From The Vault
Scrounger is a Fallout and Fallout 3 Perk.
[edit] Fallout
You can find more ammo than the normal post-holocaust survivor. This Perk will double the amount of ammo found in random encounters.
[edit] Fallout 3
You will find considerably more ammunition in containers than you normally would.
- This perk is a necessity if you intend to use any weapons that use more exotic or particularly expensive ammunition. For example, a single ammo container can occasionally yield as many as 28 missiles if you have this perk.
- While this perk helps you find more ammo all across the wasteland, one particular instance stands out: it lets you find an average of 75 more Alien Power Cells in the ammo boxes of Fort Independence.
- While there are many other ways of acquiring ammunition, players should seriously consider taking this perk when going for proper role playing (no merchant grinding, fast travel, etc.) on the highest difficulty level. With enemies able to take several times the normal amount of damage, but still supplying only the regular amount of ammo, you will need additional sources for ammo. Plus, tougher enemies can absorb most damage from smaller guns, so it's difficult to do a proper weapon rotation, and you are even more reliant on rare ammo types.
- This perk will not affect containers in locations that were visited prior to taking the perk, as these containers are "filled" when first encountered.
- This perk has a 75% of chance of affecting a newly-generated container's contents. Conversely, this means the perk is not guaranteed to increase the amount of ammo in any given container. As such, if you are trying to use it with a specific container that you know of ahead of time, you should save before you enter the area with the container in question.
- To use the above-mentioned Fort Independence containers as an example: Each container has a single guaranteed Alien Power Cell. There is then an additional 10 Power Cells which each have a 75% chance of existence; These ten are not affected by Scrounger. On top of this, there is then an additional 50 Cells, each of which has a 75% chance of being present with Scrounger, and 0% chance without. These chances are all calculated separately so it is possible (though with a vanishingly-small probability) that you would have only 1 Alien Power Cell even with Scrounger.
- This perk seems to have no effect on stashes containing .32 cal ammo but then again that is probably not the reason why you got the perk.
[edit] Additional Ammo Gathering tip
See the Crippled Arm article for more details.
