Fallout New Vegas Character Build Guide
I'm fussing over what to make in Fallout New Vegas. The Fallout 3 character I'm playing currently is a typical high int/boosted skill points build that's basically good at whatever I want to do.
This is a guide on basic character creation that gives a semi optimised build and examples for different gun based playstyles. This is an updated guide that lays out the SPECIAL stats, traits, perks to look out for based on build, and general new game information. The other guides (Especially that “Hardcore” guide) are out of date or contain incorrect (un-optimised) information. Spell it with me! Stands for:. Strength. Perception.
Endurance. Charisma. Intelligence. Agility. LuckWell we know what they are, but what do they do?StrengthIn New Vegas strength modifies Melee Damage, Carry Weight, and Melee weapons.
Your carry weight is 150 + (Strength. 10). With a starting strength of 5 your carry weight would be 200. Strength also affects the Melee skill and allows you to wield weapons with strength requirements effectively.PerceptionGoverns the Explosives, Lockpick, and Energy Weapons skills. It also affects the distance at which enemies will show up on your radar. ED-E can do the latter just fine.EnduranceEndurance governs your resistances (poison, radiation), Hit Points (95 + (Endurance.
20) + (Level. 5), your Unarmed and Survival skills, and determines how many Implants you can install.CharismaCharisma is the dump stat of Fallout: New Vegas. It governs your Speech and Barter skills and makes your (already overpowered) companions stronger. At 1 Charisma your companions have 5% more armor and deal 5% more damage, at 10 that rises to 50%.
Boone kills most things in one shot either way.Despite what people say, you can set this to 1 and re-distribute the points. Even Josh Sawyer (lead designer) considers it a dump stat. Many important dialogues that have speech checks also have alternate skill checks. The few that only offer speech checks are mainly ones that let you avoid a fight. Having 1 Charisma does not stop you from raising your Barter and Speech skills, however.IntelligenceConsidered by some the most important stat in New Vegas.
It determines your Medicine, Repair, and Science skills. It also affects how many skill points you gain per level based on the formula 10 + (0.5. Intelligence).This means at the base Intelligence of 5 you will gain 12.5 skill points per level. But wait!.5 of a skillpoint? Does it round down? It puts the.5 aside until the next level, where you’ll have 13 skill points.There are 13 skills and a total of 50 levels in the Ultimate Edition (30 in Vanilla with none of the DLC).
At a rate of 12.5 skillpoints per level you will have over 600 skill points. Enough to max out a few skills. With an Intelligence of 8 you would gain 14 stat points per level. This is close to 700, and considering most skills will start in their 20s (and your tagged ones in the 40s, hopefully) it is more than enough points to max out nearly every skill.AgilityAgility is a sneaky devil.
It governs how many Action Points you have for VATs, the Guns, and Sneak skills, but also how fast it takes for you to draw, holster, and reload your weapon. Base AP is determined by 65 + (Agility. 3) and the reload time is modified in percentage by +10(5 – Agility)%.
Any Agility score below 5 will result in slower reloading.LuckLuck? Well we are in Vegas, baby! Luck raises the value of every skill by 1 for every 2 levels. At 5 Luck all skills will be increased by +3.
At 7 Luck all skills will be increased by +4.Your Critical Chance is also affected by luck, at 1% per point. This means at 1 Luck you will have +1% Critical Chance, and at 10 Luck you will have +10% Critical Chance.
The basic “God Courier Of The Wastes”It isn’t hard to make a strong character in New Vegas, and even this will depend on your playstyle. Let’s start with the SpecialNote: Do NOT take Intensive Training to raise any of your stats. It is a waste of a perk slot. Strength – 6 (7 with Implant, 8 with Spineless (OWB)).
Perception – 5 (6 with implant). Endurance – 7 (8 with implant). Charisma – 1. Intelligence – 8.
Agility – 6 (7 with implant). Luck – 7With 3 implant slots left this allows you to get the sub-dermal armor implant and the monocyte breeder implant. Spend the last implant on whichever stat you want to boost. Lonesome Road will also give +1 to any stat.
