Because some of us roleplay. When we roleplay, an action may be appropriate for one character to perform but not appropriate for another character to perform. A piece of gear may be appropriate for one character to wear but inappropriate for another character to wear. A dialogue option may be right thing for one character to say but wrong for another character to say. Roleplaying is all about choice.

Just updated a few of the names in the OP following another one of my 'hunches':

Pistol Whip is now Pistol Boy / Pistol Girl

Assault Rifle is now Rifleman / Riflewoman

Power Lift is now Power Lifter

Night Vision is now Night Light

Breaking Bad has been changed back to Nerd Rage! but with the same effect as described in the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1529938-skill-perk-line-up-speculation/?p=24240812, including the use of Blue Mentats.

EDIT: I also think that if we choose a female protagonist, the chart will feature Vault Girl.

I like the sound of the new names, if your hunches turn out to be correct. I like the attention to details, such as this.

So Pistol Boy/Girl and Rifleman/Riflewoman are basically like Shield Bash in Skyrim?

I guess I could see that would come in handy when things don't go exactly as planned and you get into melee combat, but really using all those perk points to upgrade it? Damn if I'm going to do that I wouldn't bother trying to shoot anyone. Just my STR and my perks would make bashing better than bullets ... which would be a pointless build since you could just build a decent melee fighter with half the perks.

Just seems like a perk sink for when you've maxed out everything else and just need a place to waste a perk point ... many of them actually.

Thank you. And I'm sure there will be lots more little tweaks to the OP as time goes on!

The main reason for including these perks would be to allow those who like to stick with one weapon to access melee as well as ranged combat. It would effectively turn your pistol or rifle into two weapons, and would mean you wouldn't have to change to something else when in close quarters combat.

Even though there is a basic pistol/rifle melee attack in the game, these perks would turn our preferred choice into a more potent melee weapon as well as a ranged one. Apart from the obvious benefits, like saving on ammo, this would be a lot quieter than blasting someone in the face. I would also imagine that when maxed out, we would be able to knock our opponent out cold. And so I will amend this in the OP.

Don't have anything against pistol whipping someone, just wondering if that is better than carrying a lead pipe on my hip. How much time is actually wasted in switching weapons from pistol to pipe ... can I do it when I see someone charging and not being stopped by my bullets? But again with the high STR requirement and putting a few perk points into a melee skill would just be a much more efficient IMO. But I suppose it's too early to really discuss in detail the viability of perks and character builds.

I suppose it's just another way of opening up the game with a greater number of play styles. Even without the perks, the pistol whip/rifle clobbering function is definitely in the game, although it would be far less powerful, and would be more a means of buying a little time when things get a bit to close for comfort.

But these two perks would be a very interesting option for the 'one man/woman and their rifle' build, especially because a high strength would mean we're able to carry a lot more. And we wouldn't have to put any points into Brawler, Big Leaguer, or any of the others.

But the main factor that makes this a lot more viable, and would sway many people to at least try out this build, is the inclusion of bayonets!

EDIT: from what we see during the crafting section of the demo, bayonets would cause bleeding damage, which would essentially be extra damage over time.

Not meaning to reply for LeBurns, but that puts a whole new light on it for me. Kind of like in Halo when you run out of ammo, you can clobber them with your empty gun? And if I am getting this right, the stronger you are the more effective that would be. If you craft a gun with a bayonet or the like, it would be really powerful.

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I think I read somewhere, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we going to be able to throw a grenade with the left hand while wielding a weapon in the right hand? If so that would be pretty cool.

But if you are really strong, shouldn't you be training to use a bat instead of a gun? If I'm a gun-slinger I'm going to up the SPECIAL that increases gun accuracy and bullet damage ... not STR. If I have a 7 or 8 STR and I'm shooting at someone ... I just kind of feel like I'm doing something wrong. Granted there are those rare (IMO) builds that may make use of these STR perks, but I still see them a throw away perks, cause if I have high STR and I'm putting perk points into pistol-whipping, I'm doing something wrong.

