Complete character builds

Post » Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:08 am

So I wanted to make a thread concerning complete character builds - providing a concept, motivations, faction allegiance, gameplay tips, SPECIAL, as much perk detail as possible and why you've picked said perks, outfits, and if you feel like it desired endings too (putting much of this detail in spoiler tags so to prevent making posts enormous looking). I thought this would be interesting for new players and old players alike to provide inspiration and to see what strange stuff people come up with. To get the ball rolling, I present to you...

The Predatory Psychopath (Melee and Stealth build)

Motivations:

Spoiler

You're atavistic, a throwback, a primal killer who delights in stalking, butchering and consuming his prey. You have little to no empathy or intelligence; you revel in sadism and your desire to kill is instinctual. You tend to only help those who cause greater harm to others, or because a person's request both amuses you and involves lots of violence. You're simple brain ardently believes that by eating others you are afforded a measure of their power, and so you don't hesitate to eat anyone who seems especially prominent, skilled or formidable.

You love to take drugs; living from moment to moment you enjoy anything that provides more intense sensation. You disdain authority, but not really out of any political feelings, more because authority brings order to the chaos and strife you enjoy. Despite your unsettling and almost alien demeanor people still seem drawn to you, as if curious to stare into the abyss, and you abuse this curiosity to both manipulate and terrifying others. Above all else you are a survivor, and overtime your unnatural longevity and fearsome legend gets you the reputation of being the Bogeyman of the Mojave.

Background:

Spoiler
You don't really have much of a background, you're given to drifting due to your predatory and restless lifestyle and taking whatever jobs come your way when you have to. You've never really tried to lay down roots anywhere, and with your dreadfully flawed intellect you find your memory is spotty at best.

Faction Allegiance: Independent.

Outfit: Wastehound Helment, Dead Horses Stalker Armour (this provides a predatory, hunter-like appearance whilst offsetting the sneak penalty from deadly radiation poisoning for Rad Child).

SPECIAL, Endurance Implants and Lonesome Road boost:

Spoiler
S 9

P 7

E 7

C 1

I 1

A 7

L 8

Endurance implants: All except charisma and intelligence.

Lonesome Road boost: Luck, but anything really - I just like even numbers.

Reasoning: A strength of 10 allows for max melee damage, and when combined with Reinforced Spine completely offsets the loss of strength from deadly radiation poisoning. All the rest of the SPECIAL points hit the important marks (AG 8 for Tunnel Runner, EN 8 for Implant GRX, LK and PE of at least 6 for Better Criticals) and were more of less arbitrarily assigned.

Perks, Trait and Tagged Skills Allocation:

Spoiler

Traits: Hot Blooded and Skilled. Hot Blooded has reasonable synergy with Rad Child and a stealth build - when you are discovered and they start to rack up hits you can start dealing more damage in a pinch; it's also a reasonable trait to take to illustrate how easily angered the character can be. Skilled offsets the low intelligence, and whilst Built to Destroy might be slightly more beneficial in the long run taking skilled instead underscores that you should be relying on sneak attack criticals rather than criticals through high critical chance above all else.

Tag: Speech, Survival and Sneak.

Perks (the requirements for each perks and the first 10 chosen, up to level 20, are given in parentheses):

1 - Heave, Ho! (ST 5, Exp 30, lvl 2)

2 - Hunter (Surv 30, lvl 2 - taken at level 2)

3 - Cannibal (level 4 - taken at level 4)

4 - Rad Child (Surv 70, lvl 4 - taken at 20)

5 - Travel Light (Surv 45, lvl 4)

6 - Bloody Mess (lvl 6 - taken at lvl 6)

7 - Cowboy (Guns 45, Melee 45, lvl 8)

8 - Grunt (Guns 45, Exp 20, lvl 8)

9 - Terrifying Presence (Speech 70, lvl 8 - taken at level 8)

10 - Tribal Wisdom (Surv 80, lvl 8 - taken at level 10)

11 - Super Slam (ST 6, Melee 45, lvl 8)

12 - Ghastly Scavenger (Cannibal, level 12 - taken at level 12)

