Now, admittedly, there is no such thing as the perfect character, but after three games using an almost identical system, I think experienced players will likely already know where they'll be putting their points in Character Creation. If one wants to dispense advice to newer players on making a rounded character or even just brag their (currently non-existent and untried) build is superior, this is the thread!

Starting off, I have to say I have yet to run into a Fallout game where Guns, Speechcraft, and Energy Weapons didn't carry the day! Yes, Energy Weapons are a longterm gamble in points, but once you find your first plasma rifle, you more or less become the scourge of the wasteland. Before that fateful day though, Guns willkeep you alive when Speechcraft will keep you popular.

in fallout 3 you can have the perfect character...

My first playthrough is going to be hardcoe with the Wild West trait, im not quite sure which of the other traits im gunna take, but the Holy Hand Grenade Monty python and the holy grail reference i saw on the wiki <- gave credit for source that made me need that trait, my starting stats will be Str.; 6, Per.; 4, End.; 6, Chr.; 4, Int.; 8, Agi. 6, and Luck; 6, if you get 5 starting points +2 for losses to perception and charisma. with the cyberdog and my good reputations i dont think i'll have anything to worry about for the losses. im gunna go for high repair,lockpick,doctor/medicine, energy weapons, survival, and bartering and if possible im gunna further raise my strength and endurance and intelligence, starting with intelligence. And if the option is there, im always going to conquer things for myself, so i have control and allow its use to the people i see fit(if you can capture the helios one for yourself and still let NCR use it through affiliation/reputation), if doing stuff thats is good mostly for you also benefits everyone your on a really good standing with, whats the harm in making yourself number one.

I think it is still a bit early for this thread.. But since that never stoped me from flapping my mouth. Heh. I am thinking the best advice this early on is to Not try and make the perfect character.. Methinks it will bite you in the butt in the long run. I really do not think there kidding around when they say it is harder.. have a goal in mind and stick with it, the Perks need (if what I have seen is correct) high skill levels to qualify for) so perhaps really taking the time to think about Tag skills then dumping your leveling points in them as balanced as you can will probally be a bigger payoff than trying to balance out all of your skills... Least thats my take on it..

The term Perfect can be subjective description because if I want to play a perfect tank then there is a way to do it, The best way to make a perfect character is simply know what kind of character you want to play and plan according, if your character is going to be a trader/scavenger build up that barter skill, and so on and so forth, when the game comes out and there is more hard evidence of what stuff does then specific builds can be thought up until then I’m not worried about it.

I'm really hoping they fix the system so you don't do set traits as you want, but set int to 9 thing so you can get the bobble head. Want to see a bit of variety where traits will really have an impact and it's good to have things spread out with no 1 characteristic having priority over others like Int did in Fallout 3. It won't be game breaking for me, but it will be a bit disheartening to see this.

I would not count on Bobbleheads as well they are not in this game heh.. And the Snowglobes are not supposed to be gods gifts to ability and skill bonus... I think stat raising in general is much much harder (thank you) so your starting choice is a bit more important.. Though it is like Mr. Laser said if you want the perfect trader you can build him.. or sneak I just think it is going to be harder to have the perfect scientist/ gunfighter/ mr fixit this time around. There shooting for more playthroughs as to uber characters. (man I hope ) again my take on it

I am completely confuzzled at this point. Until I can actually play the game and see how things pan out, it's all just blowing smoke.

This isn't a complaint, I realize I am in a small minority of players that don't use Power Armor or Companions, and thus the attribute/skill/perk adjustments were not aimed at me. So I'll play through once the way the Dev's want, then mod the game to fit my style.

I'm really, really hoping that points in the game that absolutely require you to have a Companion are few and far between.

But some basic stuff (This is based on FO3 experience obviously, some of it will probably not apply in F:NV, hard to say):

Pick a single weapon type as a Tag.
Guns are probably going to be the best bet* because of the scarcity of Energy Weapons and the better Explosives. Since Heavy Guns have been rolled in with Guns, Energy, or Explosives, there's always going to be an option for heavy artillery. *Of course the scarcity of Energy Weapons and Rockets and whatnot may be different now, so that Energy would be more viable from the start. Explosives also determines the effectiveness of Mines and Grenades, so while I personally don't Tag it, I try to sink points in it when I can.

When in doubt, take Repair.
Aside from the fact that it's great for helping keep your inventory under control, it's also great for making sure you don't end up facing off against a Deathclaw in your underwear (busted armor) and wielding a Tire Iron (busted Gun). In NV this is also the skill that governs Ammo making, so it's even better; Not only are your weapons in tip top shape, but you're much less likely to run out of ammo.

Either Lockpicking or Science are good choice for either a Tag skill, or a favored secondary skill.
It's difficult to raise both effectively, but either one can get you into closed off areas, access nice loot, or provide alternate quest options. With Hacking, you can also take control of Turrets and so on, which is nice if you are playing a less combat inclined character. Science also offered numerous alternate quest options throughout the game, I'm assuming it will be the same. Lockpicking = great immediate benefits and all around utility, Science = decent immediate benefits and utility, great long term investment. Mileage may vary here of course. **Also worth noting that Science is now the skill that allows crafting weapons, so if you want to build your own Junk Guns and whatnot, this is going to be a priority.