Granted, bashing something to death in Skyrim was a lot of fun even though a sword would have been more efficient.

I told you I would start getting more hunches!

I've just renamed three more perks in the Strength line-up, and they all now sound much better. I have a feeling that these are now the names of the actual in-game perks in this category.

Rocket Launcher is now Rocketeer

Crushing Blow is now Crusher

Wrecking Ball is now Wrecker

Also, I have tidied up all of the 'side effects' such as staggering or knocking down your target. And I have made some major changes to the Barbarian perk that makes it much more effective.

Just to clarify something, looking at the complete Strength line-up, we have 2 perks that effect how much we can carry, but all of the others are combat related. Not only that, but if we take out Brawler and Big Leaguer (seeing as they are both skills), the remaining 6 perks cover every combat or weapon type in the game with the exception of heavy weapons (previously known as Big Guns, and modifiable with either Gun Nut or Science!)

Rocketeer works in conjunction with Demolition (explosives)

Crusher works in conjunction with Brawler (fists and weapons worn on hands)

Wrecker works in conjunction with Big Leaguer (hand-held weapons)

Pistol Boy/Girl works in conjunction with Rookie (pistols)

Rifleman/Riflewoman works in conjunction with Commando (rifles)

Barbarian works in conjunction with either Brawler or Big Leaguer (see above)

What's really interesting is how they each interact. The two main melee skills now come with 5 lethal power attacks and a defensive manoeuvre. Guns can now be used to stagger, knockdown, or even knock out targets when used in melee. And explosives can be thrown much further, and will also add impact damage to the target.

Because of this new information, I have made a note in the OP that damage dished out from heavy weapons would be increased directly by the stat itself, and so with a Strength score of 10, damage from this weapon type would have doubled. This balances out the entire line-up of available weapons and combat styles. It also gives us a very good understanding of how damage is increased for all weapon types. Note that with pistols and rifles, this is tied in directly with the Rookie and Commando skills.

Hunch number three, and final amendment to the Strength line-up!

Power Lift is now Strong Arms, which sounds much more in line with Strong Back.

This now gives us:

I gotta say, I don't think the ranks are going to be increments similar to what you have. Didn't Beth already mention they wanted to do something...more, or better, than what they did in Skyrim, i.e., 5%/10%/15% increase perks. Perks like that didn't get any love so I doubt they would be returning in a similar fashion.

With the integration of skills and perks, this is the most likely way that we would be see proper increases to things like weapon damage and sneaking ability.

EDIT1: this would also make each progressive rank a lot more powerful, which would in turn increase it's value to the player.

EDIT2: the description for Strength mentions 'raw physical power', and so incremental ranks such as those I have suggested would actually make sense. With other categories, I have suggested additional benefits in many of the ranks. This will become apparent once I start posting up each new category, staring with Perception within the next 2-3 days

Just to let you all know, the next update should she be ready in the next day or so, and this will include full details for all of the Perception perks.

In the meantime, I have a question. What do you think of the Strength line-up as it now stands, particularly the names? Do you think perhaps I should change Crusher and Wrecker back to Crushing Blow and Wrecking Ball? Or do you think they seem okay as they are. Any feedback would be appreciated

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EDIT: just to explain some of the new features a bit better, here is a comment I posted a short while ago on reddit:

Do you think it is five ranks per perk or just four?

If my calculations are right, then the distribution of ranks should be as follows:

16 perks should have 5 ranks. This includes 10 of the ones that I call Primary Skills.

34 should have 4 ranks, including the remaining 3 Primary Skills.

Another 16 should have 3 ranks, including many of the perks from the Charisma tree.

And finally, 11 should have only 1 rank. These include the 7 training perks at the top of the chart.

EDIT: just to clarify, this gives us 77 perks including the training ones, and a total of 275 ranks.

