Amazon’s Fallout TV show season 2 has come to a close. Some loose ends were tied up, and more were teased, ready for season 3, which will start filming in the summer. But it’s not all just about emotional character arcs—let’s put our main characters’ progress into cold, hard numbers, or levels, to be exact.
Spoilers ahead for Fallout season 2
The Methodology
I used the same method as I did in my previous article, where I calculated the levels at the end of season 1. But as a small recap, I used Fallout 3’s framework for levels as Lucy establishes skills like repair, science, and speech at the start of the first season.
All characters were also still in survival mode (which does grant more XP) but set to a low level. Just with the Yao Guai in season 1, those New Vegas Deathclaws went down a little too easily for my liking.
XP is awarded when a new minor or major location is reached, for killing raiders or Wasteland creatures, with the big ‘uns granting a little more XP. But the most XP is given for completing quests or side quests.
Lucy: Level 9
Total XP gained: 1,150XP
Lucy did not manage to surpass her stats from the first season, largely because she failed her major quest of bringing her father to justice. She spent all season yapping about how she’d atone for her father’s sins and make him pay in some way, and while she did get the upper hand for a short while in the end, he beat her to it. He gave nothing helpful away about his possible ties to The Enclave and wiped his memory before Lucy could get anything else out of him.
Smallest achievement
Bartering with the flea soup lady for information about her father’s whereabouts and getting a bowl of flea soup.
And then when it came to the Legion, Lucy managed to fail the speech checks so badly she ended up on a crucifix. So yeah, not a lot of XP this season.
She did, however, outdo herself in the killing department this season and managed to find some very key locations. These are just some of the ways Lucy gained XP:
- Hacking a Terminal.
- Finding her father.
- Fighting radscorpions.
- Murdering the ghoulified Kings gang in a drug-fueled rampage
- Implanting a brainwash chip.
Unfortunately, all of this amounted to just one measly level gain as Lucy is currently sitting at level 9, with 6,207XP gained in total, meaning she’s just 993XP away from getting into double digits. You’ll get ’em next season, Lucy, don’t worry about it.
The Ghoul: Level 89
Total XP gained: 1,640XP
The second season wasn’t too hard on The Ghoul; while he didn’t do quite as well for XP as he did in season 1, it was close. Again, the biggest barrier to this was his quest to find his family. While he does know where they are now, he got juked out at the last minute, as they weren’t in the underground vault for management.
Here are just some of the ways in which he gathered XP throughout the season:
- Killing a shedload of raiders plus some radroaches.
- Teaming up with Thaddeus and Maximus to take on a New Vegas Deathclaw.
- Awakens Mr House with cold fusion.
Smallest Achievement
Gets Lucy addicted to Buffout, which then helps her get over the fear of killing angry Wastelanders.
All of this wouldn’t have amounted to The Ghoul managing to make it to level 90, but level 89 is still a very impressive place to be in, especially since the max level you get to in Fallout 3 using mods is level 99. So close.
Maximus: Level 10
Total XP gained: 1,215XP
Maximus finished the first season with 6,600XP in the bank, meaning he was just 600XP off reaching level 10, and I’m happy to say that he managed to make it by the end of the second season.
Smallest Achievement
Won a fist fight against a Brotherhood of Steel Coronado Chapter Knight in front of a very big crowd—he got a lot of cool points for that one.
Now level 10 with 7,875XP, Maximus is just 875XP away from level 11, something he will undoubtedly reach by the end of season 3, or by the beginning, depending on how quickly the war between NCR and Legion kicks off.
Here are some of the ways Maximus secured XP:
- Took out Xander Harkness while in Power Armor.
- Managed to destroy a securitron.
- Killed a butt-load of New Vegas Deathclaws.
The most impressive feat is that Maximus was also one of the few characters to actually do what he set out to do. By the last episode, he had found Lucy, although he didn’t manage to hand over cold fusion. We have The Ghoul to blame for that.
Thaddeus: Level 50
Total XP gained: 790XP
Thaddeus is my favourite character in the Fallout TV show. He’s funny, wacky, and wanders the Wasteland a little aimlessly but always manages to scrape through—he reminds me of how I play.
He managed to get a whopping 790XP over season 2, which is only slightly less than his amount he scored in the first season (186,700XP). Here’s how he got there:
- Operated a child sweatshop for processing caps.
- Helped take out New Vegas Deathclaws.
- Ran from the Brotherhood of Steel with cold fusion.
- Convinced the Brotherhood of Steel leadership (very briefly) that he was the Commonwealth emissary.
Sadly, 790XP is nowhere near enough levelling up, especially to level 51. However, I’m starting to think that Thaddeus didn’t deserve that massive ghoul-boost. When he first took that mysterious inhaler from the travelling salesman, I thought it was slowly turning him into a ghoul. He certainly looked the part in season 2 as his nose was all but ready to drop off, but then he lost his arm and grew an extra mouth on his neck.
Smallest Achievement
I felt so bad about Thaddeus losing an arm in New Vegas that I decided to give him 5XP. I hope you feel better soon, buddy.
This isn’t the usual course of a ghoul, even if Thaddeus did take a knockoff inhaler, but I have a feeling he may be turning into a whole different beast instead—a centaur.
Centaurs are experiments created from the Forced Evolutionary Virus, usually by combining multiple animals alongside radiation, but I wouldn’t put it past the TV Show to shake things up a bit and do something absolutely horrendous to poor Thaddeus. But with that said, if he ends up turning into anything other than a ghoul, I will be stripping him of his 50 levels, sending him back down to level 7 with just 3,786XP to show for all his efforts.
Norm: Level 4
Smallest Achievement
Managed to survive the radroach attack, although this was entirely luck, and then proceeded to rescue Claudia
Total XP gained: 1,530XP
Norm actually managed to get out of the Vault this season, albeit with some assistance. The only problem was that while he was certainly curious, he didn’t really have a solid aim in season 2.
He did, however, still manage to get some XP in the following ways:
- Opened the management cryopods.
- Hacked into a couple of terminals.
- Stumbled across a major location.
- Convinced VaultTec’s brightest young minds that he was actually a superhuman (despite his clear incompetence)
I was a little sad to see how Norm’s arc ended with buds buds. A part of me was hoping he’d fit into the leader role and actually help them navigate the Wasteland, which would eventually lead him back to Lucy. But he still had a pretty good go at it.
Hank: Level ???
Total XP gained: 2,355XP
Hank, on the other hand, had one of the best arcs in season 2. I absolutely loved to see him get on with his work and thought the slow-burn reveal that he may not be working for Vault Tec was fantastic.
Smallest Achievement
He logged back into his work account to find 462,311 unread emails left for him. Giving me some hope that I can get through mine.
As a tried and tested businessman, Hank was very efficient in his XP gathering in the second season, gaining the most XP out of all the characters this season. Unfortunately, Hank also stumbles into the same issues The Ghoul has in that he’s not exactly new to the Wasteland and so can’t really start at level 1.
Here are some of the ways Hank gained XP this season:
- Managed to carry out multiple successful chip procedures.
- Killed a couple of people who got in his way.
- Successfully got into Vault Tec’s underground New Vegas facility.
Hank also managed to come out on top in a weird way. Yes, he erased his memory with the chip implant, but not before sending his R&D out into the Wasteland and successfully reporting his successes back to The Enclave. It seems he all but accomplished what he set out to do.
Read the full article here
