I played an energy weapons expert back in 3 and now would like to play as a bruiser in NV. I would always test melee by sneaking around and critical striking someone from being in stealth. It would get tedious and sometimes not very viable in large battles. It could be that most of my skills and perks weren't catered to melee back in 3. So how would it hold out in NV as I have always thought melee as just a bag of party tricks.

Have you read the melee/unarmed perks list? I'd venture to guess that it is going to be VERY viable.

I am glad that they made being a melee or unamed character much more friendly and less like a bullet sponge like the last game. I made what I feel is a pretty solid build for my melee/unarmed build and I recommend a build using both of those skills since they require the same special. The other bonus is that you increase the effectiveness of 2 weapon types by increasing one part of SPECIAL, the Strength. But since you will take alot of damage you will want the survival or medicine skill as your 3rd tag. I chose survival because it allows you to craft medicine, increases health by food intake, allows you to make poison for on your melee weapons, and allows you to tan hides for some extra cash.

Ooh where is the list? I like what you guys have replied.

Much more viable this time around.

Essentially two ways to go about it: high crit, lower damage and high damage, lower crit. Oh, there's also a high AP build.

Most likely the former is better, since sneak attack criticals are very powerful. Think of them and The Professional perk and Better Criticals perk. Add in Finesse, Ninja, 10 Luck, and a weapon with a high critical rate, and you've got a monster. Plus, you might be able to take the Built to Destroy trait for an additional 3% crit chance (not sure if it works for melee, though).

In the build where you don't care about crits, you get the benefit of take the strongest weapon you can and the Heavy Handed trait. Additionally, you can easily combine this with the high AP build, since it needs less sneaking perks, and damage perks are useful for everyone.

In general, they seem to have made melee and unarmed combat a lot better. You have traits like Super Slam, Slayer, Piercing Strike, and Unstoppable Force that weren't in Fallout 3 to help you. You can also use thrown weapons, which might be useful.

And here's the http://www.gamebanshee.com/falloutnewvegas/perks/level2.php at gamebanshee. Incomplete, but nice.

Oh, please tell me more. Is there a thread that details this?

Here is my build

Name - Wampum –
Tag -melee, unarmed, survival, (also focus on lock pick)
Traits - heavy handed, wild wasteland

Perks - Intense training, travel light, bloody mess, super slam, living anatomy, piercing strike, purifier, admantium skeleton, paralyzing palm, life giver, stone wall, slayer

S-8 P-5 E-6 C-5 I-5 A-7 L-5

It looks like you'll have to invest heavily in both unarmed & melee skills to make the best use of either.

Here's the theorycraft melee build that I'm most excited about... very high damage threshold, ignores crits for just straight smashing power.

S 8(9) P 4 E 8 C 4 I 6 A 7 L 3
Traits: Heavy Handed, Good Natured
Tag: Melee, Speech, Science
2: Intensive Training - Strength
4: Educated
6: Toughness
8: Super Slam
10: Nerd Rage
12: Unstoppable Force
14: Piercing Strike
16: Toughness
18: Stonewall
20: Adamantium Skeleton
22: Purifier
24: Slayer
26: Rad Child
28: Rad Absorption
30: GRS

Off topic, but does anyone know the confirmed total number of SPECIAL attribute points we get in character creation?

You start with 5 in everything and 5 more points to allocate.

So 40 is confirmed?

I'm not sure how effective toughness is gonna be, I mean its only 3%. Even if it is 3% of 100 points that only 3 points. I was debating nerd rage but if I get that low on health (20% or less) I typically go to the inventory and use stimpacks. I'm not syre about unstoppable force, does that only affect when the enemy is blocking your shots?

Toughness is NOT +3% DR. It's +3 DT. That means it subtracts 3 damage from every shot that hits you... so if an enemy does 6 damage per hit, and you have 2 ranks of Toughness, you take ZERO damage. Useful for enemies with high fire rate weapons that are low in damage per shot.

Huh, where did you get your source from, my info came from the vault wiki. If you are right, which it seems more likely that you are, I will need to adjust my character.

You guys have done your homework well, cheers!

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Ausir/J.E._Sawyer_talks_Damage_Threshold

So the build has +6 DT all the time, +11 vs melee and unarmed, and an additional +15 to both when heavily wounded. I'm wondering whether or not he'll be actually invulnerable in power armor once he's wounded enough.

Alright, here is my "Sneak or Die" hardcoe melee character. Playstyle will consist of sneaking up on an enemy, getting a really powerful sneak attack critical, queuing up a long string of high critical chance attacks in VATS and then slipping back into the shadows.

Kamikaze, Built to Destroy

Melee, Sneak, Unarmed, Lockpick, Survival

Strength 10, Perception 6, Endurance 1, Charisma 1, Intelligence 6, Agility 10, Luck 6

2-6 Swift Learner
8 Super Slam
10 Finesse
12 Silent Running
14 Purifier
16 Piercing Strike
18 Better Criticals
20 Ninja
22 Grim Reaper's Sprint
24 Slayer
26 Action Boy
28 Action Boy
30 Unstoppable Force

I can't confirm this, but someone on Gamefaqs said that the regeneration from Rad Child = x2 the level of radiation sickness you have per second. This would mean that for minor raditation sickness, giving you -1 END, you'd be regenerating 2 health/second; advanced sickness, giving -1 Agility -2 Endurance, gives 4/sec. This is greatly faster than the 1/10 seconds for either the implant or Solar Powered.

We do know that a very small amount of damage gets by DT, even if that DT is > the DAM of the weapon in question. However, with regeneration this fast, it may be possible to outpace incoming damage while in Nerd Rage, and also to easily heal up post combat.

The good news is that Rad Child is available very early, at level 4. The bad news is it requires Survival of 70, which would cause the build to require Survival 70, Science 50, Melee 90, Unarmed 90. It may be that the "invulnerability package" works better with guns or energy weapons - particularly energy weapons, for the synergy with science.