Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid

Even More Traits
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Dr. Lalaoz  [developer] 3 Sep, 2022 @ 10:18am
Traits and their effects
Positive Traits

Homebody; -1
After 30 in game minutes of being inside of a building, lose 0.4% of your current stress and 0.1% of your current unhappiness per in game minute
While indoors, you gain boredom 30% slower and lose boredom 30% faster
(note: vanilla zomboid increases your boredom while indoors, so the faster boredom reduction only realistically applies to items and mod effects.)


Wanderer; -1
Every minute spent walking outdoors (not running/sprinting/standing) adds to a counter, the longer you walk around the higher this counter gets.
Being seen by a zombie, or walking indoors will reset the timer back to 0
Every minute, you will lose between 0% and 2% of your current stress, and 0% and 0.5% of your current unhappiness. based on how long you've been walking.
if you have Moodle Framework installed, a moodle will appear with 0-4 arrows indicating how far along you are in the timer and weather your gaining or losing timer.

While outdoors, you gain boredom 30% slower and lose boredom 30% faster
(note: vanilla zomboid decreases your boredom while outdoors , so the slower boredom gain only realistically applies to items and mod effects.)

Note: Running/Sprinting or walking in too small of a circle will cause the timer to decrease.

Umbral Sight; -3
Minimum Ambient light value is increased, world will always maintain a certain amount of light level regardless of light sources. (this does not affect your Vison Cone, Recommend paring with vanilla Cats eyes to increase vision cone.)


Offroader; -4
Increases vehicles HorsePower and OffroadEfficiency and slightly reduces their overall Mass. making them easier to control overall. But much moreso offroad.


Composure - 4
Gain up to 40% more combat skill XP depending on how panicked your character is.
The bonus reduces linearly with panic gain, so you have the full 40% bonus with no panic, and no bonus at full panic

Ambitious -4
Gain 20% more xp for all crafting skills.
The bonus increases by 2% for every level of any crafting skill;
ie: if you have level 8 carpentry and no other crafting skills, you will gain +36% xp
if you have level 10 carpentry, level 10 metalworking, and level 10 mechanics. then you will gain +80% xp for the remaining crafting skills.

Anabolic Boost -4
Gain 50% more xp for Strength and Fitness at all times.
While exercising, use 50% less endurance.
If your protein value is higher than 300 then you will consume 2% + 1 of your current protein and gain 9 strength xp per protein consumed.

Note on vanilla zomboid mechanics: You have a 1.5x strength xp modifier when between 50 and 300 proteins. so anabolic boost makes maintaining the boost easier.

Bushman -4
Gain 30% more xp for all Survivalist skills
The bonus increases by up to 50% the longer you are away from urban environments.
There is a timer that counts up or down depending on if your in an urban zone (foraging area)
The timer takes 4 in-game days to reach its maximum value. at which point you have a total +80% xp to survivalist skills.

while fishing you lose 25% of your stress and 12% of your unhappiness per in-game hour and the Bushman timer increases at twice the normal rate, regardless of foraging zones.
when completing a foraging action you immediately lose 15% stress and 5% unhappiness and the Bushman timer increases by a flat 60.


Quicksilver -5
Gain 1 Nimble and 1 Sprinting.
Gain +30% XP in all 4 Agility skills (Sneak, Lightfoot, Nimble, Sprinting)
XP bonus increases by 10% per zombie near you, within roughly 3 tiles.
XP bonus increases by an additional 2% for each zombie chasing you.
All bonuses stack multiplicatively.
ie: 1 zombies near you and 3 chasing is 1.3 * 1.1 * 1.02 * 1.02 * 1.02 = 1.517

Gain nimble XP when killing a zombie with a melee weapon, Amount is equal to 1/4 your Nimble Level and is affected by bonuses. including the ones from this trait.



