enough skill points to make all rounder but not mediocre?

[wintermute000]

Is it possible with the skill point / magazine distribution in the game to make a char that is

- excellent guns (90+)
- ok melee (60+)
- decent energy weapons (70+)

and still have excellent sneak, lockpick, repair and speech?

I am neglecting barter, survival, unarmed, gonna leave science at 50.

 

[Lexx]

I doubt this. With level 26, my character has 100 guns, 100 repair, 100 science and 100 speech. This makes 4 skills at 100, the rest of the other skills got only very very few skill points from me.

So my opinion is, having high combat stats with high non-combat stats is very unlikely to achieve, if you don't find all skill books 'n stuff.

 

[smber2cnma]

Re: enough skill points to make all rounder but not mediocre

Is it possible with the skill point / magazine distribution in the game to make a char that is

- excellent guns (90+)
- ok melee (60+)
- decent energy weapons (70+)

and still have excellent sneak, lockpick, repair and speech?

I am neglecting barter, survival, unarmed, gonna leave science at 50.

Well the wiki give this info:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Intelligence

The number of skill points gained each level up is based on the formula 10 + (0.5 * INT), where INT is your Intelligence. If you get a non-whole number of skill points per level (e.g. 10.5 for INT 1) it will be saved for the next level up, so you will get 10 skill points for your first level up and 11 on your next.
So:
5 int = 375 skill points (and each +1 int = 15 skill points at lvl 30)
10 int = 450 skill points

Educated Perk: nets an extra 52 skill points if taken at lvl 4.
Comprehension: changes normal +3 skill points from a book to +4 (about 4 books per skill) so each skill will get an extra +16 instead of +12 if you're a compeletionist. (51 extra skill points, * explosives only has 3 books)

So, a 6 intelligence character w/t educated, comprehension and all books will have 442 skill points to spend and +16 in every stat.

Goal:
90+ guns
60+ melee
70+ energy
excellent (90?): sneak, lockpick, repair, speech
50 science

Estimate all start @ 17ish, add +16 from books, so 33ish points in all 8. We get 3 tags = 45 sp. +442 if int @ 6. So, 487 points to spend with all skills at 33:
100 - 33 = 67
67 * 5 = 335, which allows maxed guns, sneak, lockpick, repair, and speech.
487 - 335 = 152 points left - 15 = 137 to get science at 50.
Can raise melee and energy both to 70 and have 78 points left.

Thus you don't need all the books or both of these perks or even an intelligence of 6 to get the stats you're looking for.

(*NOTE: I wouldn't have typed this much if I wasn't wanting to find out for myself too )

 

[Nalano]

A level 30 character who has had Int 10 since the start will have 450 points to play with

+65 from Luck 9
+52 from Educated
+45 from the first tagged skills
+15 from Tag!

So yeah, it's possible, but that'd be one gimped player.

 

[wintermute000]

OK thanks
I only have 5 intel but I did take educated so I think melee is out. I already wasted around 25 points on it (sigh). Oh well I am a stealth shooter anyway.

Its kinda lame how important lockpick is compared to science and / or repair IMO. Lets not even talk about how useless survival is

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Its kinda lame how important lockpick is compared to science and / or repair IMO.

I found them equally important. In some cases, science is actually more useful than lockpick - makes certain quests a lot easier. It also has quite a few dialogue applications.

Repair is kinda useless. There's a plenty of stuff lying around. Unless you really need that special ammo, it's really not needed.

A few survival perks are pretty neat (like Rad Resistance). But otherwise I'd say it's as useful as Repair. You can get through the game w/ or w/o it just in a different way, but I guess that can be said for any other skill as well.

 

[gumbarrel]

Repair is kinda useless. There's a plenty of stuff lying around. Unless you really need that special ammo, it's really not needed.

Repair can save you a TON of caps with the last perk for it. Cowboy rifles and the 2-shot shotguns are easy to find, but you really won't be able to repair That Gun on your own, or The Machine.

So you are forced to pay for all the repairs otherwise and it costs A LOT. I had 4000 caps around lvl12 or so, I was thinking "Damn it, so early and the economy is already broken!". Then I went to get my weapons and armor fixed and I lost all of my caps

So getting that last repair perk to repair your stuff with similar items can be a HUGE money saviour. Grenade ammo and repairs don't come cheap.

Then again, if you are an unarmed character for example, then yeah, it's kinda useless...

 

[Brother None]

The game doesn't fix Fallout 3's jack-of-all-trades problem that well. Without even trying, I have a level 29 characters with three 100-point skills and three others at 85. Just start with high intelligence and pick the relevant perks.

 

[smber2cnma]

A level 30 character who has had Int 10 since the start will have 450 points to play with

+65 from Luck 9
+52 from Educated
+45 from the first tagged skills
+15 from Tag!

So yeah, it's possible, but that'd be one gimped player.

I'm confused, how does Luck 9 equate to +65 skill points?

Also why is everyone treating the +450 of INT 10 as all a player has to utilize. That's leaving out the starting value of each stat (generally b/t 15-20, plus the 3 initial tag stills). So 3 of the skills you want 100 in will likely be starting at about 32 - meaning the cost to max them is only 68 points not the 100 many are assuming. That makes 204 points to max 3 skills, some of which may be saved by finding books or getting certain perks.