Carry Weight = 150 + (6. 10) = 210. Skill Points/level = 10 + (0.5. 8) = 14. Poison Resistance = (7 – 1). 5 = 25%. Radiation Resistance = (7 – 1).
2 = 12%. Hit Points = 95 + (7. 20) + (1. 5) = 240. Implants available = 7“Oh my god!” You may scream. “Why are there so many numbers?”.
Well those are the important ones out of the way. SkillsWith the above SPECIAL your base skills should be as follows:. Barter – 8. Energy Weapons – 16. Explosives – 16. Guns – 18. Lockpick – 16.
Medicine – 22. Melee – 18. Repair – 22. Science – 22. Sneak – 18. Speech – 8.
Fallout New Vegas Character Build Guide Skyrim
Survival – 20. Unarmed – 20You can tag 3 of these to give each one a 15 point boost. Pick based on your playstyle, or raise some of the lower numbers.
I would suggest Guns, Sneak, and Lockpick, but that’s just how I play. Alternative min/max no fun allowed build. Strength – 6 (7 with Implant, 8 with Spineless (OWB)). Perception – 5 (6 with implant). Endurance – 9 (10 with implant). Charisma – 1 (2 with implant if you have caps to burn).
Intelligence – 8 (9 with implant). Agility – 6 (7 with implant). Luck – 5 (6 with implant)As before, get the sub-dermal armor implant and the monocyte breeder implant. Put the +1 from Lonesome Road into Agility or Luck.Early game, feel free to stick with the legion at the beginning, at least until they love you enough to give you access to their Safehouse (Where the Lucky Shades are kept).
Let's see.1st guy is/was level 26, Guns, Repair, Lockpick. He was using a marksman carbine, Ratslayer, Modded Sniper Rifle and Riot Shotgun. Fun times till the PS3 saved over it, I'll have to start it over, which pisses me off immensely.
Somehow managed to be good even with all the theft and indiscriminate murder. EdE and Boone.2nd girl. Level 20?, Might be lower, but Energy weapons, Repair, Lockpick. Plasma rifle, Incinerator, Fully modded laser rifle. Again, good somehow. Ede and Veronica.3rd guy. Level 14, Repair, Melee, Unarmed.
I fucking love Knock Knock. Evil as fuck. So far, nobody, but I'll probably end up with rex and Veronica, mostly cause the supermutant would be too much like adventuring with my grandmother.4th guy. Mexican assasin level 5. First time I boosted Charisma and Intelligence.
Guns, Sneak, Speech. Makes fixing stuff and B&E a pain in the ass, but I always get what I want before shooting you in the head with a silenced.22. Rex and Raul. For New Vegas, on my first Hardcore run I decided to tag Guns due to the plentiful ammo/repair opportunities, Repair because I wanted Jury Rigging for unique weapons and Speech due to the many opportunities that it affords. I also tended to favor using a fully modded 10mm and a fully modded Hunting Rifle for long-range encounters. This seems to be a fairly common combination, however, so my next character that I boosted with the Vault 11/Shake down Goodsprings EXP exploit I tried something different. I used a 9mm submachine gun/9mm pistol extensively using the essentially infinite ammo found from the Goodsprings glitch and I found it to be an excellent, run-and-gun combo.
