I have been doing this for years and I don't know if anyone else has done something similiar in Fallout 2.

I custom create a character of average skills, nothing fancy. I make steal one of my tags, and also try to have a high intelligence to start. As soon as I level up I apply all my skill points to the steal skill and then proceed to walk all the way south to NCR. At around New Reno the enemies are capable of killing you at only level 2 in only one or two hits, so I save the game often and run away from every battle. Once you are in the lower third of the map the enemies are extremely tough and you may die a lot and have to reload a few times. Eventually you will arrive in NCR. Steal everything from the first store in NCR (Closest to the exit grid) and steal all the guards rifles around the area. If you steal more than you can carry just drop stuff and come back later.

Once you are filled with loot, walk west to San Fran and sell it all to the two main stores for power armor and a gauss rifle. By level 3 you can have the best weapon in the game and power armor! Now walk back up north with tons of cash and loot to complete the rest of the game and still have plenty of time to actually complete the main quest within the time limits. Make sure you get plenty of ammo for the gauss rifle since it is not available anywhere except in the Navarro area and San Fran.

I like to keep one of the bozaar rifles I stole from the guards at NCR, It svcks that it is only burst, and it is very innacurate at distance, but it can be one of the most powerful weapons at close range!

Thats kind of fun ruining. What I noticed about Fallout 2, is there is a [censored] load of stuff just sitting around waiting for you to get your hands on it; while merchants barely ever have any money to buy stuff.

Like seriously, walk into New Reno, Kill Eldridge and just take his stuff. the game is really easy when it comes down to it... Doing all that steal stuff is pointless.