So... can a stealther use power armor effectively, while using a similar playstyle to what they had prior to donning the suit?

I wanted to know if it'd work, and the best way to find out is experience. Hard playthrough, though considering upping the difficulty to Very Hard now.

I hit level 41 and pushed my Science! to Rank 4 on my Sniper/Stealth character. High Perception, Intelligence, and Agility primarily, with low/mediocre Strength/Endurance. I then grabbed my suit of X-01 I'd found behind the National Guard Training Yard and modded it to the max I could:

With Armorer 2 and Science! 4, I upgraded to X-01 mk IV across all six slots, Hot Rod Red Flames paint for a bonus to Agility, a Stealth Boy in the Torso, and Calibrated Shocks in the legs so I could haul junk more efficiently.

I loaded up on my favored ammo types. Primary weapons were a Combat Rifle (Overseer's Guardian) with a Suppressor, Short Light Barrel, QE Large Mag, Recoil Stock, Circle Sights, and a .308 Receiver (198 base damage). A Combat Shotgun with essentially the same setup. A fully modded .50 cal sniper rifle. (Rifleman at 5, Sandman at 3, Sniper at 3, Stealth at 4, Ninja at 3 - x5.3 ranged sneak damage)

X-01 armor is pretty darn beefy and hard to kill as it is, even if it's not Mark VI (Mark IV is about the same stats as T-60F, so not shabby by any means). If the opponent never gets a straight shot at you, it's darn near impossible to kill it. With a very large AP pool and Action Boy/Girl at 2 to regen fast while moving, the Stealth Boy lasts a very long time.

The time I came closest to dying was picking a bad fast travel point and loading into five supermutants beating the tar out of me and my companion. Stimmed and then killed them asap.

Aside from that, there was no real threat. I was more than capable of staying in Caution or Hidden state most of the time, and even if fully revealed -- I was in power armor, and could shrug off a lot of surprises that would normally wreck me in Ballistic Weave 3 (which is what I can currently make). I don't trigger tripwires or mines even in the power armor still, so one of the threats to my armor's legs that I experienced in my first playthrough are not a major concern.

I went through a 3 hour gaming session, playing through about 6-8 different missions and area clears (Camp Kendall for the Railroad, Fanuiel Hall, the BADTFL, and others) without needing to repair once. Used up four Fusion Cores from the length of time in the armor and went through 350 rounds of .308 ammo with the amount of mid-ranged combat there was (and another 40ish .50 cal and a couple dozen shotgun rounds). The Stealth Boy, multiple times, was the difference between detection and a solid sneak attack. Instances such as an enemy rounding the corner on me, or sitting at a balcony or in an exposed area -- in power armor -- and still going undetected until I start killing. Far more often they found my companion first.

At the end of the day, the most damaged piece of armor was an arm with 95 HP left of durability.

So... yeah... you can totally sneak/snipe in power armor. And when it comes time to play smashface, you certainly can stand up, stomp in, and start gunning people down still. Just had to stimpack a bit more frequently due to a smaller base HP pool.

A power armor stealth sniper build has been and is my main build in the last three Fallout games. It works just fine. In this game, I start wearing power armor non stop at around level 15 which is the point I finally have enough fusion cores to manage this. I'd probably be sneakier without it, but so far the only place I have trouble is in broad daylight out in the bald open. Everywhere else I can sneak just fine.

I'm a sneaky sniper but I generally don't use the power armor. Was forced to last night to explore the Glowing Sea, and didn't find my stealth affected at all. The only upgrades I had were the flame paint job and the "model" of the armor for better protection.

I've read that having the highest level Sneak perks will negate any stealth penalties from Power Armor, but I've never really noticed any penalties in the first place.

Also to add to what everyone else has been saying, I have found the best piece of stealth gear to use is anything with the Chameleon prefix to it. Blending in like the Predator, and remaining stationary, will practically make you invisible. And you can still move real slow to keep its light bending effect.

Sure your weapon arm will disappear and that takes a little getting used to at first. But once you get the hang of using the targeting reticule to your desired hit location. It is a simple matter of aiming in quickly and squeezing off a few head shots to drop just about any foe. Combine this tactic with Gunslinger, Sandman, and Ninja perk lines. You will then have an awesome close ranged assassin character build. Enjoy!

Scopes also work normally for the Stealth Boy and Chameleon. This allows for long range attacks to remain as effective as normal.

The Stealth Boy upgrade to power armor I found to be relatively useless though because it constantly drains your AP. I don't always use VATS but having no option because my AP is drained to 30% half the time is not good either. I found the jet pack to be much more useful because I can use it to get up to a cubby on a roof somewhere for optimum sniping angles.

Sneaking in power armour is like being a Raven Guard astartes, which means awesome. Seeing a charging tank is terrifying, but a tank who sneaks upon you? Even more terrifying.

I wear power armour that is upgraded for strength and carry capacity, so no stealth upgrades. Yet, with perks and agility fairly decent, I'm sneaking around in power armour as if I were a ninja. Bright headlamp, walking at default jogging speed? Most enemies don't realize I'm there till I bump into them.

It's also satisfying if they *do* manage to find you because then it's like "Congratulations, you just found a tank and it's now 3 feet from you!" I haven't invested any points in unarmed and blacksmith because I was prioritizing other things, but I think I might do that just for the fun of smashing in the face of the odd raider that does stumble upon me in the dark.

Yes 100% possible, even without the build in stealth field. I always level up sneak and figured, sneak in PA, why not. But OMG I felt so silly doing it hahahaha I'm really surprised that my enemies don't hear that clunky armor! Plus, I'm a tank, why do I need to sneak? lol

I'm lvl 55 now and I parked the PA for a bit. I feel so much lighter on my feet now, and sneaking actually makes sense again! I will use it again, once I head into the Glowing Sea.

Meh.

PA is all purpose and makes the game to easy even on survival.

You can sneak, it makes no sense and would have been too good without this already.

With Action Boy/Girl it comes back quite quickly the moment you start moving. A high Agility is also key to having a large pool for it to draw from as well (which is why I put hot rod paint on it).

But yeah, I'd say, for a sniper, the other choice would be a Jet Pack. This would allow you to get into some ridiculous sniper's nests and just kill anything in your field of view.

Personally... I feel like power armor is just way too wasteful. Another reason why I don't have a big collection of power armor. I concentrate more on balancing the characters out and gun nut perk. Since I'm not big into laser guns or science weapons.

I had points in Action Girl at the time and had a natural agility of 7 with some item bonuses so it was probably at 8 or 9 total. I still found it a total AP hog. It made me constantly dance around in place to keep it from activating which just defeated the whole reason for having it.

I never much tried it for dropping aggro outside in daylight. If it's good at that, it would be the one benefit I can see that you can't get just from vanilla sneaking.

This is my beef with it: you just can't camp and snipe. That and the general lack of legendary benefits on PA. I prefer legendary armor pieces for the SPECIAL boosts or what-have-you on top of a nice, solid ballistic Minuteman Outfit.

While there are Legendary PA pieces in the game (mostly available from the Brotherhood, but there's one at CPL), they at most increase AP recovery, not SPECIAL stats. There are stat bonuses contained within the Paint Job, Torso, and Helm that can be unlocked through modding.