Crispy™ The Most Useless Perks

[Marat]

...that you can't help but get.

For me it's FNV's own Terrifying Presence.

With the total of 18 uses throughout the entire game and all it does is start a fight you could've started anyway. Still, it feels good to answer "Who the fuck are you?!" with "Pale death come to bear you to perdition!".

 

[Trithne]

Every perk in CP2077.

Edit: Just noticed the "That you can't help but get"

Well I guess I can't help but get them because what else do I do with the fucking perk points?

 

[Arbiter]

Bloody mess in Fallout 1/2.

 

[wishbonetail]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless. Every other level in NV is a huge improvement.
Shit i missed 'u cant help but get' too. So it would be Rad Powered in NV. It is not useless, on the contrary it is gamebreaking, making u immortal right from lv4. And I cant help but get this shit and break my game.

 

[Tyranicon]

Any perk that gives some minor but completely necessary % increase in whatever.

%-based skills/perks are not only lazy, but utterly boring.

 

[Alphons]

I'll take gimmick perks over the boring, balanced ones.

More Terrifying Presences, Animal Friends, Bloody Messes and less +1% to something or +5 to skill.

 

[Tacgnol]

...that you can't help but get.

For me it's FNV's own Terrifying Presence.

With the total of 18 uses throughout the entire game and all it does is start a fight you could've started anyway. Still, it feels good to answer "Who the fuck are you?!" with "Pale death come to bear you to perdition!".

Risen 2's take on that type of perk was much more amusing and interesting. The one that let you attempt to shoot someone with your pistol in the middle of dialogue.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless.

large portion of those perks didn't even work

 

[Melcar]

Bloody mess in Fallout 1/2.

It's useless but funny. My Bloody Mess with HtH run was hilarious.

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless...

They are "useless" in a powergaming sense, but I think most were put there for role playing reasons.

 

[Humbaba]

I wish there was more room in cRPGs for roleplaying purpose perks instead of gameplay perks but usually you're forced to choose between the two and more often than not you're handicapping yourself by not going for the gameplay perks. I would put them into separate categories so you get to choose 2 gameplay perks and 2 roleplaying perks for example. That way you get +5% dmg to eye shots AND get to roleplay as a dentist (or whatever) without being forced to drop one for the other.

 

[toro]

Bloody mess in Fallout 1/2.

i always choose that

 

[deuxhero]

Weapon Focus in any D&D3 based game (NWN, NWN2, KotOR, KotOR2, D&D Tactics, ToEE, Kingmaker and likely others). It's nearly useless (less than 1 in 20 chance to covert a miss into a hit) but
1: It's required for way too many things
2: Most of the above games don't implement enough useful feats and have high enough level caps that many characters will eventually have to take it because they've taken everything else.

 

[Tacgnol]

Weapon Focus in any D&D3 based game (NWN, NWN2, KotOR, KotOR2, D&D Tactics, ToEE, Kingmaker and likely others). It's nearly useless (less than 1 in 20 chance to covert a miss into a hit) but
1: It's required for way too many things
2: Most of the above games don't implement enough useful feats and have high enough level caps that many characters will eventually have to take it because they've taken everything else.

I've always used a variant rule in PF where it applies to a group of weapons rather than one (similar to the fighter weapon training class feature). It still doesn't make the feat that useful but it does at least mean you get a little more choice with weapon selection.

I've also seen some variant rules that merge a lot of the very basic weapon feats together into one.

 

[wishbonetail]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless...

They are "useless" in a powergaming sense, but I think most were put there for role playing reasons.[/QUOTE]
Okay. In Fallout 1 you can get 4 or 5 perks until endgame if you not grinding. What roleplaying purpose does Awareness serve, Heave ho, Dodger, Earlier sequence, More criticals, Friendly foe, Snakeeater, Sharshooter? These are combat perks and they are crap. Action boy, Bonus rate of fire, Bonus hth attacks, Toughness, Better criticals are essential for combat and we're out of perks.
Faster healing mutate,swift learner, smooth talker, presense, mr fixit, medic, educated, master thief, ranger, scout give bonuses so negligible that you better take combat ones instead. And i will remind that our perk budget is 5 perks during normal walkthrough. This game aspect clearly wasnt thought out. A perk every other level is a must to open decent roleplaying opportunities. And that the reason why i played thousands of hours in NV.

 

[Butter]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless...

They are "useless" in a powergaming sense, but I think most were put there for role playing reasons.
Okay. In Fallout 1 you can get 4 or 5 perks until endgame if you not grinding. What roleplaying purpose does Awareness serve, Heave ho, Dodger, Earlier sequence, More criticals, Friendly foe, Snakeeater, Sharshooter? These are combat perks and they are crap. Action boy, Bonus rate of fire, Bonus hth attacks, Toughness, Better criticals are essential for combat and we're out of perks.
Faster healing mutate,swift learner, smooth talker, presense, mr fixit, medic, educated, master thief, ranger, scout give bonuses so negligible that you better take combat ones instead. And i will remind that our perk budget is 5 perks during normal walkthrough. This game aspect clearly wasnt thought out. A perk every other level is a must to open decent roleplaying opportunities. And that the reason why i played thousands of hours in NV.