I also tried playing 'realistically', so to speak, thinking of perks and traits that I would realistically want to have in a post-apocalyptic setting, and I found this to be an excellent aid in my decisions.All I can say is, unless you want achievements, just play for fun and see where different choices take you. My character had a SPECIAL rating of something like this by level 10:Strength - 6Perception - 8Endurance - 6Charisma - 6Intelligence - 10Agility - 7Luck - 6I personally invested in Guns, Speech and Sneak skill as tags and wore light armor for most of the game. I tended to talk through problems more often than not.By the end of the game, my SPECIAL looked more like this:Strength - 8Perception - 9Endurance - 6Charisma - 6Intelligence - 10Agility - 7Luck - 6and I never once spent a perk to raise it.For the final battle, I was outfitted in remnant power armor, a set of fancy glasses, the 1st recon Beret and I carried a modified sniper rifle for resolving most problems. I had a DR of around 40, perfect skill in guns, speech, sneak, science and medicine.I'm considering trying again as a 'Cowboy Gunslinger' as such a build could easily be stupidly powerful. The Range Sequoia pistol or Hunting Revolver alone do as much damage as my sniper rifle at much lower VATS cost and that enormous damage boost provided by the right selection of perks is just too good to pass up. My first char had speech, lockpick and science tagged. Got that to level 30 using guns and energy weapons, and went with yes man.My second char had guns, repair and barter tagged but I only used explosives and big guns(dynamite- grenade rifle- Annabelle) I got that to level 30 and sided with the NCR.My third char had melee, unarmed and speech tagged.
I only used unarmed though(bladed gauntlet-power fist-ballistic fist) and got that to level 30 and sided with Mr.House.My fourth and second to last char is a guns only with guns, speech and repair tagged which I am in the process of getting to 30( level 15 atm) and is going to side with Caesars Legion.My fifth and final char is a copy of my fourth but will be used for when dlc comes out seeing as my first three only have saves at the ending section of the last mission.So far I like the game. I'm happy that the new dlc is going to raise the level cap to 35. Looking forward to the rest of the dlc though. My first, in Hardcore mode:S - 9 (10 with implant)P - 3E - 7 (8 with implant)C - 3I - 9 (10 with implant)A - 3L - 6 (7 with implant)Also recieved the other two implants (the subdermal one is the more useful, the healing one is useful to save you stimpacks over long periods of time and pretty useless in battle)TAG: Melee, Science, Survival (but also ended up with 100 Speech and Repair and moderately high medicine)Primary Weapon: 'Oh, Baby!' (it was pretty much instant 'Your Head A Splode' in fights)Secondary Weapon (used on more enemies than 'Oh Baby!'
But mostly lower level, lightly armored foes): Various Machetes (mainly Machete Gladius)Factions sided with in order of most favored to least:Followers of the Apocalypse Brotherhood of Steel NCR The Kings Yes Man (largely ignored) The Great Khans (quest bugged on me, so I had to kill them) Mr House (disabled, not killed) Caesar's LegionMain companions: Cass, Rex. I am currently on a Hardcore Mode playthrough with a level 25 that is probably the best fallout character I've ever made:) His attributes are listed below:S = 6 P = 5 E = 5 C = 7 I = 6 A = 5 L = 7TAG Skills = Sneak, Barter, Speech, and Repair (Taken using TAG! Perk)Weapons: Primarily Guns (Marksman Carbine, Sniper Rifle, 12.7 SMG, etc.) A few frag grenades and mines for when faced with large groups. Can't remember his build entirely off the bat right now.
I've augmented it a couple times, I think. What I CAN remember is that he has Luck 10 and Wild Wasteland, making my journey rather fun. Not only have I had my share of the game's extra weirdness, but things having to do with luck have been cropping up in funny ways, like when talking to a Robco robot about authorization.LUCK 7 Ice cream.and immediately being left alone by security. That, and uhhh.this is a game where you go to VEGAS. I think luck is important here! I also built this character to have ridiculous criticals and some decent AP gain, not to mention purchasing some of those augmentations from that one clinic.
My New Vegas character is about playing the field, beating the odds, and screwing around. He's not the grand heroic fellow and not an evil bastard, though he's gotten himself incredible karma from the things he's done.At the moment, he's capped out at level thirty, because I'm playing the hell out of this game. I've collected a good assortment of weaponry, like.-Dinner Bell from Red Lucy.-Annabelle from Tabitha.-The Q-35 Matter Modulator.-The Alien Blaster.-That REALLY powerful laser, Pew Pew.-A loaded Fatman.-Oh Baby! (The sledge.)-Vance's 9mm SMG.-The Avenger Minigun.-Lucky (The.357 pistol.)-That Gun.-This Machine.-The Tesla-Beaton Prototype.-Multiplas Rifle.-Tri-Beam Laser Rifle.plus alot of others and usually the resources (one way or another) to 'feed' them with repairs and ammo. Honestly, the custom weapons are sometimes really worth it, especially since Pew Pew is nearly as strong as the Alien Blaster while its only drawback is that it's a real ammo-guzzler. (But then, it runs of regular Energy Cell!). My first Character was a a high speech gunslinger.
