This thread is about exploring extreme builds.

That is to say a build where all the SPECIAL points at start are going into just three of the SPECIAL stats. None of this, 4,4,4,4,4,4,4 !

I pay tribute to the wonderful thread by 'Liam Ford' (http://www.gamesas.com/user/711370-gkk7z/), http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1529938-skill-perk-line-up-speculation/, where some of these ideas originate, but I don't want to disrupt that thread with this somewhat different matter.

I'd like to see which extreme builds look to be viable and describe how they would play out. The principle is to spread all 21 available SPECIAL points among 3 attributes (7 points each) to make a 8,8,8,1,1,1,1 build. It will be left for skill books/bobbleheads to bring SPECIAL to 10, which is why the increases are up to 8, not 10. These are not 'jacks of all trades', advantages are certainly balanced with issues.

As these builds are focused in three trees it's quite likely important to pick up vital SPECIAL points and perks in other trees early in the game, all these builds propose is a very pure and focused starting point.

Here are some I've picked on to start with, updating the OP with other thread suggestions. In each case I've given it a build name, a play approach and levelling suggestions (we can add perk preferences once better known).

I've initially categorised by three types of synergising builds: Close combat builds, favouring Strength and Endurance [SE], Sniper builds favouring Perception and Agility [PA] and 'Smarts' builds favouring Charisma and Intelligence [CI].

Close Combat builds
(based on Strength and Endurance)

• Bruiser
  SPE - Strength, Perception, Endurance (all at 8)
  Close order weapons and melee, tough, strong and environmentally aware. Can play this as melee only. Either way, this player will not be talking their way out of anything, it's clobbering time! Levelling will happen more slowly, but the body count should compensate for that.
  
• Blaster
  SEA - Strength, Endurance, Agility (all at 8)
  Close order weapons and melee, tough, strong and with sneak and high action points (if inaccurate). Can play this as melee only. Again, no talking their way out of anything, it's close combat. Levelling happen more slowly, relying on multiple kills for XP.

Sniper builds
(based on Perception and Agility)

• Smart sniper
  PIA - Perception, Intelligence, Agility (all at 8) Setokaiba
  Clever with strong VATS accuracy and action points. Endurance favours close order weapons such as shotgun.
  
• Lucky Sniper
  PAL - Perception, Agility, Luck (all at 8)
  This is a ranged weapon specialist favouring VATS and taking out foes before they reach you, with high luck to enhance the collection of gear and critical attacks where required. High Stealth keeps them out of trouble and out of close combat. Levelling could either favour intelligence/charisma to further avoid close fights or Strength/Endurance to survive them.

Charming Scientist builds
(based on Charisma and Intelligence)

• Sneaky Smarty
  CIA - Charisma, Intelligence, Agility (all at 8) nibblesps4 & TheCheshireKhajiit
  ?Sneaky and smart, with high sneak and more VATS points in case of trouble. Strong hacking and persuasion out of combat. Levelling may need to address Perception early as high VATS will initially lack accuracy and so will not favour sniping. This is an evade, hack past, talk past or shoot and duck build.
  
• Cunning linguist
  CIL - Charisma, Intelligence, Luck (all at 8).
  A build to simulate a smart, articulate (and very lucky dweller who just survived a nuclear war) but who is weak after 200 years of 'suspension'. They will try to talk their way out of situations, rely on companions and hack past threats. Their high luck will enhance loot collection as they level quickly (addressing their extreme weakness) and better criticals when they really need them.
  
• Pack Rat boffin
  SCI - Bit of a strange build, high Strength suggests close combat, but with no Endurance, Perceptive or Edurance, this is a 10 stone weakling. Could run this is a Pack Rat.

Mixed builds
(other builds, not necessarily synergised, but interesting)

• Shotgun smarty
  PEI - Perception, Endurance, Intelligence (all at 8) Setokaiba
  A real mixture. Clever and and an accurate shot. Endurance favours close order weapons such as shotguns & flamers, but lower action points and weak in melee combat.
  
