I'm new to these fourms and I've tried browsing to find a topic question similair to mine (I'm sure this has been asked alot) but have had no luck.

I was wondering what a good SPECIAL build would be for my new playthrough I'll be starting here in a few days. I like to use the regular guns, and mess with sniper rifles. (I'm a huge fan of the hunting rifle, lever action rifle, etc) and I like to use alot of the speech checks etc to my advantage.

If this info will make any difference, I usually play as the good guy, will side with the NCR (make them friends with the boomers, brotherhood etc.) and I'll have Boone / ED-e as my companions.

After not having played NV for a long time now (close to a year I think) and now I got all the DLC, I'm pretty stoked to be getting back into it.

I like having a lot of points in Intellegence and Agility for skill points each level, and for guns, sneak and more action points. I always put Charisma down to one as it frees up 4 points to use. But if you like doing the speech checks, then you won't want to do that. If you do a shoot first, ask questions later character, then put charisma to one. If you put your Endurance to 7 right away, you can buy at least 7 implants (i think) at the medical clinic that will help boost your special a point each.

my starting character is usually:

S - 6
P - 5
E - 7 (hardcoe mode)
C -1
I - 8
A -8
L - 5

plus an implant to increase all of them by 1, except for Charisma. I just put skill points into barter as I go, and speech later in the game.

Again though, i'm a guns first, questions later kinda guy with this game.

If you use a few perks and implants with a bit of forward planning it can help a lot.

For example, with a starting STRENGTH of 5, the doctors implant and the Weapon Handling perk ( effectively lowers gun weight by 2 ) you can wield guns as big as the AMR no worries. Extra carry weight is better gained through Strongback perk anyway.

Once you have Educated and Comprehension, there are no good ( imo ) perks early on, if you start with ENDURANCE of 5 or 6, use Intense Training perk point into End., then up to all 7 SPECIAL implants can be bought ( I don't buy the other two, I can heal easy enough and being a stealthy build don't need better DT )

I like to have at least 6 or 7 in LUCK, with the doc's implant and the Naughty Nightwear, the Casino's don't know what hits them. I have base LUCK of 9 in my current game, with the +1 bonus from the N.N. just do 200 cap spins on the slot machines, hit 3 oranges in at least half the Casino's ( 36000 caps each time! )

Like WeedKing says above, high AGILITY and INT. are very beneficial early on, 7 or 8 minimum, the additional Skill Points and Action Points boost are probably the factors most directly influenced by the SPECIAL stats ( again, imo ) as they affect how many shots you can get off in VATS and having 2 extra skill points over 26 levels is a no brainer.

I am not as sure about PERCEPTION, I always had a high one in FO3 but from reading the forum, it seems a bit pointless in NV. With ED-E's Enhanced Sensors perk and the fact you can recruit it early in game, means maybe 5 or even 4 may be enough to start, ED-E gives a handy warning beep too. Add the implant and a +1 headwear ( 1st Recon Beret all the way for me ) gives a respectable 7, I have noticed I do get 'jumped' easier in NV, nothing got withing 500 yards of me un-noticed in FO3.

Most of the additional points usually come at the expense of CHARISMA for most people, personally, don't like any Special of 1 if I can help it ( think there are some speech options denied ), using Tag perk and the +10 speech bonus from N.N overcomes any initial poor Speech points total.

I love the fact there aren't enough points to go around, unlike FO3 where you could max out all Specials to 10 and Skills to 100 with no problems, I actually question if I should go storming into that fight or have to remember where the lock picks and PC hacks are you couldn't do first time.

Right on, thanks for the input fellas!

I wish there was a calculator or something I can use to tally them all up and mess around with it, I checked out both the wiki and have been searching through Google.

Agian, thanks for the help!