For true Lolz, make a character with high strength, perception, agility, and endurance, and low charisma, luck, and intelligence, with melee, unarmed, and survival taggedWhy, you might ask? Because you are now roleplaying as a murderous zombie out for revenge on the entire wasteland. If you leave a settlement with anyone alive you are not doing it right.Hilariously this makes the villain of the game not the man who shot you, the NCR, the Legion, or Mr.house, but rather Doc Mitchell. I played it for a bit before I returned the game due to glitches, gotta say its a lot of fun. The first thing I did when I was resurrected was run outside and melee the robot to death.
Im a level thirty with tagged skills Guns,Sneak, and Repair. All these are maxed including speech and lockpick, everything else is low except for science which is somewhat in the middle. My character wears Reinforced Combat Armour Mark II, sunglasses, and a First Recon Beret. He uses a Gobi Campaign Sniper Rifle, an Anti-Material Rifle and Maria(unique 9mm pistol). Also have Boone and ED-E as followers so he's pretty much unstopable.
Serousisly can take out a deathclaw with one head shot from sneak. Also have an unarmed, explosive, melee character and playing with that build is a blast. My first character was just for shits and giggles. I did some stupid random spread of stats, I think charisma was low and strength was high, and I tagged guns, lockpick, and sneak, thinking I was going to play it like FO3. Then I turned into the ultimate 'assertive' cannibal merchant. I had all the merchant perks, I got cannibal and got all the perks associated with that (including the one where you have to eat Mr house, caesar, the king, and president kimball, Im really rather proud of that). I primarily used the riot shotgun, the all american, and a silenced sniper rifle.
I ended the game by taking over Vegas with yes man, devouring legate lanius and the general guy because they were both dickheads, and had my pockets lined with 215,000 caps.My new guy I'm making is going to focus on hi-critting energy weapons and a stupidly overpowered chainsaw (and yes, I know that doesnt make any logical build sense) so I can go texas chainsaw massacre on everyone in the strip because I'm siding with the legion this time around. I will be feared!PS: Props to the pulse gun, that little pistol made fighting all the robots the first time around a breeze. I always had it on me, at top condition.
Explosives + the named missile launcher + high explosive missiles is really fun for cazador packs. Especially since half the time it disables their antennae and they finish each other off.Combine that with melee and Oh Baby and guns/sniper or energy/YCS (and meltdown for kicks) and you'll overpower pretty much anything at any range (on normal difficulty.) Speaking of which, I'm usually a fan of bigger challenges but I find New Vegas more fun on normal difficulty. It's not a ton of fun to sneak crit headshot a deathclaw and see his health drop to 75% as he steamrolls toward you. I believe my last complete playthrough was tag skills energy weapons, repair and medicine, level 35.
I always play the 'intellectual gunslinger' on Fallout games, and weild either guns or energy weapons.I always lower strength, endurance and charisma and beef up perception, and try to max intelligence, agilty and luck.Ive also never played the game on any other setting than very hard/hardcore mode. Its a pain at times, but still a lot of fun when I have such massive critical chances and damage levels with some of the best weapons in the game. I may only be able to take one hit from a deathclaw, two if Im lucky, but I can blow its head off from about half a mile away with the YCS gauss rifle in one shot or turn it into goo or ash with the matter modulator and pew pew.Plus I LOVE applying your characters powers of intellect in the Fallout games with the various stat checks in conversation and out.Edit: I created a new guy not long ago but he wasnt all that different. Im probably going to try different weapon setups and perks this time around.