Hey, I've been playing through the game with a character I made with little to no real idea as to how I would play him. He's been fun, but his abilities are scattered all over the place. He's mainly a sniper type right now, lots of gun and stealth, which leads to me just surprise attacking and shooting long-range on every thing. I'm looking to try some thing a bit more gung-ho, and aggressive. I would love some help building a Melee/Unarmed character, and then a up-front gun fighter.

For the Melee/Unarmed, think Six-String Samurai, or traveling wasteland ronin or some thing. Thinking he'll have some social skills but nothing major as i always enjoy characters who can use the speech or barter options when available (feels like it gives me more options). I might give him a cowboy repeater or some thing just in case he needs to hit something at range, but I would primarily focus on using like a power-fist or some cool melee weapon. As i've never played a character like this in Fallout I have no idea how to go about doing this. I assume Strength is important as it is it's damage source... Endurance perhaps for added health? How important is AGI to a melee/unarmed toon? Luck for crit?

The other character I want to make and would love some advice on is the Assault Gun character. I sort of see him as a one man army... The guy in power armor wading into the thick of a super mutant camp with a mini-gun spun up and ready to rock. That's ideally what I have in mind for that kind of character. Prior to power-armor & mini-gun awesomeness I see him wearing medium armor, and using assault rifles/carbines, or some thing like that. He'd be the kind of guy to tackle problems head on... no sneaking past baddies, but rolling in guns blazing instead. Again I like social skills but probably not as important here, and was thinking of maybe looking into explosives for this concept as well, but I'm not sure if that's necessary or even viable.

Any one have any advice or build suggestions to have those two characters work? Thank you in advance :mohawk:

Any one? *taps his mic* this thing on?

I'm about to make my first melee focused character too, i'm thinking

9 str, 9 endurance, 6 int, and the rest in agility, luck, and lastly perception, 1 charisma

Samuel "Red" McDonald: The Midnight Wanderer - A melee specialist perfect for hardcoe mode. Why buy Stimpaks when you can skin and eat your lunch?
S: 8
P: 5
E: 6
C: 4
I: 7
A: 6
L: 4

Skills: Survival, Melee, Unarmed, Sneak (Science, Repair, Medicine for crafting), Barter (70) for perks
Traits: Good Natured, Four Eyes, Heavy Handed or Wild Wasteland
Perks: Strong Back, Pack rat, Travel Light, Hunter, Long Haul, IT Strength/Endurance/Agility, Super Slam, Stone Wall, Slayer, Unstoppable Force, Purifier, Rad Resistance, Rad Absorption, and/or Rad Child, Solar Powered, Ninja or Grim Reaper Sprint
Weapons: Any melee or hand to hand like the Power Fist, Paladin Toaster, Ballistic Fist, Spiked Knuckles, Machete Gladius, and especially the Super SLedge/Oh Baby!
Other Equipment: Eyeglasses (for Four Eyes trait), Combat Armor, Reinforced Combat ARmor Mk 2, any and all Crafting Items
Implants: Armor, Regen, Endurance, Intelligence, Luck, Agility
Followers: Rex, Cass


Gary 666: The Incandescent Death - An implacable Energy Weapons heavy tropper; melting minds into pile of ash and goo. (You can probably exchange Energy weapons for guns, same with perks to use the mini gun)
S: 7
P: 5
E: 8
C: 3
I: 6
A: 6
L: 5