Having seen the leaked video, I think the average will be 3, because I think when they are counting total perks, they're counting the stars under them. Therefore, I feel that 70 of the 'Perks' are in SPECIAL. I mostly think this because the Charisma Perks look to be around 2-3 levels each and I could see them quoting the total amount of stars on the Perk Chart. That's partially why you hear people like Pete Hines trip up and say there are 70 perks and correct himself by saying 270 perks, I think he was thinking about the different true perks in his first response and the rough number of stars (upgrades) on the Perk Chart including SPECIAL upgrades.

As an additional note, looking at how gkk7z has Barbarian written, isn't that just Slayer with extras? Slayer increased melee attack speed as well. It was named because a Black Isle developer liked Buffy and it's look was to pay homage to Conan the Barbarian. I guess my question is, why would they change the name of a Perk with so much history, especially since it's been in pretty much every game except FO3 and as a loin-clothed barbarian? http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Slayer

EDIT: @gkk7z Cap Collector has at least 2 ranks.

For some reason I had that written in my OP as Cap Counter. I've just amended it to Cap Collector

Referring to the 'source', if we look at the relative position of the stars for each entry in the Charisma line-up, we can determine exactly how many ranks each one has. This is made easy by comparing the position of the stars with those of any of the stats, which we know have 10 each. From this, we can see that the Charisma line-up includes the following number of ranks:

And so I will amend the name of this perk to Slayer, which also fits nicely with the rest of the names in the line-up, including the ones that I had questioned in my above post! (Crusher and Wrecker). And as always, I shall mention your suggestion in the contributions paragraph at the top of the OP

Just updated the OP with a bit more info: updated lock breaking so that it's no longer gated, added dual-wielding options for everything except rifles and heavy weapons, and changed Power Lifter to Power Surge with a brand new function!

Note that a bit later on, I will also be adding some interesting information I discovered about the origins of the perk chart

Since you asked, I prefer your original names of Crushing Blow and Wrecking Ball. I also like that you are choosing to go with the traditional Nerd Rage! Either Slayer or Barbarian sound alright to me.

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As for Party Boy/Girl ~ are you positive this perk belongs under Charisma? It seems like it belongs under one of the other categories like Intelligence (Science, figure out how to avoid the effects of alcohol and chems) or possibly Endurance (stamina and physical toughness)?

Party Boy/girl is a Charisma Perk as seen on the leaked gamescom footage, which we can not link or show here.

I guess I will have to take your word for that. I understand about the link.Thanks.

Ok, the good news is that after careful consideration, I've scrapped the idea of Crusher and Wrecker, and changed them back to Crushing Blow and Wrecking Ball as per your suggestions. I have to admit, after seeing them changed back, they look far more likely to be the proper names.

As for Nerd Rage!, I'm still going with the Breaking Bad idea to explain how we activate the rage state, but I think that the name of the perk will stay as Nerd Rage!, which actually fits perfectly with the whole concept of Blue Mentats as explained http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1529938-skill-perk-line-up-speculation/?p=24240812. The reason I'm doing this is because of something I found out to do with the origins of the chart. Let's just say that the last perk on each list as well as a few more hidden on the chart, are 'special', in that each one actually has two functions. One of the other 'special' perks is actually Party Boy/Girl, which has a very important second function that many people will find invaluable, and which also explains why this perk is listed under Charisma.

EDIT: these special perks, of which there are a total if 16, have to do with our male protagonist and his very specific connection to the military.

No idea what makes you think C6 has anything to do with Party Boy/Girl. The artwork doesn't match up at all. It does kind of look like the vault boy's holding a bottle and giving a thumbs up, though, so it might have to do with alcohol. If that's a bottle, anyway.

This looks to be a new design for the old perk, which would make sense in the new line-up.

Todd mentioned that building settlements is entirely optional. I think he meant this in terms of the required perks, and not just the actual crafting itself. Five of the perks listed under Charisma, including Party Boy/Girl, appear to have a dual function. And one of these functions in each has to do with settlements.

EDIT: after re-evaluating some of my evidence, it would seem that there are actually a total of 18 dual function perks. 8 of these are listed under Charisma, 6 of them are the other top-tier perks, and another 4 are spread out across the middle of the chart.