Character builds?

P

pat1729

First time out of the vault
I am about to start my game, and I am curious what others have tried.

So, to the people who have played a few hours or more:

What character build(s) have you tried? Specifically: What SPECIAL stats, what Tag skills, what Traits? In the early game, what Perks did you take and what skill(s) did you pump?

What worked? What didn't? Any regrets?

Oh, and very important: What is your preferred style of play? And which was your favorite Fallout game?

Thanks.

(This is my first post, but I have been a Fallout fan since... Well, since Wasteland :). I consider Fallout 1 to be the best computer game of any kind, ever, period. Fallout 2 was OK. Fallout 3 was... well... um... "it could have been better".)
 
*** The below message may contain spoilers, be wary ***



I find FNV to be something between FO2 and FO3, so I've got enough of Fun from it and I consider replaying it as a raider character.

Specials do not matter as much as in previous games, but are still important.

1) Strength: I have no problems hauling stuff around with 4 str, and there's a weapon handling perk (lvl 14 or 16) which lowers STR requirement for weapons, so I'd say that 5 str is enough. If you want to play a power armor build with heavy weapons (and especially rockets), then you want it around 8. It's also pretty important for a melee character.

2) Perception is meh... I mean, all it does is some addition to skills and it shows enemies on your "mini radar". You can totally dump it IMHO
[spoiler:3bcc064ff6]because there's a follower you encounter pretty early during questline who shows you A HUGE area of enemies on your radar, I talk about E-DE the eyebot.[/spoiler:3bcc064ff6]

3) Endurance is not too important if you play with followers, but still it's old good HP, so you choose how much do you want.

4) Charisma is... meh. It no longer affects the amount of followers, so I regret getting 6 at charisma.

5) Intelligence is quite important, because it adds skillpoints per level, so don't get it low unless you want to be a low-skilled bully. Don't forget that tagged skills no longer level at 2x rate, so it's even more important for a good build now.

6) Agility is a bit more important than in FO3 because it now also affects your reload speed. Well, V.A.T.S. is the same, so you know.

7) Luck is a pretty important stat now too imho. A first reason is that many enemies are much tougher now (giant radscorpions, deathclaws etc.) so your main helper against then is a critical strike; also with high enough luck (8+) you basically RAPE casinos (which are many) and become rich in no time. I had no problems with caps from scavenging though, so it's only if you want to be able to buy all required weapon mods and cool features which are avaliable for caps only.
 
This will be another post because it's not as spoilery as previous one, so I've decided to post it separately for those who want to skip my previous post.

1) Tag no longer makes the skill to level-up 2x faster, it just adds mere 15 points, so tagging is not that important.

2) I regret picking "four-eyed" because now I cannot wear any helmet which removes glasses, do not do it :P. It may look cool to be a man in a power armor with a hat and glasses, but it's less fun when I am instagibbed by a lucky headshotter (I play with mods which make humanoids to have much less health and headshots deadly, so it is much harder than in vanilla to wear NO helmet :P).

3) You should get that perk which adds skills from reading books. I've found a lot of places where quest dialogues were unpassable without journals for me, and without 2x faster tagged skills you want to look for skill books now too.


For now i play a good character, but I plan to re-play the game (which never happened to me with FO3 because it had much less choices) as a raider guy and join Great Khans.
 
I think it was sth like:

STR7(or 6?), PER5, END5, INT2, CHA1, AGI10, LK10

Four-eyed and Wild Wasteland

Tag Melee, lockpick, sneak.

Sneak seems not quite as useful as in FO1/2, especially for a melee character. It seems like it's better for sharpshooters.

As for perks, I took Confirmed Bachelor at lvl2, Toughness at 4, and then pretty much every new melee-related perk afterwards. The on that gives you knockdown chance on every hit is great if you're looking for an easier fight/game.

Also, once I've gotten to Freeside and Vegas, I've had these glorious moments of "fairly" robbing casinos of their money; roughly 10k caps per casino in about 5 minutes. This guy barely ever loses if you do it right.

The guy is great in combat, lots of VATS hits plus almost every other hit is critical. He's a beast with a machete. The biggest downside, obviously, is poor speech and specialization. I only get 11 skill points per level, but frankly that's still enough for my purpose, I just work on maxing tagged skills. As for speech, I'll probably do a smooth-talker on the next playthrough.
 
You could honestly go with 2 per and 5 int, since you're not ranged, and you would get a much bigger advantage.

P.S. If it was Fallout 2 you would be unable to speak normally with INT2 and CH1... I miss those days :P.
 
Strength - 5 is good
Perception - 4 or 5
Endurance - up to 9 is awesome. If you have less than 9, you can't get all the implants in the game.
Charisma - 4 or 5. Pretty useless.
Intelligence - up to 9. Not as important as in FO1 or FO2, but still useful.
Agility - not really sure, but above 6 if you're using guns.
Luck - Always good, at least 6 if you want Finesse or Better Criticals perks.

