Scribe Counter is an unarmed perk in Fallout: New Vegas.
Requirements
It can be acquired while Veronica Santangelo is your current active companion. If you place White Glove Society attire or formal wear into Veronica's inventory, she will, as thanks, offer to teach you the technique (the outfit may then be removed from her inventory with no negative repercussions).
Caution: Due to a script error (see bugs for details) you cannot gain Scribe Counter if Veronica has made any of the comments leading up to the quest I Could Make You Care. It is therefore recommended to obtain formal Wear or White Glove Society attire prior to recruiting her in the first place.
Effects
The Scribe Counter is performed by attacking soon after the player blocks a melee or unarmed attack (or an equivalent non-humanoid's melee attack). The margin of time is a bit generous - attacking approximately within half a second of the blocked attack will trigger the counter. It looks noticeably different from a normal attack, like a quick hit with the back of the player's left fist.
Despite this appearance, the counter-attack functions as a normal attack, except much faster and directly out of a block. Any special effects on the weapon or from the attack (such as crippling body parts or triggering knockdowns) still work, in other words. For this reason, this special attack effectively allows a character to stay in a block the entire duration of any close-combat fight, providing significant damage reduction all the while.
Notes
- After the 1.2.0.314 patch, the perk will be working, but you may not receive any message after Veronica teaches you the move. Just open your Pip-Boy and you should see it listed along with your other perks.
- There might have some other pieces of clothing (e.g. dapper gambler suit, pre-War parkstroller outfit and Vera's outfit) that if you put them into Veronica's inventory, she will only thank you for them but she will not give you the perk. She only offers to teach you the perk if you give her a formal wear or White Glove Society attire.
Bugs
Upon giving the Formal Wear to Veronica, you may get a conversation with her, and have her "teach" you the technique, but upon the screen recovering from being black, you will not have obtained the "Scribe Counter" perk. This bug can be remedied on the PC by using the console command player.addperk 0015b8ea which gives the perk to the player. (Keep in mind that using console commands will disable achievements until you quit and relaunch the game.) [verified]
- This is verified (via reading the scripts in GECK) to happen because of a script bug where a timer object is shared between the "teach Scribe Counter" sequence and the scripts that trigger Veronica's comments leading up to starting I Could Make You Care. If the player gives her the formal wear before triggering any of the nine special comments listed in that quest, the Scribe Counter will be added at the end of the fade-in. Otherwise the conversation, fade-out and fade-in happens, but the perk is not added.
You can give Veronica the Formal Wear, but nothing happens. There is no conversation at all. [verified]- Several game days after giving Veronica the Formal Wear she engages you in conversation and gives you the perk. [verified]
