Strength? Survival? What are the top three?

Whatever floats your boat. You can well survive the game and prevail with any build, even as a pacifist.

I personally agree with Pistolero, but my top 3 SPECIAL are Strength, Intelligence and Perception in that order from most to least important to me. Strength affects carry weight and for a mildly insane scavenger like myself the is incredibly important, also good for weapon handling. Intelligence directly affects the amount of skill points you get to increase for each level up and there are a few fairly important speech checks. Perception for the obvious reason of being able to see enemies before they see you which many consider to be redundant with ED-E's Enhanced Sensors, but for those playthroughs that you don't use a companion it is vital.

My personal top three skills which I almost always Tag at the beginning are Lockpick, Guns and Speech in that order from most to least important to me. Lockpick for the obvious ability to pick locks and i like getting Lucky as soon as possible. Guns because I love me some guns, this should always be your weapon skill of choice ie: Guns, Energy Weapons, Melee or Unarmed. The third for me usually changes between Speech and Repair which are both incredibly useful in their own ways. I've always felt that Speech is the more important one to get as high as possible first since you Repair isn't as important until you start getting automatic weapons, low HP armour and weapons or until you start getting into heavier combat. There are few things in the Mojave Wasteland that I find more depressing then the realization that I don't have enough Speech for a Speech check, but that's just me.

This is what works for me, but what will work for you might be completely different. Trial and error is really the only way to find out what will work for you.

Your most important specials for your style highest at the start and build on them from there.

Protip: You can avoid the main quest's only really difficult fight, at the finale, with 100 Speech or Barter. With 80 of either, I think, you can make it easier. Barter's good for getting through the game faster overall: you get things you want more easily, and you get EXP from all the speech checks if you know where they are. And with the aforementioned speech check, I can see someone getting through the game at lvl12 with focused skill progression, consumables, and two companions (on Hard, let alone lower difficulty). But Barter is just a convenience: An experienced player will know where to find more than enough stuff, and then some.

The only time I have ever raised my Barter to high levels is when I needed Pack Rat for hardcoe mode. Why would you want to finish the game quickly?

keep in mind magazines. often you get a second chance at speech checks. so exit the talk menu and use the right magazine. doesn't work every time but often enough to buy magazines,

I know that, it's the reason why I only raise my skills to 80 and it's only when I get to a high enough level where all of my used skills are at 80 that I raise them higher. The only exceptions are Guns(or any of the other weapon skills), Lockpick and occasionally Repair which I raise to 100 through a combination of my base skill plus the bonuses I get off of clothing I wear a lot and my SPECIAL.

Comprehension is the most useful perk.

I personally disagree. I really prefer selling magazines to using them xP For perk-related reasons mostly, but also so that my character isn't crippled if she doesn't have a copy of Milsurp Review/Locksmith's Reader/what-have-you on her person at that moment. And also because it weakens my character for roleplay purposes.

That said, Comprehension is one of those perks that is really useful. It's up there with Toughness, Life Giver, Black Widow, Living Anatomy, & Strong Back.

OT: Depends on your build. For a Melee/Unarmed guy like me, the most important statistics are HP, DT, DR, Str, End, Survival, Sneak, and the appropriate weapon skills. With 7 points of Agl to get Slayer, of course. There is no "always most important" stat, but every character needs HP.

-Nukeknockout

I did say that my main weapon skill(most likely Guns), Lockpick and occasionally Repair are the exceptions that I raise to 100 because like you said I don't want to rely on having a weapon magazine every time I fight, Repair is a constant ability and Lockpick is something I just don't want to ever worry about again.

Keep in mind that with Voracious Reader, you can MAKE magazines.

Just put your points into somewhere, you can hardly go wrong with any them.
If you're a beginner, I'd say focus on Guns, Speech, Lockpick, Repair, Medicine and Science first. After you got familiar with the mechanics, you can start toying around with the other skills.
Survival is relatively unimportant if you play with hardcoe switched off, it does become incredibly useful and crucial, if should go for the hardcoe Mode, though.




Haven't tried that one out so far. What books do I have take for that? Scorched ones? Pre-War books?

1. Perception and Intelligence
2. Repair and Survival to make ammo and food
3. Both the Cherchez Le Femme and Black Widow perks, for keeping options open and damage.
3a. Both the Confirmed Bachelor and Lady Killer perks, for keeping options open and damage.
4. Cass and a Riot Shotgun.

I had a lot of fun with a doctor I made, 5's across the board with 10 intelligence and all perks focused on skills, speech and 1 handed guns. My weapon was obviously 1 handed guns and my main skill was speech, but with 17SP per level by the endgame (level mid 20s) most skills were very high. My approach was to always think or talk my way through and only fight if no other option. It was a very fun, relaxing game. Oh, I avoided deathclaws with this build, heh.

Endurance, Strength, Intelligence
Melee, Medicine, Repair

I"ve played through Fallout New Vegas (and Fallout 3) so many times I"ve lost count. What I like to do is figure out what kind of person my character is going to be. Is he going to be a peace-loving pacifist who only fights if provoked or cornered? Is he going to be the gunslinging quiet type, kind of like Clint Eastwood in those old westerns? Is he going to be an ax wielding madman bent on destroying every living thing in his path? Once you do this, to me, it makes the game more interesting once you do start choosing which skills to improve and which ones to ignore, based on your characters personality that you have built up inside your own mind.

Or you could just go with these other peoples advice...lol.

The sight of your enemies being crushed and driven before you as you savor the laments of their women.

lmao

In New Vegas I typically get high-ish Luck and Strength/Endurance. Quite a few items in the Mojave give you Perception bonuses, and high Agility I dont find TOO useful.

The skills I always tag are Guns/Energy Weapons, Lockpick, and Repair/Medicine/Speech. I find magazines useless by the time I hit Lv. 30, since by then the only useful magazines I find are La! Fantoma for Sneak, which I hardly ever use. Other than that, I always have 100 Speech Medicine, Guns/Energy Weapons, Science, and Repair, well... Most of those.

Most important items: A Weapons and stimpacks. Oh, and some Ice cold Nuka-Cola for after your battle, to sip while you sit on your throne of fallen enemies.