In my first run through my Courier is a sneaky-sniper kind of guy,

its been easy most of the time except that my companion dies too often,

and when my Anti-mat rifle run out of ammo in DLC runs.

So I thought this time I'll try play a tough guy with high charisma so companions can tank a bit

while my guy cleave through with a great sword and heave armor like a medieval warrior.

Anyone play a similar character? how would you set SPECIAL points/tags/perks etc?

Share your ideas please =D

All you really need is high Endurance and good armor. Take DT increasing perks. I suggest Unarmed over Melee.

Off my memory....

S - 8
P - 4
E - 8
C - 6
I - 6
A - 6
L - 8

Inital Level = 2 + (Strength x 2) + (Luck / 2) = X

EDIT: Mine would be 2 + (8 x 2) + (8 / 2) = 22

Persk: Intense Training (6), Cowboy, Super Slam!, Unstoppable Force, Ninja, Finesse and Light Touch
Traits: Built To Destroy and Four Eyes (For the +1 PER)

Tags: Melee, Medicine, Lockpick, Repair.

Apperal: 1st Recon Beret, Joshua Graham's Armor, Lucky Shades
This will give you an added Crit chance of 9% nearly one in ten swings
Plus the perks/trait its 28 + 9 = 37% Even better and with the Super Slam! perk and Oh baby! / Protonic inversal axe / Bladed of the West You'll be unstoppable.
If you can find a Lead pipe at the start keep a hold of that, as I found out it is awesome

Thats what I can remember SPECIAL might not be 100% accurate but if you're wanting to rely on companions then bump CHA to 8 and lower INT and PER, also replace Lockpick skill with Charisma ?

For a melee built Endurance and Strength are primary. Since you want to make use of Charisma's influence on companions that would be your third SPECIAL focus.
I'd set Endurance and Strength to at least 8 (9 if you can spare many points in other SPECIALs).
Charisma depends on what your previous built had for Charisma. Each point adds +5% to damage and Threshold. If you used it as a dump stat before, than taking it to 5 or 7 would probably do wonders for their survivability.
Tweak the other SPECIAL to add points where needed.

Melee is the most important tag, the others would depend on what else you want your character to do (or his background if you have one for him).
Take perks enhancing melee combat and your ability to take damage (health and DT related). I'd suggest taking Intense Training at level 2 in order to upgrade either Strength or Endurance if these aren't at 9 yet.

Strength doesn't affect unarmed damage, only melee, and even then the bonus is pretty negligible.

I admit, I've always had problem with the Melee/Unarmed style of play. Having tried all combat skills so far, these are the only two I've had continual problems with. Creating the character is one thing - points into STR and END, level up accordingly and take the relevant perks when they become available. Takes a little planning, as do all specific character builds.

The main problem I've always had is regarding strategy, specifically for a pure Melee/Unarmed character. Using Melee/Unarmed as a backup for ranged weapons, or in specific situations, that's fine. But having either skill as your main combat type has never worked out. Here's why...

Cover
Simply put, the Mojave has large expanses of wide open areas where cover is simply not available. Now, I realise that cover is only necessary when using ranged weapons (as you can fire, jump to cover, reload, and repeat) but closing the gap against a ranged attack often results in taking huge amounts of damage, even more so when there are multiple enemies all firing at you. Again, I'm only talking about fighting enemies carrying ranged weapons here. Two of the most effective human(oid) Melee/Unarmed fighters in the Mojave (in my opinion) are the Legion and the Ghost People, but even here there are extra factors that allow them to be so dangerous. The Legion, for example, fight in groups. And in those groups some Legionaries will always be carrying a ranged weapon, usually a Sniper Rifle, Brush Gun or Cowboy Repeater, in my experience. So its not a case of Legionaries fighting just with Melee/Unarmed and nothing else. And even it it were the case, at least they are fighting in numbers. The Ghost People, on the other hand, frequently fight alone. But they make up for this with their incredible speed - the first time I encountered one in the Sierra Madre I was amazed at how quickly they closed the gap, completely cancelling out my ranged advantage. The Courier has neither of these advantages.

In contrast, exploring locations such as vaults, buildings and caves really allows Melee/Unarmed to shine, and probably even outperform ranged attacks, since you're always fighting in close quarters. But again, I'm talking about a pure Melee/Unarmed build; wasteland exploring included.

Crowd Control
This is the other problem I've faced, and it applies to both ranged and melee enemies - fighting large groups without the luxury of thinning their numbers at range before allowing them to close in. Even if we are talking geckos, or feral ghouls, being rushed and flanked at speed doesn't allow much room for manoeuvre (and I always hated Husks in ME2). When Cazadors or Deathclaws are concerned, I don't see how even the perfect build could deal with that. This is why I always complement my Guns/Energy Weapon build with some explosives, for specifically these situations.

