The Outer Worlds – Skills Guide and What They Do

Here’s everything we know about skills in The Outer Worlds and what you need to know to get the most from your character and their helpful companions

Skills are an essential part of any RPG adventure, and you can bet they’re significant in Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming title The Outer Worlds. You’re going to be playing as a citizen in the middle of a science fiction nightmare where you’re forced to watch futuristic corporations conduct cut-throat tactics to make a quick buck. The adventure is heavily going to lean on what your character can and cannot do. Here’s a full, comprehensive list of what those skills and details are in the game.

The Outer Worlds Skills Guide

The skills are broken down into seven different sections. They give a further degree of definition for your character. For example, your character might be excellent at melee, but what kind of melee do they prefer? Are they better with two-handed weapons, or using a single hand? If they have a good defense, are they better at dodging or blocking an attack? If they good at handling dialog, is it because they’re persuasive, or do they mostly lie?

Related: The Outer Worlds Global Released Schedule

The first 50 points you put into each skill is going to increase all of the skills in the category. For example, Melee is broken up into 1-handed melee weapons and 2-handed melee weapons. If you choose to specialize in this category, the first 50 points increase both of these choices. However, when you get past 50, you can choose to put points into 1-handed or 2-handed directly. The first 50 points are a way for you to get an idea of the skill before truly specializing.

You can use a special passive for every 20 points you put into the skill. So, for the first 50 you put into one, you gain the first two passives for everything in that category, but after 50, you have to start picking which ones you want to specialize during your playthrough.

The skills section is the time for you to start roleplaying the type of character you want to play during the game. Here’s a complete list of those seven categories, and the additional choices you can make to define your character further.

Dialog

Intimidate

• 20: You gain Terrify – You have a 20 percent chance for an enemy to become Terrified and flee from combat for 10 seconds after killing something else
• 40: You increase terrify’s area of effect by 100 percent
• 60: The movement speed of terrified creatures goes down by 30 percent
• 80: Creatures have a 10 percent chance to gain Terrified
• 100: When your character terrifies a creature they gain five percent critical hit chance and 25 percent critical hit damage for 10 seconds

Lie

• 20: You gain scramble – A 15 percent chance Automechanicals will attach other creatures than you for 17 seconds
• 40: Scramble’s duration increases by seven seconds
• 60: Scrambled automechanicals have a normal attack speed
• 80: Increases the scramble chance of automechanicals by 10 percent
• 100: Scrambled automechanicals do 30 percent more weak spot damage

Persuade

• 20: You gain cower – Humans have a 20 percent chance to cower in fear for three seconds after the initial attack against them
• 40: Cower now lasts an additional seven seconds
• 60: Any human cowering has 50 percent armor
• 80: It increases a human’s chance to cower by 10 percent
• 100: When a human is cowering, you gain 25 percent armor for 10 seconds

Defense

Block

• 20: You gain perfect block – When you block right before you get hit, this staggers the enemy
• 40: Your weapon durability loss goes down by 25 percent when you block with it
• 60: Your walk speed increases by 100 percent while you’re blocking
• 80: When you perfect block, you lose none of your weapon’s durability
• 100: When you perform a perfect block it weakens your enemies, increasing the damage they take by 100 percent for five seconds

Dodge

• 20: You can now use the ability to Leap
• 40: After you dodge, your recovery increases by 100 percent
• 60: You gain dodge protection – You have 30 percent armor rating for five seconds after you dodge
• 80: You gain dodge force – After you dodge, your melee attacks are going to do 50 percent more damage
• 100: You gain dodge penetration – After you dodge, your character’s weak spot hits have the chance to ignore all armor for five seconds

Leadership

Determination

• 20: When your inhaler heals you, your companions get 30 percent of its healing effects
• 40: Your companions gain 20 percent more critical hit damage
• 60: Companions are going to receive 25 percent more of your inhaler’s healing effects
• 80: You gain resolve – When your companions get downed, your party earns 50 percent armor rating and damage for 10 seconds
• 100: When your companion kills an enemy they gain 50 percent of their health back

Inspiration

• 20: You gain companion abilities – Your character can now order your companions to do special attacks during combat
• 40: All of your companions have 20 percent more armor rating
• 60: Your companion’s skill gives your character’s skills a bonus by 100 percent
• 80: You gain inspired precision – When any of your companions down an enemy, the entire party gains increased critical hit chance by 20 percent for five seconds
• 100: When a companion kills an enemy, all of your companions’ ability cooldowns go down by 20 percent.

