hey guys, i was considering starting another playthrough and since i have never done an Explosive playthrough before as i heard they were under powered.

but i am up for it, and i need some advice on creating a good character.

I'd Suggest having Small arms or Melee as a secondary just in case you either run out of ammo for your explosives, as they can become quite heavy or expensive.

Be sure to have some decent Strength or Str perk due to the nature of most explosive weapons are chunky haha

Perception is also another attribute I would go heavy in

well they've been buffed so now they are pretty good (or so i hear)


and no, explosiony is not a word, lol. It should be though

they have been pretty buffed now. makes Powder ganger much more dangerous

Explosives are great now. They kick F'ing A, to coin a phrase Even my non-explosives oriented chars make good use of them. Instead of being completely worthless in the hands of a non-exploder, you can take out whole groups of enemies with maybe two grenades now, even if you only have 30 points in explosives. Besides the obvious perks, like 3 levels of Demo Expert, Splash Damage, etc., be sure to beef up a secondary specialty too, be it guns or energy weapons. There are still more situations than not where explosives aren't going to be able to do the whole job every time, for whatever reason.

Even with the buff they are harder to play than guns or energy weps. but yes specing into guns and possibly sneak work. If your on the pc maybe get a mod that gives you a grenade hotkey? i have project N and it comes with it.

yeah i considered being explosive with Melee as a secondary

any idea on S.P.E.A.C.I.A.L

I went explosives with guns for my latest playthrough. Explosives are really awesome now, like they should be. I am yet to use the Grenade machinegun, but am looking forward to giving it a go, it just looks bad_ss!

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1171341-explosives-oriented-build-advice/ an older, similar thread with good advice.

I started a new character after the new patch ( my second explosives dedicated character, on my 1st I encountered a game breaking glitch) I think that explosives are perfectly viable now after a few tweaks w/ the past 2 patches.

Here's my build, I warn you, it is a bit unconventional.

S: 7 - 8
P: 1 - 2
C: 5 - 6
E: 8 - 9
I: 9 - 10
A: 9 - 10
L: 1 - 2

Traits: heave ho / heavy handed
Tags: Explosives, melee, speech

My tips:

1) Thrown explosives become overshadowed by nade rifle / nade launcher / gmg / missile launcher. Plasma / frag nades are insanely expensive.

2) Unlike most people and explosives, I use vats ALOT. You'll find you can score indirect (AOE) hits fairly easily with a 1%-5% if you aim for the lower portion of an enemy.

3) Use em sparingly. explosives are expensive. Either use a companion as a finisher, or take a secondary combat skill. I like melee because you can sell all energy/ gun / ammo to buy explosives. Edit: I'm not sure but 40mm nades, which used to be rare seem to show up consistently now, but not they cost a bit more.

Explosives 100 dear sir.

I dont think explosiony is a work, but it should be. As should kablamish.
Mmm explosives. And it does seem that they're ridiculously easy to aqure. Without any effort at all my scavenger has maby 40 sticks of dynamite and the same of the long fuse variety, and an extensive collection of mines, grenades, and also some C4.

Of course, she's absolutely [censored]e at explosives, but when in the mood for some kaboom, it's great fun to fling some around simply to see the screen go fuzzy with blood and for various limbs to fly across the screen.
Last time this charecter went to deathclaw place, ended up being a kamikaze mission, simply running towards the wretched creatures throwing dynamite.. deathclaws died. she died. Boone died. There was alot of dying.


You wanna buy my explosives, 200 caps the lot!


Oh yeah, might want Ed-E as a companion if you're going to be doing explosives, that thing is essentially an armoured backpack.

Well i've just been playing a explosive character and theres a few things to understand.
1. hardcoe mod can make it alot harder for you at the start, unless you've master distance of the aoe damage.
2. Like another post said get a sub class to back you up, I picked guns but went for more of pistol choice so I don't feel cheap using a merc laucher.
3. Some helpful guy give me a good speical to use. Really is made for people getting implants and the stre limiter perk thing <2
S-5
P-6
E-7
C-1
A-6
L-9
I might have got it wrong cause it hard to remeber but i'll edit it if it is later. Build makes it alot easier to live, and easy to get caps by gambling. Also I think the guy who suggested it was for a alround build that pretty much works with all types of builds
4. Viper gangs now have chances of spawning good explosives, pretty good to kill some of those
5. Never try using grenades indoors while playing with a cat on you.

