Nice! you have this whole thing planned out a hell of a lot better than me.

Yeah, I even used a very shortened down version of each of their backgrounds.

Tag'd skills- speech, science, lockpick
Age:24
Gender: Male
hardcoe mode: Yes
Special: 4.7. 5.6.5.8.5
Karma and Rep, Good and reputation is good with the towns of new vegas
Favored equipment- revolver

This is my build for my challenge playthrough, Really going to be fun. No killing whatsoever, you either run or shoot the gun out of peoples hands, and you have to complete all quests.

Well that was my first character, as that one I'm not going to roleplay.

Here's a couple of roles I've written, might help:

Dr Samuel Fresco


Jimmy T


Shark


Thunder


Suicide (not finished)

they're very impressive, thankyou, i think i like Thunder best.

Are you going to play one hardcoe? Then you will definitally need Survival. You may want to sacrifice melee for Small Guns since it covers a more vast range of weapons for many purposes, you can just built up melee regularly.

Basically, whatever you think would be most useful. It's all about your strategy. I almost always play as a sniper ( I <3 the Gauss Rifle) but the majority of sniper rifles are small guns, so there are always going to have to be pros and cons to your character design (aka balanced gameplay). But this is the system I find useful:
Divide skills into groups to decide which to tag:

Weapons:
Guns
Energy Weapons
Melee Weapons
Explosives
Unarmed

Accessibility:
Science
Lockpick
Speech
Sneak

Bonus:
Medicine
Survival
Repair
Barter

Then simply pick one weaponry skill, then either one or zero accessibility skills (unless you pick sneak or lockpick, as it's then wise to pick the other of the pair too), then the rest as bonus skills.

SPECIAL is effected by the skills you wish to take, as it's best to pick them based one which skills you want to modify IMO.

This is how I play it:

Tag skills: Medicine (it will be more worth the wait when the stim kicks in during HC), repair (weapons degrade faster in HC mode), guns/energy weapons (pretty obviously, you'll need weapons).
SPECIAL: S=7 (more carry weight in HC and more weapons), P=4/6 (depends on whether I pick energy weapons or guns), E=6 (more HP and slows down exhaustion), C=5 (doesn't matter enough to increase but worth too much to decrease), I=7 (more skill points, bolstered medicine and repair, extra dialogue), A=4/6 (depends on whether I pick guns or energy weapons, VATS is pretty useless), L=5 (gambling and decent critical chance)
Traits: Wild Wasteland (more bonus content), maybe another if a useful one comes along
Faction: Decide when you play (ignore my signature, I'm just hardcoe)
Age: Don't care
Gender: Male

But it's still wise to increase survival and barter with your other skills.

is intelligence going to be as bad as it was in FO3, "bad" as in you were an idiot for Not boosting it to 9 then getting the bobblehead asap for the extra skill bonuses? I'd rather play as an idiot or average character, but if intelligence gives you a huge boost to skill points to add when you level up, then I guess my courier used to be a scientist

Edit: "well that sounded a lil offensive, sorry, if you didn't max Int you're not an idiot, but I was just trying to show how Intelligence in FO3 was a 'wonder' stat."

I'm going to chose the "easiest" set of perks as it would seem for my first character - small guns, medicine and either lockpick or science.

I'm going Guns, Speech, and Repair. Guns of course so I can use my favorite things in the world FIREARMS! Speech so I can use my intellectual wit & talk my way out of situations if possible, and lastly Repair so I can keep my weapons in good condition along with hand-loading my own bullets. :tops:

Thanks that helped.

just make yourself the first time through

Problem with that my friend is that; A lot of the fallout world doesn't exist in real life, so I'd be lacking comparisons

suprized colonel martyr hasn't commented on this topic yet

One crucial part of making your character is figuring out what special stats your going to drop to 1. Like an early poster mentioned agility and perception are good candidates, charisma is also. Even if your going to use VATS a few ap is no big deal. Id rather spot enemies with my own sight and hearing rather than a compass marker. A low % speech chance is still 100% if you abuse saves. But in F3 droping perception and agility would make you miss out on some great perks. So I cant pick my special without perk requirements and knowing if there is an in game way of increasing them.

Im tagging guns, repair,and science. That gives me a strong offence, helps with inventory space by combining weapons/armor with repair, and science or lockpick is crucial for questing/exploring.

My karma is evil. I cant pick reputation without spoilers. Cant pick traits till I see them all.

You say you like to sneak and snipe. Keep in mind high sneak is only needed for melee, its easy to sneak long range.

He's on a date with a female goldfish I set him up with.

Erm, Lmao ok then.

I'll probably do what I did in the first few games. Tag Speechcraft, Guns, and Energy Weapons, then wander about without a clue until I find the plot.

i like it

My first char will be leviathan


s 9
p 2
e 9
c 1
i 9
a 1
l 9

Traights.. duno might have wold wasteland if I cant find two traights that fit this char..

tagged energy explosives repair

also train science medicine survival

somewhat train barter lockpick

As far as path.. ill be going slowly from goodsprings to prim and freeeside to whatever else pops up.

Factions.. unless I get some surprises im likely to first side with ncr over cl and then side with house over ncr.. as far as minor groups ill likely farm powder gangs and boomers and I just have to hunt elvis impersonatiors... I might wind up hunting all of them.

Early on ill likely boost survival and repair with enough into energy weapons to keep up but not much more then 25-35 for a good while.


Later I plan to play a female ex gunfighter merchant high agility lowish strength and end high charisma and perc

Then a heavy hitting meleer named Thud.. 9 str 9 end 9 agility 1 intel 1 perc1 charisma.

Then my sneaky pilferer sil... 1 luck 1 endurance low strength 9 perc high intel 9 agility

And then ill make more...

Just play through to get a feel of the skills

While we're on the topic of making characters does anyone here try to base their character on themselves? I mean i know a lot of people like to make decisions in terms of what dialogue options they pick etc but does anyone try and pick tag skills and s.p.e.c.i.a.l skills depending on what they feel they're good at in real life? I'm considering doing something like this on my first play through

+1 :laugh:

I don't know what i'm going to do for my character yet, but i have a cool idea. I don't know if this as been done before but a traveling scavenger salesman guy could be fun. Use barter speech and guns. Add into survival too if hardcoe and sneak if you like it. Then you go around collecting and selling stuff doing things for whoever you feel like or the highest bidder. Also I think a NCR ranger could be fun, or really smart crazy guy who loves energy weapons and science.

I think speech is the most important skill in fallout 3 and evidently will be even more important in new vegas, so go with speech