Melee

1-handed Melee

• 20: You can use power and sweep attacks
• 40: You can use TTD Location Hit Effects with your attacks
• 60: Your 1-handed weapon reach increases by 30 percent
• 80: Your 1-handed weapons use 50 percent less TTD
• 100: Your power and sweep attacks have a 25 percent chance to stun

2-handed Melee

• 20: You can use power and sweep attacks
• 40: You can use TTD Location Hit Effects with your attacks
• 60: Your 2-handed weapon attacks are unblockable
• 80: Your 2-handed weapons use 50 percent less TTD
• 100: Your power and sweet attacks have a 25 percent chance to knock down your enemy

Ranged

Handguns

• 20: You can use TTD Location Hit Effects with your attacks
• 40: Your handguns have a 50 percent chance to crit.
• 60: Your handguns have a minimum armor penetration of 10 percent damage to your foes
• 80: Your handguns have a 20 percent chance to cause critical damage to enemies with debuffs on them
• 100: Your handgun’s critical hits ignore 100 percent of your enemy’s armor

Heavy Weapons

• 20: You can use TTD Location Hit Effects with your attacks
• 40: Your heavy weapons have a 50 percent chance to crit.
• 60: Your heavy weapons reload speed increases by 30 percent
• 80: When your heavy weapons hit a critical hit it increases their rate of fire by 30 percent for three seconds
• 100: Your heavy weapons critical hit ignore 100 percent of your enemy’s armor

Long Guns

• 20: You can use TTD Location Hit Effects with your attacks
• 40: Your long guns have a 50 percent chance to crit.
• 60: Your long gun’s headshot and weak spot damage increases by 20 percent
• 80: After a kill, for five seconds your long gun experiences no weapon sway
• 100: Your long gun’s critical hits ignore 100 percent of your enemy’s armor

Stealth

Hack

• 20: You can sell your goods to vending machines
• 40: You gain access to restricted items at vending machines
• 60: You can hack automechanicals and turn them off for 10 seconds
• 80: Automechanicals cannot detect you by an additional 30 percent range
• 100: You can hack automechanicals by 2.5m more meters, for a total of 5 meters away

Lockpick

• 20: Doors and containers that need at least 1 Mag-pick to open are free to access
• 40: You can find 25 percent more bits inside of containers
• 60: Before you pick a lock, you preview what’s inside a container
• 80: Your lockpicking speed increases to happening almost instantly
• 100: You have a 100 percent chance to find pristine items

Sneak

• 20: You gain sneak attack – You can attack unaware enemies while crouched, dealing more damage than you normally would
• 40: You can pickpocket – steal from humans while you’re crouched
• 60: Your crouch movement speed increases by 25 percent
• 80: Your sneak attack damage to weak spots increases by 20 percent
• 100: Your sneak attack is going to ignore 50 percent of your opponent’s armor

Tech

Engineering

• 20: You gain field repair – You can repair armor and weapons in your inventory
• 40: You can break down your weapons and armor with a 20 percent chance to extract a basic mod from the materials
• 60: You have a 20 percent chance for your repair to turn your item into Pristine, increasing its overall value and durability
• 80: You can break down your weapons armor with a 20 percent chance to extract a rare mod from the materials
• 100: You deal 20 percent more damage to automechanicals

Medical

• 20: You unlock the second drug mixing slot for your inhaler
• 40: You unlock the third drug mixing slot for your inhaler
• 60: Any hostile effect duration done to targets increases by 50 percent
• 80: You unlock the fourth drug mixing slot for your inhaler
• 100: You deal 20 percent bonus damage against humans

Science

• 20: You gain tinker – You can improve your weapons and armor at a workbench
• 40: The cost of your tinkering decreases by 50 percent
• 60: Corrosion and N-ray damage increases by 25 percent
• 80: Your tinkering cost gets reduced to 90 percent
• 100: Science weapons are weightless to your character, and they have 100 percent more of a magazine size

Choose your skills wisely, and make sure you’re looking ahead at what your type of character you want to play as in The Outer Worlds. Make sure you learn about the perks they could acquire along the way, too.

The Outer Worlds comes out to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and the PC through the Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store on Oct. 25.