13 - Piercing Strike (Unarm 70, lvl 12 - taken at level 14)

14 - Pyromaniac (Exp 60, lvl 12)

15 - Silent Running (AG 6, Sneak 50, lvl 12 - taken at 18)

16 - Unstoppable Force (ST 7, Melee 90, lvl 12)

17 - Chemist (Med 60, lvl 14)

18 - Purifier (lvl 14)

19 - Better Criticals (PE 6, LK 6, lvl 16 - taken at level 16)

20 - Ninja (Sneak 80, Melee 80, lvl 20)

21 - Slayer (AG 7, Unarm 90, lvl 24)

22 - Tunnel Runner (AG 8, lvl 26)

23 - Implant GRX (EN 8, lvl 30)

24 - Implant GRX (EN 8, lvl 30)

25 - Just Lucky I'm Alive (Neutral Karma, lvl 50)

Reasoning: Most of the perks here are to optimise damage given any melee weapon through a sneak attack critical, whilst also playing to the fact the character is a drifter (Cowboy and Grunt shows he's lead a varied life). Some perks are taken purely for role-play purposes (Hunter, Terrifying Presence, Bloody Mess and all the cannibal/other creature eating perks), and the order of the perks is chosen to exemplify the build (prioritising the eating perks and Terrifying Presence first at the expense of more practical perks). The character is also supposed to be self-sufficient, hence Implant GRX and Rad Child - they are more or less on top form with or without chems. For Just Lucky I'm Alive, go and kill some Fiends/ghouls prior to level 50 - though Ain't Like That Now is also a nice choice with Super Slam.

Highly desired story perks: Elijah's Ramblings, Reinforced Spine, Lonesome Road, Implant M-5, Meat of Champions.

Gameplay Tips:

Spoiler
Try for pure stealth, using stealth boys (a limitless supply can be obtained from OWB), throwing spears, chems, poisons and sneak attacks to dispatch enemies. Try to avoid using unarmed weapons if you can; your character glories in using powerful and cruel weaponry - not punching people to death (an exception can be made for the Industrial Hand as it's great and is used like any other automatic melee weapon anyway). Don't forget to use Implant GRX or Turbo to sneak around extremely quickly in conjunction with Tunnel Runner, Implant M-5 and Travel Light.

Use Terrifying Presence whenever possible so long as it doesn't interfere with a quest (the only really instance this applies to is scaring guards around Nelson so you can't do We Are Legion and go on to lead the Khans), especially on the likes of Caesar (by not focussing on unarmed, you don't have to feel bad about the loss of Legion Assault) - try to level up quickly early on so you get the most out of it (you can use it as early as I Fought the Law). Eat powerful enemies fresh, and take remains off others once you have Dine and Dash. Don't be afraid to kill and eat companions too. As I've already mentioned, I'd suggest becoming the leader of the Great Khans given the character's love of chems. Also, enjoy the low intelligence dialogue - from what I've seen it's pretty prevalent.

Suggested Endings:

Spoiler
Try and make the world a worse place at every turn. Great examples of this are: taking the Independent ending without upgrading the securitrons (chaos on the streets), killing Julie Farkas, releasing Raul without finishing Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, leaving the Fiend leaders alive, blow up the rockets in Come Fly With Me and letting the Powder Gangers ravage the Mojave, etc.

You can also be horrible on a more intimate level: Making Boone vengeful (which makes him sociopathic assassin with the Indy ending), convincing Lily to stop taking her medication so she becomes a monster, etc.

Having said this, you shouldn't feel the need to do things like wipe out Primm if you don't want to - even a low functioning psychopath can see the advantages of having more traders in the area alive.

So there you have it! I will say this build isn't for the faint of heart and you have to be in the mood to be one sick puppy. Anyone else got an interesting and detailed build they'd like to share?

User avatar
Hannah Barnard
 
Posts: 3421
Joined: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:42 am

Post » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:29 am

Wow. Jojobobo, that is an impressive detailed character build. :tops:

I usually play a character, but have never done anything that detailed.

Often take perks that increase a character's survivability, whatever their backstory.

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Jade Muggeridge
 
Posts: 3439
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:51 pm


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