• Pacifist
  ECA - Endurance, Charisma, Agility (all at 8)
  The ultimate combat avoidance build. High endurance because people will try to kill you. High sneak and high charisma for talking round and sneaking round problems. High VATS points will allow you to shoot them in the leg (not fatally) whilst escaping. Could level with some Perceptive and Luck to further facilitate your escape ability.

What other extreme SPECIAL builds or different definitive play styles do you think would be interesting?

I suggest you look for the Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming, it may have some idea's for you.

@SofaJockey, just wanted to say that this is a brilliant idea for a thread. And those are some awesome suggestions!

You've actually inspired me to get my full perk list finished a bit quicker so that we can really start getting into specifics with the builds, but so far these are excellent. I'll let you know as soon as everything's posted up

I'm putting all mine into int and charisma. Sneaky smart guy

There is no level cap, can't you just max everything?

With a total of 311 available levels, it would take an unimaginable amount of time to max everything out. Even taking bobbleheads and skill books into account, this would still leave us with 271.

Sounds like an excellent:

'mysterious stranger' style build:

Intelligence, Charisma and Agility.

Your high sneak makes you a ghost with high VATS - the rest of the time you can hack and talk your way past trouble.

I think there may also be good:

Scavenger

Settler and

Pacifist

builds...

And of course there are 35 extreme build combinations - whether they are all of any interest is another matter.

im going for only 2 stats to start off with 10 int and 10 charisma with my extra point going into perception and i will take codsworth as my companion and be a scientist character who is very persuasive. and will use codsworth as my disposable robotic assistant ;D


this will give me access to the fastest leveling from intelligence as well as being able to talk down most people and have all the nice perks from intelligence and charisma(for settlement building).

Sounds great - what I love about these kind of builds is that there is nothing 'vanilla' about them - you are starting from the off with a very definite protagonist...

You are going to want to put some points in agility too, if you want your smart guy sneaky!

This, yes some people has maxed out all skills in Skyrim. It has nothing to do with normal play.

Even if its no skill caps getting all perks probably require you to grind for weeks killing rapid re-spawning mobs or doing radiant quests.

Yes some people will find easy ways to get xp: some quest who give plenty of xp for hardly any work perhaps because off a bug,

Intelligence

Perception

Agility or Endurance(haven't decided).

If I go agility I'll probably use sniper rifle and a pistol. If I go endurance I'll use a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle.

While reading this thread, I had a really interesting idea. What if we could even go negative on stats allowing us to increase other stats further? This could lead to some interesting negative perks like:

-1 Perception = not a very good aim, often stumbles over things

-7 Perception = often hallucinates - may be shooting at things that aren't really there or perhaps you just shot a bunch of people.

This could lead to some whacky builds

I just realized that with the voiced protagonist and the way this new system is setup, I got a bad feeling the "Dumb" play through is now over. Unless they recorded a bunch of stupid sounding dialogue options for Int 1 or 2. That is kinda sad, actually, as it can be very funny, not to mention Styles won't be able to record any vids for FO4 featuring the dumb dialogue options.

Until I see an actual perk list and what they do, it is hard to say what my build will be, but if I was a guns/ew type, which I usually am, it would be PE, AG, Luck.

Perception, intelligence and agility are my big choices. I'd probably put 9 in perception, 6 in Intelligence and 9 into agility. I'm a nosy gamer and like to be able to get into every locked door/chest/safe.

The hardest character build to play would probably be the blind clumsy scientist.

10 intelligence, 10 luck, 4 charisma.

I really hope they've brought back traits.. nothing fleshes out a character more than being able to give them some serious faults. My favorite nv build: I took Claustrophobia and Early bird.. then eventually took the perks solar powered and night person. My stats were all over the place. It was really fun because you couldn't really plan on being fully prepared in a surprise situation and had to really take into consideration the time of day before embarking on anything major.

