Silent Death & Unarmed fighting

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:33 pm

I'm playing this oh so wonderful game with an unarmed character this time and just reached lvl 18. My choice for a new perk was obvious -Silent Death.
I wondered the usefulness of the perk, 'cause the description says "if you hit a critter". Does that really mean I can't use it against humans for example? This would make the perk totally unworthy (requires lvl 18, c'mon).

I tried to do some testing. I saved my game and pick that Silent Death perk. I found some mantis and walked behind one. First I hit it few times with a regular haymaker punch (without sneak) and scored about 4-7 points of damage. After that I turned the sneak on and now I scored 16 points of damage. I didn't get any notification for my double damage, but I quess it worked as it should (it wasn't a critical).

After that I tried the same thing against human. Whether I used sneak or not I always scored normal damage (about 4). I even tried to approach the victim with sneak on, but it didn't help.

Can this be true? Is this skill total crap or did I just miss something?

BTW are those power fists of any use? The normal power fist does a little more damage than my haymaker, but with a critical, the damage is about the same. If the numbers are correct in this site, punches/kicks add critical chances, which makes them far more powerful than mega fists are.
The damage my haymaker does without a critical sucks (0-4), but with a critical it's about 20-50 and I've even killed monsters with ~200 maxhp's by a single punch, even if it didn't do any damage

So damage isn't everything. I got luck 10 and some nice critical perks so 3/4 of my attacks score a critical.
Those knockouts, blindness etc helps also to survival.

Whatabout different punches/kicks? Personally I can't understand those piercing strikes. Piercing punch costs 9AP and piercing kick 10AP (both aimed). Even if they do a little more damage, two haymakers do far more.
With 10AP, two square bonus move and Bonus HtH attack any those piercing moves can't challenge haymaker (in my case: 3 aimed attacks/turn +1 AP +2AP for movement).

<edited>
I didn't take any perk and continue playing further (I want to know first, will the Silent Death be of use or not). I've done some more tests for time to time, but they've all failed. I can't get any bonus damage against for example aliens (definetely not a critter though). Has someone chose this perk and actually tested it? It looks like it doesn't work at all.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:41 am

I always thought the other options of the unarmed attacks had a higher chance of performing a critical hit either way I've never used sneak seriously in Fallout 2 because it was hard to tell if it was working.

Slayer would make an excellent perk if you didn't have it already (I think it's a level 22 or 25 requirement though).

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:32 pm

[QUOTE=Deadalready]I always thought the other options of the unarmed attacks had a higher chance of performing a critical hit either way I've never used sneak seriously in Fallout 2 because it was hard to tell if it was working.

Slayer would make an excellent perk if you didn't have it already (I think it's a level 22 or 25 requirement though).[/QUOTE]

I must say Sneaking is maybe one of the most useful way to stay alive if you're playing unarmed (one more reason for soloing

. 100-150% in sneak and one can always get next to the foe before combat starts, which is vital especially later on game. At least my character can't spend the whole turn just to get close to an enemy while they can use those fancy laser/plasma/heavy weapons

Lets take an example how useful sneak can be. I went quite fast to the Vault 15, as soon as I got it location from Vault City (sure I knew where it was already from the earlier games, but I like to roleplay a little). I had sneak somewhere at 100% and I could wipe the whole "bossroom" at the lowest level without alerting others in the same room! I just sneaked next to my victim and hit him once, backed away and I could cancel the combat. It was pretty funny that even the victims I hit didn't notice I was there

Talk about sneaking...

If you're using ranged weapons I quess sneak is pretty useless.

Andrey · Post by **Andrey** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:50 am

Silent Death

I think it that it should work on all critters(humans are critters too). also on picture of this perk its showing some ninja killing Human right?

Greetz

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:22 am

[QUOTE=Andrey]I think it that it should work on all critters(humans are critters too). also on picture of this perk its showing some ninja killing Human right?
Greetz[/QUOTE]

That what I thought too. Well I tried to make it work about an hour, but I never got any bonus damage so I just picked another perk.

