I noticed, having played Fallout 2 again 7 years after I last played it, that like every other time I played the game over again I found something completely new (let's hope FO3 is like this too!) that I never found before. And so as I was looking back on all the different stuff I had tried, I wondered something.

Let's say you made a character with 1 or 2 IN, 1 or 2 CH, but you had two of your tag skills set as science and speech. And with your second (and/or) third level, you divided up the skill points between those two skills.

Would this increase the set of already hilarious options you have available to you in NPC dialogue trees? Would it allow you to become more convincing to all the people who get exasperated at your character's incoherent speech?

Has anyone tried this?

That would be hilarious. You would have a moron doing stuff like hacking computers.

You can hack some stuff, but I don't think you can talk better to people or get the skill related dialogs.

Tested this out this evening. Nothing different in the speech options, but oh my god, I checked all the dialogue options in every city except Raiders, Navarro, San Fran, and Military base and I must say I've never laughed so much in a video game. A few of them:

"Sheriff Marion: You're a few fries short of a Happy Meal, aren't you?"

"Mayor Ascorti: There's plenty of magic in those slot machines, go give it a try"

"First Citizen Lynette: That must be your IQ on your jumpsuit, not a Vault number." (LOL!)

"Marcus: You wanna fight ME?"

"Broken Hills Cave Guy: Oh no! I've slept so long the world has turned stupid! Aieeeeeeeeee! ::he flees in panic::"

"Boxing Stuart: Buzz off, *******, you're wasting my time.
Player: Bzzz-Bzzz"

"Corsican Brother: Awright, brainiac. Pay's 5..er...3 chips for one shoot. Get into the backroom and wax that fella's shaft.
Player: Shaft...He's one bad mutha---
Corsican Brother: Shut your mouth!
Player: But it's shaft!
Corsican Brother: I can dig it."

Hahaha, my God this game was so cruel against the mentally challenged. Just imagine how hard those guys who complained about that Ben Stiller movie (Tropic thunder or something?) if they saw the kind of bile in this game towards low IN characters.

Low intelligence Fallout 2 was basically the biggest easter egg in the history of easter eggs. The game was not completable without eating mentats at certain points to give you regular speech options but it was hilarious just to try. Troika made the idiot system even deeper in Arcanum where they actually rewrote all of the quest and journal entry dialogue for dumb characters.

And they even went further and included a background that fits the OP's character concept: Idiot Savant. You had all dumb dialog options but could retain your intelligence for skill purposes. Plus it gave you a boost to gambling skills. You could be the Rain Man, ha.

That was funny. I never considered doing it. But the results were pure genius. I like the happy meal and shaft ones. Gawd if there was an animation for that X|.

Is this possible in Fallout 1 also, and if so is it just as funny?

I'm fairly sure that skill checks in Fallout 2 take into account both your skill level and attribute related for that skill. Hacking a computer will require a combined check of INT + Science skill, for instance. I could be wrong though. Just seemed like popping a Mentat or two always helped hack computers and do other things.

There is supposedly some dialogue that depends on a high level of skill. Probably would amount to your character getting knocked over the side of the head and actually becoming intelligent for a few seconds.