With Dead Money and Honest Hearts being released the level was raised from 30 to 40, so now we have more perks available to choose, some of wich are very good for a specialized build (Grunt, Tribal Wisdom, Fight the Power!, And Stay Back, Heavyweight and Light Touch, in my opinion of course). Most of the cited perks also have low skill requirements or are level dependent, meaning they can be easely picked.

But this made me think: Educated and Comprehension are still worthed? I know that a lot of people like to have 100% skills and wish to level faster, I have nothing against it, but with more levels available this also means we are not hard pressed for skill points, since there are more available for building your character. For example, I can now afford to pick Comfirmed Bachelor/Lady Killer for my male character - yes, he swing both ways, as well my female build - and Living Anatomy. In combination, this will result in doing more 15% damage against males and females foes with any weapon in the game (in HH Lady Killer helps a lot BTW).

My build have 7 inteligence, wich means he will be able to gain 540 points in 40 levels, not counting the implants, tagged skills, armor boosts, books, etc. This build is an ex-infantry men and was ranked as soldier when in the army. After leaving the army he worked as a mercenary, caravan guard and body guard. When working as a body guard he learned that guns not always solve everything, albeit is the fastest way to do it. Since working as a mercenary and caravan guard he learned that a survivalist is a very efficient way to live about. And he is always hardcoe to the bone. So this is it, he will have a high skill with guns (100%), a high barter (70%, for pack rat), a high survival (75%) and a high speech (75%). I'm not planning go with snipers, it will be grunt, so my sneak at best will have 50% if I have the points to spare.

Just to clarify, before the DLCs I usually picked Comprehension over Educated, because this allow me to focus in the main skills I choosed and at the same time solve many things without resorting always to violence. I can spend all my points in guns, survival and repair at levels 1/2/3/4, for example, and at the same time I will have the opportunity to pick locks, use terminals, reprogram Primm Slimm, repair the generator in Novac for some money and NCR fame reading magazines.

So what do you people think, do I still need Educated/Comprehension?

I don't have any of the official DLC so I can't comment on any perks they add and how good/bad they are but what I do have mods and consequently I have no level cap and lots of additional content in which to level my characters. Given the above, I can tell you that with a non-existent level cap and many more chances to gain XP points thru combat and quests you'll find that a high Intelligence score and the perks you mention are much less useful. Combat perks or ones that give you other gameplay advantages are much more worthy choices.

I personally will never put Intelligence over 6 now and am strongly considering a low-INT playthru given how little it benefits you. 1 or 2 additional skills points a level isn't a big deal when you can just keep leveling and the additional content you're using includes loot like skill books or mods that add craftable items that can add to your skills.

You only want Comprehension if you are going to collect at least 15 books.

I just did this real quick so the math may be wrong but....

13 skills

100 points needed for each. 1300 points needed total.

Max INT is 15 points per level with 50 levels (actually 49, but whatever), with Educated it's 17 per level. That's 850 points.

Next there's about 5 books per skill, and with comprehension, each gives 4 points. (4 x 5) x 13 = 260 points.

850 + 260 = 1110 points. You're still missing 190 points. You also get points for free at the start of the game based on your SPECIAL, so it's actually less than that. Either way, if this math is correct (I literally did this in a hurry so I may have missed something), you won't reach the max for all skills even if you have 10 INT, Educated and Comprehension.

I only have 3 more skills and I have all of them at a 100, what a waste of a build with so much points floating around now. Oh well.

Comprehension second feature is magazines as there double the effectiveness giving +20 instead of +10. Which is quite useful for various skill checks. Education is worth four points in intelligence. That's a lot of SPECIAL saving.

Now as comprehension and educated come in at level 4 there really isn't much in the way of competing perks at that level. Lady Killer and its counterpart Cherchez La Femme for female characters doesn't really amount to much unless a DLC adds the amazon tribe female enemies are rare compared to male. Light Touch is good but only if your planning a light armor character. (also with the good natured trait and tagging you could get the perk at level 2 with four intelligence and 7 luck). Now when you reach level six you have hand loader and some other stuff which can compete.

Taking both is probably a bit much now, but taking one is still a good idea as they come in at level 4 and have absolutely requirements beyond level.

There's also implants, which will grant, assuming one is the INT implant, an additional 39 points if all 7 attributes are raised and Luck starts on an even number.

Without modding you will start at an average of about 17 or 18 points in a skill, so you need either (83*13) = 1079 or (82*13) = 1066 skill points to cap everything.
Four tag skills is 60 points
Assuming one beelines for the clinic for the INT implant, you get 585 SP from leveling at the current cap of 40
Taking Educated at L4 gives another 72 points
With Comprehension you get 260 SP from books. You get 195 without it, so it grants 65 by itself.

Now to see how close we get:

60+585+72+260+39 = 1016

so we're 50-63 points short.

The eventual cap will be 50, which means that at 10 INT you will get either 150 or 170 additional SP since Educated would be taken at L4 for maximum returns. Educated and Comprehension between them grant 137 SP, so without both you would still fall short by 37-50 SP assuming there are no additional skill books in subsequent DLC. With only one of them you would have more than are needed.

As such, if you are looking to have a specialized character you really do not need either one right now if you have at least a 6 or 8 INT, but if you're looking to max out you will.

This does not include abuse of the Vending Machine Clothing Glitch, nor does it take Intense Training into account as more than 2 points are rarely taken.

Assuming all 10 ranks of IT, INT of 10, and LCK of 7, the latter two post-implant:

2 into LCK adds 13, leaves 8, 5 attributes remaining
2 each into all but STR adds 36 more
13+36=49, which almost covers the gap left at L40

The reason for excluding STR is that it only covers Melee, while CHA/AGI/END cover 2 each and PER covers 3. It's also likely that STR is already where you want it, as you are taking IT to fill in the 'holes' in the build. Not putting 2 into LCK and adding them elsewhere will cost you from 1-9 SP and as such is suboptimal for the exercise.

Use of the AGI glitch can add a fair number of SP as well, however if you tanked AGI at the start for this you have less room in other stats for increases, especially after implants.

If you do use the glitch and a lot of IT you can cap out with room to spare by L40, however I'm not sure anyone would want to commit half their perks to the latter.