I've just started my first play through New Vegas and have decided to make a character focused on unarmed weapons, but after reading about some builds and strategies it seems like most of them use sneak. I've never been a fan of stealth play styles and was wondering if anyone could give me advice on building an unarmed character that doesn't use sneak. I kind of like the idea of using heavy armor and punching enemies off a cliff. Using speed to get in and out of battle fast would work too if heavy armor isn't viable. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

I made a few unarmed characters. None of them used sneak, well mostly. I used sneak to open, or kill a faction character without penalty. Just invest in S. E. A. Of the Special, oh and maybe L. Then take perks which increase unarmed damage, and melee. As the two are almost tied in requirements.

Light armor tends to be the best option as you can still get a respectable amount of DT, but can avoid enemy attacks much better. Also, with stronger enemies that can do single hit damage well above the DT of power armor (Deathclaws for example) it becomes a much better idea to avoid attacks than try to absorb them. For example, a standard deathclaw can deal 125 damage per swing. A suit of power armor can get you around 30 DT. That still means almost 100 damage is going to get through, and you are going to be super slow when trying to manuver in combat.

Power armor is only useful if you have to run into a hail of automatic weapons fire that is rather low damage per bullet. If they have heavier hitting weapons like heavy pistols or rifles then you're better off in light armor.

The best suggestions I can give is to take perks that reduce your chance of addiction to chems and increase how long they last. Use chems for tougher battles to make you stronger and tougher. Med-ex and Slasher combined allow you to resist half of any incoming damage. Damage resistance is much better than the damage threshold armor gives you when it comes to heavy hitting enemies.

I also suggest making explosives a secondary weapon skill for you. They can come in handy if there are too many enemies to take on at once. Toss a grenade in the cluster to kill some and weaken the rest before you charge in.

i wore power armor and used a melee weapon in old world blues. i liked the results. if things aren't going your way in combat, use tubo. it will take awhile to learn how to kill different types of nasties so save the game often.