Starting Fallout New Vegas - I Have Some Questions

[FleshBack]

Back when I played Fallout 3 religiously, I often opted for the "Perfection Build". I would lower my Charisma to 1 and make my Intelligence 9 at the beginning. This would allow me to take all my character's skills to the maximum level of 100. I would then take the Almost Perfect perk near the end, which brought all of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats to 9, then hunt for the bobbleheads to get them to 10. This would basically make for an unbeliavbly powerful character.

 

My question is this: are there any similar builds like the one I posted in New Vegas? Is there ways to max all your stats out? If not, then what would you guys suggest for similar or nearly as powerful builds?

 

Also, what would be the best starting perks to take? I am quite stumped on that one.

[Harbinger]

Well it depends did you get the Ultimate Edition with all the Add-ons?

[FleshBack]

Yes I did.

[Harbinger]

Well from my experience(sorry if I cant help as much as I'd like to its been awhile) there isn't really anything like bobble heads(which sucks) but by New Vegas there is a medical shop which sells implants. Each implants cost 4,000 caps each and there will be one for each S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (plus some cool expensive bonus ones like defense and regenerate) and I seem to recall some small ways to earn a SPECIAL here or there in some of the add-ons. I would suggest doing what you did in fallout but I would change lowering you Charisma to Agility because Fallout New Vegas doesn't use a percentage speech to convince people it like 20% so having Charisma helps you alot off situations in Fallout New Vegas then in Fallout 3 because it boost you Speech a bit extra earlier on and in helps in a speech here or there since the new Speech system does a you need 40 speech points to speech this person.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Harbinger

[FleshBack]

Alright, that answers a lot of my questions.

 

I dislike how you can't max your stats, but oh well...

 

Do you remember what starting perk you picked, cuz they all seem like they don't help much.

[Harbinger]

Well if you haven't chosen traits I would suggest Wild Wasteland you can get special items here and there, see some special Easter egg references, a get the alien ray gun. And Small frame or Steady aim. Small frame for easier difficulty easier to break your limbs but easier difficulty equals it out a bit and makes it worth the 1+ agility and Steady aim for harder/Hard core to conserve ammo. As for beginning perks I'd go with Intense Training which will let you add 1 special point to a Special which you can use 10 times sorry I completely side track this like an idiot so I'd use this as much as possible and go with educated you can only use this once but when you use Educated You gain two more skill points every time you advance in level.

[RedStarRocket91]

If you have the ultimate edition, absolutely make sure that you take the 'Skilled' trait when asked to fill out your medical history: though you'll rank up more slowly you get +5 to every single skill: considering you assign anywhere between 10-15 skill points per level depending on your Intelligence level, this is the equivalent of adding something like 4 extra levels to your character from the word go, and considering how easy it is to get XP, you won't even really notice the slower levelling.

 

As ever Intelligence is the best factor for ranking up (though you now get one point per two levels, so you'll need for an optimum build to go for it at 10, as 9 will only give you the same points as 8.) and Endurance is, as Harbinger stated, also very important as it gives you the maximum possible number of implants. Luck's also good, as every point in that raises every single skill by a point, as well as making gambling easier.

 

So in short, a Luck of 10, an Endurance of 5 and an Intelligence of 10 will let you not only get an implant for all of your SPECIAL stats below 10, but if taken with the 'Skilled' perk will immediately add +10 to every single skill from the very start of the game: the equivalent of adding more than 8 extra free levels' worth of points.

 

If you take the 'Educated' perk at level four, you'll also have gotten BOUT 90 skill points by the time you reach level 50: enough to maximise a whole extra skill.

 

Also important to note is that you don't actually need to raise all your skills to 100 in order to have an optimised character build: if you buy certain clothing, you only need to raise things like lockpick, speech, and repair to around 90 and then switch to the appropriate clothing in order to get an effective skill of 100, saving you a few extra points for things like Guns and Explosives which will be used a lot more frequently.

[Harbinger]

If you have the ultimate edition, absolutely make sure that you take the 'Skilled' trait when asked to fill out your medical history: though you'll rank up more slowly you get +5 to every single skill: considering you assign anywhere between 10-15 skill points per level depending on your Intelligence level, this is the equivalent of adding something like 4 extra levels to your character from the word go, and considering how easy it is to get XP, you won't even really notice the slower levelling.

 

As ever Intelligence is the best factor for ranking up (though you now get one point per two levels, so you'll need for an optimum build to go for it at 10, as 9 will only give you the same points as 8.) and Endurance is, as Harbinger stated, also very important as it gives you the maximum possible number of implants. Luck's also good, as every point in that raises every single skill by a point, as well as making gambling easier.

 

So in short, a Luck of 10, an Endurance of 5 and an Intelligence of 10 will let you not only get an implant for all of your SPECIAL stats below 10, but if taken with the 'Skilled' perk will immediately add +10 to every single skill from the very start of the game: the equivalent of adding more than 8 extra free levels' worth of points.

 

If you take the 'Educated' perk at level four, you'll also have gotten BOUT 90 skill points by the time you reach level 50: enough to maximise a whole extra skill.

 

Also important to note is that you don't actually need to raise all your skills to 100 in order to have an optimised character build: if you buy certain clothing, you only need to raise things like lockpick, speech, and repair to around 90 and then switch to the appropriate clothing in order to get an effective skill of 100, saving you a few extra points for things like Guns and Explosives which will be used a lot more frequently.

Yea this is the best course to go to get your skills as high as possible. And rare/special clothing you can find/earn will help you reach the highest you can get. Also thanks Red.

[FleshBack]

That's great info.

 

However, I really want the alien Blaster that comes with the Wild Wasteland perk, and Small Frame seems like it is just too good to pas up.

 

Do you think I could get away with maxing my stats without taking skilled? I dunno, that is my dilemma.

[D-Wade]

Since the people above explained a lot already, I'll jus say Wild Wasteland is straight and it'll benefit you, ill be honest I didn't chose it because I prefered the YCS over some stupid alien blaster. 

 

Edit: Nevermind on that, didn't realize the alien blaster was so strong till I did research, but another problem was that you'll never find more ammo for it since its unique

[FleshBack]

Ok, last question. I will be doing Hardcore mode and was thinking of a build like this;

 

S-4

P-5

E-7

C-1

I-8

A-6

L-9

 

I would like some critique on this. I plan on mainly using Guns and Energy Weapons (especially since they save on Ammo). Would this be effective for surviving and keeping a decent amount of stats? Any input would be appreciated.

[WonderWombat]

It is impossible to get all your skills or SPECIAL maxed out without cheating.

 

And I don't see why you would want to anyways having focused skills is more fun if you ask me.

[Zelda]

I liked New Vegas as I was just wandering around on it, but, then hubby finished it, and now all I do is cringe when I see the title. But I cant complain, I love Skyrim to death, but its sad when you look at the difference between Skyrim and Oblivion and New Vegas to Fallout 3. 

 

But I do remember loving Rex to Death. Was my favorite Buddy.