Prove me wrong people, because I want to run a pure Legion playthrough before Skyrim. But I can't see how a pure build can work in all situations. A combination of guns outside and Melee/Unarmed inside, sure, I can see how that would work. But to me, I have always seen Melee/Unarmed as a backup to Guns/EW.

Crowd control you should have much of a problem with if You take Super Slam! as it knocks enemies down in one hit, and if you take my stats boost them with implants or intense training then everything should be easy.
I recently done LR with my melee guy and it was way easier using the Blade Of The West with the melee and crit perks than it was using my guns guy. I was knoching deathclaws on their asses before they could get one hit in and then killing them with a quick one two
Same goes for the Cover, its easy to avoid damages by running in the S maneover (spelling?) and jumping or even leading them to you as you wait round a corner.

I've actually done a couple Unarmed/Melee playthroughs, so here's my two cents:

Cover: There's always cover if you know where to look. Melee/Unarmed is all about making the enemy come to you-if you're charging at more than two guys with firearms, you're doing it wrong. Lay a minefield, then attract their attention and hide behind a corner. The enemy will run through the minefield and straight into your claws.

Crowd Control: Super Slam + Stonewall is the way to go if you want to melee without Plasma Grenades. But if you're going Unarmed, you might not even need Super Slam if you can find four teachers and butter them up well. Personally, I find Scribe Counter to be the best of those.

Armor: Power Armor is the way to go. The STR bonus is just nice, and the DT will keep you safe from most pistols and revolvers(something which becomes rather important). If you don't have PA, then the most protective armor you have is the right one.

Healing: Consuming Desert Salad, 3 kinds of Steaks, Sunset Sarsparilla and Nuka-Cola with a high Survival can make someone basically immune to intermittant hits almost regardless of weapon, especially when combined with PA, Toughness, Life Giver, NEMEAN Sub-Dermal Armor, and the Monocyte Breeder.

Buffs: Med-X, Psycho, Yao Guai meat, Battle Brew, and all types of Alcohol are your friend. Any one of these can change the tide of a battle. Alcohol, in particular, means that you will not have to raise your STR above 7 during character creation. There should never be a battle where you aren't under the effects of at least one of these.

Companions: ED-E and Veronica are an awesome team for an Unarmed/Melee character, with ED-E unlikely to kill steal except with really weak foes and Veronica saving you whenever you get too far in. Notable here is, again, alcohol and it's + CHA bonus.

Implants: All of these are your friends. Set your END to 9 at creation, and get them as you can.

Medicine: Stimpaks, Super Stimpaks, and Doctor's bags are remarkably less useful for a melee/unarmed character than they are for a guns/energy weapons character. This is because these items provide an instant-effect bonus, which is just fine for a character who doesn't get hit often or a character close to death, but is less useful for a character suffering repeated bullet impacts.

Perks: As others have said, Toughness, Life Giver, Super Slam, Stonewall, Ninja, Slayer, and Paralyzing Palm. But I disagree on Intensive Training. In my personal experience, I find Intensive Training to be useless unless I only need 1 more point to get something awesome and I already have the implant. To me, it's a waste of a perk and you're better off with Long Haul, Pack Rat, Them's Good Eatin', Black Widow, or virtually any other perk in the game.

Weapons: I can't really comment here, since weapons depend more on style than anything else. But I can say that Pushy or Salt-Upon-Wound's Power Fist is probably the endgame for Unarmed weapons, and Old Glory, Blood-Nap, Oh Baby!, and Liberator are probably the endgame Melee weapons.

Poison: If you have throwing weapons, make poison. If you don't, think about it before getting it.

General Advice: Remember throughout the game that you're basically playing as a Gecko in the beginning, then a Golden Gecko, then a Giant Radscorpion, then a Yao Guai, and finally a Deathclaw. Use the advantages of these creatures in an intelligent way to obtain victory.

-Nukeknockout

Some very good points here. My suggestions for a melee character to improve on these weaknesses are:

- unless it really goes against your legion roleplaying,Implant GRX allows you to very quickly close the gap between you and your foes and means you take far less damage in the process. I feel it's quite cheap to use it when you're in close quarters, but for the closedown you can justify it by imagining your character is faster than ordinary NPCs because of his dedication to the melee art. When you look at it, many melee specializing enemies are significantly faster than ordinary NPCs - Legate Lanius, Driver Nephi, Ghost People and Deathclaws as cases in point. If they get this advantage, why don't you? Because the clunky Gamebryo engine doesn't allow you to?

