So after finishing my current character (a long range guns, NCR supporter), I want to do a different character. He will definitely be a Melee character, maybe explosives, possibly unarmed (?). He will support CL, so I don't think he will need high intelligence or charisma. Any thoughts?

hardcoe
Hard-VH

little need of money except for explosives, and maybe repairs for my melee weapons.

:shrug:

S 9
P 2
E 8
C 6
I 4
A 8
L 3

Melee
Unarmed
Medicine (if on hardcoe mode)

Heavy Handed

My next Character will be a Intelligent character no guns no Melee Kinda a wasteland McGiaver . There are two poisons you can make . land minds and explosives and what I can create is all I will use . Sneak and pants will be my main weapons And trickery . things like leading enemies to other enemies . Is it possible to complete FONV and never fire a shot ? We will see .

I kinda wanted to use explosives actually, so unarmed or medicine has to go. is medicine really important for hardcoe? plus its governed by intelligence and im putting that to 1 instantly so i dont think that would be good.

Survival would be a good swap for medicine on hardcoe mode.
Many of the good perks for a melee or unarmed specialist need a alot of points into both melee and unarmed.I haven't tried it but I imagine you could skip putting points into melee especially if you plan on explosives also.

Why quote your own post?

Anyway, survival is a crap swap for medicine on HCM.
Survival is barely needed since all one needs to do is pack some bottles of water and your set to go.
Medicine on the other hand significantly helps the "heal over time" on HCM.

100 Survival and food Heals more than 100 Medicine and stimpacks.

Cooked or raw food?

By the way that is just absolute crap man, not saying your lying but that it's one stupid ass design decision.
How can food ever heal more than medicinal drugs with regenerating capabilities?

Guess I know what the next thing I want patched it going to be. <_< (Depending on whether it's raw or cooked food and what their increase in healing is. Need to test the skill out more)

Sneak might be a good secondary skill. If you don't pick enemies off from range with a gun you're going to want to close without being shot at. Though with 1 Int you probably won't have a lot of points to spare.

It is BS, But Cooked heals more.

A good idea when making a new charachter is to plan ahead. When i played a couple of times i would get so far and see a perk i couldnt get for lack of skill points even if i was melee/gun etc.
What i found usefull was printing off a list of all perks and the skill points needed for them and start the game according to what i wanted from level 1 to the end.
Why i never thought of this at the start hurts me to this day.

Here are a few suggestions for a Melee character on hardcoe + Very Hard:


S 7 (whatever you are planning add an extra point to compensate for Rad Child critical/deadly rad poisoning)
P 5
E 5
C 1
I 7
A 5 (melee doesn't need to use VATS as much, esp once you get Super Slam you can knock everybody down without touching VATS)
L 10 (nearly every hit will already be critical; no need for Finesse perk; no need for implant or Intense training)

Trait Suggestions
Built to Destroy
Wild Wasteland

Implants
STR +1
END +1 (qualify for Stonewall; neutral cost - END implant does not use up implant slot because it adds one more slot)
INT +1
AGI +1 (qualify for Silent Running)
PER +1 (qualify for Better Criticals)
Sub-Dermal Armor (+4 DT)

Perk Suggestions
Whiskey Rose (Cass companion perk, provides +2 STR and +4 DT to +6 DT by constantly drinking whiskey; if you take this perk maybe you can put one or two SPECIAL points less into STR)
Super Slam (requires Melee 45; allows you to wipe out large groups of enemies without breaking a sweat)
Rad Child (requires Survival 70; allows you to regen +6HP/sec to +8HP/sec if you stay at critical or deadly rad poisoning, 60-80 times more effective than Monocyte Breeder Implant)
Comprehension (permanent +20 science and permanent +16 each other skill if you find all the skill books; each magazine provides temporary +20 points and there are many skill magazines in the game)
Toughness x 2 ranks (+6 DT)
Stonewall (+5 DT vs. melee, also makes you immune to knockdowns)
Jury Rigger (requires 90 repair, makes repairing armor and super sledge much cheaper)
Piercing Strike(requires Unarmed 70; negates 15 DT on opponents when using melee weapons or unarmed)
Purifier (+50% damage with melee & unarmed vs super mutants, deathclaws, nightstalkers, ghouls)
Silent Running (requires Sneak 60, Agi 6)
Unstoppable Force (requires Melee 90; melee damage breaks through enemy blocks)
Ninja (requires Melee 80, Sneak 80; +25% damage on critical hits and greater critical chance although if luck is 10 already most hits are critical)
Cannibal (very handy on hardcoe mode, also unlocks Meat of Champions)
Khan Trick (free perk, requires passing Great Khan dialogue check)
Legion Assault (free perk, requires dialogue check with Lucius, 50 unarmed)
Ranger Takedown (free perk, requires dialogue check with Ranger Andy)
Scribe Counter (free perk, requires giving Veronica formalwear)
Meat of Champions (free perk, +1 STR, +1 LUCK, +1 CHA for 60 seconds after eating corpse; requires cannibalism and special quest)

