Something I always seem to do is get bored of my first playthrough of a game, or something happens and I HAVE to restart.
Then I play for about 10 hours and wonder about another type of build....
Then I make it and do the same and wonder about another type...
And another type...
And another type....

Luckily i'v only played through twice, and both time's iv relied on a small arms, best armor and rifle I could find kind of person who just messes [censored] up.
Unfortunately I am now walking around in the O:A power armor and loving how I look, yet lacking any decent weapon, or skills, or perks that would compliment that kind of build.
Sooooo... *cough* time for a new playthrough.... ><
So i'm now looking for some play-style suggestions.
Essentially i'm wanting to know what you guys suggest playing through as.

How my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. up (not based on all the bobbleheads in the game)
What my TAG skills should be (and another one or two to work on leveling).
And how/what you rely on to play through.

I'm really up for playing any way. My first playthrough I was a cutthroat bounty hunter. However I just killed 99% of the people I didn't need in the game.
My second playthrough I blew megaton up lol.

Let the suggestions fly!
Try to keep spoilers to the minimal ^^

Don't worry, Fallout 3 was MADE to be replayed, each time with different choices made and different skills used...

Hmm..

Well I could suggest a few builds, but here are some basic ones that come to mind.

Heavy Weapons Specialist

S:7

P:5

E:9

C:5

I:4

A:5

L:5



Tags:Lock picking, Big Guns. Explosives.

Specialties: Breaking and entering, Brings the massive punch to the battlefield, Pretty much a walking Tank, Great For open battles,Excellent Against Great numbers of enemies.


Weaknesses: Not very good in close quarters, Very slow.

Weapon(s) of Choice: Fat Man, Mini Gun, Gatling Laser



The Assassin


S:7

P:7

E:4

C:3

I:5

A:7

L:7

Tags: Melee Weapons, Sneak, Small Guns

Specialties: Stealthy, Good with close quarters combat, Great with critical hits and swords, Also excellent at killing from long ranges.

Weakness: Mid range and close firefights, Large numbers, and explosives.

Weapon(s) of choice: Shishkebab, Sniper Rifle.

Hope these help.

Have fun on your new play through.

Out of both of those im liking the assassin.
The only thing I could see wrong with the heavy weapons guy is early on, since there's a lack of ammo for mini guns since they use so much, and missles cost alot.

And if i was to go with lock picking, since it kills your karma, i'd make an evil character. Which works awesome with the assassin heh.

I also enjoyed the assassin. Very fun times sending Super mutant heads flying with nothing but a baseball bat and a critical hit...

Lock picking actually does not affect Karma very much, its only a little negative most of the time.

As for lack of ammo, consider it an investment. Your starting out slow for a character that will be extremely fun later on. And if your going to play evil, there will be plenty of caps for you to fill your ammo bag up...

They both have there negative and positives, so pick whatever you want.

You can always play the other one, or a completely different build next play through..

:celebration:

Agree'd. I rememeber my first playthrough I robbed every single house in every single town, murdering every single store keeper to rob every locked box with their wares lmao.

Well im deciding on playing two different files to satisfy my needs haha.

Depending on any other suggestions my two will be:

Assassin and a good-to-the-bone heavy man.

My assassin will be a fem-fatale I think. She will be the one who gets out into the wasteland and realizes "I'm going to have to look out for myself out here. If the people I trusted all my life lied, I nor more trust the people out in this desolate place."
She will be my break into safes, steal from people, murder people she deem's deserving.

My righteous guy will be packin' everything he needs purely for survival. This means going with a high strength, high endurance bone crusher.

Here's my "thoughts" on the build if you wanna take a gander and give some advice.

Assassin:8 str4 perception3 endurance2 charisma7 intellegence8 agility8 luckSmall Guns (silenced handguns, long range 1 shots), Sneak, Lockpick(4th TAG will be explosives or Melee)Basically when there are multiple characters, she will lob grenades or lay mines and lure them over. Anything left after the carnage can be wiped with with a run in swinging a melee weapon or sneak in to pick them off with a small gun.Then I got my rifles for long range to stay out of combat if need be.Shotguns for close combat.

