The character creation screen shows you an occupation’s skills and a points number, and it never explains that those two things trade against each other on a curve. You start with 8 points. An occupation spends some of them; a few give points back. Anything the occupation leaves negative has to be paid for with negative traits before the game will let you start.
Below is the whole list, sorted by what each occupation leaves in your pocket. It is written for Build 42, checked against 42.20.3 stable. The occupation table on pzwiki carries a 42.18.0 stamp, so treat individual numbers as very likely rather than certain, and trust your character screen over this page if the two disagree.
The number that decides everything: the XP multiplier
Before the table, the mechanic that makes occupations worth anything at all. Starting skill levels do not just give you levels — they change how fast that skill grows for the rest of the run:
| Starting skill level | XP rate for that skill |
|---|---|
| 0 (every skill by default) | 25% |
| 1 | 100% |
| 2 | 133% |
| 3 and above | 166% |
Read the jump from level 0 to level 1. It is not incremental — it is four times the XP rate. Going from 1 to 3 is another 66% on top. So the practical value of an occupation is mostly “which skills does it lift off zero”, and only secondarily “how high does it lift them”. An occupation that gives +1 in five skills is doing more long-run work than one that gives +4 in one, unless you specifically need that one skill high on day one.
The wiki notes that the in-game display for levels 1, 2 and 3 shows 75% / 100% / 125% instead, and records this as a bug present on 42.13.1 that was never reported on the forums. We are repeating the wiki’s corrected figures and flagging that the numbers on your own screen may not match.
The full index
Points is what you have left to spend on traits after the occupation. Negative means you must take that many points of negative traits before you can start.
| Occupation | Points left | Starting skills | Occupation trait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom Occupation | +8 | — | — |
| Burger Flipper | +2 | Cooking +2, Maintenance +1, Short Blade +1 | Keen Cook |
| Tailor | +2 | Tailoring +4 | — |
| Doctor | 0 | First Aid +6, Short Blade +1 | — |
| Farmer | 0 | Agriculture +4, Animal Care +1, Strength +1 | — |
| Firefighter | 0 | Axe +1, Fitness +1, Running +1, Strength +1 | — |
| Lumberjack | 0 | Axe +2, Maintenance +1, Strength +1 | Ax-pert |
| Nurse | 0 | First Aid +3, Fitness +1, Lightfooted +1 | Night Owl |
| Rancher | 0 | Animal Care +4, Butchering +3, Fitness +1 | — |
| Carpenter | −2 | Carpentry +4, Carving +1, Maintenance +1, Masonry +1, Short Blunt +1 | — |
| Chef | −2 | Cooking +4, Butchering +2, Maintenance +1, Short Blade +1 | Keen Cook |
| Construction Worker | −2 | Masonry +2, Short Blunt +2, Carpentry +1, Long Blunt +1, Maintenance +1 | — |
| DIY Expert | −2 | Maintenance +2, Carpentry +1, Masonry +1, Short Blunt +1 | Inventive |
| Electrician | −2 | Electrical +5 | — |
| Fishing Guide | −2 | Fishing +3, Butchering +1, Foraging +1 | — |
| Security Guard | −2 | Running +2, Lightfooted +1, Short Blunt +1 | Night Owl |
| Engineer | −4 | Carpentry +1, Electrical +1, Masonry +1 | — |
| Mechanic | −4 | Mechanics +4, Welding +1 | Vehicle Knowledge |
| Park Ranger | −4 | First Aid +1, Foraging +1, Knapping +1, Carving +1, Trapping +1 | Herbalist |
| Police Officer | −4 | Aiming +4, Nimble +1, Reloading +1 | — |
| Welder | −4 | Welding +4 | — |
| Blacksmith | −6 | Blacksmithing +4, Maintenance +1, Short Blunt +1 | Blacksmith Knowledge |
| Burglar | −6 | Lightfooted +2, Nimble +2, Sneaking +2 | Burglar |
| Fitness Instructor | −6 | Fitness +3, Running +2, Strength +1 | Nutritionist |
| Veteran | −8 | Aiming +2, Reloading +2 | Desensitized |
How to read this as a beginner
The zero-point occupations are the honest starting point. Doctor, Farmer, Firefighter, Lumberjack, Nurse and Rancher all leave your full 8 points intact for traits. You get a real skill package and give up nothing you would otherwise have had. For a first serious run this is the band to shop in.
Positive-point occupations are not free money. Burger Flipper and Tailor hand you 10 points to spend, but the skills they lift are narrow. Tailoring +4 matters a great deal later, when you are patching clothing against bites, and almost nothing in week one.
Deep-negative occupations are a bet, not a build. Veteran at −8 means you start 8 points in the hole and have spent your entire 8-point pool before choosing a single trait — you are buying Desensitized and two ranks of gun skill with 16 points of negatives. Burglar and Fitness Instructor at −6 are the same trade in a different currency.
Several occupations unlock actions, not just numbers. Electrician and Engineer can operate generators without the magazine; Mechanic can repair every vehicle model without reading anything; Welder can weld foraged metal; Blacksmith can build a stone furnace. These are the entries where the occupation is buying you a capability rather than a rate, and they are worth more than their skill columns suggest. The generator one in particular has a real week-one consequence, because the alternative path is Electrical 3 or a specific magazine you have to find.
Two occupation traits are also stronger than the same-named ordinary trait: the Mechanic’s Vehicle Knowledge gives +3 Mechanics against the purchasable trait’s +1, and the Blacksmith’s Blacksmith Knowledge matches the −6 trait rather than being a token.
Which skills actually pay off in Build 42
Build 42 rebuilt crafting around workstations and skill gates, which quietly changed the value of several occupations. Carpentry, Masonry, Carving and Knapping now sit upstream of a large tree, and Masonry in particular gates things people do not expect — building a pottery wheel needs Masonry 2 by way of the Stone Wheel, not any Pottery level. If a recipe is refusing you and you cannot see why, the five-gate crafting diagnostic is faster than guessing.
Animal Care and Butchering became real skills in the same build rather than rounding errors, which is what makes Rancher a credible zero-point pick now when it was not before. The catch is that the butchering system has gates the menu never names, and which of tool, skill or animal size is blocking a cut is the question you will hit first. Animal Care has the same problem in miniature — hens stop laying for six separate reasons and the game tells you about none of them.
What we could not verify
The occupation table above is reproduced from a wiki page stamped 42.18.0 against 42.20.3 stable, so it may be two point-releases behind on any single row. We did not independently confirm the starting-points figures against the game files. We are also repeating, not confirming, the wiki’s claim that the in-game XP modifier display is wrong for levels 1–3; we found no forum report or patch note either way, and the wiki itself says none exists.
Sources
- PZwiki, Occupation — the full occupation list with starting points, skill bonuses, occupation traits and in-game descriptions, plus the level-to-XP-rate table and the note about the incorrect in-game modifier display. Page stamped 42.18.0
- PZwiki, Trait — the 8-point pool rule, the requirement that points to spend end at zero or above, and the stronger occupation-exclusive versions of Vehicle Knowledge and Blacksmith Knowledge. Page stamped 42.19.0
- Steam news, 42.20.3 STABLE Hotfix Released (17 August 2026) — establishes 42.20.3 as the current stable build