Personally, I regret choosing the Small Frame perk. My limbs are CONSTANTLY being damaged. The perk that requires eyeglasses for +1 to perception is pretty cool, but you don't really NEED perception.

Important skills:

Weapon skill. I chose Guns. Energy weapons, as always, can be tricky.

Science - Locked terminals are everywhere, plus it opens up new dialogue for a lot of quests.

Repair - Helps a lot during some quests. Obviously helps you repair your goods as well.

Speech - As important as always.

Lockpicking - I can't stand seeing a locked container I can't open, so lockpicking is always in for me.
 
If it was Fallout 2 you would be unable to speak normally with INT2 and CH1... I miss those days
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Yeah I wish. The "failed speech check lines" are still brilliant though.

You could honestly go with 2 per and 5 int, since you're not ranged, and you would get a much bigger advantage.
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Maybe. But this way I also can use energy weps if the need arises.

you don't really NEED perception.
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It affects Energy weapons. I've also had [perception] dialogue lines.
 
my char:

STR 7
PER 5
END 6
CHA 4
INT 5
AGI 8
LCK 5

Traits: Fast Shot, Kamikaze

Perks: Rapid Reload, Toughness (2), Commando and some others.

playing him as a soldier-type using Guns only (although slowly leveling up Explosives to pack that extra punch when needed).

I don't really have anything to compare with when it comes to Fast Shot, but it seems like a very usable trait if you're primarily fighting in real-time. even at low levels I could easily hit enemies at a distance while aiming down the sights and I practically spray bullets around me whatever weapon I use (including shotguns). coupled with Rapid Reload it's a pretty constant spray of bullets.

I don't use VATS a lot at all, but I've noticed that even with Commando my chances to hit aren't very high unless the enemy is very close. thus I prefer real-time combat. kinda makes me wish I hadn't taken Kamikaze and I don't really need the extra AP. hopefully VATS will start being more useful later on though.

I've in big part neglected both Speech and Barter on purpose since I wanted to concentrate on those skills in another play-through. and it definitely makes things a bit tougher. a lot of the time, either or both skills will help you out in a quest and/or give you certain information. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot. and with the massive amounts of caps people ask for in this game, you really have to get your hands on everything that isn't nailed down. add in the fact that my repair skill is pretty low too. but I like it, makes for an interesting challenge.

I'm glad I tagged Lockpicking and have increased it consantly each level, because there are A LOT of locked doors/containers in this game.
 
S 7
P6
E 7
C 6
I 8
A 6
L 1

I love having the high spread. But I get raped at casinos.

C and P are important for having a smooth talking character. Plus, with less skill points, the synergies you get from your special attributes is even more important and can have a phenomenal impact.

Don't crit a lot, but not a big problem, but yeah on Black Jack, everytime I get 20 the dealer draws to 21 and I get that "you feel unlucky" thing, so if you want to play the casinos luck is important.

went with guns, speech, and survival.
then wildwasteland, and the one that makes your shots more accurate.

followed by one intense training
commando, gunslinger, and 2 others I am not thinking of at the moment.
 
I wanted an evil melee character, then ended up turning it into a whole Jason from Friday the 13th kind of thing. Sadly it eventually devolved into a mere power armor wearing 1 shot kill brute.

The benefit of melee being the simply higher lower level damage.

Starting stats were:
High Str - SMASH!
Med Per - 6 Per gets you Friend of the Night Perk
High End - HP and Unarmed bonus
Low Char - I let my fist do the negotiating
Low Int - Ended up with 12 points per level
High Agi - More points in VATS, basically where you'll be doing most combat
Med Luck - Didn't plan to do much gambling


My starting Traits were Heavy Handed and Small Frame, definitely bad choices.

Heavy handed (I believe) reduced my damage when I sneak up and surprised my victims leading to large brawls and basically forcing me to use a much less stealthy approach.

Small Frame led to constant Doctors visits and never having enough Doctor Bags. I seemed to have something broken in just about every early fight where I didn't drop the enemy quickly enough.


As far as Perks go I started off with Swift Learner, hoping to offset my low int with faster leveling.

I then, already having a bladed glove from the merchant in Primm, stumbled upon a hockey mask off one of the Escaped Convicts in the Hotel. When I leveled and the choice of Cannibal popped out I knew what I wanted to be. Gameplay wise it's not very helpful, the health regained is eventually out leveled and made inconsequential but it added to my character.

I also picked up Friend of the Night, which I think is one of the more useful perks as it works both indoors and out and REALLY does improve your visibility to even beyond daylight levels. Everything pops out. I then followed this up with Night Person.

Finally I grabbed the few Toughness and Melee damage related perks as they came up.



For skills I focused mostly on Unarmed, Sneak, Lockpick with some Repair and Survival.