You're not wrong about a lot of Fallout 1 perks being dogshit, but you could have chosen some better examples. Toughness is dogshit (it even has 3 ranks for some fucking reason) when you can casually hit 90% DR with Psycho and power armor. More Criticals is a great perk, especially since Slayer and Sniper are virtually impossible to reach in a normal playthrough. Why not go with Rad Resistance, a perk that only matters for one location and that provides a negligible bonus compared to Rad-X?

 

[Melcar]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless...

They are "useless" in a powergaming sense, but I think most were put there for role playing reasons.

Okay. In Fallout 1 you can get 4 or 5 perks until endgame if you not grinding. What roleplaying purpose does Awareness serve, Heave ho, Dodger, Earlier sequence, More criticals, Friendly foe, Snakeeater, Sharshooter? These are combat perks and they are crap. Action boy, Bonus rate of fire, Bonus hth attacks, Toughness, Better criticals are essential for combat and we're out of perks.
Faster healing mutate,swift learner, smooth talker, presense, mr fixit, medic, educated, master thief, ranger, scout give bonuses so negligible that you better take combat ones instead. And i will remind that our perk budget is 5 perks during normal walkthrough. This game aspect clearly wasnt thought out. A perk every other level is a must to open decent roleplaying opportunities. And that the reason why i played thousands of hours in NV.

You can finish the game with any of those perks. What's the problem? You won't make an "optimal" build, but neither are your "essential" perks absolute musts needed to finish the base game. A lot of these extra perks are just there to add flavor to your role playing. Are you telling me you can't even imagine finishing the game with a character loaded with all the "worst" perks? People have done that before.

 

[wishbonetail]

I saddens me to say but in Fallout1,2 with a perk every third level, almost all of them besides few essential are useless...

They are "useless" in a powergaming sense, but I think most were put there for role playing reasons.
Okay. In Fallout 1 you can get 4 or 5 perks until endgame if you not grinding. What roleplaying purpose does Awareness serve, Heave ho, Dodger, Earlier sequence, More criticals, Friendly foe, Snakeeater, Sharshooter? These are combat perks and they are crap. Action boy, Bonus rate of fire, Bonus hth attacks, Toughness, Better criticals are essential for combat and we're out of perks.
Faster healing mutate,swift learner, smooth talker, presense, mr fixit, medic, educated, master thief, ranger, scout give bonuses so negligible that you better take combat ones instead. And i will remind that our perk budget is 5 perks during normal walkthrough. This game aspect clearly wasnt thought out. A perk every other level is a must to open decent roleplaying opportunities. And that the reason why i played thousands of hours in NV.

You're not wrong about a lot of Fallout 1 perks being dogshit, but you could have chosen some better examples. Toughness is dogshit (it even has 3 ranks for some fucking reason) when you can casually hit 90% DR with Psycho and power armor. More Criticals is a great perk, especially since Slayer and Sniper are virtually impossible to reach in a normal playthrough. Why not go with Rad Resistance, a perk that only matters for one location and that provides a negligible bonus compared to Rad-X?

I usually take toughness for melee char and i dont like power armor, it breaks immersion. Okay, swap toughness with more criticals. The point still stands, 80 percent of perks arent worth it and do not offer much in terms of flavor or roleplaying. For me at least.

 

[plem]

sex appeal in fallout 2

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Friendly foe

I like this sort of perk design where it adds a new, small feature. Much prefer it over +5% damage or somesuch.
Empathy is similar.

 

[fantadomat]

...that you can't help but get.

For me it's FNV's own Terrifying Presence.

With the total of 18 uses throughout the entire game and all it does is start a fight you could've started anyway. Still, it feels good to answer "Who the fuck are you?!" with "Pale death come to bear you to perdition!".

Here and now.

 

[Marat]

Here and now.

We can't be friends anymore.

 

[deuxhero]

Remembered one that actually makes the game worse just for existing: Weapon Finesse (Lightsaber) in KotOR 2. The only reason to take this is because the game isn't 100% clear that Weapon Finesse (Melee Weapons) also works on lightsabers, and the biggest reason that's not clear is is the existance of Weapon Finesse (Lightsabers). The restoration project and fan patch fix this by giving it for free as a reward for a restored quest, and making it impossible to take on level up (respectively).

 

[Saduj]

I got to pick 11 or so perks for my character in Encased. Two were pretty cool and the rest ranged from sub par to "I'm taking this because there is nothing else to pick".

 

[plem]

I got to pick 11 or so perks for my character in Encased. Two were pretty cool and the rest ranged from sub par to "I'm taking this because there is nothing else to pick".

I liked the one that gives you bonuses while on drugs. using that on my max perception psionic gave me ridiculous amounts of bonus xp and psi skills.

 

[tkx]

Pretty much every perk in Skyrim.
If that's too generic a response, then the Poisoned one from the Pickpocketing tree. A completely non-optimal way to kill a target, but I enjoy it nonetheless.