The Best Builds For Beginners

Carpenter build

Chosen Traits	Cost
Pacifist	+4
Prone to illness	+4
Smoker	+4
Weak Stomach	+3
Fast Reader(or  Dextrous)	-2
Fast Learner	-6
Handy	-8

Major Skills

The Carpenter build is great for beginners because they get 4 levels in carpentry, and one point in short blunt weapons. The real kicker of this build is that carpentry gets a 125% multiplier to any XP gains in this field, and short blunt weapons get a 75% increase in the multiplier so short blunt weapons tend to be some of the most common in projects zomboid and are often the first ones that you’ll come across too. This perk is great for beginners because they will get more proficient with short blunt weapons faster.

Carpentry is a very important skill in building and maintaining survivor strongholds. With the perks that this build, you’ll be able to get more proficient with carpentry and construct stronger fortifications for your base.

Some of the negative traits of this build are:

• Prone to illness
• Smoker
• Weak Stomach
• Pacifist

Prone to illness only really comes into effect if you either neglect a wound long enough for it to become infected or during extreme weather without proper protective clothing. So as long as you’re attentive you won’t really see any impacts from this.

Smoker requires you to find a lighter or matches and some cigarettes, otherwise your anxiety will climb gradually due to withdrawal symptoms. You can usually find the items required to nullify this pretty early on

• check zombies
• glove boxes in cars
• convenience stores or just gas stations.

These locations all tend to spawn either cigarettes or lighters.

Weak Stomach only comes into play if you eat undercooked or burnt food - something that is easy enough to avoid.

Pacifist will reduce your weapon XP by 25%. A lot of players take this one anyway for the extra points but keep in mind that we’re already gaining a 75% increase in short blunt weapons due to choosing carpenter.

Some of the positive traits we recommend for this build are:

• Fast Learner
• Handy
• Fast Reader

With Fast Learner, we gain 130% XP for any and all skills outside of strength and fitness. This stacks up with the previous gains we have, making for a massive XP bonus in both carpentry and short blunt weapons. Not only that, but we completely nullify the -25% from Pacifist with this 30% increase - meaning we actually get a 5% increase on all other weapon types!

With Handy, we gain an additional level in carpentry, granting us a total of four levels. This allows us to build composters for gathering fertilizer, and more importantly, we can make rain collectors from day one. We skip the need for both beginner and intermediate training books when it comes to carpentry and move right onto the advanced books! Your building speed will be increased by 11%, your structures will all have 100+ more HP, making you the perfect base builder for any survivor stronghold.

Fast Reader, is an optional trait and isn’t necessary if you’re playing the game in single-player mode. In fact, switching it out for something like Dextrous might be a better option since you’ll be spending a lot of time packing and unpacking carpentry supplies like planks.

Burglar build

Chosen Traits	Cost
High Thirst	+6
Prone to illness	+4
Smoker	+4
Weak Stomach	+3
Clumsy	+2
Cat’s Eyes	-2
Wakeful (or  Dextrous)	-2
Inconspicuous	-4
Amateur Mechanic	-5

Major Skills

The Burglar build is a good option for someone looking for a build that can hotwire cars quickly and easily and have an easy time repairing vehicles.

Some of the negative traits of this build are:

• High thirst
• Prone to illness
• Smoker
• Weak Stomach
• Clumsy

High thirst is easily remedied by finding a water bottle and keeping it topped up.

Prone to illness only really have an effect if you neglect a wound or are exposed to extreme weather without proper protective clothing. So, as long as you’re attentive, you shouldn’t have any problems.

Clumsy: The extra levels of Nimble and Light-footed that the Burglar gets cancel out the increased radius of sound generation from a movement that comes from being Clumsy.

Other: See related content in previous paragraphs

Some of the positive traits we recommend for this build are:

• Cat’s Eyes
• Wakeful
• Inconspicuous
• Amateur Mechanic

The combination of Cat’s Eyes and Wakeful is especially useful in single-player as it allows you to sleep less and see better in the dark. This combination is also useful in multiplayer as it makes your life much easier.

In multiplayer servers where you are not likely to be sleeping, you can replace Wakeful with a different two-point skill perk like Dextrous if you would like.

Inconspicuous gives you a 50% reduction in the chance of being spotted by zombies, which is very useful for newer players who are still learning the game.

