I have played game through now twice and to me it starts to look like that most the skills are actually not worth maxing. What is the minimum or maximum amount of points you would put to skills? Also explain reasons for your numbers.

Barter - As low as it is when you start the game. I have never put any points to this and my last play through ended with almost 90k caps left - And that was after I had paid for 7 implants + weapon + power armor repair costs.
Explosives - Probably not worth a single point. I can recall only one quest which which is purely depending on this skill. Besides rockets and other explosives are pretty expensive way to cause damage.
Science - 80 points. I recall that highest needed science for normal quests is 90 which is easy to get with 80 + book.
Lockpick - 75 points. There are only few locks which need higher skill. If you leave it at that you only miss Gobi. And yes, you can get REPCONN plasma without 100 in lockpick or science.
Speech - 80 points. If I remember correctly that was enough for all quests I have done. More needed (100) only if you want to talk down Legate or General as far as I know.
Medicine - Probably not worth any points. I recall seeing only one quest which only uses this.

What about other skills?

Speech 100 - I usually always max it, because a lot of quest depend on it for the proper outcomes.
Guns 70 - Only if I'm playing a guns guy which I usually don't. Only a 70 because the higher level weapons do a ton of damage not matter what your skill is.
Medicine 40 - For doctors bags, and I think a couple quests depend on it.
Science 75 - For making stimpacks, and hacking.
Repair 55 - For making weapon repair kits, and breaking down ammo. Also a skill mag will allow you to press custom ammos.
Melee 90 - When I'm playing a melee dude which is often. One of the best melee perks depends on it which is unstoppable force.
Unarmed 70 - When I'm playing a melee dude required for piercing strike which is extremely useful.
Lockpick 55 - There are very few things that require lockpick that are at all important above 75 which can be achieved using a skill mag.
Explosives if I have any skill points left they go here. I like the pyromaniac perk, but it isn't essential. Being they nerfed the Flamer to all hell, and the shishkabab isn't the most powerful melee weapon anymore.
All the rest I usually just don't pay much attention to.
Edit: Forgot to mention Survival Which doesn't need to be any higher then 60

Since this is the spoiler forum:

Speech 80-100. I'm a pvssyrbox what can I say.
Barter, depends. Usually like it to be at least 30, but sometimes I like pushing it up to 50+ for several later quest options. Because it's different.
Guns at 85+skill books. I really really like guns. I don't like melee in this game.
Lockpick at 80. Can't stand to see an unpicked safe, even if it only has a Dirty Water inside it.
Repair to at least 60 for repair kits, because I hate paying for any repairs that I don't have to...plus disarming traps.
Sneak to at least 50. I love sneaking, but 50 is more than enough 99% of the time. On the rare occasion it's not, I use a Stealthboy.

Frankly everything else I could leave at base level but since I have to choose something, I tend to bump up Unarmed, Energy weapons, Science, and Medicine to 40ish range depending on my build, mood, available skill points, and objectives. Medicine does have several quests, but most (not all, but most) can be done with parts instead.

Highest Barter I've seen is like 60 but I can reach that with only 30. Trader hat (5) + Trader Clothing (5) + Skill Book (20) = 30. 30 + 30 = 60.. .

I also don't bother with speech because I've never found an important opportunity that I've needed higher then 60 for.. If I need too I can raise it pretty easily because I usually have low CHR. Party time Mentants (10) + Naughty Nightwear (12) + Skill Book (20) = 42 .

Don't bother raising Survival AT ALL unless you need it for a perk or are on hardcoe. For hardcoe 30 is max (With the skill book its 50). The only reason to raise it high is for coating Melee Weapons with poisons. Poisons are highly powerful and the highest level one is 90.

I find explosives very useful for C-4 and mines, which is the only thing you'll need them for. 50 is the highest so you can get the most out of them in a character that doesn't really specialize or use them much.

Lockpick max it at 75. If you need to unlock a Very Hard lock you can use the Vault (?) Jumpsuit (5) + Skill Book (20).

I have NEVER found a CPU thats needed higher then 75.. Therefore, 55 should be your max.

Medicine I never really understood its necessity.. But for good healing (Especially for hardcoe) get it too at least 50.

Thats about it. The other skills determine on your weapon choices and play style.