Second Wind -5
Gain a burst of energy when you need it most.
for each level of Exhausted or Fatigue moodle, a hidden counter increases. higher levels give more points and the highest levels multiply the value.
This number is used to determine the activation chance of the trait.
the trait will only activate if you are exhausted and/or fatigued enough. AND you have at least 3 zombies targeting you.
once those conditions are met, Every in game minute, it checks how many zombies you can see that are within 10 tiles of you and rolls the determined chance a number of times equal to the number of zombies minus 2.
if any of those chances succeed second wind will activate the following effects for 45-115 in-game minutes:
your current endurance will be restored by 2/3's of the amount you're missing, and you will gain a 33% reduction to endurance consumption.
your Panic will be reduced by half of its current value, and you will gain a 33% resistance to panic gain.
your fatigue will be reduced to 1/4 of its current amount, 40% of fatigue lost by this trait will be added back once the effects expire.
second wind has a recharge period of 24 hours. the timer is sped up by 4x while sleeping.


Vitamin Junkie -5
Taking vitamins grants 10% endurance, as well as a scaling buff to your Endurance gain and loss and XP gains for Strength, Fitness, and Sprinting.
Each Vitamin you take adds 1 to a hidden counter.
At levels 1-2 you have a 110% Endurance regen rate and 90% consumption rate. You also get a 40% bonus to Strength, Fitness, and Sprinting XP each tier lasts 360 in game minutes minutes at this stage
at levels 3-4 you have 120% Endurance regen rate and 80% consumption rate. 80% bonus to Strength, Fitness, and Sprinting each tier lasts 180 minutes
at levels 5-6 you have 130% Endurance regen rate and 70% consumption rate. 160% bonus to Strength, Fitness, and Sprinting each tier lasts 90 minutes
at levels 7 and above you have 140% endurance regen rate and 60% consumption rate. 320% bonus to Strength, Fitness, and Sprinting each tier lasts 45 minutes


Cardio -6
Use 25% less endurance from all sources
Gain 30% more endurance from all sources, including from items or trait effects. such as berserker.

Expeditious -6
Use 30% less endurance while running, increases to 75% reduction while sprinting.
While sprinting, gain 4x sprinting xp.
gives +3 sprinting



Plot Armor; -6
Every in-game hour it will check to see if you are infected. If you are, it will remove the infection and will notify you with the LevelUp sound as well as remove itself from your Traits.


Berserker; -8
Killing a zombie increases your BerserkerStreak by 1 and grants you stamina according to this formula
0.15% + 0.015*BerserkerStreak
BerserkerStreak has a maximum value of 100
After not killing a zombie for 1500 frames. You stacks will decay at an accelerating rate. First by 1, then 2, and so on.
Sitting down, or entering a Vehicle will immediately reduce your current timer to 300 and will cause your stacks to decay twice as fast. (2,4,6…)
Being hungry reduces the endurance regenerated from this trait. the more hungry you are the less endurance you will regenerate each kill.


Rage begins at 30% maximum stacks and deals additional damage based on your weapon skill and strength, following PZ’s normal damage modifiers which can be found on the PZ Wiki.
This damage is a percentage of the zombies remaining health. starting at 10% and increasing to up to 25% based on your current streak. With max streak, weapon skill, and strength you will be dealing ~56% of the zombies current health as bonus damage every hit.
Pushing applies half of the this damage.
While Raging you are also more resistant to panic and stress gain, getting 25% to 75% reduction in panic gain and 25% to 50% reduction in stress gain based on how high your streak is.
Additionally, while raging 15% of the endurance you gain from this trait will also be added to your hunger. (if you regenerate 30% total endurance, you will have lost 4.5% of your hunger)

Apon reaching 100 streak, you will automatically activate an Adrenaline boost, this boost will either be an attack speed increase or an immediate 25% increase to your endurance.
The endurance boost takes priority as long as you have any level of exhaustion moodle.
The attack speed increase stacks up to 5 times and lasts until your streak decays to 0.

When you enter rage, you're character will immediately shout and will have a chance of shouting after each kill.
these shouts do make noise and will attract zombies to you. this can be good or bad depending on the situation.
you can always sit down or get in a vehicle to quickly drain stacks if you dont want rage to activate.


Psychopath; -9
Buffs long and short blade weapons to be significantly more powerful.
Psychopath adds a tooltip to affected weapons if the mod-options setting is enabled.
Bonuses Scale with weapon skill level
+20% Damage Base, +10% per level
+50% Crit Damage Base, +20% per level.
+6% Crit Chance per level.
+20% Durability per level.

