Perception to 10 with the "Gain Perception" perk, and finally, using Divine Favor, it got bumped to 11.

It is important to use Gain Perception (if needed) before Divine Favor because Gain perks can be used only on primary stats which are 9 or less. You can't bump a stat from 10 to 11 with Gain, I think.

Later I will also give the Sharpshooter perks to those two fellows, then I guess they should be as good snipers as is possible in this game (well, of course you can always increase Small Guns further and further, now it is at 140% for both of them....).