So I want to make a character and then play the game while completing as much of it as possible in one play-through.

Anyone care to tell me what I should do?

How should I allocate my SPECIAL, my initial skills? I want to be able to do speech/lock-pick/hacking challenges.

What story decisions should I make - eg who should I side with for main plot - feel free to spoil any further story decisions that I may have to make other than this.

What should I be on the lookout for? Should I attempt to get all companions first to make sure they don't die? Anything else you can think of that I should be on the lookout for etc would help!

If anyone replies; thanks! I appreciate it.

Who you side with is up to you, honestly. IMO, being "friendly" with the NCR is always good, even if you aren't siding with them. Plenty of quests and things to do.

I agree that doing an NCR ending will certainly give you most to do as they have a ton of quests here there and everywhere

try using http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings to take a look at all the quests that have endings correlated to get all the ending slides

beyond that, your character is yours to play as it will have no affect on what you'll need to get done quest wise

IMO i would just play it through you always have the forum to ask questions (search before asking as repeat questions are frowned upon lol) and you finally make your own decision on what you want out the game, another tip just walk ever and talk to everyone

One of the things I like to do when I'm playing is get the Legion to Like me without actually helping them out at all. I do that by stealing NCR Dogtags and turning them in to Aurelius of Phoenix at Cottonwood Cove. I know I turned in 43 (45?) of them and got an instant Liked status (and I don't think I did anything for them previously). This does two things: gives you a key to their safehouse for Lucky Shades (only really need to be Accepted for that), and also get supply drops (Liked).

Side with Ringo at Goodsprings. Then *stay* *out* *of* *the* *ensuing* *fight*. Go hide behind something and wait for the dust-up to end. This will make it easier to deal with the Powder Gangers at the NCRCF.

Oh, and disguise yourself as a powder ganger while you are on your way to Primm from Goodsprings, or from Goodsprings to Sloan. Make sure you take off the outfit *before* you get too close to Primm or the NCR soldier there will be hostile to you. The goal is to avoid mixing it up with the rogue Powder Gangers on those roads. They don't like the Courier regardless of your PG rep.

Don't forget that you can complete almost every faction quest (specifically, those given by Caesar, Yes Man, House or Crocker & the Colonel) without being given the quest; there are backdoor ways into most of them. This way you can avoid the consequences of choosing a side for quite a while, almost to the end.

Stack speech and charisma; they will take you far, very quickly.

Allocate your SPECIAL and skill points as best matches your playing style. If you're diligent about picking up magazines and skillbooks, you won't need to take Science/Lockpick higher than 80 (if you take the "Comprehension" perk; 90 if you don't) and that's only to get at a couple of "very hard" terminals/locks. If you just want to get most of them, you can stop at 55 (with Comprehension). The same applies to Speech - there are very few Speech challenges that require more than a 75 in the skill and most are 60 or below. While Speech challenges open up some easier ways of completing quests, they are not strictly necessary to complete the vast majority of quests.




Side with whomever you want. You can stretch it out and "sit on the fence" for most of the game simply by taking out Benny and then NOT collecting the chip from him. This is especially true for the Legion. Build up lots of positive rep with everyone else by completing their quests. The Legion will hate you until you pick up the chip, which resets your rep with them to "Neutral". If you want to make your life slightly easier, don't pick it up until you're ready to head into the endgame, but do any other quests you want in the meantime.



Be on the lookout for anything that makes your life easier. Companions only die in hardcoe mode, and even then nothing says that they need to be alive at the end of the game. I'd try to keep them alive long enough to complete their personal questlines, though. You do not need to have them with you to get their perks (well, except Veronica; hers does kind of require close proximity), so you can stash them somewhere and do whatever needs to be done without worrying about whether they'll get shot up. You'll miss out on a few dialogs, but nothing that's a real quest-killer. I noticed that they have an annoying tendency to teleport to your location when they are in your group and their dialogs ARE critical to your mission, but that's very rare and might have just been a hiccup on my system. If you're playing hardcoe and have acquired the Lucky 38 suite, be sure to remove them (send them to the Lucky 38) before starting the "Dead Money" DLC. Otherwise you'll need to go round them up again when you're done.

Beyond all of that, have a good time. It's what the game's all about, after all.

Why Charisma?

I'm already struggling with my SPECIAL, but at the moment I'm settling with 5Str, 3Per, 6End, 3Cha, 9Int, 6Agi, 8Luc.

I want the high luck to be able to win at black jack, want the high intelligence to be able to get as many skill points as possible. I left it at 9 as there are implants which will take it up to 10.

Thoughts on this setup? (It might not be 100% what I have, but all the values are correct to within one point. I just can't remember them right at this moment)

One problem I see with those SPECIAL scores is you need a P score of 6 to get Better Criticals

that is, if you were worried about not having it

Any suggestions on a different SPECIAL point allocation?

well, you tell us, What weapons do you want to use and how do you want to use them? Are you playing hardcoe? Are you a packrat? Are you wearing Powe Armor or taking the Weapons Handling perk? Those will tell you how much S you need.
Do you like seeing enemies long before they see you? Which perks do you want? Determines your P
Are you heavy Melee or Unarmed type? A rush-in-guns-blazing kinda guy (or gal)? E
How much do you want to roleplay? Are you a smooth talker or like to get better deals out of people? Do you want your companions to be tougher? That's C
Do you want to max out as many skills as possible? Do you like making Intelligence based skill checks in dialogue? Will you get all the skill books or take the Comprehension perk? I
Are you going to use VATS more than anything? A
You said you like gambling but do you do it often enough to warrant such a high L?

and so on. We know too little about your character to be just throwing out suggestions for you

Naughty Nightwear + Lucky Shades + Luck Implant = +3 Luck

Putting Luck at 8 in the beginning is... kind of a waste? Make it 6 and get the stuff I just listed. You will clean up in Blackjack with a Luck of 9, especially if you actually know how to play the game.

Thank you! This was the sort of reply I was hoping for.

So I guess I'll spread around 1 point each to Perception and Charisma from the 2 taken from Luck.

This will start me off with 4 in each of those, implants will take those up to 5. And if I feel a need for better criticals etc I'll intense training them up?



As for the post before, I really don't know what my character is. I just want him to be as much of an all rounder as possible. I always struggle starting off Bethesda games lol, cause I don't want to start them until I'm 100% sure I'm happy with my character build sigh

Hello there!
I'm playing a Charisma 1 character and never had to regret the choice on my (still ongoing) 1st playthrough,
with almost all side-quests completed (a couple minor one I might still go for) and
all places visited (again, there are a couple of caves I set aside for when I feel ready).
I did go with Perception 4 in the beginning and had to waste an 'Intensive Training' perk slot
just to bring it to 6 (post-implant) because the 'Better Critical' is kind of a must
for the sniper I wanted to become. Having a good (5, then +1 with the implant) Strenght
is also kind of nice, it helps wielding big weapons, it helps carrying loot,
it helps in hand-to-hand fighting...

But then again, it really comes down to what you want your character to be