Psychopath also gains a small amount of stress and unhappiness reduction per zombie killed
Psychopath starts with +1 to Long Blade and Short Blade


Juggernaut; -15
Buffs long and short blunt weapons as well as axes to be significantly more powerful.
Adds a tooltip to weapons it has affected, showing their current bonuses. if the mod-options setting is enabled

Bonuses scale with weapon skill level.
+10% Damage Base, + 5% more per level.
+5% Durability per level
+1% Additive Crit Chance per level. (ie: from 30% > 32% at lvl 2)
+10% Additive Crit Damage per level (300% > 320% at lvl 2)
At levels 4 and 8 you gain +1 Maximum targets hit per swing.

2 handed weapons have a few additional bonuses
+0.03 Tiles maximum hit range per level
+15 Door Damage + 3 per level
+50% Bonus Crit Damage
As long as you are above 75% endurance, hits against zombies cause them to stagger as if pushed.

All affected have their Swing Endurance cost increased by 35%

Juggernaut also increases range and size of your pushes as a permanent passive.
Your pushes also weaken zombies, reducing their health by 33% the first time they are pushed.
Juggernaut starts with +2 to strength, and +1 to both Long Blunt and Axes.

Spartan; -15
Buffs spear weapons to be significantly more powerful.
Adds a tooltip to affected weapons, showing their current bonuses. can be disabled or tweaked in mod options.

Bonuses scale with weapon skill level
+10% damage per level
+40% durability per level
-0.04 minimum range per level (this is the range you are forced to push instead of attack)
+0.02 maximum range per level
at levels 6 and 10 you gain +1 maximum targets hit per swing

Spartans immediately lose 25% of their current panic apon killing a zombie.
Spartans start with +2 to fitness, and +2 to spears.






Negative Traits;

Sentimental +2
Spawn with a randomized, named item. If this item is not somewhere in your inventory or in a backpack you're wearing. you will gain unhappiness at a slow rate. The unhappiness gain stops at 50%.
Note: There is a 1% chance that you will get specific easter egg items. these easter egg items don't have anything special about them besides being references to other games or people.

(in the event that a sentimental item is lost unfairly, there is a sandbox setting that enables you to generate a new item by holding a tree branch in your secondary hand with nothing in your main hand. This setting defaults to being off so it must be turned on by the server owner. this setting can also be used to re-roll sentimental items if you wish)


Betrayed +4
Gains an internal value called BetrayalFear that ranges from 0 to 100. this value increases by 6, 3, or 1, every in-game minute depending on how close you are to other living players. 5,10, or 15 tiles. Holding a weapon halves this gain, holding a gun quarters it.
Not holding any kind of weapon causes you to gain 1 Fear every minute, even if players are far enough away, Fear gain in this way is capped at 60.
When further than 20 tiles from all players and holding a weapon you will lose 15% + 3 of your current fear.

if Fear is above 10 you will start gaining stress passively until it is reduced below 10.
At max fear you gain 50% stress every in-game hour. this scale is slightly exponential with amount of fear.


Nyctophobic; +4
Check the tile below the player every tick for light level. If its below 0.5 then you gain panic based on the light level. You gain panic twice as fast at night.
There is a maximum panic value that can be caused by Nyctophobic this varies based on light level and whether or not you are Outside and its Night.


Photophobic +4
Gains panic when outside during the day.
Gain panic rapidly when outside during the day, comparable to the other Phobia traits.
Panic gain rate is affected by weather conditions, such as cloudiness and fogginess, panic gain is reduced by 50% while wearing sunglasses and by 65% while wearing a welding mask.


Necrophobic +4
Gains a minimum panic value based on the number of zombies currently chasing you.
20% per zombie.
if 5 or more zombies are currently chasing you, your minimum panic will be 100% until you kill or lose the zombies chasing you.
Necrophobic prevents you from picking up corpses off the ground.


Anorexic; +5
Any Calories you gain are reduced by 30% and the maximum calories you can have at any given time is 3000 instead of 3700. Meaning you have to eat more regularly to maintain gaining weight.