Perks to Avoid
Intense Training
Educated (only 15 perks in the game, don't use one up to get a few extra skill points because you can use magazines for +20 points any time you need to reach 100 or pass a high dialogue check)
Here and Now
Tag
Monocyte Breeder Implant (useless)

Recommended weapons
Machete, Lead Pipe, Tire Iron, Liberator (early game)
Rebar Club or Super Sledge (as soon as you can kill a Nightkin or find a dead one)
Displacer Glove and Paladin Toaster also come in handy in the later game if your unarmed is high as well.

Aid
If you constantly drink whiskey and other alcohol, eat bighorner or bramin steaks and/or ant nectar, you can stack several STR bonus points (allowing you to keep your effective STR around 10, even with rad poisoning penalty) and the whiskey will give you +4 DT to +6DT if you have Whiskey Rose perk (DT bonus depends on your Survival skill).

Tagged Skills
Melee (try to get to 45 quickly so you can get Super Slam)
Unarmed or Sneaking
Lockpick (never go above 64 lockpick because there are 4 Tumblers Today that will bring you to 80 and then you can use skill magazine for any Very Hard locks, same goes for Science and make sure to max out Speech (after finding all 4 Lying Congressional Style books) at 30-35 points below the toughest speech check you want to pass because you can use Naughty Nightwear + Party Mentats + Beer + Meeting People magazine to pass)

Mod Suggestions for Improving hardcoe Mode
Harder hardcoe Rates (Refined Rates) - this isn't very realistic, but it makes hardcoe mode a lot more fun and balanced because you will actually run out of food, water, potentially die of sleep deprivation without any beds nearby
Expensive Wasteland - you can increase all merchant prices x2, x3, x5, or x10
Populated Wasteland - makes a lot more human enemies respawn in various areas

I was trying to edit unarmed to melee.

I graduated before computers were invented,I'm an old guy,give me a break.

Medicine is fine,but I just think that survival works better for role playing.
Plus when you get your suvival skill up,it heals just as much as medicine.

I am having great fun with a Melee/Explosives character. You kind of have to put a lot of points into Unarmed too for some of the best close-range perks, but I have gotten by pretty well with this setup:

Black Widow (2)
Cherchez La Femme (2)
Toughness (6, can be taken twice)
Toughness (again)
Demolition Expert (6, Explosives 50)
Demolition Expert x2
Demolition Expert x3
Super Slam (8, Melee 45)
Stonewall (8, ST 6, EN 6)
Piercing Strike (10, Unarmed 70)
Splash Damage (12, Explosives 70)
Purifier (14)
Adamantium Skeleton (14)
Slayer (24, Agility 7, Unarmed 90)
Hit the Deck (12, Explosives 70)

Tagged Melee, Unarmed, Sneak
Traits Heavy Handed, Loose Cannon
SPECIAL kept LK and CH at 1 for more points in ST, EN, IN

Well, I need to do some testing with both medicine and cooked food during battles in order to see which one is more powerful.

Dang it does not make sense But its survival hands down no matter how you look at it... as every diffrent type of grub you eat stacks in healing granted cooked higher leavel ones give longer lasting effects heh

What makes you say that a CL supporter wouldn't need a high Intelligence or Charisma?

I think he's more like going for a "brute" character which is a classic cliché to have unintelligent and uncharismatic.

Maybe, but the way he portrayed it, it sounded like he was going to make his character a dumb, unlikeable [censored] just because he was going to be a CL supporter, which offends me. A little.

