TLDR: I tired finding as many Skill Books as I could. I found all but one. Yay!?
A little background. I love the skill books. Every playthrough I always collect the shit out of them and I have NEVER looked up the location of a single one. I always set my Intelligence at 3, then get to 4 with the Bobblehead and get the Comprehension perk. With that, I always max my stats pretty easily. Usually around Level 27-29. Sometimes earlier, sometimes not after Level 30, depending on what i do and what order. All thanks to the Skill Books and Comprehension.
However, once I do Max everything at 100, I usually lose interest. I don't look for them as thoroughly. Usually I end up with around 200-250. But this playhtough, I wanted to see if I can find them all, and if not, how many can I find without any help. I only looked up basic information( like how many there are) so I had a frame of reference
There are a total of 324 skill books in the game. Most skill books have 25 each spread out in the main game. Lying Congressional Style and Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor have 24, and there's one copy of Paradise Lost( which is a Speech book)
However, you only have access to 322. Two of them are tied to your home and themes. If you blow up Megaton, you can't get those two, and if you disarm the bomb, you can't get the two from the Tenpenny tower themes. So 322 is the most you can get without any tomfoolery. You can probably use console commands to get those two. There are also two books that are essentially infinite. They respawn every 73 hours. So you can exploit that and get as many as you want. Obviously, I did not do that and only got each one once.
There's also 2 that are tied to Perks. You have to select Lawbringer and Contract Killer to get them( which I did) and few that are quest based. But almost all of them are just spread around the Capitol Wasteland land waiting to be found and read
So 322 is the goal. I've sunk a few hundred hours into this playthrough. Most of it just wandering and checking( and re-checking) every spot I could think of. And it's been a long time since I found my last one. Currently I sit at 319.
Now, that might sound misleading since I said I was one short in the title. That's because two of them glitched. There is one in the Gary Vault that I have NEVER gotten. Some of you probably know the one. It's in the Entrance area under a step ladder. It's a Tumblers Today, It's right where you can also find a Nuka Cola Quantum. It's there, you can see it...but you can't grab it. You can try using mines from the outside to blast it out, but even that has a low chance of success. If you have your game open, go there and see for yourself. It's just sitting there taunting you
And there was one more that glitched for me. the one on the bridge/highway. It's in the Northwest part of the map near Deathclaw Sanctuary. When you approach it, there's a scripted explosion in a truck. When that happens, a Scientist gets blown out of the truck and on his body is a Big Book of Science. In my playthrough...no scientist. The explosion happens, but the scientists body does not come. I tried reloading and re-approaching he still didn't spawn. Or maybe I was in the area below earlier and he spawned then and then disappeared? I don't know, all I know is he's not there
So even though my "Books Read" counter is at 319, it should be at 321. I'm giving myself credit for those two. Executive Decision bitches!
So that means there is only ONE book I didn't find. ONE!!!!! As I said, It's been a long time since I found a book in game. Probably close to 10 hours of playtime. I think I'm calling it. I'll keep the save, but I don't have it in me to keep looking. I feel like I've checked everywhere 3 times. At this point I just keep running into the Enclave and SM Overlords. I have a lifetime collection of Hellfire Armor and Tri Beam Laser Rifles.
That being said, I'm proud of my effort. Honestly, I was just hoping to get 300. And as tedious as it's been, I found a lot of other stuff that I hadn't before, either ever or in a long time. Not just books. Never knew there are so many Enclave Outposts. I found an NPC with unique Leather Armor. That was new. And I LOVE leather armor for the early game. So now I know where he is. And I feel like I got almost every random encounter in the game, including a few I hadn't gotten before like the body of Freddy Gomez and a Enclave vs Raiders battle at Clifftop Shacks.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my journey. To the two people who read this far, first of all, Hi! Second, I'll regale you with the tale of the last book I found!
The last book I found was really lucky. It was at the Raider camp on the lake in the Northwestern part of the map, near Raven Rock and the Satcom Array controlled by Talon Company. Raiders got attacked by the Enclave. I waited for them to finish fighting and killed the lone Enclave survivor. There was good loot there: chems, ammo, first aid boxes. I noticed a bottle of Buffout inside a boat floating on the water. It must have got blown there during the fight. So i went to get it and on top of the boat was a Nikola Tesla book. And a stealth boy inside the boat( BTW, I have over 100 Stealth Boys this playthrough, since I'm looking everywhere) If not for that Buffout, I probably wouldn't have thought to jump on that boat to check
