At the start of every wipe you choose who you were when the Blight came. There are six roles. Each one pushes your character in a direction: fighting, healing, looting, crafting, surviving alone, or living with the Blight inside you.
Your role is for the whole wipe. You agree to that when you pick it, and it cannot be changed until the next wipe.
What a role gives you#
- Bonuses that stay on you all wipe: more scrap, faster crafting, less damage, better healing and so on.
- Free skill points to spend in your skills, once per wipe: 2 to 5 depending on the role.
- An XP bonus for some roles: up to +15% on everything you earn.
- Its own skill tree, a tab in
/stnamed after your role, with its own abilities. - Something only it can do: the Citizen's
/crates, the Vagabond's/track, the Responder's medical crafting.
At a glance#
| Role | In one line | Skill points | XP bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scientist | Crafts fast, shrugs off radiation, finds more components | 3 | +5% |
| Test Subject | The Blight inside: barely touched by radiation, heals on its own, gets back up | 2 | - |
| Citizen | Finds more, spots more, gathers more than anyone | 4 | +15% |
| Soldier | Hits NPCs harder and takes less from them | 3 | - |
| Emergency Responder | Keeps a group alive. Heals harder and shares it, and crafts the Blight Serum | 3 | +5% |
| Vagabond | Alone from the first second. Never cold, feeds itself, tracks animals | 5 | +10% |
Any number of players can pick the same role.
How to pick#
- Join the server. About 6 seconds later the role screen (Personnel) opens by itself.
- Click a role to read what it gets you.
- Click Be This Person. A warning tells you the choice is for the whole wipe. Agree to it, and the role is yours.
After you choose, your bonuses switch on at once and your free skill points arrive. Your bonuses are put back every time you join or respawn, so you never lose them mid-wipe.
Closed the screen without choosing? Type /role to open it again.
Warning: There is no changing your role until the next wipe. Read all six before you agree.
At every wipe, every role is cleared and you choose again.
The six roles#
Scientist#
"You helped build this." You wake among other scientists and staff, still trying to collect data and make a plan.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Radiation | 45% less radiation poisoning |
| Crafting | Crafting 20% faster |
| Research | 15% chance to get your scrap back at a research table |
| Components | 20% better odds of components in crates |
| Smelting | Furnaces you light smelt 15% faster |
| Skill points | 3 |
| XP | +5% |
Its tree: Lab Hands (faster crafting), Lead Lining (radiation), Peer Review, Reclaimer (more from recycling), Catalyst (faster smelting), Turret Aura (your turrets hit NPCs harder), and the abilities Scientist Instinct (marks scientists within 100 m), Cleanse (clears radiation, bleeding, cold and heat) and Lab Rush (craft in half the time for a minute).
Test Subject#
"It is already in you." You were not staff. You were the experiment, and you are still standing.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Radiation | 80% less radiation poisoning |
| Healing | Heals slowly on its own out of combat |
| Food | Hunger and thirst drain 15% more slowly |
| Second wind | 20% chance to get straight back up when you are downed |
| Iron stomach | Never sick from raw or spoiled food |
| Skill points | 2 |
Its tree: Rad Sponge, Mutant Cells (heal out of combat), Unkillable (get back up when downed), Strange Hunger (eating heals), Tainted Blood (heal off the damage you deal NPCs), Blight-Touched (less damage from Blight enemies), and the abilities Bloodlust (+30% damage for 15 seconds), Self Revive and Mutate (turns your radiation into health and stops bleeding).
Citizen#
"You are looking for your family." You lived here, and you are trying to find the people you came home to every night.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Gathering | +25% from trees, ore and animal corpses |
| Scrap | Extra scrap from barrels and crates |
| Loot magnet | 25% chance that barrel loot goes straight into your inventory |
| Barrels | 15% chance to break a barrel in one hit |
| Wild plants | More from hemp, berries, mushrooms and other pickups |
/crates |
Marks storage boxes within 20 m for a minute, once a minute |
| Awareness | Names corpses, bags, dropped loot, animals and NPCs within 20 m of you |
| Skill points | 4 |
| XP | +15% |
Its tree: Scrounger (wild plants), Pocket Change (scrap), Hard Work (double gathers), Siphon Hands (faster siphoning in a Blight), Homestead (more from your own crops), Keen Eye (components), and the abilities Forager's Eye, Crate Instinct and Lucky Day (double scrap from barrels and crates for 2 minutes).