Skills: Energy Weapons, Medicine, Repair, Science, Guns (70 for Perks)
Traits: Fast Shot, Built to Destroy
Perks: Center of Mass, Rapid Reload, Plasma Spaz, Laser Commander, Meltdown, Lifegiver, Toughness, Improved Criticals, Vigilant Recycler, Jury Rigging, Stonewall, Commando, Action Boy or Math Wrath, Grim Reaper Sprint, Spray 'n Pray (if taking companions), Power Armor Training
Weapons: Any energy weapon, especially Guass Rifle, Gatling Laser (Carbon Fiber Frame, Focus Optics), Flamer (Expanded tanks), Plasma Caster (HS Electrode) and as many Max or Over charged cells you can get your hands on
Other Equipment: Weapon repair kits (lots of them), heaviest armor you can find (Metal, Reinforced Metal, Power Aromr), Steady, Pyscho, Jet, Fixer
Implants: Endurance, Armor, Regeneration
Followers: Raul (Full Maintenance, Repair service), Arcade (Tesla/Power Armor path), Veronica (Workbench, Power Armor path)

STR 9
INT 6
END 5
AGL 5
CHR 5
LCK 5

Skills maxed: Speech, Science, Lockpick, Unarmed or Melee but not both, Sneak, Repair, beyond that id suggest barter but do what you want everything other then barter is highly reccommended and you may swap speech for barter.

Perks: any perk effecting melee effects unarmed so take all that apply. Toughness(1&2), Silent Running. (youll notice I dint put things like ninja on there its becuase the previous statement applies to it.), Cant think of any other perks

Doc Usangai upgrades I thought you could take them all but if you cant: STR, INT, END (you may swap one of these for LCK), armored skin(cant remember real name), and regen if both are possible.

Companions/Followers: Boone and ED-E or Rex and Gannon. (No point in having multiple melee/unarmed people in the party besides boone can bring their health down while they come at you and ED would let you know where they are so you can sneak up on em.)

P.S. the reason i stress INT is becuase it gives you more skill points i think its better to either split your points for STR with END if thats how you want to go but If you Have a really big weapon and sneak maxed I figure your assasination & DT upgrades you can get will cover it on the other hand a little more health never hurt anyone, except your enemies, but i still wouldnt drop any stat below 5 for any reason. In any event if you chose this path you really only need the 2 less then the min strength for the heaviest weapon with the right perk. So its all attack, all defense, or some of both.
thinking about trying this out myself.

There are some good Melee/Unarmed builds in this thread

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1130067-has-anyone-focused-on-unarmed-combat/

Cool great stuff guys, thanks!

So how about my second concept? The heavy assault trooper? Power-armor and mini-guns/assault rifles? There was a good one up there revolving around enegry weapons that could be tweaked to work for guns but I'm not sure about perk selection.

Unarmed seems to have better perks, just pump melee up to 45 to get super slam.

I'm planning to do a former tribal on hardcoe my next game.

S: 8
P:6
E:9
C:1
I:2
A:6
L:8

Perks: Weapon Handling, Rapid Reload, Built to Destroy, Center of Mass, Bloody Mess, Confirmed Bachelor/Black Widow (I find there are more male enemies in the game), Living Anatomy, Toughness, Trigger Discipline/Fast Shot, Life Giver, Commando, Whatever else you might want.

Weapons: Any two-handed assault weapons such as the Service Rifle you get early on, and the Minigun once you get Weapon Handling.

Armor: NCR or Legion medium armor if you can get your hands on it and know who you want to side with, or Metal armor more preferably since it offers more protection and isn't aligned with a faction, then Power Armor once you receive the training.

Companions: Rex, Raul (Weapon maintenance), Veronica (En extra mele-er), Arcade Gannon

Oh, that spoiler turned out weird. Uh, it's a spoiler for Gannon.

I'm always wary about going that low on a character's Int. Won't I be hurting badly for skill points?




Cool, but I'm a bit curious why the Rapid Reload perk? Yeah some guns are slow to reload, but isn't it a better usage of a perk to get some thing else like intense training, or the one that gives extra skill points per level up?

How useful is rapid reload?

Int isn't as important as FO3 for skill points
1 int = 10.5 points per level
10 int = 15 points per level

It does add up, but if you're only focusing on a couple skills primarily you should be fine.

Lower INT will hurt your skills points some, but if you're going for an armored behemoth character you'll probably only be putting skills into Guns and Repair as your mains, with whatever other points you wanna put into anything else left over, most likely Explosives.

