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Before you’re able to start eking out a wretched existence onScum’s prison island, you need to create your character. While character creation might seem simple, with only four Attributes and a handful of Skills for each, it really pays to set yourself up with early-game survival in mind.
Since Scum’s character abilities grow based on how much you use them, your character will naturally improve at things you do a lot. By focusing on just what you need to start, you’ll have a much better chance of living long enough to develop everything else.
How Does Character Creation Work In Scum?
Once you’ve settled on your prisoner’s appearance, you can start assigning their stats. You’ll start bydetermining their Attributes, then move onto Skills on the next screen.
Attributes
You gettwelve points to distribute among your four Attributes; by default, each starts at 3.0. By adjusting the sliders, you canchange Attributes in increments of 0.1.
The highest any Attribute can go is 5.0.
In addition to determining how many points you get for Skills in each category (see below), each Attribute has the following effects:
Increases the maximum weight you can carry and melee damage.
Increases overall health, stamina, and resistances.
Dexterity
Vehicle and Stealth Skills
Increases movement speed and lowers the time it takes to perform actions.
Intelligence
Crafting and Survival Skills
Increases the rate at which Skills level up, and allows you to lead larger squads.
Sniping and Camouflage fall under Intelligence, despite being more aligned with Skills from other categories.
Skills
Skill points are assigned similarly to Attribute points; you gettwice as many Skill points in each categoryas you have points in the relevant Attribute. However, Skills aren’t checked based on their number; instead, putting points into a Skill will give it progress toward reaching its next experience level, which is what actually matters.
For example, as you move the slider for Archery up, you may see the bar to the right fill. When it completes, Archery upgrades fromNo SkilltoBasic.Starting with a Skill that hasn’t fully reached its next level won’t get you an immediate benefit, but you canmake up the differencein game (by firing bows, in the case of Archery).
Which Attributes Should You Take?
It’s a good idea tomove points out of Constitution and Dexterityat character creation to make room for Strength and Intelligence. Even a single wandering Puppet is a lethal threat when you first drop onto the island, so a high Strength and the associated combat Skills make you much more likely to win a fight, even if you’re caught unarmed. Intelligence, meanwhile,ensures that you’ll have points to pour into critical Skills, and speeds up leveling those that didn’t make the cut at the start of your run.
Dexterity and Constitution are useful, but not as critical right from the start of the game. Dexterity’s Skills won’t come into play until you’ve gotten a solid foundation under you, and you may make up for the loss of speed and stamina from dropping the two Attributes bysimply putting points into Constitution’s only two Skills, Running and Endurance.
Your high Intelligence also means that those Skills will level up as you run around the island, which will also boost your overall Constitution score to boost your health.
Taking a single point out of both Dexterity and Constitution, and putting them into Strength and Intelligence, for a4/3/3/4 stat line, gives you plenty of perks without too much downside.
Which Skills Should You Take?
Since you need to invest pretty heavily in a Skill for it to do anything at all, youcan’t really afford to spread your points around.Pick the Skills that you’ll need right away, and make sure that they’reat least Basic. The really critical Skills can be leveled up to Medium without taking too much away from the others.
Strength
Focus onBrawling, Melee Weapons, and Archeryand don’t worry too much about firearms-related Skills. It’s likely to be a while before you get your first gun, and even if you’re lucky enough to stumble on one, ammo will be precious. It’s much better tomake sure that you can fight effectively with makeshift weapons, since that’s what you’re going to have to rely on to start.
Constitution
Both Constitution Skills are worth leveling up to at least Basic, but if you have extra points left over,start pushing Endurance higher. If you can get it to Medium, that’s great; if not, it can make better use of the head start in leveling since it’sa bit harder to level.
Raising Endurance in-game requiresmoving around while carrying lots of weight.Early on, it’s smarter to travel light, so Running will probably outpace Endurance until you get some heavier gear and better inventory capacity.
Dexterity Skills are fairly advanced, and you’re not likely to get a vehicle running for a while.Stealth, on the other hand, can be extremely useful for avoiding enemy detection, andThieverycan save precious lockpicks.
Investing in a vehicle Skill early, especially a tricky one like Aviation, could theoretically pay off in the long run if you make it that far. This strategy is only recommended for advanced players, though.
AwarenessandSurvivalare two critical Intelligence Skills; the former makes you more likely to find items when searching, and the latter canreduce your crafting costs slightly. Engineering does the same thing for structures when building your base, so if you have points left over it can be a solid pick as well.
