So we start off with 28 points to distribute, but do we know if a special can go below 1? Or is the lowest you can put them at 1?

Lowest is 1 (which make sense, 0 would mean you dont have it at all, so say 0 int would mean ya character would insta die because he/she is braindead)

For the first time ever I'm genuinely interested in charisma - i paused over the "perks explained vid" where they showed some charisma and intelligence perks and from what i've seen by merely holding a gun and taunting animals, mutants and humans (seperate perks) you can force them to surrender, ask them to do specific tasks and even command them to kill like a companion (at seperate levels, 3 stars for each skill)..
Really excites me, especially how commanding them to do TASKS could work out, with humans having keys, knowlage, passsords for the place you're at.

You could literally never have to kill a person yourself, bar quests requiring you to, if combined with sneak which in the previous 2 fallouts wasnt really possiable..

Alright, nice to know. Means I can max out Charisma and Agility and still have enough to get to armorsmith and gun nut; plus some extra to put elsewhere.

Rightrightrighy. Dont worry.
Theres infinate levelling, they announced. You get one perk point each level. They showed in the perks explained vid that on the perks - there was a set amount of times it could be levelled based on a star rating - the SPECIAL skills had 10 stars.

So, this pretty much confirms that - while you may have a [censored] brute for a while - eventually you can have 10/10 special and maxed perks

Oh man I've got to become a cannibal

You've just described what my first playthrough attempt is going to be. Super charismatic, as non-violent as possible - use sneak and manipulation to get things done. Though I think my first Perk will be Lockpicking, just for access purposes.

Depends on playstyle.

I plan on playing unarmed melee first, so I will get perks into Iron Fist.

I don't understand why people say this. How do you know how much xp will be required at higher levels to level up?

^ Gk's is the man with certain set of skills

alot of pictures are rehash/reimaginings of older perks so basically alot educated guesses nothing more might have more than few might be changed come release .

The one that is most appropriate for your character.

This is actually fairly tough for me. I thought it would have been easy but after reading through a bunch of the perks I'm struggling to decide. So it's inspired me to start a "essential / nice to have / not interested" list to help prioritise things for my first character.

Edit:

Wow. To get the stats to make the ideal build for my first character I'll need -

S P E C I A L

7 6 6 6 8 8 7

I'll also need to invest in to 11 Essential perks and 20 Nice to Have perks.

well obviously, but at that early stage in the game your character is not really specialized or anything so its not like there is only 1 correct perk at that stage. Plus you get a repsec when you leave the vault so you can take the perk that is most beneficial for that moment regardless of your build since you can change it later

The decision is easy for me, since my favorite perk is Solar Powered. I imagine having health regen early on in the game will be a nice boon, and if there are extra ranks that add even more buffs... oh snap, I can become Dayman!

I'll be going ham on Endurance perks in general, since my favorite characters are tanks. Tanky utilitarians to be specific. So my initial perks starting out will probably be Solar Powered, Toughness, Life Giver, Adamantium Skeleton, Medic, the armor crafting perk at S3... and then I'll start picking up perks like Science! and Rifleman.

So, having level requirements on the extra ranks actually turns out to be pretty helpful for me. It means I'll have some levels in between the most essential perks like Toughness or Rifleman to pick up other perks, or bump up some of my sadder SPECIAL stats. It'll take twelve levels to reach the SPECIAL sum of the prior Fallout games, which seems like a realistic goal I could set for myself.

Just for early ideas, I'm thinking I'll try out sneak and see if the mechanics have improved. If it's actually possible to play a sneaky character I'll be avoiding close combat so I can invest in crafting/lockpicking and some ranged combat. I like to pack a punch, but be somewhat fragile up close.

My first perk's gonna be that one at the top of the Int tree. Though it's not really a tree is it? More like a pole. My first perk's gonna be that one at the top of int pole.

I might take Sniper perk first, then other perks related to combat slowly building to close quarters combat. I take notes as I play, so anything I can't access like a lock or computer I will just note its location and come back to later.

Well, as i am going for high Char,Int build to start with i'm looking at anything with extra options for myself, so Hacking/Lady Killer/and maybe even some lockpicking. and any other speech based things. but for frist one i might have to go for animal friend/W.Whisper/Intimadation to get me out of a few tought scraqes

Probably something from the endurance or agility tree

Well, I tend to start my games with a character concept. I usually have a pretty clear idea of who my character is and what I plan to do with that character. I play many characters in Bethesda's games and they're all different. So, for me at least, it is next to impossible to say which perk is best to take first.

In Fallout 3, for instance, I gave different characters different levels of Intelligence. The number of points would reflect how intelligent I thought that character was. If you were to ask me, "What's the best number of points to put into Intelligence in Fallout 3 in character creation?" I would respond with the same answer I gave here.

In a roleplaying game let myself be guided by my characters. What is a "best" first perk for one character might not necessarily be a "best" first perk for another character. To me, that's simply how roleplaying works.