Rapid Reload will help you with reloading the Minigun. You can forgo it if you want for something else. These are only suggestions. I personally don't care for Intense Training, as I build my characters with the stats I want them to have from the start. Anything more I can get from Implants later if I want or from armor. Also, with that low of Int, you cannot take the Comprehension perk (min int of 4).

I don't think there really are many builds where you will just 'fail' at the game; I tend to try to think of a personality for my character first, and then pick everything to fit that personality, even if it isn't the most optimum.

My character is based on Doc Holliday - so he has low Str. and low End. (making it even harder in hardcoe mode) as he had Tuberculosis, and to help with the symptoms he drank a lot. So my character regularly downs beer and whiskey - which gives him a bit more Str. and Cha. He has a high Int., (Doc was a licensed dentist and knew several languages) Cha., Agi, (he was famed for being very fast with a pistol) Luck (Doc was a great gambler).

So for combat I just went with Guns, trying to stick with pistols, at that seems more his style. Rapid Relad works really well with him - it goes with the speed he is known for, and is actually useful in the middle of a firefight - since pistols tend to run out of ammo faster than larger guns, and some revolvers take longer to reload as it is. If he gets swarmed he is in trouble, as he has no other means of fighting really. But he has a high speech - very charismatic guy - so can talk himself out of situations.

So when it comes to what next perk to pick, or where to allocate skill points I just think of his personality, and go with that. However, I don't know how this game could be played without at least 50 lockpick or a decent repair skill. Speech helps get the most out of this sort of game, though sometimes your other high skills can play a part of conversation.

Oh, and I picked Good Natured trait - it pumped 4 or 5 skills I was going to use, and only reduced one skill I was planning on using.

I love 'That Gun' - it does alright dmg, but it fires very fast, reloads pretty fast, degrades very slowly (need repair kits to repair it since it's unique) and, well, I really like Blade Runner (the movie where the gun comes from). It is a really easy unique gun to obtain as well.

I did a Str 9 Cha 1 Int 10 meleer and had a ball. Early in the game I massed skill points in melee and energy weapons and mixxed melee and energy perks. (Do not shoot anything in melee distance once you get the 'deaths cause explosions' perks for energy. It hurts. Great for clearing a room, though)

I had enough skill points to start pouring points into skills like speech and science relatively early in the game.

For melee the Str 9 required 'Rebar Club' you can loot off of Nightkin just made my year. Do Not Take Bloody Mess. You are wasting your time. When you go heavy handed with a high Str and any decent melee weapon arms, legs, heads... they all fly. The Knockdown perk is by far the best I've seen with a high STr Int build. People are always falling down. And if its one one one just stand over them and keep beating them. Sometimes you'll get another knockdown as they get up.

I tried an experiment with a unarmed and melee specialist and though the perks are extraordinary in combination.... sometimes you just -have- to shoot someone. So you have to go ranged in some capacity as well and even with 10 Int and Educated its difficult to codge the points together to be anything more than a death machine until much later levels.

Note: Adding some sneak into any build is good but not necessary for melee/unarmed. You can do it if you want, but you'll be sacrificing skills you can toss into Science (Soooo useful) or a number of other skills as I haven't found a high sneak particularly useful for a meleer yet. My next experiment may be a melle/energy/sneak on normal to see how it works.

Oh and going melee or unarmed? You'll still get the 'Who owns barter town' achievement pretty quickly even with that Charisma of 1. Things like Lead pipes do a heck of a lot of DPS and cost next to nothing to repair. Unarmed is a bit more expensive, especially when you get into Power gloves.

The best part is selling every ballistic gun and ammo out there if you go with an energy build for ranged. All of the energy cell types can be cross produced with Science and a laser RFW is nothing to sneeze at. Besides, if the laser doesn't work? You have rebar and concrete to slap upside their head