Medicine.
While it may seem a good choice, and obviously it is (and probably will be in NV) a pre-req for some perks, Medicine is really only useful early on, for increasing the effectiveness of Stimpacks. My opinion, of course, but it seems that the more points you stick in it, the less of a good investment those points become. It does offer some useful quest and dialogue options, and I assume it will be the same for NV.

Speech
Always useful, the speech challenges can give some interesting options, rewards or even just information. I usually favor this is a secondary. If you just want to play as a death machine, safe to skip. After all, the dead really don't have much to say.

Sneak
Almost always one of my Tag skills, Sneak is great if you are playing any kind of light armor, high damage glass cannon type of character. If you are planning on playing a Power Armored character running around with Miniguns and Gattling Lasers, you can safely skip this. That said, if used well, Sneak is one of the more powerful skills in the game. It allows you to set up combat in your advantage via scouting and traps, or flat out avoid it if the situation looks a little too hairy for you. It also allows you to pick pockets and put hand grenades and mines in peoples pants, which is nice. Sneak Attacks are also an auto crit, which is great.

Barter
A solid skill, but limited in it's usefulness. I generally sunk points in this as a third tier skill (tag, favored, third, don't care). If your primary concern is surviving in the wasteland and you're having a rough go of it, you can definitely spend those points elsewhere.

Melee
Not my cup of tea, but it's always a good idea to carry a decent melee weapon. Inevitably falls into my Dont Care area of skills, but thats just me. If you want to make a pure melee character, obviously this is going to be your weapon tag choice.

Survival
Apparently this is going to be more or less necessary if playing on hardcoe mode, though it does look useful for any game. This is the skill that allows you to craft at Campfires, Food, Poisons, Healing Powders and so on. Definitely plan on giving this a look, as the food in FO3 svcked.

Random thoughts, your mileage may vary on all of those of course. Anything I forgot...I'm eating.

It all depends on your play style you make your own perfect charcter hence the SPECIAL creation the tag skills and perks if there was a perfect character then that would be the only kind. I personally dont like speech i enjoy sneak sometimes i like melee alot nothing is better than sneaking up and killing ur enemy up close and personal, or if all hell breaks lose just swing till you drop or all of them do. barter is useless to me as well this is a wasteland something looks nice then take it haha. and lock picking is essintial to see all of them game.

Until I actually play the game I won't know what works but I have a couple builds kind of planned out.

Manof Steel

He will be hardcoe. He has mostly average S.P.E.C.I.A.L but with a high strength for melee and big guns. He will tag melee weapons, repair, and survival. Later he will be specializing in energy weapons but melee seems good to start off with.

but I don't really know because skills and stuff will be so different in this game.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L: Nine agility, six Luck and eight perception. The rest whatever with the leftover points.

TAG: Repair, Small Guns and Sneak

Traits: Trigger Discipline and Four Eyes


Basically going for the lone wolf, stealthy, scout sniper.

Ok...first thing I'm going to do is yank a point from Agility and put it into Perception. Then I'll distribute the points given between Endurance, Strength, Perception and Charisma. For skills, I'll tag Guns, Sneak and Repair. I'll then take Wild Wasteland and Small Frame(+1 agility is nice and since I don't use VATS it holds no penalty for me).

Come 'ere Wasteland!

I takes 8 strength for one of the snipers? is there anyway to increase the strength in the game not like bobble heads but by perk?

Yeah the str requirement for weapons is going to make me rethink my usual builds.

Thats why I need to know if i can up it in the game so I dont have to completely destroy some of my other special

There are implants you can get that up each stat much like how fo2 did it. But god knows how spendy that will be or how hard it will be to get the implant itself.

No idea.. I'll make a million start up characters before I'll be able to truly decide but at the moment I'd go with something like this.

Traits.. so far I'm thinking Four Eyes - +1 Perception (as long as I wear glasses.) and Small Frame +1 Agility --easily crippled or,,,,, Good Natured .. +5 to non combat skills -5 to combat skills. Haven't really decided yet..
If I took the two plus one traits I would probably make a character that was something like
S 3
P 8
E 3
C 6
I 9
A 7
L 6

Skills are really going to depend on if they've made locks and computers available to try to get into even if your skills aren't up to a certain point. I really hate being completely locked out of something. So if that's changed probably.
Sneak, Repair, Survival.. If it's not then I'll probably go with Sneak, Science, Lockpick.

For me a stealthy type is the most fun to play. I intend to play through with several characters going at once. For the most part, the factions are going to influence the skills and perks each character takes as they advance through the game. Looks like I'll be playing this one for a while.

Before knowing Perks and Perk reqs, it's too early to even speculate.

I will say, though, that the Recharger Rifle may make early game energy weapons massively better than in previous entries, assuming of course that you can repair it without overwhelming difficulty.

Sawyer has said that he wants all weapons skill to be equally viable from early game to end game, so you should have no problems focusing on energy weapons and neglecting the others.

Although this does make me suspect that energy weapons will have lost their traditional endgame supremacy (which would only be fair if they are much better in the early game), and therefore I wonder how they will be flavored. Energy weapons better for high armor enemies, guns better for high health enemies? Hmmm...

This certainly seems to be the case, as Sawyer's been talking up the Anti-material rifle as the solution for dealing with power armored enemies.

I think I'll just take it as a whole new game for my first character and get a sense of the world. See what is important and what is not, what works and what does not. How easy is it to repair vs pay to repair gear? Just try to survive to the end of the game.

Then, my next character will be 'Perfect' for the FONV world.

He also noted that plasma weapons are the highest damage weapons.

:tops: