For my third playthrough I am going to make a Gladiator build, while siding with the Legion. Any tips or suggestions?

I made one of these too. I never got to play it much though, I've given up on this game until it's patched, but from what I did play it was bloody good fun. There is literally nothing more satisfying in this game than bursting into a casino and lopping the heads off of everyone inside with a fireaxe.

Just max out Strength, Endurance, Melee Weapons and Unarmed and you're good to go. I put a lot of points into Agility too, mainly for increased movement speed. I took the Travel Light perk aswell. You might want to spec a little in explosives too, for the Heave Ho! perk. But that's only if you intend to make good use of throwing weapons.

What sort of name should the character have?

Call him Maximus

One of these: http://www.cracked.com/article_14982_9-manliest-names-in-world.html

You're in for a treat, my friend. The melee/unarmed gladiator is easily the most powerful build in the game, to my experience. New Vegas introduces a few new perks that totally step up your potential.

1. At character creation, choose "Heavy Handed" - a trait that will boost melee/unarmed damage at the expense of critical hit damage.

2. Choosing male or female doesn't matter, but the Legion takes you more seriously as a male, FYI.

3. Plan ahead for the perks you want. You're going to want to put points into both melee and unarmed, regardless of which one you plan on using, as both skills have perks available that affect both attack types.

4. Perks to consider:

Toughness - You'll need a high DT, to survive the time it takes to close in on a ranged enemy.

Stonewall - You can no longer be knocked down. You receive +5 DT when you're wielding melee/unarmed weapons.

Super Slam - The centerpiece of this build. Attacks knock enemies to the ground. An enemy that is knocked down is an enemy that's not attacking you.

Terrifying Presence - Requires high Speech, but it's fun to use. It frightens opponents into cowering if you initiate combat from dialogue (i.e. after meeting Benny for the second time)

Piercing Strike - Another essential. Ignores 15 points of enemy DT. You'll be cutting through Deathclaws like they used to cut through you.

Unstoppable Force - Totally cuts through an enemy's block, if they're using melee. All attacks will land fully, and effectively.

Purifier - Does 50% more damage against "abominations" like Deathclaws, feral ghouls, and super mutants, but only with melee/unarmed. Awesome.

Paralyzing Palm - As mighty as it ever was...though, you won't need it as much with Super Slam in your repetoire.

Slayer - Increases melee/unarmed attack rate by 30%.

Any other perks are entirely up to you - experiment! I chose Confirmed Bachelor and Cannibal to fully flesh out my character. (you'll never run out of food again!) If you pick these perks, you're more or less unstoppable. Don't forget to get the DT implant from the New Vegas clinic. All you need to worry about is surviving long enough to get up close to your foe. Once you are, one or two hits is usually all it takes.

As for names, pick something simple, and ominous. I named mine "Ronin", because he considers himself a wasteland samurai.

Fightmaster it is

Do you think a high sneak fits in with this build? Maybe to add in the Ninja perk?

Thanks in advance.

It would help, definitely. Sacrifice putting points into Speech or Medicine. Maybe not even that. Ninja is awesome, but limited if you're the gung-ho gladiator type. I'd save Ninja if you wanted to play as a sneaky Legion Frumentarius.

With a variant of this build, I can easily beat Deathclaws on very hard

Honestly I've played this build you wont even need sneak. The only reason to put points into it
at all is to get the ninja perk. That perk will make you even more of a monster. Just tear them all apart.
Speech by the way is a must have same with lockpick.

I didn't bother personally. My build was a non crit build, so Ninja wouldn't have done me much good anyway.

I basically just charged in when I was playing, it worked extremely well on normal. I was decapitating everything in one shot. It should work well enough on very hard too.

But yeah, if you're going for a critical hit build then Ninja would definitely come in handy.

I find Cazadors to be a bigger threat to this build than Deathclaws. They're smaller, faster, and harder to hit. Basically, anything big enough to land a forward power attack on is dead meat. Cazadors are good at evading this.

Nitro
Gemini
Zap
Laser
Turbo

*Starts humming American Gladiator theme*

Someone mentioned Agility for runspeed. It does not add runspeed. You need to end up with 7 agility for Slayer though, so start with 6 and get the implant.



You've clearly never used a JSP 100% crit 'Sniper' build :P (I put sniper in quotes because you just walk around 1-shotting everything with hipfire from the sniper rifle. 1 shots at any range > 1 shots at melee range)

But the 'crazy melee beserker' is effective.

"Allow me the pleasure of introducing you to: Blade...........Laser............Blazer" :rofl:

(don't f**k with Globo Gym)

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Agility lol. I'm pretty sure it even says it in game, in the little Agility description on the vigor tester.

Its bugged... like half of everything else in this game. :sadvaultboy:

It worked well enough for me, which is surprising lol. As long as I'm in light armour It's almoast on par with having 100 Athleticism in Oblivion.

Edit: Which come to think of it might be a bug in it's own right.. Nothing should run that fast lol.

Multiple people did tests and found agility did nothing for their runspeed. So I dunno why it works for you. How did you test that it was working?

Just by playing the game really. In my first playthrough I had 1 Agility, because I never use VATS. But in my second playthrough I started with 9 and noticed a difference.

It's not something that you can misjudge. You just know when you're moving faster, since you need to sort of reassess your aiming technique when you're shooting on the move. At least on consoles you do, since you don't have that point and click accuracy the movement stick is used a lot to fine tune your aim.

If you check out the Gun Runners' apparel, there should be some reinforced metal armor that looks like it could be nice for old Greek/Roman apparel, costs like 6000 caps altogether though. :shrug:

As for weaps, the throwing spears are very cool and classic, the machete makes a good melee weapon as well.

I did this as well, I used the name Tiberius.

I'm thinking of making a similar build for my third playthrough. What would improve the earlier ideas is to focus on the Survival skill. Legion soldiers do not use chems or stimpaks and rely on food and healing powder. How fitting to have a gladiator-inspired character practice the same.

Name should definitely be ragnar.