Starfield may be Bethesda’s first new IP in nearly three decades, but there is no denying that it has retained a significant amount of the studio’s fundamental DNA. From open-ended exploration and questing to rich and rewarding choice-based storytelling, this game is Bethesda through and through. And few things are more important in a Bethesda role-playing game than the choices you make regarding your skills, as they dictate how you’ll interact with battles, conversations, and navigation of the universe.
It’s important to note that skills can’t be respecced, meaning that the choices you make for your character are ones you’ll have to live with throughout the remainder of your playthrough. As such, you’ll want to spend time considering the skills you purchase and make sure they’ll benefit your playstyle. And while the choices you make should be entirely your own based on how you’d like to build your character, we’ve compiled a handful of more generalized skills we feel benefit most players and will be useful to purchase early on.
Wellness
Wellness increases your health points, which can be extremely useful. You’ll be encountering an onslaught of both humans and alien creatures to battle throughout the game, so having the ability to take a bit of extra damage is most definitely not going to hurt. If you opt to, you can continue to rank up this skill to raise your health even higher, which we recommend for any player looking to improve their survivability.
Wellness can be found under the Physical tree.
Weight lifting
Weight Lifting improves your carrying capacity. Most players will find this to be quite helpful, as Starfield is overflowing with thousands of items to find and pick up as you explore its vast universe. We’d recommend continuing to rank this one up throughout the game as well.
Weight Lifting can be found under the Physical tree.
Medicine
Medicine increases the healing and healing speed of Med Packs, Trauma Packs, and Emergency Kits. Similar to the Wellness skill, this can play a massive part in your survivability, especially if you’re the type of player who ventures into sticky situations frequently. Even better, if you choose to push this one up to Rank 4, the aforementioned healing items will have a chance to cure an affliction as well.
Medicine can be found under the Science tree.
Commerce
Commerce improves your selling price and lowers your buying price. This inevitably comes in handy and pairs well with Weight Lifting, as you can sell any found items for a higher profit while purchasing any needed supplies for much less than usual. As always, ranking this skill up can increase the bonuses even further, and we’re always in support of making the most of your trading.
Commerce can be found under the Social tree.
Scavenging
Scavenging provides you with an opportunity to find additional credits when searching containers. As with Commerce, this will have a direct impact on your wallet, letting you save up more money for the often overwhelming amount of things you’ll need it for. But it doesn’t end there – each rank of this skill grants entirely new scavenging perks, such as the ability to find extra ammo, Med Packs, and more.
Scavenging can be found under the Social tree.