Squdhazard · Post by **Squdhazard** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:01 pm

Sneak attack works on humans dont panic. No idea taking lucky char because you can get that Slayer what makes all Melee and HtH attacks critical. Piercing kick goes trough enemys armor nomatter what he is wearing so it´s sama as you would beat naked people. Power Fist helps lot... Even if you got Haymaker. Get Mega Power Armor and those guns you listed dont do **** and you own every ranged enemy there is in this game...

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 2:46 pm

[QUOTE=Squdhazard]Sneak attack works on humans dont panic.[/QUOTE]
But it doesn't. At least it didn't work on me. I tried multiple times it against humans, but it didn't do any extra damage. Have you personally tested it and looked the amount of damage you can do with it and compared it to an attack without?

[QUOTE=Squdhazard] Piercing kick goes trough enemys armor nomatter what he is wearing so it´s sama as you would beat naked people.[/QUOTE]
Again I tested this and I disagree. Critical hit with a piercing kick did about the same damage than haymaker and the enemy has the military armor (can't remember the name, the green one). Against enclaves I scored some nasty wounds with haymaker too and couple of instant kills so no use of piercing kick again. Even if it does a little extra damage 3 haymakers in a turn is much more effective than one piercing kick.

[QUOTE=Squdhazard]Power Fist helps lot... Even if you got Haymaker/QUOTE]

I haven't got the mega power fist yet (and I actually restarted the game after Navarro

, but at least normal power fist didn't do more damage than haymaker. I didn't test it much, but with the power fist I scored couple of 1-3 damage hits so it's not that good. Criticals did sometimesabout 10 points of damage more, but you don't get any bonus to critical chance with it so it basically sucks. Of course you can get the slayer at the end, so maybe it's a little better then. However the damages with power fist and haymaker are both so lousy that it doesn't make so much difference. Instant kills count in unarmed combat.

Woozaii · Post by **Woozaii** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:16 pm

Right. First of all: A critter = NPC. So you should be able to gain the effects of that perk, when you hit a human as well. If that doesnt work, it is probaly a bug.

Secondly: Power fists ARE of use, especially later in the game. When i played with a Unarmed character, i did a lot of damage with my normal Hay-Maker, but with the power fist, i did something like: My usual damage... Times 4. Perhaps you just havent got enough Strenght or Unarmed-Skill to use it properly. It's probaly the latter, because i find it very strange that your max damage with Hay-Maker is 5 hp's............... That would certainly also explain why your Piercing Hits doesnt damage jack as well.

Personally, i always used Piercing Hits to cripple my opponents, as i found that most effective.

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:44 am

The damage was so low as 5 points, which I thought to be caused by their damage resistance. I had unarmed about 160% and str 10, so that should be enough. I've understood unarmed damage has nothing to do with the unarmed skill anyway. It only gives you bonus for the hit%, which helps also do more criticals.
Let's see though. I didn't finish the game with that character and I'm now playing a new one which also has some unarmed skill. The last game was a little buggy, cause I had messed up the updates and the game ran version 1.0 although I had the update installed. There were some strange things 'cause of that.

zehir · Post by **zehir** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:29 pm

Have u ever tried silent death with melee weapons, that causes much more damage.

I know that Better criticals cause shocking damages with unarmed, u hit 6 damages in the eye but enemy dies instantly even he has 80 hps.

U can even kill with 0 damage, sounds strange but happens anyway.

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:07 am

[QUOTE=zehir]Have u ever tried silent death with melee weapons, that causes much more damage.

I know that Better criticals cause shocking damages with unarmed, u hit 6 damages in the eye but enemy dies instantly even he has 80 hps.

