Character

Your character, @, is made up of a combination of Stats, Traits and Skills, all of which are very important to the game. While Skills can be trained and some Traits altered by mutations, Stats never change, although there are some temporary effects that affect them. Things such as weather, status effects and medication may change your Stats and Traits temporarily. Bear in mind Cataclysm is a rogue-like in which permadeath is always on. There are only a few items that can actually change your Stats and Traits, but they are quite rare and they can go wrong!

While the characters are the main protagonists during gameplay, their story and personality is entirely up to the player, they can be a heroic fighter hoping to save mankind from the many horrors of the cataclysm, a neutral person just doing what they can to survive, or a pure monster who aims to make what's left of humanity's life miserable as they take what they want by force.

NPCs are characters who are not controlled by the player, as of the latest experimental versions, players have the opportunity to take control of any NPC followers if the original player character dies.

Character creation

Creating your character is easy, but does involve a few steps.

Play now!

This is a great way to jump in to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. There is deep customization available in your C:DDA experience, but having a basic understanding of the game first will better inform how you choose to tweak it for yourself. It is recommended that you start playing first and then move into the huge, and sometimes obtuse, world and character creation options.

From the initial menu you have a list of options: [MOTD] [New Game] [Load] [World] [Special] [Options] [Help] [Credits] [Quit]

Choose [New Game] to see a sub-menu: [Custom Character] [Preset Character] [Random Character] [Play Now!]

If you choose [Play Now!] here you will be loaded into a default world with no mods and a randomly generated character with random stats, traits, and skills in the Evac shelter.

Good luck survivor! See Controls, FAQ, and The First Day for some help getting started.

Create World

Each character you create lives in a world. Any number of characters can live in that world and pillage each other's corpses, but first you must create a world and choose the mods and world generation options that will define this sandbox. You must do this before you create the player that will inhabit the world.

From the initial menu choose [World] to see a sub-menu: [Create World] [Delete World] [Reset World]

Here, choose [Create World] and you will be sent to a new menu with tabs for Mods, World Gen Options, and a Confirmation. Use ? here for help on how to navigate each of these tabs as they do sometimes have tab-specific functions like moving around the Default, Blacklist, and Balance sub-categories for Mods.

Generally these tabs and options are well documented, but there is one instance that seems to raise the most questions. "Tall Buildings" mod and "Experimental z-levels" world gen option are two different things. Tall Buildings adds buildings to the game that are built into the z-levels above where the player begins; nothing like this exists in the game if this mod is not turned on. If Tall Buildings is turned on without z-levels then you can still visit and climb these buildings, but anything outside of your current z-level is frozen in time. Enabling Experimental z-levels allows z-levels outside of your current level to be active including monster movement, detection of sound, and running vehicles to name a few. This applies to buildings already in the game which go into negative z-levels like [Lab|Labs], but allows for more experimentation with Tall Buildings turned on. There are edge cases that come into play, like NPCs not following you across z-levels unless Experimental z-levels is turned on, but that's what we get for an experimental function at this point in the game's development. Like most of the latest features in the Experimental versions of the game releases z-levels aren't generally buggy long (if at all) so don't let this scare you away from trying the most current version of the game even if z-levels aren't fully functional yet.

Create Character

Once a world is created it is time to populate it with your avatar. There are many ways to customize and challenge yourself with your character creation including self-imposed rules from the web tools page and the scenario challenges in-game.

From the initial menu choose [New Game] to see a sub-menu: [Custom Character] [Preset Character] [Random Character] [Play Now!]

[Preset Character] is used when you reach the end of character creation the first time. There you can choose to save your choices as a template with ! to re-load all your stat, trait, and skill choices again should you fail in your attempt to survive C:DDA. (Note: It may be necessary to recreate your templates after changing to a new version of C:DDA. Measures to handle full characters going between versions unfortunately do not extend to templates.)