Heavy Hitter:8 strength5 perception8 endurance6 charisma6 intellegence2 agility5 luckBig Guns, Explosives, Small guns(4th TAG will be energy weapons)Basically he's a walk in, and mess [censored] up. I'll play him as good as possible, killing those deemed killing like slavers, and those who buy slaves (thats more an excuse to kill moriarty every time I play).I'll grab energy weapons a little later in the game to level since in the begginning them seem pretty weak.Hoping this build will be enough for my guy to wear power armor, carry a few heavy weapons (Such as maybe rock-it launcher or missile launcher, mini gun, and a laser rifle or some kind of automatic energy gun (have come across many energy weapons)).

Any advice on how to make these better//funner?

(The idea of unarmed and Melee are... kind of iffy to me. Dont like having to run in and get shot a bunch of times to swing a big hammer. )

Well, For the Assassin I believe you have got just about everything down pretty well, I also like the "Look out for myself only" attitude she is bringing to the table, but for a fun time, I really do recommend melee (Swords in particular.) Trust me, there is nothing more satisfying then wiping out an entire base,vault, or some other security compound using only a sword, and watching the blood drip from it as you stare at all the beheaded bodies. Makes you feel like a real bad ass, and it makes the game a little more challenging, so your gonna need to put some extra effort in. I would highly recommend this.

For your Heavy Hitter, might I suggest the very fun and messy Gatling Laser? If you need to know where to get one early on, just tell me...
I would however change the small guns tag to something else, If you want a big power armor wearing tank, I am pretty sure he is not going to be using a Chinese Assault Rifles or a .44 Magnum. Perhaps Unarmed To finish the enemies off with a satisfying KO to the face, or Repair so you can upkeep those pricey weapons.

Just some of my opinions. Feel free to do whatever you want. These playthrough's seem very well thought out. Hope you have fun with either one :fallout:

On a side note, might I ask if you have Fallout: New Vegas? Or if you are still considering getting it...

My assassin will have melee weapons, May be a bit later on I start grabbing the skill but I want to make sure I have a nice setup where I can just slaughter people. Maybe when I get a high stealth and won't get caught sneaking on people.
I also plan to use the mod which makes cripple effects more real, and grab the dartcut. Shoot someone from a distance, and quickly run up to them and finish them off.
But I always find I LOVE my character when shes living in a world trying to kill her, so she needs to lookout for herself, even if it means doing things people may find unspeakable.

Ya I an planning on going with gattling laser later on, but because energy guns always seem weak early on i'm putting that skill up a bit slower (:.
I was also waiting for my power armor, however I don't know how to get training (asides operation anchorage) so when I randomly come across that I will. I asume it's got something to do with the citadel but, I can't get in so
And repair! Thank you! Forgot about that and had no idea how.

Well, I would not want to spoil anything for you, but I will give you the option to take a nice little look on how to get Power Armor training... Look if you want..



As for the repair, no problem for reminding you. I often forget of it myself.

Ahh and the Dartgun, a true Assassin's weapon. Very good choice if I may say so myself.

Looks like I was able to help you out after all...

:foodndrink:

Haha i looked, BUT all I read was "it's part of the main quest" and stopped haha. Just the perfect amount of spoiler

Why don't you take another peak...

I know you want to...

Anyways

How is your character build coming along?

Lmao.
So. Tempting.
Must resist.
Urge to.
Spoil!

And i'v decided to put off making my new character(s) until this friday or possibly monday.

I just ordered a new MSi motherboard and i5 processor and 16 gigs of ram soooo.
I'm just gonna crack the hell out of every single graphic option (:

I think it would be better to start with amazing graphics, rather then run into them part way through?
or should I make it now and just switch graphics on later?

FYI the gatling laser is a heavy weapon not an energy weapon. Also I might recommend my highly successful heavy weapons build.

S. 8
P. 6
E. 9
C. 1
I. 9
A. 1
L. 6

Tag: Big guns, Repair, and Explosives

With this build you would take the strength bobblehead and ant might perk to get 10 strength. Endurance Bobblehead gets you 10 endurance. At the first 2 levels go for intense training and add either 1 to luck and 1 to perception, or 2 to luck.

Charisma is rather useless honestly and the points are better used for intelligence as the skill boost from the charisma stat is moot compared to the extra skill points at level up.

Agility is rather pointless as well. Besides the added skill points it only provides 2 AP per level. So you lose 8 AP. But Big guns are more useful outside of VATS anyway and I never use it with big guns because of that. It becomes rather pointless.