- get Super Slam and use a 2 handed Melee weapon. This is paramount. With a 2 handed weapon such as the Blade of the West, you have a 30% chance to knock down an enemy with every swing, while retaining its inherent Knockdown on Crit effect (as well as its 1.5x crit multiplier). You'll effectively be knocking enemies down every other swing, which goes a massive way to help against crowds. Get the typical crit boosting perks such as Finesse, Better Criticals, Elijah's Ramblings, and either Just Lucky I'm Alive to further increase crit damage or Ain't Like That Now to make you swing 20% faster.

- level up Unarmed alongside Melee. Some incredible perks that will make you a Melee titan can only be accessed by having high Unarmed too. Slayer is excellent as it effectively increases your damage output by 30%, as well meaning you can keep your enemies down almost all the time, and Piercing Strike makes taking on armored foes such as Deathclaws a far more manageable task (especially in combo with Purifier). Slayer + Melee Hacker speed challenge perk + Ain't Like That Now is just ridiculous, since you'll be attacking 3.5x a second with a Blade of the West!

- use Throwing Spears alongside Heave Ho!, Piercing Strike, and Better Criticals (and some poison for very tough enemies!) from stealth and you can thin the ranks before busting out your skull-smasher and finishing the fight off. Throwing Spears are common and ridiculously deadly if you invest in them.

Most of this is from personal experience so hope it's helpful!

I'll start by saying I've never had a full melee character. I use melee quite bit but usually against bugs/animals when I'm trying to save ammo.

I'm not a big fan of heavy armor because of the speed reduction. I prefer to stay light and move in to get a fast hit then out again before the other guy gets hs punch in. This works well against pretty much any animal except for the fire breathers or the ones with the huge attack ranges like Giant Rad Scorpions and Deathclaws. Against mobs of critters I keep backing up and smack anything that gets close. This works for geckos, dogs and nightstalkers. Staying still against a swarm of melee enemies is sure death. Mostly I use one handed weapons like tire irons and knives but I've also had good luck with spiked knuckles.

Fighting humanoids get in close to ranged fighters and keep pounding on them. If they're staggered by your attacks they can't hit back. If you're fighting melee humanoids remember that they can block which will stagger you for a second. Return the favor by blocking their attacks then get off a couple of quick hits before going back on guard. If you're up against a mixed group try and find some cover to split them up. The melee will rush after you right away while the ranged fighters will stay back a few seconds before chasing after you. If you're fast you can kill the melee before the ranged one comes up.

If you have the DLC's the combo of the War Club, Rushing Water and the Weapon Binding Ritual can be deadly especially if you have Super Slam. You can get so many hits in so quickly that you're nearly guaranteed a ctitical knock down before the critter can land more than one or two hits.

In hardcoe mode go with Survival instead of Medicine. Food does weigh but stacking the healing effect of several different foods is considerably more powerful than the heal over time of a Stimpak in Hard Core.

I did consider doing something like this but using Turbo instead. I actually had to look up Implant GRX on the wiki as I'd never even heard of it. I've not done OWB yet you see, I'm too busy crashing and burning in Dead Money at the moment. But a good suggestion - like the Ghost People/feral ghouls/deathclaws/geckos, lightning speed is the the melee attacker's friend.

If only we could do a Vanguard charge, that would solve all my problems.


All good bonuses - Elijah's Ramblings + Super Slam must be the picks of the bunch.


Another good idea, I like it. I was considering going for Unarmed anyway, but the same overall strategy principles apply. Unarmed is more focused on critical hits, while Melee is more about base damage, but its all much the same. Good idea, many thanks.

Old thread, but I'm playing a character exactly like this and I thought I'd share. Lots of fun.

Starting SPECIAL:

S: 9
P: 5
E: 9
C : 6
I: 6
A: 4
L: 1

Traits: Heavy Handed, Loose Cannon (I'd go Logan's Loophole if I had the DLCs)

Tags: Melee, Explosive, Survival

Perks: Basically a mix between the Explosive and Melee buffers. Things that boost DT as well, Rad Child, Chemist, and Quick Draw for whipping out that Rocket Launcher/ Grenade when you need it. Explosive and Melee complement one another extremely well. Melee is a low-resource combat style that excels against single targets, Explosive is pretty much the opposite of that. It's great for criplling limbs to make tough melee enemies much easier to handle. Plus you have the strength to both carry the ammo and use the rocket launcher. Only problem is that it doesn't play well with companions. Which is why you need Quick Draw to get that alpha strike off early to avoid dangering them. And Spray and Pray as well. Early on keep yourself at Minor or Advanced Rad Poisoning to benefit from Rad Child; later on you can push it to Critical or Deadly and use alcohol, implants, and chems to keep your strength up. END penalties don't really matter since your max HP is factored off of your innate END, it'll only hit your unarmed, survival, and resistances. Quick Draw mitigates your AGI penalties and we won't be using VATS much anyways since critting isn't important to us.

Companions: Rex is great at tanking hits since he gets about 30 DT at max level with Lupa's Brain, before Nerve is even factored in. Plus by being melee yourself you negate his primary drawback - that he runs off by himself and is so hard to heal; you'll be right next to him the whole time. He can however, be a bit - awkward - to use with explosives. So be careful, and get off a shot before he closes or aim for other enemies. You might want to use a companion mod to give you a bit more control over him, like the dog whistle mod. Cass for Wiskey Rose, Whiskey pumps both STR and CHA plus gives you DT - great perk for what you want to do.

Early Game: Start by leveling survival so you can grab Rad Child fairly early. Then Melee and Explosives depending on what perks you want to pick up. Then Speech since it's incredibly useful for Vegas. Lockpick isn't a priority since you don't need to scrounge for weapons or ammo, likewise with Science (perhaps level it later for chem crafting). You have the strength to lug around a ton of loot for sale anyways, and companions with you to carry even more. Barter might be handy to afford merchant repairs and Impants earlier than later (Decent Explosive and Melee weapons are rare so it's hard to rely on your own repair skill). Important Early-Mid Game Loot: REPPCONN Test Site for Rebar Clubs, Vault 3 for the Chainsaw, Vault 34 for the Rocket Launcher. None of these require a science or lockpick check. I think it's also a bit silly to blow 60 skill points just to grab the unarmed perks, just grab perks for Melee, Explosive, Survivability instead and put the skill points towards another useful skill like Medicine.

Good hunting out there!

Are you kidding? Slayer is the best thing to happen to Melee-range combat since the Ripper. I make absolutely certain to grab it. It's a rather higher priority than Super Slam, Ninja, or Overwhelming Force. Of course make certain to grab Finesse, two ranks of Toughness, and Life Giver. You're gonna take hits, so you gotta plan to tank them.

Meh. Medicine seems less than useful with a high END. Desert Salad > Super Stimpak on hardcoe mode, assuming skills are equal.

-Nukeknockout

It's the AGI requirement coupled with roughly 60 skill points you got to blow that puts me off more than anything. AGI is pretty useless, I feel, to a melee character, no reloading and VATS isn't particularly helpful. I'd prefer to put both the SPECIAL stats and the 60 skill points somewhere else. Medicine was just an example, you could put those 60 points towards anything. It might be awesome, but it's an incredibly expensive perk for Melee users. I'd prefer to make myself more versatile (like with Explosives and the attached perks or the many other skills that you could level) then the single minded focus into melee.

Though just though of a crazy idea, skip rad child - take Ferocious Loyalty instead. With 9 or 10 END you still have a pretty decent buffer. Send your favorite melee companion in to gather aggro then just hack, slice, and saw while they take hits.

Ok, here's some advice from someone who has played a melee/UA character in both Fallout, Fallout 2, Tactics, and Fallout 3...the number one rule is, is you want to tag either of these skills, also tag sneak! It is a must have! I honestly can not imagine anyone thinking rationally, or logically, about wanting to as other poster said, cover mass amounts of wide open area, and not be sneaking while doing so. In the early Fallout games, where you could take the extra movement perks, it wasn't as much of a necessity to do here, but with the open world setting, and real time combat thrown in, you'll need to have a means to travel, and there are also tons of perks which go great along with these. My Fallout 3 character was 100% pure melee, with points in energy weapons, UA and guns just for fun. But should things ever get hairy, I could always pull out the old trusty Shishkebab and turn anything into giblets. Anything. Even on Very Hard mode, I was slaying Deathclaws by the dozens.

I advise every who has not done it before to experience the rush & thrill of playing a melee character. If you have it, do it in Fallout 1, too! So hilarious to see your Power Armor Wearing, Super Sledge wielding hero swing that beastly thing over his head, and see a Super Mutant get his skull shattered with a huge critical, and his body go flying 12, 14, 16, or 20+ hexes backwards!!!

If we're talking about the first two fallouts, Luck 10, Jinxed and Finesse with Unarmed. Funnest character build I've ever played. Watch your oppenents fumble with thier weapon jams while you run over to them and instant-death critical them with a single strike.

