I'm making the same type of character: Guns, Repair, Survival.

The traits I'm selecting are Trigger Discipline and Small Frame. Trigger Discipline because it is a logical choice (Speed vs Accuracy--you can fire as fast as you want, but if you can't hit anything, who cares?) and Small Frame because it gives me a bonus point for SPECIAL at the cost of frailty, which doesn't matter for me, as I play a long range combatant.

Well the major problem for me is... Strength requirements. No longer will you be able to wield whatever weapon you want, this time you have to really pay attention to what you do with your points, and if anyone knows, is there a way to increase your SPECIAL attributes in this game too? I really don't want to be stuck with 5 5 5 6 8 5 (well you get the idea) :unsure2:

Well early on I was planning as high as 9 strength to start for my first char but as I fergot about power armors str bonus im pushing it down to 8..

There are likely 2 str points available after char creation.. power armor and an implant.

Kristov Mikhailovich-Katchka: Czar of Caravan (A leader of his allies, and executioner of his enemies, he is stalwart in his beliefs, but also enjoys money.)
S:4 P:6 E:5 C:7 I:6 A:7(+1) L:5
Tag: Guns, Speech, Repair / Survival
Traits: Small Frame (+1 Agility), Wild Wasteland / Trigger Discipline
Known Perks: Lady Killer, Pack Rat, Jury Rigging, Retention, Comprehension

Sniper character
S:6 P:7 E:5 C:3 I:6 A:8 L:5
Tag: Guns, Survival, Sneak
Traits: Trigger Discipline, Built to Destroy (unlikely, but possible)
Known Perks: The Professional,

Punchy Boxer character
S:8 P:6 E:8 C:2 I:2 A:7 L:5
Tag: Melee, Unarmed, Guns / Explosives
Traits:Heavy Handed
Known Perks: Purifier,

Abel McCoy: Traveling Gun
S:6 P:6 E:6 C:4 I:6 A:7 L:5
Tag: Guns, Melee, Survival
Traits: Fast Shot,
Known Perks: Cowboy

Scientist character
S:4 P:8(+/- 1) E:4 C:4 I:8 A:7 L:5
Tag: Science, Energy weapons, Medicine
Traits:Four Eyes, Good Natured
Known Perks: Math Wrath, Laser commander, Retention, Comprehension

I'm going to miss running around in a vault suit, set on Very Hard with only a silenced 10mm pistol, and when things look bad, whipping out my Tesla Cannon....

Stupid strength requirement... Makin' me put it at 8 :banghead:

I have two of my characters figured out so far. The Special stats are somewhat flaky since i don't know exactly what each one will be modifying nor perk requirements. I especially need to know the strength requirements of weapons so i'm not wasting stats.

The first is my sniper really fragile but made to be stealthy and long range so she never gets near bullets. She's insanely lucky so she gets lots of critical hits and so i can have fun gambling at the casinos.

Alignment: Evil
Personality: Lucky, Real sweet talker
Class: Sniper/Thief

Traits:
Built to Drestroy (+3% Crital hit Chance/ Condition decays 15% faster)
Trigger Discipline (+20% Guns and Energy Weapons Accuracy/ -20% weapon speed)

Perks: The Professional

Tagged Skills: Guns, Sneak, Speech

S 7, P 6, E 1, C 5, I 7, A 5, L 9

My second is basically a rambo type that runs in guns blazing and will probably be wearing power armor.

Alignment: Evil
Personality: Cannibal, Extremely Rude
Class: Automatic Guns/Shotguns

Perks: Shotgun Surgeon

Traits:
Unknown
Wild Wasteland maybe?

Tagged Skills: Guns, Survival, Repair

S 7, P 5, E 9, C 1, I 9, A 4, L 5

One interesting thing I do note, based off of very scanty data: Shotgun Surgeon reqs are level 6 and 45 Guns, Laser Commander's reqs are level 22 and Energy Weapons 90. While this may be an isolated event, it might also still give a slight early game bias to Guns and a slight late game bias to Energy Weapons.

I want to make up a character modelled after Jackie Chan from the Drunken Master series. Any suggestions on stats/perks? I'll tag unarmed/survival/sneak and get good natured as trait.

Not realy. Because of the way dt works a shotgun was very prone to being totaly spanked by simple leather armor unless the shotgunner was using slug shot. With that perk pellet shot will still work on leather armor and not just unarmored foes and a slug shot will work on somewhat higher dt armors then it used to.

But other then that it does no extra damage.

Laser commander increases damage AND greatly increases crit rate but it doesnt effect the limitation on lasers.. they dont do well vs armor.

However there might be a lower level perk that gives lasers dt penatration much like shotgun surgion does.

