Gun nut, gunslinger, scavenger and aquagirl for the first 4 perks. I don't usually pay attention to leveling until after she's back in Sanctuary so she is usually level 4 by then.

The 10 mm is doing 32 damage and the pipe pistol 19. The 44 when I can find ammo is over 50.

Even without save scumming, if you have Rank 2, and a low intelligence, the perk will power-level your character like crazy. I'm constantly finding I've gained 2 or 3 levels without realizing it with Idiot Savant. Unless you desire to be a Hacker or Scientist, it is REALLY tempting to make stupid characters, just because of this Perk.

After a couple of play throughs and characters, I've found Lockpicking and Hacking almost completely unnecessary. If it is REALLY important, the game is going to put a key or a password somewhere nearby. And the loot in safes isn't THAT great. Almost always a stimpak, some ammo, a pistol, and pre-war money. And after you've gotten the lore off the computers once ... well, you know it.

Concentrated Fire. Very, very handy. It was a choice between that and critical banker which is also a god send when you run into trouble. I can see both being quite OP though when I get further into them.

Scrounger

Still on my first character. I think I grabbed Lone Wanderer first (yay, more carrying capacity!). Might have been Lockpicking, though. Either way, those were the first two.

But now that I know about Aquagirl, that's going to be a very early pick, too.

(I'm reminded of how my FO3 characters always tagged Explosives so I could get the Megaton house right away.....)

Black Widow for me. What's neat is seeing all the different answers to this.

I took scrapper first because I wanted to destroy some stuff I found on my way to sanctuary and I was worried I'd miss some kinda piece of something.

Leveling speed is the only thing that matters nothing else.

The biggest decision when making a character is will you go idiot savant (with int 1) or int 10. Nothing else can come even close that decision in the game.

Lockpicking.

Gun Nut

Had to upgrade my guns asap.

Never been a fan of power/speed-leveling in games. I know some people are in to that, but..... meh. Why rush?

(Been playing around 90 hours so far. Level 38. MQ-wise, I just got back from the Glowing Sea. Int 6, enough to get Science perk.)

Pretty sure it was Lockpicking.. I just wanted to get lockpicking and hacking out of the way so I wouldn't have to worry about them. Took them at every level that allowed me to. Hate being "locked" out of anything. Really can't believe they went with the level locked method again. Was sure they'd do it more like TES this time and just let you have at it and simply make it really hard to do so without the perk.

Exactly where my INT is at and exactly the reasons why I don't give a hoot about Idiot Savant. I'm over a 100 hours in, level 40, and haven't even gone to Goodneighbor yet. There is plenty enough content in the game to keep you at a substantial level at any pace of playing without worrying about leveling too slowly to the point it is hurting your character.

You can keep your power-leveling XP gains, I'll stick with crafting my energy weapons and a variety of other things the Science perk has to offer.

2 Sneak 1

3 Lone Wanderer

4 Gun Nut 1

5 Sneak 2

6 Rifleman 1

7 Locksmith 1

8 Local Leader 1

9 Rifleman 2

10 Scrapper

11 Locksmith 2

12 Sneak 3

13 Gun Nut 2

14 Local Leader 2

15 Medic 1 (mainly just for building shops)

16 Cap Collector

17 Lone Wanderer 2

18 Rifleman 3

19 Intelligence +1 (on 6)

20 Intelligence +1 (on 7)

21 Cap Collector 2

22 Science 1

23 Science 2

24 Sneak 4

25 Gun Nut 3

26 Scrapper 2

27 Strength + 1 (on 2)

28 Science 3

29 Armorer 1

30 Armorer 2

. . . that is about where I am right now

First I took was Gunslinger, for more damage, then Scrounger cause I had limited ammo and no money to buy it, in the beginning.

Then Gun nut and rifleman, and sneak, and build towards a sneaking sniper build.

I later let go of Gunslinger via the console as I understood at level 8 I don't use pistols anymore, and redirected that unspent point towards one more level of rifleman. (I do that instead of restarting the game from 0, and with other perks too)

There is some occasional random loot, which is mostly of no consequence, but then there is at least one power armor you find on a bottom of a lake. Haven't looked through the whole map yet.

This, follow up was hacking.
...well I took them as soon as I was alowed anyways.

Scrounger. Gotta start hoarding ammo as soon as possible.

The wants you to level up as fast as possible. Perks are gated by levels, there is no level cap and there a bunch of things that help you boost your xp gain (squirrel stew, piper perk, int boosting gear etc.). If I don't go fast leveling the game essentially punishes you for it. Went to court 35 at level 17? Well no xo1 for you. A lot of the cool tools are locked at high levels (jet pack, luck perk 10 (you can build a punisher type character) etc.). If you play through most of the content at around lvl 30-40 you get to experience the lame version.

For me it had to do with expanding the armor/weapons being used. I like how some of the heavy versions of armor look, and hate how the lower level ones look. So if I can get to level 30, before doing any real quests.. I can do it in style. Also, the rank needed for some of the power armor mods, really makes me want to get to that level fast. Jet pack around killing mole rats. Huzzah!

A sniper I assume? I've got all my perks planned out and written down up to level 40 myself. I try to focus on Perks that actually unlock something that can't be done any other way in the game. Perks that do anything about radiation, healing, health, sneaking, more caps, EXP, etc. can all be done without wasting a perk (RadX, Stimpak, Shadow armor, play more, etc.). So I try to only pick perks that actually unlock something I wouldn't get any other way, like Locksmith (never the 4th rank), Hacking (never the 4th rank), Gun Nut, Armorer, Local Leader, Science, etc. I may add the increase damage or increase a SPECIAL if nothing else is available to unlock.

Gunslinger, Rifleman, or Commando depending on what build you are going with.

Damage is the best option in this kind of game. If you deal more damage per shot then you shoot less.

You have more ammo to kill more stuff to get more loot and levels. You then can deal even more damage.

The snowball is real.

I did lockpicking because I happened to level up for the first time while standing in front of a safe that required a higher skill. It bothers me to leave safes locked up that I know I will never remember how to find again. Plus I actually enjoy picking locks, and do not enjoy terminal hacking, so I usually try to get my lockpicking skill high quickly since often (at least in past Fallouts, I haven't seen it as much in this one yet), you are faced with a situation where you need to either pick a lock or hack a terminal to open a door or accomplish something.

Eh, I've never felt that way. I've been playing games where abilities unlocked at certain levels for decades (starting with D&D!), and I've generally seen that as something to look forward to, not something to rush to.

I also never cared about things like Oblivion's unique quest rewards being scaled. The whole "can't do any quests until I'm lv25, so I can get the REAL uniques" concept that Oblivion players used to say, always baffled me. I get a reward at the level I get it, it's useful for me at that level and for a period thereafter, then it's replaced by new loot I find. Works just fine.

Exactly me. Kinda logical, anyway; gun nut lets you make better recievers for a combat rifle so when you start raising your gun related skills the boost is more significant.. Then the whole settlement building concept which ties into gun nut, science!, ect