Advise is read everything in the character screen on creation. when you click on SPECIALS and skills/trait read the info cards.

http://bulbage.com/fallout2.html

as you see they tell you pretty well there effects. The ones for Skills actually give you the calculations they use! Easy first character is one that you don't reduce anything just spend you intital point to up the specials you want to use most. Tag small arms as you can't go wrong with that and unarmed or melee so you can fight things until you get your first gun. Then you just read everything carefully and put the point into the skills you like to use most.

Yeah, all of us "veterans" also had to learn the game at some point, as well. It's not insurmountable (honestly, it's been awhile but I don't remember having that much trouble wrapping my head around the basics - but it was also far from the first RPG or turn-based game I'd played, so I'm likely a bit biased on that end.)

Both Fallout 1 and 2 also come with a selection of pre-made characters to choose from, which are sort of guaranteed to be viable for any beginning player (and are even useful as a starting point on creating a character from scratch.) That's what they're there for.

That said - I don't think it's really all that possible to "gimp" a character in Fallout 1 and 2. All stats are actually fairly close to equivalent in usefulness - a 40-point character will remain a 40-point character regardless of where you put those points. If you end up with a low Attribute, it's going to be because you have more points somewhere else. It ought to kind of balance out. Every stat (and literally every single item in your character sheet) has a full in-game description that can be brought up to read, so you're not going to be left in the dark as to what does what.

You really shouldn't be able to make a character that isn't capable of getting through the game (I've never been able to make one that couldn't at least.) You might have to adjust your playstyle to the character you've made (no wading through masses of enemies at the start of the game if you've spent all your points on INT and Science, Repair, etc,) but I'd think that's sort of a given in an RPG. You can't expect to start the game being able to kill everything you run into - it's a dangerous world out there, and you're not going to be able to take on every single random encounter you run into.

This is the sort of game where you're well-advised to fully read the manual before starting out, as well. (It's my understanding even the downloadable copies have access to a manual somewhere.) There is a bit of a steeper learning curve (these games were made before the in-game tutorial was a common practice - something that these games could have admittedly benefited from, as well.)

Hey, this game isn't for everyone. I think they're very good games. But I also don't recommend it to all of my friends, either.

And here's what she says if you chose a low number for your PC's Intelligence stat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yA8IMXOsDQ

I'm playing through FO1 for the first time, and already finished the "time limited" quest with just under 100 days to go (out of 150), without using walk-throughs or cheats (at least until after the quest to see what other options or items I missed). So much for time limits.

About 100 or so days into the timeline, the character is now at Level 9 and has a Small Guns skill of 97%, which is enough to get the full 95% maximum chance to hit at "moderate" range, broad daylight, and no obstructions. Clicking the weapon with the right mouse button to bring up called shots gives me at least a 50% chance to hit vital areas instead of just "center of mass", and can go as high as 85-95% for a called headshot at point-blank range. Of course, the "penalty" is that the character can't hit a house at 20 paces with a missle or laser.....

If you aren't seeing at least a 50-70% chance to hit right out of the Vault, you need to think about what kind of character you're making; fine if you're intentionally "gimping" your character to give yourself more challenge, not fine if you're trying to survive a first play-through. With a little work and a lot of reloads when you get killed, you should find that money becomes "irrelevant" after a few levels: there's only so much to buy, and you can bring in a near-infinite amount of "spoils of war" to sell. Finding a "companion" or two also makes the fights a lot easier, except when they get in your way or accidentally shoot "through" you at the enemy.

The game is all about choices, and anything you do is at the expense of something else; not like FO3 where you can be good at everything if your reflexes as a player are decent. In my opinion, THIS is an RPG, where the game is about your character and their skills, not yours.

I was a fan of the original X-Com game, Jagged Alliance 2, and several other "difficult" games where your own dexterity made little difference, the way you developed the characters, and used the skills and abilities they had, were what mattered most. I'm also a devoted Morrowind player, who finds the same change in the TES series from TESIII to TES IV as disturbing as that between FO1&2 and FO3. Granted, the old FO series needed an overhaul; you can't sell a turn-based game to the "mass market" in today's world (although there's definitely a niche market for small developers), but there was no good reason, in my opinion, for turning it into a "shooter" with skills and stats that are "trivial" at best.