Any Carbs and Fats you eat are reduced by 30%, and their maximum values are capped at 600 instead of 1000.
As part of the base game you gain weight twice as fast if either of them are at or above 400 and I BELIEVE you get triple if it's above 800. Although i haven't tested it extensively. So anorexic locks you out of the 3x multiplier entirely.


Bloat; +5
Any Calories you gain are increased by 150% and the minimum calories you can have at any time is -1200 instead of -2200. Meaning you have to be very careful what you eat. As many foods will immediately cause you to start gaining weight.
Carbs and Fats you gain are increased by 50% and their minimum values are set to 0 instead of -500.


Stress Eater; +5
When above 25% Hunger (Hungry moodle, not Peckish) you very slowly gain stress, if above 45% Hunger (Very Hungry) then you gain stress at a moderate rate. Stress gain is stopped at 50%, or at 75% if you are above 45% hunger.

When above 50% stress you will become hungry ~50% faster, Above 75% Stress this rate doubles
If your Hunger is at or above 45% (Very Hungry), the Hunger gain penalty is removed.


Codependant +6
Uses a hidden value called "TimeAlone" this value increases by 1 every in-game minute when no living players are within 20 tiles of you. after 6 in-game hours you will start slowly gaining unhappiness. the unhappiness gain ramps up exponentially until it you are gaining 25% unhappiness per in-game hour after 2 days.

Being near living players causes this value to lose 2% + 1, 4% + 2 or 15% + 3 of its current value based on distance, being within 20, within 10, and within 5 respectively.


PTSD; +7
Stress losses are 65% less effective at all times, including the passive stress drain and stress reduction from cigarettes.
You will gain stress if you are at or above 65% panic (Strong Panic). You gain stress faster above 80% Panic (Extreme Panic)

Anti-depressants will halve the penalties from PTSD for 18-24 in game-hours. This effect has a maximum duration of 24 hours.

If you also have the Smoker trait then additonal effects are activated;
Stress caused by the smoker trait is gained 50% faster, you only lose 50% of the cigarette stress when smoking.
Any regular stress you have will convert into Cigarette stress at a rate of 0.1% stress per in-game minute. Cigarette stress can only be recovered by cigarettes or similar items from other mods.

This combo essentially turns your character into a chain-smoker that has to smoke 2-3 cigarettes back to back in order to clear your stress.


Restrictive +8
Use more endurance when heavily protected by clothing.
The trait looks at your average scratch resistance for all body parts except the feet (because boots disproportionately have higher protection compared to most other clothing)
This average is compared to a list of values and determines an endurance penalty if it is high enough.
Average 0%-20% grants you an 90% endurance usage modifier (so you use 10% less endurance)
Average 20%-30% grants you a normal 100% modifier
Average 30%-60% gives you a 150% modifier to Endurance usage and a -30% to endurance recovery
average 60%+ gives you a 250% modifier to endurance usage and a -50% to endurance recovery


ADHD; +8
Gain boredom twice as fast as normal at all times
Performing "Mundane" tasks such as crafting, dissassembling or moving furniture or fences, reading, washing clothing, and a few other things causes your character to gain boredom at a moderate rate.
The rate that you gain boredom is affected by relevant professions and skills. reducing the boredom gain by up to 50% based on skill level.
Professions get a 40% or 80% reduction to boredom gain for relevant actions. This stacks with your skill level.

When above 99% boredom your character will cancel and refuse to do any crafting, dissassembling/moving objects, reading, and a few other actions. This effect is disabled once your boredom is reduced below 90% (Removing the Extremely bored moodle)

(in my testing, a vanilla zomboid character can read 80-120 pages of a skill book or dissassemble around 10-12 objects before the boredom stacks enough to cancel the actions)

If you lose at least 25% boredom as a result of gaining panic then a boredom gain multiplier penalty is increased. It ranges from 1x to 3x, clearing 100% of your boredom meter using panic adds 0.5x to this penalty. the penalty decays over time (taking about 6 in-game hours to lose 1x of this penalty. This decay speed doubles if you have 0 boredom, and halves if you have more than 10% boredom
This is to prevent cheesing the entire trait by looking at a zombie every few minutes.

Taking beta blockers will halve the boredom gain from mundane actions and prevents you from gaining boredom from them if you are above 50% Boredom. this effect lasts for 4-6 in-game hours and can stack up to a maximum of 12 hours if you take multiple.


