I'm trying to make a character who has high CHARISMA (8+ at least--yes, I really do use it!), but the only other things I care about are having lots of AP and a good chance of VATS attacks landing. I'll probably stick to small guns.

Then put points in Agility and Perception for your other SPECIAL stats. Take perks like Gunslinger, Commando, Action Boy, Grim Reaper's Sprint, etc. when you get the chance.

Cool, thanks!

Just curious, which properties does AGI and PER affect, respectively? And are there any other one's that I should have at least at 4-5 minimum?

The Kamikaze trait would also be a good choice. I like to have a high Luck as well because I love my criticals.

I you like to shoot baddies with effectiveness :gun:

Set for starting character

Agility/Luck To 7 & Perception To 6

For Trait go with Trigger Discipline

Perks Lady Killer and the new perk Man Killer (forgot the name of it) that gives you 10% bonus threshold damage against the human genders

i am a speech person too... n like to stick to small guns:d

OK, the advice here isn't wrong, but here's the thing -

SPECIAL stats don't have any effect beyond their derived statistic (eg, carry weight, radar detection, VATS points, etc) and a boost to their associated skills (eg, every point in Agility gives you +2 in guns and sneak) - and an occasional dialog option (very high intelligence, for example, might allow different responses in a conversation with some kind of scientist for example).

From this perspective, Intelligence is a very powerful stat, since it increases your skill points gained PER LEVEL. So the difference between 3 intelligence and 9 intelligence is 90 skill points over the course of the game (ie max character level).

So say you go with a few extra points in Agility, say three - great! You've just added six points to guns and sneak, which is a great investment if you plan on using those a lot. And say you put three points in Perception as well, that's six points in Energy Weapons, Explosives and Lockpicking. Again, not a bad investment - you get +6 to three skills, though you're not planning on making use of energy weapons, and maybe explosives, so that's a bit wasteful. Lockpicking (as far as I know, this is how it works in FO3) is a 'minimum level' skill, which makes it great for bonus points, since you don't necessarily need to maximize it (only five values matter, 1 skill for very easy locks, 25 for easy, 50 for medium, 75 for hard, 100 for very hard).

So you've made +30 skill points, instead of putting those SPECIAL points in Intelligence and getting 90, which would allow you to simply buy the skill points given for free by the bonus SPECIALs put in Agility and Perception and still have a ton left over for other fun stuff.

So, you don't really want to invest SPECIAL points based on which skills they bump, since the return isn't great (+2 points), and you get a whole lot more just dumping those points in Intelligence; the associated skills are important to keep in mind, especially if you want to max your primary skills as fast as possible, but they're not of primary importance.

Now, SPECIAL stats do give you some kind of derived statistic - strength gives you carry weight, for example. Someone did some tests, and Perception didn't seem to influence accuracy - I haven't repeated these myself, but if that's the case, all perception does is light up enemies on the little radar thing from further away... which is not so mind-blowing. I'd rather put those points somewhere else.

If you're committed to heavy VATS usage (ie, want to pretty much resolve every combat instance entirely in VATS), Agility is not a bad way to spend points. Each point gives you three AP (I think), which isn't terrible (though it's not great either). So there's maybe ~30 points of AP difference between a 1 AG character and a 10 AG character. Is the 12 points of VATS worth four SPECIAL? That's up to you. Just remember, there are a lot of Perks that help with VATS as well, either letting you kill things faster (so you need less time), or restoring AP (Grimm Reaper).

The last thing to consider is stat requirements - they added Strength requirements for most guns, for example. There's a perk that will reduce those requirements by 2, but if you want to use heavy weapons, or some of the most powerful sniper rifles, it's something you should take into account.

This is all from the perspective of really thinking about what you're doing - if that doesn't interest you and you really just want to shoot stuff, you can play the game just fine throwing your stats wherever they look the best. I'm not trying to knock that, sometimes I wish I could play that way, but I make myself miserable thinking about what I should have done differently ><.

If I'm wrong about anything, apologies, this is just how it looks to me. And I'm not thrilled with the system, either, I think it's a rather simplistic design that marginalizes certain stats (never a good thing in an RPG!)

Either way, GL!

-HD

You and me both.