Repair allowed me to keep my gear up to grade as well as consolidate enemy drops into more valuable pieces.

Survival was helpful for health regeneration in battle as I would stack Gecko/Dog Steaks with a Stimpack and a Sarsaparilla

Finally, though it's not a perk, I found being an alcoholic quite useful for the extra Str. Though my low speech prevented me from grabbing Cass for her perk which could've come in handy.



In the end my desire to know the story conflicted with my original vision for the character as I ended up helping a lot of the people I shouldn't been murdering in their sleep and eating.

I do plan to restart after I finish this and make a few alterations. For my traits I'll probably scrap them both and restart with Wacky Wasteland and Kamikaze. I also believe that I'll sacrifice all the points I previously put in 'non essential skills' and focus on getting my Unarmed and Melee to a level where I can get the Piercing Strike and Ninja Perks.
 
Initial Stats:

Str: 3
Per: 6
End: 3
Cha: 3
Int: 10
Agl: 9
Luc: 6

I use VATS exclusively to attack. I do not attack in real-time. Therefore it is crucial for me to maximize my AP and bonuses I get from VATS.

Traits: Built for Destruction and Kamikazee
Tag Skills: Guns, Repair, Lockpick

Lvl 2 Perk: Intense Training - Stength
Lvl 4 Perk: Educated

I am currently at Level 4 with my character. Currently Guns and Repair are at 50, and Lockpick and Science are close behind. Having a 10 Int + Educated I get 17 skill points per level which helps me raise my skills most efficiently.

Main Skills: Guns, Repair, Lockpick, Science
Secondary Skills: Sneak, Speech, Energy Weapons

I feel Lockpick and Science are so important due to so many locked doors and terminals. Plus I get XP from using the skills which helps me level up also.

@Ausdoerrt - you feel Sneak is less useful in the newer Fallouts? I feel it is at least as useful. If I come across an enemy with an insane amount of DT and HP (I play on the highest difficulty), it is very powerful to sneak into place and 'pickpocket' a grenade or stick of dynamite for an instant kill. I would think a melee character would also find this beneficial since they will be up close and personal a lot more with enemies anyway.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
It affects Energy weapons. I've also had [perception] dialogue lines.
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It doesn't affect energy weapons, it just adds to the energy weapons skill, so with higher intelligence you win BIG time.
 
S 6
P 6
E 4
C 5
I 9
A 7
L 4

Tag skills:

Guns
Repair
Lockpick, if I remember right.

Traits:

Trigger discipline
 
S 5
P 7
E 4
C 5
I 8
A 6
L 5

I've tagged Guns, Lockpick and Speech.
Traits I've taken: Wild Wasteland, Trigger Discipline
 
Something that just occurred to me... trigger discipline increases your time between shots, but it also probably makes the VATS AP cost for each shot use 20% more AP, right?

I'm terrible at maintaining accuracy during sustained fire so trigger discipline is a good trait for me in real time, but I also use VATS in tighter situations or as an opener when greatly outnumbered and I'm not sure the extra AP cost, if one exists, would be worth it.
 
@Ausdoerrt - you feel Sneak is less useful in the newer Fallouts? I feel it is at least as useful. If I come across an enemy with an insane amount of DT and HP (I play on the highest difficulty), it is very powerful to sneak into place and 'pickpocket' a grenade or stick of dynamite for an instant kill. I would think a melee character would also find this beneficial since they will be up close and personal a lot more with enemies anyway.
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I just feel it's a lot harder to sneak up on someone, even with Sneak 100. I'm yet to sneak up to sth close enough for a melee sneak attack. Maybe I'm just bad at it.
 
Hardcore energy weapon specialist here. Granted, with this build you probably wont have a good weapon until mid-game, but there is a doozy for you when you get there.

S 6
P 5
E 9
C 1
I 9
A 5
L 5

Planning on getting every implant, as many skill points as possible (there IS a way to get two implants at level one without cheating, but it's a pain) and using the plasma caster.

Main skills: energy weapons, repair, speech, science, lockpick.

I took good natured because of the awesome skill bonus you get, and wild wasteland because, well, it's fun.

Down on my build because of my charisma? Well I can fix that. With SCIENCE!
 
Build with opening up dialogue options and fighting with stealth and high damage handguns in mind.

ST: 4
PE: 2
EN: 4
CH: 6
IN: 10
AG: 8
LK: 6

Went with Four Eyes and Small Frame. Four Eyes seemed like free PE points and Small Frame suited me since i like messing up with my characters and breaking their limbs and getting them addicted to drugs and stuff like that.

I boost a lot lockpick, science and speech to try to not miss out on anything and sneaking for combating purposes.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Like someone said before, beware the helmets.
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Yeah, i didn't think about that but given the amount of time i put into making a face i like, i almost never use helmets.
 
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