I had an idea to make a build centered completely around using Chance's Knife. The reasons for this are:

1- Takes advantage of both grunt and cowboy, greatly increasing its base damage

2- Very easy to get early in the game

3- bonus crit chance and the various perks to increase crit damge make this weapon deadly

before i lay out the build I am going to highlight the perks that increase base damage and critical damage

Base Damage:

Cowboy

Grunt

Bloody Mess

Lord Death

Thought you Died*

Heavy Handed**

* Just Lucky I'm alive will likely grant better results for overall damage with this build, considering by level 50 you will have finished the build and be seeing a ton of critical attacks or be easily setting up huge sneak attacks

** shouldn't really be taken as it greatly reduces critical damage and once the build takes off it will be seeing a lot of criticals, especially with sneak attacking

Critical Damage:

Better Criticals

Elijiah's Ramblings

Just Lucky I'm Alive

The Final Critical Chance Calculation:

Luck 10

Built 2 Destroy 3

1st recon beret 5

Ulysses Duster 5

Finesse 5

True Police Stories 10

modifier x2

Ninja (multiplies critical chance by 1.15 rather than adding 15% crit)

Light Touch 5

VATS 5

38 x 2= 76x 1.15= 87 + 5= 92% outside of VATS +5 = 97% in VATS

Even though you will likely be one-shotting most enemies using sneak attack criticals, with a high critical chance you'll also be able to wade into a slew of enemies and just tear them apart

SPECIAL

Strength: 7, +2 for reinforced spine in OWB, +1 for implant = 10

Perception: 6 (needed for better criticals)= 6

Endurance: 6 (needed to get 6 implants), +1 implant= 7

Charisma: 1= 1

Intelligence: 7, +1 implant = 8

Agility: 6, +1 implant, +1 Intense Training = 8

Luck: 7, +1 lucky shades, +1 lonesome road, +1 implant = 10

Traits:

Built to Destroy

Skilled

Gear:

1st Recon Beret, Lucky Shades, Ulysses Duster ( or Joshua Grahm's Armor until you finish Lonesome Road)

Perks:

2: Light Touch. 5% flat crit chance bonus, -25% to enemies crit chance against you

4: Comprehension. Doubles books and magazines effectiveness.

6: Travel light. run faster while wearing light armor. Can get Bloody Mess here for a slight bonus to damage if you dont really care about run speed

8. Grunt. 25% damage bonus to Chance's Knife

10: Cowboy. 25% damage bonus to Chance's Knife

12: Silent Running. running no longer hinders sneaking. helps setup sneak attack criticals in melee range

14: Finesse. add 5% to critical chance

16. Better Criticals. 50% damage bonus to critical damage

18. Super Slam. adds knockdown chance to melee attacks

20. Ninja.

22. Piercing Strike. Subtracts 15 DT from enemies while using melee/unarmed

24. Slayer. 30% attack speed bonus

26. Unstoppable Force. x4 damage through blocking opponents ( can be taken earlier if enemies blocking is a problem for you or you typically don't use VATS)

28. Voracious Reader. damaged books become blanks, which allows you to copy magazines into them, specifically True Police Stories for crit chance bonus

30. Intense Training Agility. needed for 8 agility to get the next perk

32. Tunnel Runner. increased sneaking speed. makes it even easier to sneak around/setup sneak attacks

34. Stonewall. +5 DT vs melee attacks, cannot be knocked down. Helps when engaging enemies that knock you down, since you'll be in melee range of enemies primarily

other perks would be personal preference

Other key perks

Lord of Death: Damage bonus. earned from killing everything you can

Melee Hacker: increases melee attack speed. earned from doing 10k damage with one handed melee weaps, and 10k dmg with two-handed melee weaps

Elijiah's Ramblings: increases critical damage. earned after completing OWB

Just Lucky I'm alive: Bonus to critical damage. Level 50 perk, must have neutral karma

With this build Chance's Knife will do 34.8 Base Damage and 74.25 critical damage

A standard critical attack would do: 109.05 damage (92% critical chance)

in VATS (double damage): 218.1 damage (97% critical chance)

Sneak attack Critical (x5 melee): 545.25 damage (100% critical chance)

add to that the fast attack speed and you'll be dishing out a scary amount of dps