He was a super human who didn’t need to drink anything ever. In the vanilla version, giving water to these beggars nets you “Good” Karma. If you tell them to find their own water or offer them dirty water, they will indeed die. The game has beggars sitting outside major “cities,” begging for purified water or else they’re going to die. The water is irradiated and too much radiation will give you negative effects in combats, which will in turn reduce your chances for survival. This is post-nuclear apocalypse, after all. Alcohol won’t do the job and dirty water is DANGEROUS. Water is important, as thirst builds up the fastest. This mod requires the player to keep track of not only health and Action Points, but to make sure the player character isn’t starving to death in the middle of a fire fight. Food was the same as medicine, except not as effective. He didn’t have to drink simply to stay ALIVE. Food healed you, sure, but that was all it did. Hunger, Thirst, Sleep: Damocles never had to worry about his hunger level, or how thirsty he was, or even if he was tired or full of energy.

Let me list some of the major differences the Wanderer’s Edition brings to the game, some mechanical, some based on the differences in backstory. His Wasteland experience is very different from Damocles. Roland can’t afford to help for the sake of helping, can’t just give water to a beggar asking for clean water. Roland…doesn’t have the luxuries that Damocles had. In the end, he was ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of all in the Wasteland to have a better life. Damocles was a killer, but it was a harsh world and he was trying to make it safer. He didn’t need a reason to hunt down slavers, sadistic raiders, or the evil mercenaries of Talon Company. He was the drifter cowboy, stopping in a town just long enough to solve their problems with the local bandits, before moving on to the next, the only reward being enough supplies to continue his lone journey.

Damocles (my vanilla Fallout 3 character) was an ideal for the Wasteland to strive after. I often turned down rewards or accepted quests for the sake of helping others rather than for any promise of rewards.

Raiders, slavers, the genocidal Enclave, Super Mutants, and all that fun stuff. In Vanilla Fallout 3, I played a virtuous vigilante, whose goal was to rid the Wastelands of the corruption that plagued it. I am not only deriving enjoyment from the game itself, but from what I’m beginning to realize about my own nature as I become immersed in my character. The Capital Wastelands in this version is much harsher than that of the vanilla game. I’m doing a run through with the The Wanderer’s Edition mod set, including other big mods such as Mort’s Mutant Mod, Project Beautiful, and the Weapon Mod Kit mod. A heavily modded Fallout 3, true, but Fallout 3 none the less. In between other obligations, I’ve begun playing Fallout 3 again. I wasn’t lying at the end of my last post.

Fallout 3 survival edition