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How much damage your character can take before dying. If you reach 0 HP or less, you are dead.— In-game description

Hit Points (HP), also known as Health Points or Health, are a game mechanic used to measure the health of a character. During combat, wounded characters lose HP. Should a character be reduced to 0 HP, the character dies. HP can be restored using various consumables (such as stimpaks and wasteland omelets), First Aid, Doctor, visiting a doctor, waiting or resting. When a character gains a new level, additional HP is awarded.

The formulas given below generally only apply to the player character.

Fallout and Fallout 2[]

The initial HP is

The HP increase per level is

Notes[]

  • Reaching 0 HP or less will initiate a death cutscene.
  • The maximum HP is capped at 999.
  • In the HP increase per level formula, if the value of Endurance divided by 2 is not an integer, the game will round down.

Restoring Hit Points[]

Hit Points can be restored by:

Perks[]

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas[]

Fallout 3[]

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 at Level 1

Fallout: New Vegas[]

Between Fallout 3 and New Vegas, base HP was changed from 90 to 100. Further, fAVDHealthLevelMult was changed from 10 to 5. The result is starting characters from both games with Endurance 5 will have the same HP (200) but New Vegas characters' HP scales slower than Fallout 3 characters.

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 at Level 1

Max health of a player character without any chem boosts, DLC or perks and at max Endurance is 445

Max health of a player character with DLC, chems and perks at max Endurance is 835

¹ From Life Giver perk. ² From Buffout. ³ From Sierra Madre martini. 4 From Thought You Died perk (if Karma is at 1000 points). 5 From Black blood sausage.

Notes[]

  • The Survival Expert perk can add between an additional +5 to +15 HP.
  • At higher levels there may be a limit to max HP.
  • The sound of a heart beat can be heard when the player character is at low health, the sound gets louder (and faster) the less and less health the character has. However, there have been some occasions in which the health is so low that the heartbeat actually stops.
  • Depending on Endurance, a small amount of HP is automatically restored by Healing Rate. There is no healing rate in Fallout 3.
  • Waiting restores the player character's HP by 0.66 per hour.

Fallout 4[]

Fallout 4's health scaling formula:

  • Decimals are truncated in the Pip-Boy.
  • Temporary Endurance bonuses do not add permanent health on level up.
  • Health is retroactive on permanent Endurance increase.

This is a significant change from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. The character starts with significantly less health and thus enemies feel much more dangerous. However, there are unlimited levels and thus an infinite amount of health a character can obtain.

Notes[]

  • Buffout temporarily increases maximum HP by 60, in addition to a three-point increase in Endurance, resulting in a maximum possible increase of 120 HP.
  • It is possible for the Sole Survivor to stay alive even when the Pip-Boy shows their HP as 0. This is most likely due to rounding.
  • Passive ways to regenerate health include Ghoulish Rank 4 which will lower rads and works all the time, Solar Powered Rank 3 which only works during the day but is 4 times as fast as Ghoulish, heals rad damage and increases Strength and Endurance, and The Life Giver perk can add an additional +20 HP per ranks, up to 60 HP. The third rank restores lost health at a rate of 0.5%/second. This would mean that a character would be fully healed in 3 minutes and 20 seconds, providing that they are not taking further damage and have 1 health. Life Giver only works out of combat.
  • Ghoulish and Solar Powered require the player to be Level 50 before they can be taken, while Life Giver is only Level 20.
  • When using Solar Powered, Rank 3 of Strong Back can help the player in not becoming overencumbered when during the games night hours or going into a building.

Fallout 76[]

Main article: Health (Fallout 76)

Fallout 76's health scaling formula:

This is a significant change from Fallout 4 because Endurance starts at 1 for every player character. As the maximum points that can be invested into Endurance is 15, there is a maximum of 320 hit points.

Losing all Hit Points does not always mean death, for occasionally, the player is put in the downed condition upon losing all Hit Points. For the next 30 seconds, it is possible to be revived by another player (by Mysterious Savior or Power Armor Reboot, if equipped) at the cost of a stimpak. The Scout's banner grants a single automatic revive.

Fallout: The Roleplaying Game[]

Starting at first level, a character's Health Points equal their Endurance + Luck attribute scores. As the character levels up, a single Health Point is added to their total for each level.

The Lifegiver perk is the only direct method outside of leveling up to increase maximum HP. Additionally, a character could take the Intense Training perk and increase either their Endurance or Luck stat, which will retroactively increase their health.

Fallout Tactics[]

The Maximum HP increase per level is

Notes[]

  • The Life Giver perk gives +4 maximum HP per rank for each level gained.
  • The Brutish Hulk perk gives double the normal amount of maximum hit points each time a level is gained(deathclaw only).

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel[]

  • The Die Hard skill gives an additional +20 maximum HP (up to a maximum +200) per rank.
  • The Rad Child skill allows Cain to regenerate health when others would receive radioactive damage.
  • The Sadist skill grants the ability to regenerate +2 HP for Cain and +5 HP for Nadia (up to regenerate a maximum +25 HP for Nadia and +10 HP for Cain) per rank whenever they kill an enemy.

Behind the scenes[]

The number of skill points you gain per level, assuming you don't have traits or perks that alter this amount is: 5+(2x Intelligence.)

While I have the Fallout 2 manual out... in case you forgot or were wondering....

The number of hit points you gain per level was wrong in the Fallout 1 manual, and the correct formula was noted in the readme. Fallout 2 is different than both those formulas. We just want to keep everyone guessing. ;)

The number of hit points you gain per level is 3+(1/2 Endurance.)
Dave Hendee
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