The biggest problem I'll have to deal with at the character creation is that darn Wild Wasteland trait. I really want to see the funny.. but I also really want to build a character build similar to character builds I had in F1 and F2... Small Frame and Fast Shot are two perks I used quite a bit in those old games. They've also stated that there are some weapons that you can only find with the wild wasteland perk and that there are some you can only find without it. (two versions of 1 gun kind of thing.)

Seriously having a war in my head as to which version of the game to play first time through. Should I use survival mode in only the serious version? Should I make a more wacky character for the wild wasteland version? Should I hold off on wacky wasteland until after my first go through so I'll see the big changes when I play it later or vice versa?... argghhhh. I already have a love/hate relationship with this trait.

but Wild Wasteland doesn't add anything to the story. Play one game with WW, get it out of your system, have a laugh, then in the next game dump it for a more serious and gamechanging trait.

My feeling exactly. I was kinda sad that WW took up a trait slot, would have preferred if it was just a toggle.

I asked about the stats on the gamefaq forums and got a reply from the guy who bought the guide. I figure this is pretty relevant to anyone wanting to plan their character build. He didn't list the other three so they might not have anything special.

Charisma - You get something called "Companion Nerve" which gives your companions buffs to damage and armor.
Intelligence - If you have INT lower than 4 you will get the "dumb" conversation options.
Agility - Will affect how fast you draw your weapon, how fast you reload, and how fast your run speed is (also you do not have a penalty for running with a one handed weapon, only two handed ones).
Luck will affect "Enemy Mishaps" i.e. enemy shooting wide, grenades blowing up early, etc.

Also he posted this earlier skill points per level based on intelligence.
INT 1=10.5 INT 2=11 INT 3=11.5 INT 4=12 INT 5=12.5 INT 6=13 INT 7=13.5 INT 8=14 INT 9=14.5 INT 10=15

how do you get half a skill point? lol

IMO the perfect character is one you can have the most fun with. For me that's one made for rping haha.

most likely they modded the system so it can remember and save partial points from one level to the next.. so for instance a 1 int character would get 10 then 11 then 10 again and again.

Frankly its more skill points then I was expecting so at least all my chars will be easier to make then I was planning on;/ Well almost all that packrat perk is gona play havock with my dumb as a brick gunslinger build.... mumble.

Im going for a stealthy, oriental character like Cain of KungFu + The Gunslinger (SK)..... Also, I'll probably only use my hands, a sniper and carry a plasma pistol as a backup. Im attempting to be real realistic about what my character can actually carry around and use. So I'll tag stealth, energy weapons and possibly hth.

In Fallout 3 with recon armor and the right perks this guy was unstoppable even without weapons.

Why do you need to build the perfect character? They all turn out to be gods in the end anyways.

Tag: Guns, Repair, Survival.
Throw points into Explosives and Lockpick
Trait: Trigger Discipline
Also keep up medicine, speech, and sneak.
SPECIAL: STR: 7 PER: 5/6 END: 5 CHR: 5 INT: 7 AGI: 5/6 Luck: 5

I got hooked on min maxing from end game raiding in mmorpg's. Spent countless hours agonizing over every decision until my characters were perfect. Now I just realy enjoy doing it. With console games its much easier and less time consuming. And SPECIAL is by far my favorite console leveling system to play around with.

I like to be able to carry a lot, so strength is always going to be high. suggestions for SPECIAL would be nice. im not so good at this kinda stuff.

1. Evil/CL-Kain- Guns/Lockpick/Repair
S- 9 Built to Destroy & Four Eyes
P- 5 (+1)
E- 5
C- 3
I- 7
A- 7
L- 4

2. Good/NCR-Tatyana-Energy Weapons/Lockpick/Barter
S- 9 Good Natured & Small Frame
P- 7
E- 5
C- 6
I- 5
A- 4 (+1)
L- 4

3. Neutral/House-Raziel-Unarmed/Melee/Survival (hardcoe Mode)
S- 9 Heavy Handed & Wild Wasteland
P- 4
E- 7
C- 5
I- 6
A- 4
L- 5

4. Neutral or Evil/Loner-Mike-Explosives/Lockpick/Science
S- 9 Kamikaze & Good Natured or Four Eyes
P- 7 (+1?)
E- 5
C- 5
I- 6
A- 4
L- 4

I don't want a perfect character. Still trying to figure out my build.

an interesting thing that I have never tried is to try to make a 'terminator' character. (high perception, endurance, strength - but no people skills so zero charisma)

I want to eventually make a character based on cameron in terminator: sarah connor chronicles

In FO3, yeah, but NV is deliberately skimping on skill points to disallow you from doing just that. If you put some thought into it I bet you could build a really ineffective character.

It's funny how to some people, the 'perfect character' is a bland cookie cutter character, without any uniqueness, which will inevitably be identical to so many other characters, and which is so articifial and maximized that the game is unlikely to be very challenging. I recommend developing your character independently, based on your own judgement, and to challenge yourself a bit by not doing what the collectivist powergaming goons are doing.