U can even kill with 0 damage, sounds strange but happens anyway.[/QUOTE]

No, I didn't try the perk with melee 'cause my character was pure unarmed fighter. I know there's an "instant death" in FO2, which kills an opponent instantly, no matter how much one scores damage. I've killed opponents countless of times (actually most of my opponents were slayed by instant death) with 1-6 damage and one time I killed one with 0 damage, like you said. Instant death does not require any perk though, not even the Better Critical. I killed for example the rat god in trapper town with one punch, which did 2 damage. All it takes is a critical hit and a good dice

Like I said I got some problems with patches and I'm currently playing with a new unarmed char, so I'll try the silent death again, when I reach the required level. Don't have much time to play right now, so it can take a little while

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:39 am

Sounds like a glitch that you can kill things without the Better Criticals perk, although having the Trait Finesse will do the same thing as well to a lesser extent.

The problem is in my games I've killed things instantly doing 0-1 damage but they've botched quests since they didn't count as kills.

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:17 pm

I just reached lvl 18 (hooray for me) and did some testing with Silent Death. It seems I got things pretty messed up with those patches last time, 'cause the perk works just like it should.
I did following:
Sneaked near a super mutant (without combat mode) and saved the game. After that I engaged the combat and hit the mutant by heymaker about 20 times. For those hits I got the normal damage range, which was 0-8.

Now I reloaded the game once again, picked the Silent Death and did some damage testing. I got damage range 0-16. It's obvious the perk does double the damage.

I did some more testing and made the following conclusion:
To score double damage, an unawareenemy must be hitted from behind while sneaking. This means only the first attack will score double damage. After this, all damage will be dealt normally (unless of course you run away and engage the combat mode again).

Well, this proves the perk does work, but is it any good anyway? You get only one double damage hit in combat, which ain't much if there's a pack of enemies. Sneaking behind the enemy is also sometimes impossible if you're for example indoors and don't have much room around or just happen to be front of the enemy. Even 150% in sneaking can't hide you if you're not coming from behind. Plus you have to spend valuable action points to moving in combat mode to reach the enemy.
I think this perk is not worth taking at least when you're using only unarmed style. Maybe with melee weapons the Silent Death is a little better, cause the base damage is much higher. Still I doubt that.
Bonus HtH Attack is much better and requires only lvl 12 or 15. I recieved one bonus heymaker attack per turn, which will surely cause more damage in the whole combat than one lousy double damage strike. I can't wait till I get two points in Action Boy. That will grant me total of 4 aimed heymakers per turn.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:33 am

Have you got the "Secrets of the East" perk or "Slayer" yet? If you're going down the unarmed path then these perks will make a noticable and huge difference, Slayer is simply incredible.

LoneRider · Post by **LoneRider** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:01 pm

Hmm. I'm not familiar with the secret of the east perk, but I'm gonna take the slayer, when the time comes. Critical hits are the only way to get along with pure unarmed character. I don't use any other weapons, not even unarmed weapons so my damage is something like 0-8 against tough opponents. Critical hits can do something like 50-60 damage and then there's the instant death, which will make things even easier.
Currently I got little problems against multiple enclave soldiers, super mutants and deathclaws. Slayer would make things so much easier

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 11:32 am

I'm pretty sure it's not actually called "Secrets of the East" but it's what I remember it by, I think it's the description or something. Either way the perk reduces hand to hand attacks by one action point, quite considerable when it only takes 2 action points to throw a punch.

lellebror_erik · Post by **lellebror_erik** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 5:36 pm

Its called "Bons HtH Attacks", and that secrets of the east is part of its description.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:58 am

Actually there are two meanings for term critter in Fallout 2 (and also in whole serie). First meaning, which is generally used in manuals and such, the critter means every NPC character.
Second meaning, which is used mostly in-game, like in dialogies and so on, is those living creatures that are not humanoids, like brahmns or geckos and so on.

I would say in this case it's the first meaning, so that it should afffect every NPC. Of course, like I've stated earlier, the reality can be VERY different, thanks to bugs