Thankyou kind sir, I'll remember that one.. :biggrin:

Don't pick a second combat skill, go explosives full out.
Yeah it'll be slightly harder but that's what fun with the build.

Endurance is important; luck is not(most of the explosive weapons can't crit). As other tag skills i suggest taking energy weapons and barter. So you can take pyromaniac and make full use of H.incinerator and Flamer they are like cheap explosive weapons.

I suggest using power armor and even taking 2 level tougness after you're done with essential explosion based perks. So you can turn into a walking tank with "Hit the Deck". At this stage you can even use Grenade Machine Gun at close combat. Chemist and chem resistance might be very usefull because damage boost of %25 from slasher is a monstrous difference for your damage output.

For ammo you should check out the quartermaster at hoover damn as at high levels he can have around 300 40mm and 500+ 25mm grenades

Glad to see all this enthusiasm for explosives!
I'm starting an explosives playthrough right now, emphasizing missiles and 40mm grenades (and the fire axe when enemies get too close). Here are some notes I've gathered so far, followed by some 'advanced' questions about explosives:

• The player can get by with a low explosives skill, because having a 1% chance to hit your target with a missile launcher or grenade launcher will often deal lots of damage anyway. You're still going to want to get it up near 100 eventually for increased damage and accuracy, but the point is that explosives are more effective at early levels and that seeing a 10% chance in VATS is not so bad thanks to splash damage.
  
• Pack Rat is very helpful for carrying all of those missiles and grenades. They've gotten lighter post-patch but they still add up.
  
• Despite its quirks, Annabelle is amazing as a sniper weapon for an explosives user. The spread is almost as small as the Anti-Materiel Rifle and the damage from a High Explosives missile is insane (1.35x the already high missile damage). But it doesn't deal direct damage outside of VATS (only splash damage) and the Demolition Expert perks do not apply. Nonetheless, I found it really helpful for VATS-sniping and softening up a crowd before I approach with Thump-Thump and Knock-Knock.
  
• Splash Damage -- Even without it, I find myself getting crippled by my explosives which I fired at a target that I thought was a 'safe distance' away – especially with the high explosive missiles. I would recommend high DT and/or Adamantium Skeleton to make it a little safer to use Splash Damage (because it's actually quite helpful othewise).
  
• Hit the Deck is supposed to increase your DT by 50% when you get hit with explosives, but it is bugged so that it provides the DT bonus any time the player has an explosive weapon equipped – even against non-explosive attacks. Regardless of whether this perk bug is eventually fixed, it's a smart choice for players who frequently get caught in their own splash damage.
  
• Compared to other forms of dealing damage, explosives are the least predictable and therefore the most fun! Yes, in my other save I can clear out Camp Golf on very hard with my AMR, Brush Gun, and Ballistic Fist if I play strategically or just go crazy with chems; But with explosives, I get a wider variety of combat situations and outcomes, most of which are really funny or surprising. If you've already beaten the game with more traditional builds, explosives are an extremely refreshing change.

And now some additional questions about maximizing the effectiveness of an explosives character:

• Does the Center of Mass perk apply a damage multiplier to the torso itself, or does it add a 1.15x damage multiplier to any PROJECTILE aimed at the torso? For people using Guns, this would make a difference because a VATS torso shotgun blast with this perk could do extra damage to the head, arms, and legs if the player is standing back far enough. For a missile launcher, especially Annabelle, especially loaded with high explosive missiles, applying 15% extra damage to the entire blast because the VATS shot just happened to be aimed at the torso would mean the Center of Mass perk is extremely helpful. Does anybody know how Center of Mass actually works?
  
• Is there an advantage to taking Hobbler over Sniper if the player is exclusively using explosives? Aiming an explosive at the ground seems to be a more prudent strategy if the missile or 40mm grenade has a chance of going slightly off course.
  