From doing the math, I suspect that a INT 6 (390SP) character with educated (+52 SP)and maybe 2 books found per stat (+6 each)would be able to max 3 skills and still have 256 points to place on other skills.

so a realisticly leveled INT 6 character (w/ half books found) at level 30 could have these stats:
Guns 100, Repair 100, Lockpick 100
Speech 90
Energy 70, Sneak 70, Science 70
Melee 50
Survival 30, Medicine 30, Barter 30
Unarmed 23, Explosives 23
*of remix any of these skills into different locations, but mathematically this should work.

 

[Dreamsofcats]

Repair is kinda useless. There's a plenty of stuff lying around. Unless you really need that special ammo, it's really not needed.

You're correct about the ease of finding repair fodder for most items, however, I find the weight factor prohibitive. I don't like carrying around several heavy items. I find the repair skill useful to a value of 50, as this permits the creation of weapon repair kits that only weigh one pound. Definately better to carry a one pound kit that may be used on any weapon, rather than lugging around all the other stuff.

 

[Bal-Sagoth]

Might not have been as bad as Fallout 3, but I still felt like an untouchable Super Courier by the end of the game, who not only was a mater at guns and energy weapons, but also a science,lockpick,repair, and speech specialist. As was said before, start with high intelligence and everything else falls into place.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Repair can save you a TON of caps with the last perk for it.

It's not like there is a shortage of caps in the game. Although, maybe I have a little too much because I grabbed lots of money from two out of three casinos with my LK10 character.

I find the weight factor prohibitive.

Well, that's what companions are for, right? Besides, items don't degrade as fast as in FO3, so you don't really need to carry repair copies on a quest.

The game doesn't fix Fallout 3's jack-of-all-trades problem that well. Without even trying, I have a level 29 characters with three 100-point skills and three others at 85. Just start with high intelligence and pick the relevant perks.

Feels largely like a compromise between FO3 and FO1/2 character building style. It's not that bad - I'm playing with a low INT character and I have only maxed out my tagged skills by level 25. Most of the others are in the 15-50 range, so more often than not I run into checks I cannot pass.

 

[Innawerkz]

So in short. If you:

- Min/Max your character at the start to take advantage of (*cough* exploit *cough*) the bonuses given.
- Take the perks that are all connected to buffing said bonuses.
- Spend hours searching high & wide for all of the books throughout the Mojave (or 'cheat' and use the Vault or game guide)
- Take the perks that buff the bonuses from time spent collecting these books.

You will have a strong character by the end of the game.

Really? What a shock!

 

[Nalano]

A level 30 character who has had Int 10 since the start will have 450 points to play with

+65 from Luck 9
+52 from Educated
+45 from the first tagged skills
+15 from Tag!

So yeah, it's possible, but that'd be one gimped player.

I'm confused, how does Luck 9 equate to +65 skill points?

Luck 9-10 gives +5 for every skill, so multiply that by 13 skills.

 

[wintermute000]

Yeah the repair 90 perk I noticed would be super handy. I've got some nice weapons that are starting to wear and the cap cost to repair is ridiculous - over 5k. (ranger armour, all-american, Q-35 etc.)

I think I'll go for an all rounder combat build though guns 90 energy 70 melee 70 just for fun. I have taken all the crit/sniper type perks so far (through previous FO experience lol) so even with luck 6 I crit all the time, might start focusing on Melee perks. I've @ L16 so still some room to move.

 

[José Cruz]

Re: enough skill points to make all rounder but not mediocre

Estimate all start @ 17ish, add +16 from books, so 33ish points in all 8. We get 3 tags = 45 sp. +442 if int @ 6. So, 487 points to spend with all skills at 33:
100 - 33 = 67
67 * 5 = 335, which allows maxed guns, sneak, lockpick, repair, and speech.
487 - 335 = 152 points left - 15 = 137 to get science at 50.
Can raise melee and energy both to 70 and have 78 points left.

You also have the tag extra skill perk, that's another 15 points.

Anway, if you have 33 skill points in every skills, you would still need 871 skill points to max out all skills.

In F3 you could max out every skill?

 

[Ausdoerrt]

In F3 you could max out every skill?

Yes. I believe that is because it had bobble heads thatgive bonuses and (maybe?) more books. IIRC, it was possible to max all skills by level 13.

 

[Lexx]

In Fallout 3 you could max out all skills in level 13 or 14 already. There was not a bit gamebalance in it. New Vegas makes this much better.

 

[wintermute000]

nevermind I'm going to abandon all hope of a melee build. All th good melee perks require unarmed LOL. And I'll have to put 3 entire levels worth of points into unarmed just to get the perks opened up. In meantime the perk points are going to go to waste (unless you can save them up??). Also I wasted 15 points in melee already. Why oh why are all the good close combat perks unarmed (even when they affect melee as well) dependent not unarmed OR melee?

Or I guess I'll wait for a mod that lets me respec. I did enjoy punching people in VATs in FO3 to watch them explode in slo mo

 

[Lexx]

Btw. unarmed seems to be pretty cool under some circumstances. Looks like Obsidian added various special unarmed attacks to the game, like throwing dirt in the face of an enemy, pushing / kicking an enemy to the ground, etc. I've learned these special attacks over the time, but sadly I am not a melee fighter.. so it's kind of useless to me.