Good day.

So, I'm new to the whole business of really getting into Fallout New Vegas. My compulsions usually drive me to start the game, be afraid of the greater world of the game, and then retreat to other games.

I wanted to make a new push to actually complete the game, so I decided to make a new character, get the Project Nevada mod for some additional fun, and then see what happens. I'd love to experience the new content though, so knowing when the content can be the most fun to do would be really nice. Is there a skill I should have at a high enough level or a level I should be at for the DLC to be less of an exercise in frustration and more about getting a good story?

Thank you for your time.

You can do them at pretty much any level, but it would be hard for a level 2. Plus with out the high lockpick, speech, science, repair, and stuff you miss out on a lot of cool stuff.

I did Honest Hearts at 14 and Dead Money a roughly 18-21, I don't know you get a lot of experience in the DLCs.

Any bare minimum skill points I should be aiming for so I can grab all the useful loot?

Am planning to hoof it to those areas carrying only ammo, a rifle, and my personal armor. So knowing what I need to really get the most out of the DLC would be ideal.

I'd say a strong 60 in any of those should help, but 100 is recommended if you want to get it all in one shot.

And yes don't bring much to the DLCs, I did the same as you and still ended up dropping stuff in disappointment due to lack of strength to carry it all.

Dead Money has several Speech, Medicine, Lockpick, and Science checks, several will require a skill level of 75 or higher. Honest Hearts (to my memory) has no Science checks at all, so Speech and, I think, Lockpick there. It depends on what difficulty you play on, too. Dead Money starts you out with zero healing items, and very few places to even rest to recover, so if you're playing on very hard, going in below level 20 would be dangerous. Honest Hearts is a bit more forgiving, though the enemy raider-types come equipped with some absurdly powerful weaponry, and there are Giant Cazadores (though, I never saw one, oddly).

Honest Hearts is more of an open world experience like the main game. Dead Money is pretty claustrophobic, intense and scary.

It's definitely harder, and you need to be a reasonably high level with a number of fairly high skills - in addition to the ones listed above good Sneak and Melee/Unarmed abilities would help. And the Light Step perk wouldn't go amiss.

You get stripped of virtually all your possessions at the start - so you certainly can't take your 'ammo, a rifle, and my personal armor' with you!

I started it at around level 22, and found it pretty tough going, though enjoyable until I gave up!

You can do Honest Hearts at level 1. You don't need any particular skill to survive it. If you want to get the *most* out of it, then you'll want a high Speech. If you do it at a high level (I think 16+), the White Legs will be armed to the teeth with all kinds of butt-kicking weapons that you can loot from them. I recommend level 10 for your first run.

First run for Dead Money? Level 20 minimum. Light Step Perk will make things a little bit more laid back. If you want to get the most out of this DLC, go in with a high Science skill... though you really don't *need* it -- it will let you get one particular vending code that you'd otherwise miss out on. High Speech is extremely useful. If you don't have a very high Guns skill, then you'll want to have a moderate to high skill with Melee or Unarmed. A decent Medicine skill will also help, at least in the beginning.

I don't know if this is a glitch or what, but when I went to Zion at level 6 or 7 I was still encountering Giant Yao Guai and Giant Cazadors. I had to use the "Chaos in Zion" quest to finish Honest Hearts at all on that playthrough :sadvaultboy:

But anyway, I'd recommend doing Dead Money somewhere around level 20 or 25. Make sure you have lots of Speech, Lockpick, Science and if possible Perception, Intelligence and Charisma.

I've heard you can do Honest Hearts at any level, but as I posted above that was not the case for me... Fallout: New Vegas is a buggy game though, so I might be wrong.

I usually look for these stats minimum before going to DM
Repair 40+ for the traps (up to 75 & 100 if you want to disable the emitters. I just shoot them)
Survival 40+ (needed to make goodies from junk, and get more out of your limited stimpacks)
Lockpick 50 (start) - 75 (end)
Science 60-80
Perception 7 (sci & perception for Christine 'conversations')
Sneak + energy weapons is useful.

There isn't anything vital in any locked container or room. I'm struggling to remember anything more valuble than a [Return] Vending Code in a locked cash register.

My first time, I stated DM at level 10. I regretted it. The combat itself wan't what made me regret it, it was all the very high skill checks. For one of Christine's quests, you can either have a repair of 70(Or somewhere in that vicinity) , or search frantically around the Sierra Madre for parts.

You need high skill (having all of these at 50 or higher before DM will help greatly) in:

Survival
Medicine
Repair
Lockpick
Science
Sneak(is good, but go for the other ones first)
and Meele/Unarmed, either one will do, because of the rarity of the ammo.

After my first time through dead money I made a few skill notes. Picking up books and skill mags during the DLC can make it easier, as can timely use of drinks and chems.

You need 75 Science to access a locked room in the police station, inside is the vending machine code for .357 ammo. Thankfully there is a skill mag of programmers digest in the same building. The very hard terminals found in dead money arent' necessary to hack nor do they provide much aid.(they activate some security holograms that can kill ghost people). 50 Lockpick should be enough, the few hard locks just make exploration easier, but there are plenty of average you'll want to open.

85 speech is required for the very highest check, but 75 would be high enough to defuse the same situation, drinking whisky, taking some mentats, wearing Vera's outfit and reading a meeting people can offer quite the boost to help you reach that status. Save often in the Casino so you don' t trigger that speech challenge before you can retrieve Vera's outfit and the meeting people magazine.