Deciding whether to put points into Medicine or Survival has a lot to do with which perks you plan to get.

Here are a few perks that require Survival:
Rad Child (70 Survival; up to +8HP/sec regeneration)
Hunter (30 Survival; +75% damage vs. mutated animals)
Entomologist (45 Survival; +50% damage vs. mutated insects)
Rad Resistance (40 Survival; +25% rad resistance)
Animal Friend (45 Survival)
Whiskey Rose (no minimum, but the higher your survival, the higher the DT bonus from drinking whiskey)

The perks that require Medicine are
Chemist (60 Medicine; chems last 2x as long),
Living Anatomy (70 Medicine; +5% damage vs humans and ghouls),
Chem Resistant (60 medicine; less likely to get addicted),


If you will get Cass's perk (Whiskey Rose), you definitely want high survival. A Survival of 70 provides +5 DT from drinking whiskey and somewhere closer to 100 it increases to +6 DT. Whiskey Rose together with Rad Child (70 Survival) and Super Slam are perhaps the most powerful perks in the game, especially for a melee build. The Medicine perks seem like a waste of a perk slot, but it depends on your playing style. I played constantly drinking whiskey, alcohol, bighorner steaks, brahmin steaks, etc. and my STR was constantly at 10, despite the rad poisoning penalty from Rad Child.

Also, I got addicted many, many times and used many chems. Never felt any need to have the chems last longer or get addicted less frequently. There is plenty of Fixer in the game each time you get several addictions going, or anytime you get addicted to Steady, because steady withdrawl reduces STR. Also, the doctors can cure you of addictions.

I would say use survival VS medicine. It would fit the role of a CL character better and on HC you get sick from using to many stimpacks in one shot but i don't believe there are any negative effects from over eating. What I would like to know though is why are so many people think so highly about Rad Child Perk. I know +8HP/sec us pretty good but the negative effects for that are horrible. I don't know but i couldn't play through the entire game trying to compensate for those effects.

The Str is pretty easy to compensate when you have so many consumables that boost strength. I played most of the late game at constant 10 str. The main problem with a str loss in my opinion is simply the carry weight. even if str is reduced to 8 or 7, I'm still wiping out most human enemies in one critical hit with super sledge.

The AGI hit I don't care about so much because I don't use VATS very much as a melee character. In extremely tough fights I can use Jet, Coyote Tobacco and Ultrajet for an AP boost. To be honest, the only reason I put any SPECIAL points into AGI is so I can qualify for Silent Running, which requires base AGI of 6 after you get the implant and is not affected by any temporary reduction from radiation poisoning.

The END hit is still worth it because even during the toughest fights in the game (esp. if I use Super Sledge to block), I'm regenerating HP very quickly each time I get hit. Without Rad Child, I would have had a much more difficult time beating the few very tough enemies in the game.

Utimately, I like the fact that you are forced to take some penalties, otherwise the Rad Child perk would simply be a sort of "god mode" and that would quickly become boring.

Oh defiantly it should have its negative effects but I guess your right about the positive effects out weighing the negative effects. I just wish there was a way to increase and decrease RAD by that much just to have the HP effect for large battles and not really mess with it when just exploring. But for the most part I still don't really see it as a must have for a melee build.

most of the game I stayed right around the borderline between critical rad poisoning (+6HP/sec) and deadly rad poisoning (+8 HP/sec).

You can try staying at Advanced rad poisoining level (+4 HP/sec), but I never had any situation even when exploring Vault 34 or Camp Searchlight where I got close to dying from rad poisoning. There is so much Radaway and Rad-X in this game that you can easily reduce it, even if you are playing on hardcoe mode.

Rad Child is excellent for "just exploring" because you don't need to consume stuff to restore your HP when fighting weaker enemies.

When exploring, I didn't experience any drawbacks from critical or deadly rad poisoning. AGI doesn't really affect you unless you want to use VATS a lot, in which case you can take chems like jet, etc. and the END hit is worth it for the constant regeneration, even when fighting lesser enemies.

If you are not playing on hardcoe mode, then Rad Child probably isn't worth it, because you can load up on stimpaks, etc., just like in FO3. IMO this makes the game a little too easy.