Outer Wilds 2: Which Negative Trait Should You Pick?

I’m really excited about character creation in Outer Worlds 2! You get to pick one trait for your character without any downsides, which is awesome. But if you want a second trait, you’ll also have to choose a ‘Negative Trait‘. These Negative Traits will give your character some kind of challenge – maybe lower stats, limit how you level up, or even lock you out of certain storylines with the different factions. It sounds like it’ll add a lot of interesting choices!

In Outer Worlds 2, you can choose from three Negative Traits – Abrasive, Dumb, and Sickly – each with its own downsides. However, some are more manageable than others. This guide will help you pick the best Negative Traits to boost your character, and tell you which one to steer clear of if you want to maintain good relationships with the game’s different Factions.

Best Negative Trait: Sickly

A Simple Reduction in Base HP & Toxicity Threshold

Your physical condition is fragile and easily damaged, making you susceptible to injuries, cuts, and sickness. You’re also more likely to get hurt or fail when starting new things.

-15% Base Health
-15 Toxicity Crash Threshold

In Outer Worlds 2, the Sickly trait is the easiest to live with out of the three negative traits. While it lowers your starting health by 15% and limits how often you can use your healing inhaler, it doesn’t significantly hinder your gameplay.

Okay, so I was worried about having lower health because of the Sickly trait, but honestly, it’s not a huge deal if you focus on boosting your armor and grabbing perks that help you stay alive. I found that just leveling up my Medicine skill a bit really covered any weakness from being sickly. It’s all about working around it!

In Outer Worlds 2, choosing a Negative Trait can significantly limit your character’s development or damage your relationships with factions. Unless you specifically want a character with very limited skills or don’t care about faction reputation, it’s best to choose ‘Sickly’ when the game asks you to select a negative trait.

Decent Negative Trait: Dumb

If You Won’t Level Those Skills Anyway, What’s The Harm?

You weren’t recruited for your ability to plan or solve problems. You just can’t learn some things.

During skill selection, lock 5 of the 12 available skills
Those skills can never have points added to them

While the Sickly trait is usually the best negative flaw to choose in Outer Worlds 2, there are times when Dumb is actually a better option. If you’re planning a close-combat character or someone who charges into battle, you probably don’t want to lose health, and you likely won’t be relying on skills that boost science or conversation.

In this case, choosing ‘Dumb’ over ‘Sickly’ is more helpful for building a strong character. It lets you ignore skills like Science, Engineering, Speech, Hacking, and Lockpicking, and instead concentrate on combat skills such as Melee, Guns, Medical, and Explosives.

Generally, it’s best to stay flexible with your character build, as your playstyle might change during the game. However, if you’re absolutely committed to a specific build and know you won’t need more than five skills, choosing ‘Dumb’ instead of ‘Sickly’ will help you maintain your maximum health and resistance to poison.

Worst Negative Trait: Abrasive

If You Can’t Raise Faction Reputations, You Can’t Access Certain Choices

You come across as abrasive, which makes it difficult for people to connect with you. Others often feel hesitant to include you in groups or activities.

Reputations with any faction can never increase above Neutral, preventing any bonuses that would be gained from having a positive reputation with a faction.

In Outer Worlds 2, the Abrasive trait is the most detrimental. It permanently limits your character’s reputation with any faction to Neutral – you can lose reputation, but you’ll never be able to gain any positive standing.

Your standing with a faction affects more than just how much things cost. It can change how its members treat you, and sometimes unlocks new dialogue choices. Building a good (or bad) reputation can open up new ways to interact with the group.

Choosing the Abrasive trait means you’ll have a difficult time building relationships with the different groups in Outer Worlds 2, and you won’t get any special discounts from merchants. While you can still damage your reputation and become disliked by everyone, that might be the only benefit of selecting this negative trait.

If you want to maintain good relationships with factions, the Sickly trait is a better choice, as it doesn’t limit your reputation gains. If you’re skilled at building strong characters, the Dumb trait is also an option.

2025-10-24 20:07