• Does the Commando perk apply to the Missile Launcher and Grenade Rifle?
  
• Which makes a bigger difference in the ACTUAL firing rate for the one-shot explosives like the missile launcher or grenade rifle: Fast Shot, or Rapid Reload? I may end up taking both, but I'm really just trying to understand what the firing rate increase from Fast Shot does for one-shot weapons.
  
• Does the Meltdown perk affect Plasma Grenades?

Well I got an answer to most of my explosives-related questions. Hopefully they are correct!

• Center of Mass seems to be a good idea for Area-of-Effect weapons since the 15% damage bonus is applied to projectile and not the targeted enemy. So if there are four Vipers standing in a group, VATS-targeting one of their torsos with the missile launcher should mean 15% more damage to ALL of them.
  
• For those who have the Dead Money DLC, Hobbler is probably a smart strategy to avoid wasting the missiles which might otherwise sail past the target's head. But it requires a higher Perception so this is a tradeoff.
  
• The Commando perk DOES NOT apply to the missile launcher but DOES apply to the Grenade Rifle. Yet another reason to pick Hobbler since it should apply to all projectile weapons.
  
• Apparently Fast Shot does not affect Explosives at all. Is that true? If so, somebody needs to update the Fallout Vault since it implies it will increase the firing rate of the Missile Launcher.
  
• I read on another forum that Plasma Grenades are NOT affected by the Meltdown perk, but I have yet to confirm this one way or the other. Can anybody confirm?

I also read a forum post that said the Fallout Vault description for Hit the Deck! is wrong, and that the perk is completely bugged, to the extent that it has no measurable effect (regardless of the weapon equipped AND the weapon used against the player). Can anybody verify this for certain?

Hehe, you have to understand what 'slightly' means- in this case, its definition is "you'll die a whole hell of a lot more, and so will your companions, and you'll get really cozy with the reload-from-last-save feature, and you'll lose a lot of your hair, but yes it can be done."

And there you have it! :biggrin:

On Center of Mass. This is very iffy. You would need to test it out. I am willing to bet $20 that it only effects the hit-damage, not the explosive dmg. The explosive damage is entirely seperate calc from the hit damage.

Actually, I will raise you one Platnium chip that it will not do squat! Of course a 15% dmg increase is REALLY hard to measure with Explosives.

Yeah, it's quite possible that you're correct. It would be hard to verify experimentally, even with Living Anatomy. You could potentially target an enemy's torso in VATS with a 1% chance to hit, knowing you will miss and get only splash damage by hitting a nearby wall, then do this again after getting the Center of Mass perk. You'd have to do it a few times in each scenario and compare averages (to reduce the variability due to splash damage and distance of impact).

But somebody with the GECK should be able to figure this out somewhat easily, right?

The actual damage calculation is handled internally by the engine. You can not see them. The Geck will say it is moddifing entry points - but you have no way of capturing what goes in or what goes out. Best way to test is with console commands. Like with Hit The Deck - every thing looks good in the Geck. But actual testing will show otherwise. So you save, point a Grenade Launcher at your feet and fire! Write down the damage you take, reload your save and give yourself Hit the Deck. Then fire at your feet again. You will still take the same dmg.

Now, in Bioware games like DAO, you could actually insert lines of code into the program that would let you determine EXACTLY what was going on. But not here. The script engine for Bethesda games has always been weak. The script language is like programmers light compared to a Bioware game. Just the way it is.

with latest patch，my explosives skill is 85，and i use annabelle （pipboy shows DMG 330） to shoot verolica‘s head （she wears MKII combat armor 20DT） in vats，only 145 DMG takes，this is something confuse me，it seems like the direct hit damage is funtional but the eplosive damage is not？？

Another thing to point out is you may want to consider the heave ho perk as it not only allows you to lob grenades much further but it also affects wep that fire in arcs including greneade machine gun, grenade rifle, grenade launcher and thier unique varients. Thump thump range becomes massive with this perk and Mercy can carpet bomb enemies more efficiently