[Random Character] is what it says on the tin. This is good for a challenge or getting into a different play style, but it is also good to have a filled-out character brought up ready to complete your first time through. Here you can easily see how a completed character may look and you can randomize (%) it further or, following the documentation and help (?), move back through the tabs (<) to see how the choices added up when they were randomized.

[Custom Character] is a blank slate for you to work with from start to finish.

Point Pools

Point pool choices are a relatively new addition to the experimental versions and really only need detailed explanation for the "Multiple Pools" version of point allocation.

Multiple Pools

Multiple pool point allocation was designed with balance and flavor in mind. Generally, with the single pool allocation, skills are ignored by players because of the relative ease by which they are raised with books. This system allows points to move down from their importance in stats where points are very important, down to traits, and finally skills, but not back up the list.

This progression can be clouded by the fact that the tabs of the character creation menu do not follow this order, but if you recognize that fact it can remove some of the confusion.

2 points by default:

Stats	Traits	Skills
2 points to allocate within stats	2 points to allocate within traits plus any unused points from stats	2 points to allocate within skills, plus any unused points from stats, plus any unused points from traits, plus any points from scenarios, plus any points from professions

This means you can go 3 negative in your traits pool, for example, by taking only positive traits that add up to a 5 total cost as long as you create a surplus of points in your stats pool by reducing the number of points allocated in one your stats by 1 and leaving 3 un-allocated.

The skills pool is subject to additions and subtractions from scenarios and professions.

This thread has a discussion about this feature, you can browse commit comments on the feature, and an understanding discussion for further reading.

Stats

You can modify a total of four Stats, each one of them is unique and will help change certain aspects such as player HP, damage, maximum weight that he/she can carry etc.

For all stats, minimal values are 4 and increasing values above 12 will cost 2 points instead of 1! 14 is considered to be very high, the max human value. Players can go higher, but those values should be considered exceptionally high.

At the default value of 8 the bonuses are the following:

Strength 8	Dexterity 8	Intelligence 8	Perception 8
Base HP: 84 Carry Weight: 100lbs (45kg) Melee Damage: 4	Melee to-hit bonus: +5 Throwing Bonus: 0 Ranged Penalty: -60	Reading Time: 100% Skill Rust: 50%	Ranged Penalty: -60
Note that the starting values are 8. Below that the points you receive may not follow the formulas below.
Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Perception
Each point increases your HP by 3. Each point increases your Carry Weight by 9lbs. (4kg) Every point increases your Melee Damage by 0.75. Strength also makes you more resistant to many diseases and poisons, and makes actions which require brute force (pushing heavy stuff, bashing down furniture and walls) more effective. Detailed Strength Effects	Every point increases your Melee to-hit bonus by 0.25. Every point above 9 (10, 11, etc.) increases your throwing bonus by 1. Each point decreases your Ranged Penalty by 15. It cannot be brought below zero.Verify (May not be current) Each point adds a 1% chance to roll for a critical hit in melee. Dexterity also enhances many actions which require finesse, such as dodging, martial arts special attacks, and bonus attacks granted by mutations. Detailed Dexterity Effects	Each point decreases your Read Times by 5%. Each point decreases your Skill Rust by 3.5% (rounded up). Each point above 8 increases your effective Focus by 5. Intelligence is also used in determining crafting failure, installing bionics, and interacting with NPCs. Advanced books also have intelligence requirements. Not meeting these requirements significantly increases reading time. Detailed Intelligence Effects	Each point decreases your Ranged Penalty by 15. It cannot be brought below zero.Verify (May not be current) Each point adds a 2% chance to roll for a critical hit in melee. Perception is also used for detecting traps and other things of interest. Detailed Perception Effects

Hit points (HP)

The Player's strength value and any hit point reducing or increasing starting trait you picked determine how many hit points each body part has. The default strength of 8 is equivalent to 84 hit points for each body part without modifiers.

Normally the exact remaining hit point value of each body part is hidden, unless you have the Self-aware trait. If your torso or head ever goes below 1 hit point, you die. If any other body part is reduced to zero hit points or lower, it gets broken; this can be a bit hard to heal.