The only skills worth maxing are the combat skills since you'll use them too much to rely on magazines and +skill clothing. Even then, you don't need to completely max them since there are the skill books.

How many points you need in a skill is dependent on your character's SPECIAL and what perks you want. For example, if you only put 1 point in Charisma, you only need to get speech up to 36. You can get +16 permanently from books, +10 from Naughty Nightware, +2 from Mentats, +10 from Party Time Mentats, +6 from Queen Ant Pheromones, Moonshine, or Whiskey, and +20 from a magazine.

I'd say that...

Speech: 80, why? because you only need higher speech for 3 quests that i've found, i've nearly done every single one, the brotherhood quest for veronica, and talking down general and legate... anyone who maxes this skill... well, i'm sorry you wasted 20 points for nothing

Lockpick: 75 why? most locks are up to hard level, one very hard lock will crash your game if opened in the Dam, and a few others, maybe 3 or 4 at best can be done with a few skillbooks found and a magazine with comprehension.

Survival: Leave at base, it's useless unless you are on hardcoe, you will never ever ever ever ever ever ever need it. Poisons for a melee weapon? Really? If peircing strike, unstoppable force, superslam, and stonewall aren't enough... you should never pick up a melee weapon... use guns or something. It might be useful to get to 30 to magazine it to 50 for some recipes on HC but honestly you find food and water all over the place.

Melee/Unarmed/Guns/Explosives/Energyweapons: Max which one you want to use, i'd say if CQC character, Max unarmed to use displacer and ballistic, melee is great, but compared to unarmed? Meh, not really worth it, with unarmed you get special moves that don't require AP that are outside VATS, so IMHO unarmed trumps melee, but melee is still great, don't get me wrong here

Science: 55 why? magazine to get Hard terminals and to recruit Gannon, also, for some quest stuff maybe for energy weapons character but meh... they svck lol so not worth it anyways.

Sneak: If CQC character, get 80 for ninja, other than that... 50 is just fine and gets you silent running which makes sneaking easy

Barter: Useless... don't raise this, ever... you never need it, seriously, you don't. But someone probably will, out of sheer blindness. I have over (i'm not kidding) 145K caps and have 9 barter. Sure, you can get some better quest stuff, but for many of them, they have either a speech OR barter check, ther other ones will just get you like 100 more caps or something.... not worth the investment.


Hope this helps

Well, with decent starting endurance and luck (with I highly recommend) plus 3 books being rather easy to get, there is just no reason not to bump it to 50 or 55 after all books even at normal. With little investment your food would double how much it heals.

everything i dont mention is maxed.

3 or 4 of the combat skills at like 30 or 35

sneak around 70

survival around 60

Speech, Medicine (numerous uses for quests), Lockpick, and Science allow you to get a lot of crap done faster and easier than running all over the stupid wasteland fetching items.

I'm fans of getting all of them high enough to get a lot done.

Then I max out a weapon skill (guns for the win) and I'm set.

Explosives aren't great (only saw one check for it past Goodsprings, to help the Misfits learn to use nades better).
Barter is worthless as caps aren't hard to come by (10 luck for the win).
Unarmed/Melee viable options other than guns.
Sneak is useful, but with guns you can hit them from far enough away that it doesn't matter. Far from necessary.
Energy weapons underpowered, I wouldn't use them again.
Repair is useful up til 90 (for Jury Rigging, very useful, you could use leave it at the point to get repair kits, too).
Survival is far from necessary, useful(ish) but not a game changer, I've only see ONE check for it.

For min/maxing getting comprehension is a must, +16 across the board is like getting 13 more levels worth of points (admittedly you can't spend them just anywhere, but even if you only go after 5 or 6 full sets (for main skills) that's 5 or 6 more levels).

Chasing that min / max dragon I see.

ALL SKILLS are pretty much disposable. Just make the character you want to play.

100: Used weapon skills
90: Repair, Sneak
80: Science, Lockpick, Speech
55: Medicine, Barter, Survival

I like the way you think.

I also don't like carrying all that extra stuff around to max out skills for checks, in order to min/max all this stuff. It's not about weight, either, just not my style + I forget I even have them when there's finally a reason to use them. Next chr. I'm going for 2 INT & leaving all weapons skills low. Because I can.

