Fallout 76 SPECIAL

Choosing Perks in the new incarnation of Fallout really confused me. I ended up making three characters until I finally figured it out.

You're choosing TWO attributes when you select a Perk, so be careful.

The first selection is from the list of SPECIAL categories. Scroll left and right and you see all your favorites for Fallout: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.

When the selection pops up on your screen, your default selection is Charisma, because it's the one in the middle of the list.

I didn't think it mattered and selected Charisma just to get to the cards - and ended up with 11 points in the Charisma category of SPECIAL.

So that first click selects the SPECIAL category to which you are allocating a point for your Perk.

You DO NOT have to choose a card from that category, though that is the default when the next selections show up. Using Z and C lets you scroll through all your available cards.

For example, suppose you know you want to get the card for Strong Back, which isn't available until level 26. You'll need a point in Strength to use it, so you might allocate that point at a lower level and then choose another card in a category.

I have cards for crafting Armor and Weapons, but I only equip them when I am at my home base. I have a card that has me consume less water and food when I'm at my base, but I only equip that when I'm home, not when I'm wandering. 

When questing in Fallout, I can remove those cards from what I'll call my Active Deck (across the top of the page) and put cards in there that help me fight and survive. 

The cards let you have multiple builds for different roles, which is the intent.

I didn't understand that I was making two selections until I played with the system a while, so I ended up making a new character.

So far, great game. Have fun out there.