Soldier#
"Your unit is dead." You wake right outside a blighted area with your companions dead around you. No orders.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Damage | +20% damage to NPCs |
| Defence | 20% less damage from NPCs |
| Melee | 20% less melee damage |
| Against the Blight | 20% less from Blight enemies' melee hits and 15% less from their shots |
| Magazines | 15% bigger |
| Ammo | 10% chance a shot uses no ammo |
| Respawn | You respawn with more health |
| Skill points | 3 |
Its tree: Drilled (more damage to NPCs), Plate Carrier, Blight Breaker, Drum Mag, Fire Discipline, Elite Killer (bosses), and the abilities The Mark (everyone deals 25% more to the enemy you aim at), Quick Barrier (80% less damage for 5 seconds) and Rally (teammates near you deal 15% more).
Emergency Responder#
"There are more wounded than hands." You are triaging, taking inventory, and trying to raise anyone at all on the radio.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Healing | Medical items heal you 35% more |
| Bandages | Bandages heal 30% more |
| Reviving | Teammates you revive get up with more health |
| Heal share | Teammates near you also get 25% of your healing |
| Food share | Teammates near you also get 20% of what you eat and drink |
| Second wind | 15% chance to get straight back up when you are downed |
| Against the Blight | 10% less from Blight enemies' melee hits |
| Medical crafting | A Medical section in the crafting panel: the Blight Serum, Painkillers and the Splint |
| Skill points | 3 |
| XP | +5% |
The Blight Serum cures rabies, the Z13 virus and tapeworm (5 orchids, 5 sunflowers, 5 jars of honey and 2 anti-radiation pills). Painkillers end a concussion, and a Splint sets a broken leg. Recipes are on Crafting, and the effects on Health.
Its tree: Trauma Care, Pressure Bandage, Quick Revive, Shared Relief, Waste Not, and the abilities Field Kit (full heal), Guardian Bubble (teammates take 50% less damage for 10 seconds) and Triage (revives every downed teammate near you).
Vagabond#
"Nobody is coming." You were already out here before any of it happened. Just you, a long way from anywhere.
| Bonus | Effect |
|---|---|
| Cold | No cold damage |
| Iron stomach | Never sick from raw or spoiled food |
| Animals | 25% less damage from animals |
| Wild plants | +25% from wild plants |
| Gathering | +15% from trees, ore and animal corpses |
| Comfort | +20% comfort |
| Falls | 20% less fall damage |
/track |
Which way the nearest animal is, within 300 m, every 10 seconds |
| Skill points | 5 (the most of any role) |
| XP | +10% |
Its tree: Solitary (more damage while no teammate is near), Wild Hide, Bushcraft (more from animals), Living Off the Land, Trail Runner, Tracker's Eye, and the abilities Animal Instinct, Runner (escape to the edge of a monument in an instant) and Wild Feast (fills hunger and thirst and heals).
Which role should I pick?#
- New and playing alone? Vagabond. The most starting points, no cold, less damage from animals, and it feeds itself.
- Here to fight? Soldier. Harder hitting and tougher against everything NPC-shaped, the Blight included.
- Playing with friends? Emergency Responder. Your heals and food spread to your team, and you craft the cure for the Z13 virus.
- Want scrap and resources? Citizen. The biggest gathering bonus, the best barrel and crate luck, and +15% XP.
- Want to craft and run monuments? Scientist. Faster crafting and smelting, and radiation protection.
- Want to live in the radiation? Test Subject. Barely touched by it, and hard to keep down.
Tip: Your role stacks with everything else. A Citizen who also takes the Miner skills and levels Mining in ZLevels gets all three bonuses together.
Related pages: Progression · The Blight · Health · Quests