Addict; +10
Addict will make your character reliant on sedatives like painkillers and sleeping tablets to remain mentally functional.
Not taking these pills will dramatically reduce your mental status and will cause intense muscle pain and cramping as withdrawals.

After taking pills you will slowly recover stress and unhappiness as your character gets their fix.
Not taking pills for 24 hours will cause you to begin having withdrawals. initially these withdrawals are tame but they escalate over 3 days.
After 4 days you will start losing your addiction. and the withdrawals will fade with it. this takes about 4 in game days for the addiction to fade entirely.

At maximum addiction and maximum withdrawal you will gain huge amounts of stress and unhappiness and will have severe muscle pains and cramps, causing pain, muscle fatigue and reduced endurance. Maximum endurance is reduced by as much as 35%, which is below the first exhausted moodle. if you plan on quitting you should expect to spend a few in game days being careful about zombie interactions.

Beta Blockers and Alcohol will reduce the effects of your withdrawals by 67% for as long as their effects are active. Additionally, if you've entered the Recovery phase of addicition (after 4 days) both Beta Blockers and Alcohol will double your recovery speed while they're active.

Once your Addiction level reaches 0 you will lose the Addict trait, you CAN get it back if you take too many pills in quick succession. If unlucky you can regain it in as few as 2 pills.

Addict has a 50/50 chance of spawning your character with either painkillers or sleeping tablets in their inventory. it will have between 4 and 6 uses left.


Insanity; +18
Insanity causes a lot of effects, some of which can very easily kill you if they happen at a bad time. you were warned.

At all times, you will gain stress and unhappiness at 5x the normal amount any time you gain them. you will also lose stress and unhappiness at 3x normal. These are static modifiers that do not change.

Mood Swings: Every 90-180 minutes you will have a "mood swing" which will add or remove stress or unhappiness. there is a 20% chance it will do both, otherwise only one is selected.
if you gain or lose stress, you will gain or lose 60%
if you gain or lose unhappiness, you will gain or lose 25%
The chance that you gain or lose is dependent on how much stress or unhappiness you have. the more you have, the more likely you will reduce it instead of gaining it and vise versa.

this makes your character constantly fluctuate between being stressed and depressed and being fine.

Item Rejecting: Every 2ish days your character will decide to drop a random item. the dropped item is marked by the game and if it is in your inventory you will immediately attempt to drop it again.
Every in game minute the game rolls a 1 in 480 chance, if it succeeds you will be allowed to pick the item up again. there is no quote or notification when this happens.
if your game is using the default 1 hour day/night cycle, this should take about 20 minutes on average. although it is still very random.
Your character cannot drop the rejected item while running, every time they attempt to do so there is a 10% chance they will trip, allowing them to drop the item (because apparently you can drop items while in the tripping animation, who knew)

each time you try to pick up the item, there is a 1% chance that you will be allowed to pick it up early. at which point the effect is over. use this if you really want to pick something up.
(in testing i spent almost 6 minutes trying to pick up my pants, by far one of the funniest moments I've had in this game)

Dillusions: Every time your character is performing a Timed action of any kind, there is a 0.1% to 1% chance that the item will cancel just before it ends without telling you. the chance is based on your current stress value.
(Auto-mechanics beware, if this triggers it will cancel the entire auto-mechanic interaction)

Mania: Approximately once every 12 days, your character will go utterly insane for 2.5-3.5 in game hours, (6-9 minutes). yelling and screaming non-stop while dropping items and tripping.

The screaming is loud enough to draw a pretty massive horde if your anywhere inside of a city. and the randomized tripping can easily get you killed.
Tripping becomes significantly more likely while running or sprinting. but it can happen even while walking or in combat stance.
When dropping items, 1-3 items will be chosen out of the inventory or backpacks. If an equipped item is chosen to be dropped, there is an 80% chance that it will be re-rolled instead. This does not apply to items being held, which will be dropped significantly more frequently.
While having a manic episode, you cannot regain endurance by any means, and your character's panic and stress will be set to their maximum values.