Lost hit points are slowly restored (healed) in time, and healing rate is improved by using healing items, and is also faster when sleeping. Note that you need to be healthy to heal at the full rate.

If the bodypart is red, that body part is bleeding, and will lose hit points over time.

Important to note is that not only can your body parts get damaged, you can also get Infected. This can end the life of your survivor in a different way; read the infection page for more information. You can get infected from deep bite wounds, which turn the body part blue. Over time these bite wounds fester and turn infected, which changes the color of the body part to green.

Stamina

See the Stamina page for more information.

Hidden Stats

There are also various hidden stats, you cannot directly influence them during character creation, but they do have an effect.

See the Hidden stats page for more information.

Traits

Traits are a customization option you can choose at character creation. In-game, they work like and share user interface space with mutations. Several traits can be gained from mutagen and other typical methods of mutating, while others can only be picked at character creation.

Traits are split between positive ones, which cost points and help your character, and negative ones, which give you points and hinder your character. However, neither all positive nor all negative traits are created equal. Some negative traits have positive effects that outweigh their negative effects (and vice versa) and many traits have negligible effects. The right selection of traits can mean the difference between a living survivor and a rotting corpse.

Several starting professions also grant you special profession traits, which are based on the characters' career before the Cataclysm and represent the expertise, training, special permissions, or other effects you've gained from that. They are unobtainable in-game, and some of them are only available by picking that profession.

Take a look at full list of traits.

Skills

Skills are raised upon practice (combat, crafting, tool usage). Practice is multiplied by your current focus / 100; therefore focus pool level above 100 provides a bonus to the amount of skill gained, while amounts below 100 provide a penalty. The focus pool is not capped, but it requires higher morale to increase to higher levels, every few turns your focus is increased or decreased depending on your current morale. You can increase the speed at which you gain focus by increasing your morale.

As of 0.C (Cooper) (and still in 0.G), performing a crafting or construction task of certain difficulty can only bring your skill to (difficulty*1.25)+1, rounded down. For example, boiling water and crafting washboards (skill 0) will only bring cooking and fabrication to 1. Even the easiest task will still stop skill rust.

Skill gaining through craft

Craft Difficulty	Maximum skill level
0	1
1	2
2	3
3	4
4	6
5	7
6	8
7	9
8	11
9	12
10	13

You can also increase (theoretical) skill levels by reading books or being taught by NPCs. Note that reading skill books costs focus, but being trained does not.

The Melee and Firearms skill will improve both accuracy and damage of their respective weapons, but not as much as the weapon's main skill (handguns, cutting weapons etc.)

Stats will also affect a player's skills by making them more/less effective depending on the value of the stat. Dexterity will affect the accuracy and effectiveness for most attacks. Strength will affect the damage of all melee attacks. Intelligence can improve certain skills, increase the rate of learning, and reduce the time needed to read a book. Perception can increase a player's accuracy for ranged attacks, and increases trap detection.

Removed skills

These skills were removed, renamed or reworked in previous versions of the game. There are mentions of them in outdated articles.

Trapping

Replaced by devices, which also affects other security systems and lockpicking.

Swimming

Replaced by Athletics, which also affects other cardio activities.

Construction

In 0.D (Danny) the construction skill has been removed, the various constructions now have different skill requirements, related to the type of construction. Such as cloth related constructions are now Tailoring, food constructions are now a Cooking skill, and the general ones are now part of Fabrication, etc.

Cooking

Renamed to Food handling. Cooking also was important for making chemicals and drugs before Applied Science was added.

First Aid

Renamed to Health Care

Bartering

Bartering and Speaking were fused into Social in 0.F (Frank). Bartering was focused on trading prices.

Speaking

See above. Speaking was focused on deceiving, intimidating and other forms of persuasion. (todo: versions in which changes were made)

Complete skills list.