Ok so I got my Test Character up to 30 and now I will be making a new character. I need suggestions on what I should use.

I use guns only (Dont like energy).
I want to use speech more.
I use V.A.T.S moderately.
I want to get alot of my skills close to 100.

I will try to answer questions if given.

So give me builds I should consider. Please include the Pro's and Con's of your build plus why I should use it. Thanks for the ideas in advance!

S 5
P 6
E 1
C 7
I 10
A 6
L 5
Traits : Small Frame and Trigger Discipline
Tag skills: Guns 34
Speech 34
Repair 40
AP: 86
Carry weight: 200
Health: 120

Pros: lots of skill points

Cons: Very low Health

The low health might be a problem since certain monsters do high damage. Also, some monsters (Like the Deathclaws) ignore Damage Threshold and do whopping amount of damage.

What kind of weapons are you planning on you using, how do you plan to go into combat?
Speech and Guns seem to be your tag skills and will be important to your build, but what skills do you plan to use as well?
Do plan to rely on criticals and gamble a lot?

Low health is only a hinderence really early on I found.

On a zero DT, endurance 3 character once I hit level 10, still using the 9mm exclusivly not sneaking.
I still stood a chance of taking little damage ( certainly not enough to kill me ).

As a gun user if you let a deathclaw get too close you're in trouble high endurence or not, three maybe four hits is all it takes at most on normal difficulty E 5.

More Endurance, more implant, thus more special points.

I would drop intelligence and charisma before anything else.

Initially I wouldn't set any stat to 10, since you can use intense training and implants to raise them later. Like you, I usually tend to put lots of stock in intelligence in order to get more skill points. I wouldn't set anything above 7 (maybe 8 for intelligence) or below 5 if you want a decently rounded character. I started with 7 intelligence but I used intense training and an implant to get mine up to 10 before I got to level 11. There aren't enough perks that I'm interested in to chose a different one every time, so intense training is your friend.

Think of your special stats as a good starting point, and you can build it up to exactly what you want over time.

Definitely agree. I would not set anything above 8 (for intelligence, for skill points). I would also start off with a higher endurance than 1 - typically around 6. The higher the endurance, the more implants you can have.

I also tend to build characters with higher Perception, to see enemies earlier. At low levels, when sneak is crap, a high perception is really the only way to avoid battles, or to get that sneak attack crit.

Except that he wants to make his character have a high speech. Sure you could drop Charisma for power-play purposes, but role play-wise you are playing an ugly as a centaur or dull as a book 'detailing day by day the observations of man watching grass grow'.

Still Endurance determines the number of implants and if you plan to use them dropping it to one is a bad idea.

Perception can be compensate by ED-E; I don't see any point investing in it other than Perk requirement.

I usually only get Rex and my preferred group related Human Companion for that character. So should my build look like this:

S - 5
P - 6
E - 3
C - 7
I - 8
A - 5
L - 6

or what should be changed?

I still wonder why people drop Endurance so low. More health is useful for just about any character type barring the pacifist/diplomat archtype or the proverbial sneaky sniper that plans to never EVER get attacked in close combat - here's a hint: that "never" will happen and often. Also, with your base Endurance governing the amount of implants you can get there's no reason to have it below a 7, and I can easily see it going higher. You're essentially getting free SPECIAL points or other useful abilities by trading in caps which shouldn't be even a small problem in this game with all the gambling and other money making methods for the extra points. Here's how I'd do your stats if you're looking for a good general build with minimal/no weaknesses:

S - 5 + 1 = 6
P - 5 + 1 = 6
E - 7
C - 3
I - 5 + 1 = 6
A - 7 + 2 = 9
L - 8 + 1 = 9

The +1s are from the implants, 5 there plus the armor implant and the regen implant. I know many don't like that one, but I use a mod that alters the script to greatly increase the usefulness of it so I always take it now. Adjust the numbers for yourself if you don't like it or don't/can't use a mod as the base effect is indeed underwhelming. The extra +1 for Agility is from the Small Frame trait, which is an easy choice of a trait to take.

I want high intelligence early on to maximize the effect longer and have my skills pretty much to 100 by lvl 20-25. I dont know why I set endurance so low. I mean, with speech you avoid alot of fights or get help easier.

well, if you want to have any decent number of highier skills, your INT should be ten. also choose the thin build trait as well, unless your are playing a hardcoe type.

the system is essentially broke, if you want to have a charecter that has good skills you have to have a maxed out intellegence. the only case in which you wouldn't was if you were making a super strong charecter that only uses melee.

I thought you can have 7 implants with 7 endurance so it would look like this.

Where would I even get the caps for these implants? Am gonna need around 48,000 caps, including amount to support myself possibly with stimpacks, ammo, guns and Food and Water (hardcoe).

I know the casinos can cover the the S.P.E.C.I.A.L implants but the armor and health regeneration will overdue it.

Where else can net me tons of caps? If you can list the places where I can get alot of caps, that would be nice.

So after I seen what everyone agrees on, after some modifications, it should be this?

S - 5 + 1 = 6
P - 5 + 1 = 6
E - 4 + 1 = 5
C - 5 + 1 = 6
I - 8 + 1 = 9
A - 6 + 2 = 8
L - 7 + 1 = 8

You don't need all the implants tbh.

But the build looks good to me.

Edit strength, luck and agility are the only stat boost implants that actually help much I've found.

There are 9 implants in total, the 7 implants comment was referring to 5 SPECIAL implants and the other 2 general ones - the Damage Threshold implant and the Health Regeneration implant. You can of course mix and match to get the ones you think are important or just put Endurance at 9 and take them all.



Play the game? The build I gave plus all the implants is a goal to shoot for regarding your SPECIAL stats and abilities, not something you should expect to have by level 3 or something. Loot items from fallen enemies, complete quests and get paid to do it, gamble in the casinos and clean them out, play caravan, fight in the Thorn... and many other methods for making money or collecting items you can sell for caps. Honestly, by the mid to late stages of the game you should be swimming in caps with nothing to spend them on even after you've purchased all the implants you want.

Oh the Thorn is an arena? *Runs off with the level 30 to go see*

As Urtho said, by mid-game you can be swimming in caps if you wish. Any location with respawning human enemies will yield lots of decent weapons and lots of cheap--but numerous--armor pieces. Pretty soon every vendor you know will have enough armor to equip a regiment. Repair the seriously damaged items, and get a feel for the point where it's better to sell two damaged pieces rather than one less-damaged, repaired piece. Use your companions for cargo capacity. Unlike FO3 or Oblivion, vendors have plenty of caps, no Creeper or Mudcrab Merchant required. I clean out the Fiends every few days, it's almost as good as Rockmilk was.

My personal favorite setup

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

S 8 +Implant/intense training
P 2 +glasses/1st recon berret/ede
E 8 +Implant/intense training
C 1
I 9 +Implant/intense training
A 9 +Implant/intense training
L 3 +Implant/intense training

My charactor is a beast now in melee/guns/energy/repair sneak/speech/medicine all 90-100

all important special at 10