In my tests, surviving to the end of a manic episode usually leaves you with a horde of about 100 or so zombies chasing you while your dealing with 1-4 injuries from the tripping and the majority of non-equipped items having been dropped. as well as 3-4 equipped items as well.
WARNING: look at zombies at your own risk, i had a character trip while facing the horde, instantly killing them.
Last edited by Dr. Lalaoz; 11 Dec, 2023 @ 6:48pm
< >
Showing 1-15 of 38 comments
Simsimix 12 Sep, 2022 @ 9:26am 
sheesh, these are extremely good, although you might need to tone down the fighting traits a bit, since it may be too op for all melee builds, I really liked the negative ones, you think you could add some simple body pain traits? such as flat feet, back, herniated disc, or tenis elbow syndrome. Perhaps something even more simple as body dismorphia, making the game check if there are mirrors arround, if there is one, unhappipess rises.
7even 1 Oct, 2022 @ 3:05am 
can you add how much points it costs for each
just rebalancing the mele traits will do wonders but try to keep it somewhat reasonable as some will cry about some of these being op
AReads 9 Mar, 2023 @ 11:59pm 
Photophobic seems bugged. Still triggers even when desensitised is held as a trait.
Dr. Lalaoz  [developer] 10 Mar, 2023 @ 1:07am 
Originally posted by Losfrail:
Photophobic seems bugged. Still triggers even when desensitised is held as a trait.
Desensitized only prevents panic gain from zombies.
under normal vanilla gameplay its impossible to have desensitized and any of the other vanilla phobia traits at the same time, but if you use debug mode or a mod to add the traits manually then desensitized doesn't work on them.
Last edited by Dr. Lalaoz; 10 Mar, 2023 @ 1:07am
Tmccanna 10 May, 2023 @ 2:06pm 
being able to modify these traits in the sandbox menu would be nice for tweaking
Dr. Lalaoz  [developer] 10 May, 2023 @ 3:41pm 
Yeah, adding sandbox settings has been a pretty popular request. i've been not wanting to do it because of the sheer number of settings i'm gonna have to make, followed by a huge testing spree to make sure it all works still
but i'm gonna start working on it, no idea how long it'll take. could be out today, might take a week. it just depends on how the testing phase goes.
Aioros41 15 Jul, 2023 @ 2:50pm 
i feel like plot armor its pretty broken
Jenek 22 Jul, 2023 @ 10:19pm 
I lost my sentimental item because I accidentally deleted it. I cannot generate the new item because it's not available in the server options. The sandbox settings seems to have stacked together on the bottom...
Thought Chemist 24 Jul, 2023 @ 1:10pm 
Hey so I was adjusting the values a little in a sandbox game, and I found the temperature traits modifiers, I'm a little confused as to what each one means... I was trying to create a character overly resistant to temp and I'm not sure what to make the modifiers
Dr. Lalaoz  [developer] 24 Jul, 2023 @ 2:11pm 
Max Value
Min Value

Cold Bodied =
Temp Losses multiplied by Max Value
Temp Gains multiplied by Min Value

Warm Bodied =
Temp Gains multiplied by Max Value
Temp Losses multiplied by Min Value

the traits don't actually make you warmer or colder, they make you heat up and cool down faster or slower.
Thought Chemist 24 Jul, 2023 @ 11:27pm 
Ohhh, that makes it much clearer, thank you!
Thought Chemist 24 Jul, 2023 @ 11:39pm 
Originally posted by Dr. Lalaoz:
Max Value
Min Value

Cold Bodied =
Temp Losses multiplied by Max Value
Temp Gains multiplied by Min Value

Warm Bodied =
Temp Gains multiplied by Max Value
Temp Losses multiplied by Min Value

the traits don't actually make you warmer or colder, they make you heat up and cool down faster or slower.

Wait what about Natural Insulation?
Dr. Lalaoz  [developer] 25 Jul, 2023 @ 1:21am 
you have warm bodied when your cold and cold bodied when your hot
Koala 15 Oct, 2023 @ 8:56am 
why is insanity only +18 and not like +45, even burn ward patient would be better than that, no sorry, all of the negative traits compined would have been better than insanity, maybe the manic episode shouldn´t be as bad as it is now
< >
Showing 1-15 of 38 comments
Per page: 1530 50