Believe it or not, I've still not played Fallout 3. As I've another six weeks or so until the Game of the Year Edition is finally released for 360, I've decided to complete Fallout 2 in the mean time. I've played the game dozens of times but always seemed to run out of steam by the time I'd found V13. Usually this is because I try and come up with a challenging/different character who I inevitably get bored of. This time I'm purely playing to win. I don't want to cheat, but I've decided to go with the most direct approach I can come up with. I'm going to play a Sniper!

I'm still sketching out my character. I know which perks I'll be taking (Awareness, Better Criticals, Bonus Rate of Fire, Sharpshooter, Sniper!), but am still a little unsure on which skills to tag. Small Guns and Speech are definatly needed, but I'm unsure what to take as my third. I've been thinking either Science or Repair to help me with some of those awkward quests. Or perhaps lockpicks or stealth, to give me that advantage in combat. What do you think?

Also, does anyone know if there's any other way to raise a stat by a point other than using a perk? I could have sworn there was, but can't for the life of me remember how. I don't want to pour 10 points into a stat only to find a bonus further down the road!

Any other advice or tips for my build would be greatly appreciated!

Sharpshooter can be ignored if you're going to take Sniper and have 8-10 Luck, depending on when you do the NCR zeta scan for +2 luck. Don't forget quick pockets and action boy. To further Sniper, take Fast Shooter/shot, whatever it is, it lowers AP by one point at the cost of the inability to make aimed shots. Definitely Living Anatomy for the extra damage per bullet, it makes that SMG you get from a Morton brother in Redding into a monster. Heck, any burst SMG becomes nasty with Fast Shooter/Action Boy(2)/Living Anatomy/Sniper.

Your third skill should be lockpick, as you come across several science and repair books to say the least along the game, and Vic can act as your repair monkey.

There's a Gifted Sniper build on the FO wiki that cites Gifted and Fast Shooter as the beginning traits with 10 AGI, etc stats as an ideal gun user. You can ignore the Sierra Army Depot quest from the wrights if you don't want a questionable ending for New Reno, and while the Brain Bot/Skynet with a cybernetic brain is a great NPC, you can't equip it with any armor.

I would not take the Fast shot trait personally, you lose the ability to make head and eye shots which can mean instant death. One kind of freaky option, if its your play style, would be to tag Sneak. With high sneak and a rifle you can stand away from the crowd, enter sneak, take a shot at a baddies head, end combat and repeat. Because you're sneaking they won't see you and you won't get the "cannot end combat with enemies around" message. Because you only need enough action points to fire a single shot plus one point(use that last point to end combat) you don't have to worry about pumping Perception all the way, You will need 8, eventually, to get the sniper perk. You also won't need a high endurance because you won't be seeing much combat in the traditional sence, you'll be a hard core sniper hiding in the shadows! I discovered this with an unarmed character I made, with my sneak at 150 I could puch raiders/gangsters in the back of the head and then "hide" 2 hexes away!

You can raise each atributte by 1 if you use the Gain Atributte perks, You can raise Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and Perception from Brotherhood of Steel surgery, you'll have to find the corresponding memory module first. Ther is also power armor which adds 3 or 4 to strenght and the mirrored shades which add to Charisma.

If he gets enough Luck and the Sniper perk, then he'll get so many criticals that an aimed shot will be wasted AP.

I concede the fact that the Sniper Perk makes aimed shots unneccesary.

You do have to go with out the ability to make aimed shots for a long time before the sniper perk becomes available, that's the trade off and there is nothing wrong it. I believe that this is the reason for the Mutate perk, you could take a trait with imediate early game benefits, I like Finesse and Good Natured, and mutate them in the late game for the Fast Shot trait. I have done this and was very happy with the results. There is also the choice of weaponry to consider, Terrig never stated a prefrence I just guessed from the Sniper persona that it would be Rifles. If SMGs and Assault rifles are prefered then Fast Shot is a life saver and should be taken from the start, this also holds true for Big Guns.

No aimed shots are still nessesary, you just aim to different areas to get different effects. Blinding knockouts cripple weapon arms etc.