Amateur Mechanic gives you the knowledge to replace parts on all standard and heavy-duty vehicles, which are most of the common vehicles you’ll be using. Ordinarily, you would need to find a magazine in order t****o learn how to repair these vehicles. However, with this trait, you can skip that step and benefit from an extra level in mechanics and a 75% XP bonus. This makes repairing vehicles much easier and less time-consuming.

Police Officer build

Chosen Traits	Cost
Slow Healer	+6
Underweight	+6
Prone to illness	+4
Smoker	+4
Weak Stomach	+3
Cat’s Eyes	-2
Brave	-4
Fast Learner	-6
Keen Hearing	-6

Major Skills

The firearms in Project Zomboid can be a death sentence if you’re not careful. Here’s a beginner-friendly build that supports firearms, for those that want to learn how to use them effectively.

We’re choosing the police officer occupation for this build, which will give us three levels in Aiming, two levels in Reloading, and one level in Nimble. This gives us a 125%, 100%, and 75% bonus to XP for these skills respectively.

Aiming and Reloading can be a bit of a pain to level, especially in the early game when you’re limited to a very narrow selection of weapons. So just a couple of tips on firearms that might help you with this build:

The m36 is an incredibly small sound radius pistol at just 30 tiles and the m9 pistol is just 40 tiles. Both of these are very viable at lower aiming levels and have the smallest sound radius of all the firearms in the vanilla game.

Shotguns are the quickest way to level your aiming and reloading skills, as they can wipe out groups of zombies in a single shell and can be used at lower levels. That said, they are also incredibly loud and draw zombies from 100 tiles, so keep that in mind when you’re choosing whether to open up on some zombies. Because it’s likely that you’ll need a lot more ammo than you think you will.

Some of the negative traits of this build are:

• Slow Healer
• Underweight
• Prone to illness
• Smoker
• Weak stomach

With Slow Healer your wounds will obviously leave you injured for longer and it will take longer to recover from them. In single-player or PVE servers, this is almost never an issue as most wounds are likely to be either scratches or lacerations which don’t overly affect you anyway unless you get unlucky with the infection chance.

And of course, bites that will leave you dead anyway. In PVP servers it’s worth considering how this will affect you after a firefight however as these types of wounds can take significant amounts of time to heal.

If you tend to play PVP I’d recommend not taking slow healer.

Underweight really isn’t that big of an issue, you’ll drop one level in fitness, have an eighty percent of the usual melee damage, a ten percent increased chance to trip, and a 15 chance to climb a high fence unsuccessfully with underweight. However, we can put on weight at a maximum of three kilograms per day whereas you can only lose a maximum of one kilogram per day. And this is why we’re not taking overweight; we’re taking underweight because it’s easier to put weight back on than it is to lose it.

Other: See related content in previous paragraphs

Some of the positive traits we recommend for this build are:

• Cat’s Eyes
• Brave
• Fast Learner
• Keen Hearing

Brave will lower how prone your character is to panic, making them more accurate with firearms. Fast Learner just increases the XP bonus for related skills even further. Keen Hearing, This trait is incredibly helpful, revealing zombies sooner and giving you time to move if one is creeping up on you. Other: See related content in previous paragraphs

Unemployed build

Chosen Traits	Cost
High Thirst	+6
Pacifist	+4
Prone to illness	+4
Weak Stomach	+3
Short Sighted	+2
Slow Reader	+2
Wakeful	-2
Keen Hearing	-6
Athletic	-10
Strong	-10

It’s one of the best trait builds for landing the game as one of the biggest struggles for new players is becoming tired from running away or fighting zombies.

Major Skills

Some of the negative traits of this build are:

• High Thirst
• Pacifist
• Prone to illness
• Weak Stomach
• Short Sighted
• Slow Reader

Short Sighted, which narrows your view distance when it comes to spotting things. But it isn’t that big of a hit for most players, and many people tend to use it anyway. That said, it is an optional one, much like a Slow Reader depending on your preferences.

Other: See related content in previous paragraphs

Some of the positive traits we recommend for this build are:

• Wakeful
• Keen Hearing
• Athletic
• Strong

Wakeful, which can be a trait that you drop if you don’t want to pick up Short Sighted. Athletic and Strong – These two perks combined will give you a staggering nine total levels in both fitness and strength. So whilst you don’t have any extra bonuses from your occupation, you’re going to be an absolute machine that can run sprint, and climb for longer before coming fatigued.

Other: See related content in previous paragraphs