I would use my "agent" build from 3 and nv Charisma Intelligence and Agility.
get why I call it the agent build?
probably 8 or 7 in all three with another point or two in perception and strength

I use a similar build in F3/NV

I figure it is a long shot, but I would like to see some humorous in game consequences for taking a 1 in a stat.

If you have a one in Intelligence than your conversation might sound less witty.

If you have a one in Endurance, then someone might comment on you not keeping up.

My first build, Howard, is going to stress survivability for a blind play through.

I think a perceptive VATS master would be best.

The Sniper (with very high Perception, and good Agility, and Luck) with extra Charisma to help him talk his way out of things and enough Intelligence to be able to hack sounds best.

My second play through will be Nora as an extremely bright energy weapon user and robotics expert.

I have admit I never understood why luck is needed for a sniper. You already get critical hits with sneak.

My Fallout 3 and Skyrim archetype is low health snipers, late Oblivion characters followed the template but they tend to be mages and way more lethal.

@SofaJockey, love the ideas so far in this thread, very very creative!

I have added a link at the top of my skills thread, and will update it for any future build threads that you post

I totally agree you should focus on one or two Special stats, but I just don't think you can afford to take ones in the other four Special stats in order to have eights in three of the Special stats.

There are a lot of important skill perks on the first three or four rows of the perk chart that the Sole Survivor will likely need.

From Liam Ford' (http://www.gamesas.com/user/711370-gkk7z/), http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1529938-skill-perk-line-up-speculation/, thread:

• Acrobatics (New) requires 6 Agility
• Barter (Same) requires 1 Charisma
• Explosives (Same) requires 5 Perception
• Hacker (Science) requires 4 Intelligence
• Gun Nut (Big/Small Guns) requires 3 Intelligence
• Local Leader (Speech) requires 5 Charisma
• Lockpick (Same) requires 1 Perception
• Medicine (Same) requires 2 Intelligence
• Melee Weapons (Same) requires 2 Strength
• Repair (Same) requires 1 Intelligence
• Science! (Energy Weapons) requires 6 Intelligence
• Sneak (Same) requires 3 Agility
• Unarmed (Same) requires 1 Strength

A one in Intelligence would prevent having Medicine, Gun Nut, Hacking, and Science.

A one in Agility would prevent Commando, Sneak, Acrobatics.

Besides, with most perks having four ranks, it will take a while to max what ever high level perks you are taking.

It would take you until level 8 just to take all ranks of two perks (Say Sniper and Sneak).

And there are still the basic skill perks that will need to be taken like Lockpicking, Repair, Medicine, Hacking, Gun Nut, Sneak and so on.

I expect you can do some repair or medicine and the like without having the skill perk, but not having it will leave you stuck with only being able to use the skill at the most basic level.

I think you are better off picking one primary Special stat and choosing a couple of high level perks from it to focus on.

Even taking a nine or ten in that stat if you want to start the game with a certain high level perk.

I'd then look over the other Special Stats and see what perks I will need to eventually take.

Then set the stat to be able to take the highest perk you want on that stat.

For instance, I would likely set my Intelligence to a four so I can get Hacking plus Repair, Medicine, and Gun Nut.

Or my Agility to a three so I can get Sneak plus Gunslinger and Commando.

It would quickly become clear which secondary Special Stats would need to be higher than the others.

So for a likable Sniper VATS Master that is able to hack and sneak

S 2 Melee

P 8 Sniper, Lockpicking, Explosives

E 2

C 4 Attack Dog

I 4 Hacker, Gun Nut, Repair

A 5 Commando, Sneak, Action Boy

L 3 Scrounger

That is 12 perks and just to take 2.5 ranks in each one would take reaching level 30 (figuring some you can get by with just a couple of ranks and some you want to max out),

I can see why they only give us 28 Special Stat points to start with.

At an average of 4 ranks per perk, it would take till over level 100 to max all of the perks you had available at the start of the game.

While it is possible there are still sneak crits, it is also possible they have been removed, seeing how there is the revamped crit system where you have to activate a crit.