I max sneak and a weapon type. Those are the only things you would use so routinely that you couldn't reasonably rely on item bonuses to carry you when more skill is needed. Several others, as mentioned, can get use out of midrange levels, if only for speech check opportunities (there are a ton related to Medicine, for example).

Any examples? I found like... 4.

you need a science skill of 100 to turn the turrets against the BoS if you plan on *****Spoilers***** blowing up their base which can be part of a normal quest depending on how you want to end the game. and medicine makes stimpacks worth more unless you play on anything less than normal, then i guess it isnt needed. it is for me though since i dont play on anything less than normal.

unarmed is nice unless you are up against the superior reach and speed and strength of a deathclaw. believe me ive tried using a ballistic fist (100% repaired) against one..... well it was really three lol (two were really damaged while ed-e and veronica were still alive). i remember ed-e and veronica laid out while i was (my melee is 100) boxing them in a handicap match lol. i ended up using like 10 stimpacks lol and my med is like 80.

Remember that VATS is teleporting you.

I made a character with 9+1 intelligence and luck. I ended up with a lot of spare points. I had already maxed my main skills: 100 guns, 100 sneak, 100 repair, 90 Speech, 85 Lockpick, 85 science. I still had like 50 spare points, that I ended up putting in barter, which really wasn't necessary because I was swimming in caps.

I usually don't put points into Energy Weapons, Explosives, Unarmed, Melee Weapon, Survival or Barter

Speech to me is essential I always tag it
Guns I tag because the other 4 weapon skills I tend to ignore
Lockpick I try to get to 50 as quickly as I can
Medicine I pump points into when I reach the level 20 mark
Sneak I pump points into when I get around the Level 10 mark
Repair If I'm not going after Jury Rigging then I'm probably gonna ignore it otherwise I pump 5 every level until I get up to 90 by 14
Science I try to get to 50 but not as quickly as Lockpick because hacking is less useful in New Vegas.

Are you guys taking books into your calculations? Can you find all 4 repair books by level 14 to not waste skill points?

It is possible to get all 4 repair books by Level 14 but its very unlikely

I raised barter to 70 just so I could get the 'pack rat' perk.

You've made the worst deal ever.

Hell, survival is useless even on hardcoe.
All it affects is how much health you get from food (ok, use stimpaks instead. I walk around with ~75 without trying)
And it affects how much food/h20 boost/fix you get from food. (ED-E or other chars work great for holding ~5-10 purified water and gecko steaks, or Maize, or other stuff)
The only really useful thing to it, if you care, is the Animal Friend perk.

hardcoe.... isn't.. not really, but it's a nice addition. But survival is really pretty useless.

As for my current build.
S 7
P 4 (with glasses based perk, +2 per glasses and beret, it's up to about 7 or 8 anyway)
E 3
C 4 or 5 (don't recall)
I 10
A 10
L 1

Lets see, I've got lockpick effectively 100. (the +4 total per boost means I only tend to have it at like 86 or the like)
Guns is ~80, likely get it to 100 by end.
Repair is 90 (for jury rig. use magazines to get Match Load .50 cal... but just pumped out ~150 .308 JSP rounds. Sniper rifle and 1-3 shots wipes out deathclaws easily)
Science 84 (thanks to skillbooks)
Sneak 55 (60 thanks to NCR Scout combat armor (or whatever it's called)
Medicine 52
Speech is... around 80 or 90. Initially I used up most of the skill-mags early due to many quests.
Barter is maybe 30.. (hence why using so many speech mags, as barter was too low even WITH the barter-mags)
EW 5
Unarmed 8
Melee 10?
Explosives 30
Survival i think is 20... only because i was considering going for Animal Friend (wife loves how cute the geckos are)... But it's such a wasted skill compared to others, I only put about 1-2 points in it per level (getting 17 skill points/lvl)

Pretty much this char can shoot, talk and hack her way out of anything...
As for weapons... right now it's a modded Sniper Rifle (actually works better than the Gobi.. weighs less (with CF parts), has suppressor, and does more damage), and the 12.7mm Pistol. (with silencer so far)
Using Boone and ED-E.. Though I do have a Thermic Lance that's fully restored in the Novac hotel room safe for when I swap to Veronica a bit later

Ballistic fist svcks. Use Pushy. I killed most of the quarry with it (normal difficulty). Only big mama needed some extra love from some ranged weapon as it comes with several babies.