Luck can be useful with some big guns that have critical multipliers greater than 0, but is not the most important thing out there. Each point of luck gives you 1% higher critical chance.

With this character, winterized T51-B, and a few perks I was rocking 85 DR, 80 RAD resist without Rad-X mind you, 300 carrying capacity and I think like 530 health or something like that. I played him totally good by the way.

If you want a powerhouse that can really take a beating go for this build. Unarmed or melee can be good for taking out weaklings like radroaches to save ammo, and of course make sure to level your science and lockpicking. Try to get to 50 in both by like level 7 or 8, and after that level it at your leisure as most locks and computers are average and below.
Speech is also useful for this build but in rather small doses at first. More of a nice thing to have than a necessity.
Also you should get barter to 15 in like the first 2 levels and then leave it because lower than that means you pay 2 caps per bullet for 5mm ammo instead of 1 which really adds up.

I had the same problem as you with getting bored and making new characters. this is the one I stick with the most, and always go back to. And if the game gets too easy then turn up the difficulty.

Well I don't knwo where more then 3 bobbleheads are atm, or 4 I think. But I don't like using guides to find stuff or being cheap with it, so i like exploring. Since I know the strength one is in Megaton, I can use that. But I might slightly tweak the SPECIAL to avoid requiring the bobbleheads.

As for energy weapons ya gattling laser is heavy but stuff like Gauss Rifle is energy (Which I effing LOVE since it's basically instant win against anything you shoot lol, and it always seems to go straight... unlike snipers).

I won't be going for O:A til atleast after level 10 though so I can wait on my lasers.

As for everything else, it's exactly what I want to do. I MAY just stick with Power Armor though unless strength caps at 10? Because then the +2str means more carry weight, even if its only a small amount.
If it caps at 10, then I will just go with the the winterized power armor.

Endurance bobblehead:


Also it isn't a requirement to get the aforementioned bobblehead. It just gives you 20 more HP when you get 1 more endurance. Also I read somewhere that endurance determines your movement speed.

As for the gauss rifle I use it as well, but I didn't start putting points toward energy weapons until somewhere in the teen levels. The main downside of big guns is that there isn't a real good dedicated long range big gun. The closest you have is a missile launcher. So it can be useful for certain situations (Ex. Evergreen Mills) also I carry a plasma pistol for dispatching small pests usually in one shot. So energy weapons can be useful later.

You must also remember that the general play-style for this kind of character is run and gun so you don't really sneak and snipe. kind of the opposite.

Also why I like the winterized T51-B is because it has practically limitless health due to it having 1 million health to both the suit and helmet. At level 21 and after having done almost all the add-ons with it I still don't have a scratch on it lol. Also, sure you don't get the strength bonus, but you get better DR, The armor lasts longer, and it has a much higher Rad Resist bonus.

I won't lie I looked... but I got no idea where deathclaw sanctuary is so yay! ill come across it eventually when I do a playthrough again

yeah, you will know when you find it.

This looks helpful & I like the look of this build, only change I would make is to reduce inteligence and boost luck and perhaps perception a little bit more. I would start off using unarmed I think.... and probably keep tag skills the same, maybe change big guns to unarmed to help out at the start of the game a bit more. It usually takes a few levels before you find a nice big gun so until then you can raise the big gun skill by using skill points at level up.

thanks

whether or not to max out intelligence tends to be more of a personal choice. As for luck and perception if you do what I did and take intense training the first 2 levels you can make both of them 7's. You don't really need to have much more perception than that, and more can be a nuisance by causing false alarms. Luck is a little more useful, but the highest critical multiplier i have seen on a big gun is x1 and the mini gun and a few others have a x0 which means no criticals. Criticals might be more useful for unarmed or melee, although they are more for saving ammo on weaklings so criticals are not so key in that aspect.

The only downsides I see from having 1 agility and charisma is that you start with lower speech and barter skills, you lose a measly 8 AP points, and the only perks you really miss out on are light step from agility because the other ones are for sneaking or VATS, and with 1 charisma you miss out on child at heart and animal friends, but honestly I never really worried about them.

I personally used unarmed over melee because I had higher endurance, but it could go either way. Melee has a few stronger weapons, and gets a +5 damage boost with 10 strength. Unarmed has the iron fist perk which after 3 levels gives +15 damage to each attack, you get to use a weapon that can ignore DR, and you get paralyzing palm perk. The choice is up in the air honestly.