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The shovel is a weapon and tool in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics[]

A two-handed blunt melee weapon that doubles as a required item for digging up graves. While on the lower side of dealing damage per strike, it does have the third-highest durability of all blunt melee weapons, making it effective against low-level enemies as a way to spare the use of other weapons that could be stronger, but less durable.

Special attack[]

The shovel has a special Grand Slam attack that does regular damage in V.A.T.S. at the cost of 8 more action points, but has a chance to knock down enemies (requires a Melee skill of 50).

Legend
Type of attack- Type of attackSkill required- Skill required
Damage per attack in V.A.T.S.- Damage per attack in V.A.T.S.Action point cost- Action point cost
Damage per action point- Damage per action pointAdditional effects- Additional effects
Type of attackSkill requiredDamage per attack in V.A.T.S.Action point costDamage per action pointAdditional effects
Normal024280.86none
Grand Slam5024360.67Knockdown
Note: Melee weapons do double normal damage in V.A.T.S.

It is possible to execute Grand Slam outside of V.A.T.S. (without the required Melee skill of 50 to perform the move) by initiating a power attack (hold attack button) while moving forward.

Durability[]

The shovel can successfully strike about 1495 times from full condition before breaking.

Locations[]

  • One can be found next to the second water valve in the area of the Goodsprings source near Goodsprings, most likely found while helping Sunny Smiles during Back in the Saddle. It is in perfect condition, costs no caps to acquire, and doesn't take the player character outside of the starting area where they are prompted to rebuild the character or continue.
  • One can be found on the floor of the greenhouse farthest south from the entrance of the NCR sharecropper farms.
  • One can be bought in poor condition from Chet in the Goodsprings General Store. He will almost always have one for sale every time his stock refreshes.
  • One can sometimes be bought from Johnson Nash in Primm.
  • Old World Blues (add-on) One can be found on the floor next to the coffins on level 2 of the X-8 research center.

Notes[]

  • Although the shovel in Fallout: New Vegas uses the same in-game model as its counterpart in the Fallout 3 add-on Point Lookout, it lacks the higher resolution first-person textures used in that weapon's model.
  • The shovel does not need to be equipped to dig up graves, only present in the inventory, thus using it for gravedigging does not reduce the durability of the shovel.
  • This weapon can achieve a 100% critical hit chance (see critical chance).
  • With the Jury Rigging perk, shovels can be quite valuable in that they can be purchased cheaply and used to repair some high-value melee weapons that are equally expensive to repair through vendors, such as the super sledge.

Behind the scenes[]

An additional, unused variant of the shovel can be found within the game files, with Editor ID dlc04Shovel and Form ID 000F204A. This weapon has no name (showing up in the Pip-Boy as a blank space,) no weight, no hitsounds, and no world model or item icon. It is also classified as an Unarmed weapon, and if equipped it will hover above the player character's fists, while the attack animations are those of Unarmed barehanded punches. The weapon deals no damage except for Unarmed Damage resulting from the Unarmed skill level. McMurphy actually has this weapon in his inventory, but it cannot be seen in or taken from his inventory, or otherwise obtained without console commands.

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