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Guns determines your effectiveness with any weapon that uses conventional ammunition (.22 LR, .357 Magnum, 5mm, 10mm, 5.56mm, .308, .45-70 Gov't, etc.).— In-game description

Guns is a skill in Fallout: New Vegas. It is the successor to the Small Guns skill of previous Fallout games with the addition of some weapons previously categorized under Big Guns (such as miniguns, but not missile launchers or Gatling lasers).

The level of the skill determines the player character's accuracy and damage with every kind of conventional firearm, from pistols and rifles to light machine guns and miniguns; at the highest level of 100, a weapon's sway is heavily reduced and its damage is twice that of the lowest level of 0.

Initial level[]

Example: A starting Agility of 5 and Luck of 5.

Ways to increase Guns skill[]

Permanent
Temporary

Affected weapons[]

Perks that require Guns skill[]

Perk Requirement Level Additional requirements
Rapid Reload 30 2 Agility 5
Run 'n Gun 45 4
Shotgun Surgeon 45 6
Cowboy 45 8 Melee Weapons 45
Grunt Honest Hearts 45 8 Explosives 20
And Stay Back Dead Money 70 10
Center of Mass 70 14
Concentrated Fire 60 18 Energy Weapons 60

Interactions that require Guns skill[]

Notable Guns skilled characters[]

Notes[]

  • The Vault Boy image for the Guns skill is the same that of the Small Guns skill in Fallout 3.
  • The Codac R9000 is classified as a gun despite being loaded with camera film.
  • As with all weapons, the player character can use and fire any weapon regardless of skill level; the level "requirement" is simply a recommendation to ensure the weapon has minimum sway and decent damage.

Behind the scenes[]

Combining Big Guns and Small Guns was a largely uncontested change among the development team, though Feargus Urquhart and Chris Parker dissented. Game director Joshua Sawyer assured them that it would be fine.[1] Previously, Sawyer had attempted to design low-level Big Guns for the early game so that everyone could get what they wanted, including items such as rivet guns, but found that it felt forced and did not work well. As such, the team simply merged Small Guns and Big Guns and redistributed the latter.[2]

References[]

  1. Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream Part 3 (reference starts at 45:17)
    Joshua Sawyer: "'Was combining Small Guns and Big Guns back together an uncontested change?' The only people who contested it were Feargus Urquhart and Chris Parker. Nobody else contested it. And I was like, 'It's fine.' [laughter] They're like, 'I think it's gonna do this-' I'm like, 'Nah. Nah.' That was my feedback, like 'Nah, it's fine.'"
  2. Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream Part 3 (reference starts at 46:13)
    Joshua Sawyer: "Yeah, Big Guns, like at first, I tried to... design low-level Big Guns. So the goal in combining them was that I just wanted there to be more stuff available at the beginning of the game for everybody to use. And it was just really difficult, it felt very forced. Yeah, 'low-level Big Guns?' It just didn't work very well. I was making up like industrial things like rivet guns and stuff like that. I'm like, 'Ehhh, I dunno.' And once I just said, 'No, there's just Guns' and I split up all the weapons that were previously in Big Guns. Is it a missile launcher? Then it's Explosives. Is it a minigun? Then it's in Guns. Is it a laser Gatling gun? Then it's in Energy Weapons. And that was fine."
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