It requires a lot of points and some Agl, but it results in your character being decent with the other half of Melee weapons(Unarmed), and having the ability to use VATS if they want to, as well as the ability to select Agl-related perks. Plus, who can really pass up a 30% DPS increase?

Then I guess we're just different people. On my Melee build, it's more of a "hand-to-hand" build, utilizing both Melee and Unarmed. I tend to level Energy Weapons as a backup so I have access to the YCS/186 when I can't safely get close to my target.


I actually did a UA build for FO1 on my first playthrough. Do to my inexperience, I actually managed to find a Power Fist before I found Spiked Knuckles and beat The Master to death at Lvl 16. That's a good idea for two traits that would've made the character better, though.

I just love watching a huge circle of raiders surround my character wearing Hardened Power Armor and slashing, stabbing, and beating him/her while doing absolutely no damage(or repeatedly missing) and the character is comfortable enough to completely ignore them and snipe their gun-wielding allies.

-Nukeknockout

I like the idea of a sneak + melee/unarmed silent assassin type character. That's what I'm really aiming for when I try to play this way. The problem is that unless your sneak skill is very high, you will be spotted most of the time. Its not a case of just getting close enough to get a shot in, which is the whole point of a sneak critical hit, its that you have to be right up close, and that's very difficult to do without being spotted. Even sneaking close enough to get within shotgun range is bad enough, but to get within melee range is tough without a Stealth Boy, or 90+ sneak. So I feel that melee/unarmed combat therefore favours the tank like brute that can take immense damage.

And another thought, on closing the gap between between you and the enemy (outside sneaking). Skyrim has the sprint feature, which is tremendously useful for this. That's all well and good, since melee combat is the game's bread and butter. The only way to replicate this is in New Vegas is not by making yourself faster, but by making everyone else slower. Which is where Implant GRX or Turbo comes in. Put simply, your character just isn't anywhere near as mobile as the NPC melee specialists, like cazadors, geckos, deathclaws and Ghost people etc. Like when you are facing a bunch of raiders or fiends, who is always the one to meet a quick and brutal death? That's right, its always the hapless fool carrying the pool cue and travelling towards you with all the dynamism of a lethargic slug.

This is why I just feel that New Vegas works best when using ranged combat.

Both Jinxed and Finesse required really high Luck to make work properly. This was harder to do since FO1+2 punished you hard for dumping stats (as they should!) and your melee/UA character would also be jockeying for STR, END and AGI. 10 Luck and Jinxed, though, it was something else, like being shielded by fate itself. Whether or not Jinxed was still in, that's the first thing I wanted to know when FO3 was announced (really hope they bring it back someday).


Since the game throws a ton of stealthboys at you, I get the feeling that they want you to use them for your archetypical machete in the back kills while relying on thrown weapons for situations you don't want to blow a steathboy on.

That particular character had 7 Str, 1 Per, 6 or 7 End, 1 Cha, 1 Int, 10 L.

And yeah, it was. I played a FO2 character with 10 L, Finesse, and Jinxed.

-Nukeknockout

I don't know where this notion that VATs isn't useful for melee/unarmed is coming from. It is SUPER useful, given that you get a 100% bonus to base damage just for using VATS and it's basically like bullet time on demand + the short ranged "teleport" you get is golden. Especially for unarmed which is amazing in VATS thanks to the low AP costs of cross/uppercut/stomp and paralyzing palm.

Against tough melee opponents (cazadors, deathclaws) VATS can let you win without a scratch. Every time they whiff an attack you can punish them with VATS. If you don't kill them outright you'll probably cripple a few limbs and you can dance back out again to try again. I would always make agility a priority for close combat characters. It's strength I wouldn't bother with. 10 strength buys you, what, 5 extra damage per attack for melee? Who cares when top end melee weapons are averaging 60-100 damage per hit?

VATS in Melee has been useful a couple of times for glitching me out of solid rock.

-Nukeknockout

Another question....

When do you get to take Logan's Loophole? Is it at the very beginning of the game, in Goodsprings, or when you start the OWB DLC?

I guess what I'm asking is...can you take it at Goodsprings, then go to OWB sometime before level 30, then swap it out for another trait? I'm guessing its not possible, but I'm curious.

It's very possible. OWB traits are added to the beginning of game trait list.

-Nukeknockout

So you can really take Logan's Loophole at Goodsprings, and swap it out later when you do OWB for something else, thus getting the best of both worlds? Wow, didn't think that would be possible, but if so, then great. You see, I'm thinking of making a chem heavy melee/unarmed character. So using chems with LL until OWB, then swapping it out for Implant GRX. That's a win/win, I say.