Two types of statistics define your character in Fallout New Vegas, and that are attributes and skills. Your character’s attributes are represented by the acronym S.P.E.C.I.A.L. And determine the. Personally I’d say level up your SPECIAL skills in Charisma, Endurance, and Perception. Charisma-Along with the Speech Skill you could persuade your way into some quests and open up other dialogues that you usually cannot activate. Aug 29, 2020 You gain 10 skill points per level plus half your Intelligence score. The sooner you get to the New Vegas Medical Center and buy yourself a shiny new Intelligence Implant, the more skill points you'll have in the long run. In addition to perks, leveling, and intelligence, you can get skill bonuses from books throughout the game.
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This page lists all skills in Fallout: New Vegas. |
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- 4Improving skills
Background
Fallout: New Vegas shares a similar skill set to its predecessor, Fallout 3, but with several differences. Thirteen skills still remain, but the combat skills have been revised. Small Guns and Big Guns having been combined into the Guns skill, which now covers all conventional firearms with bullet projectiles. Weapons using explosive ordnance (missile and grenade launchers, for instance) are covered by Explosives. New throwing weapons, such as the throwing spear, have been added and are categorized as Melee Weapons. The Survival skill, which is similar to Outdoorsman, was re-added. It allows the player to craft a number various items, such as food, stimpaks, and poisons to augment the effectiveness of weapons.
As opposed to in Fallout 3, skills other than Speech have an effect on dialogue choices. The player must have a certain amount in the particular skill or else the dialogue option cannot be passed. In the case where a player's associated skill level is too low, a dialogue option (highlighted in red) is presented that will fail the skill check, and will not grant a speech success. Unlike Fallout 3, where the same dialogue option is presented regardless of your success or failure, a check that will fail uses a humorously unconvincing response, while a passable check uses a well-thought out argument, thus reflecting the nature of the check.
Unlike in Fallout 3, there are not enough skill points in the base game to max out every skill, even when accounting for every perk and skill book/magazine. Without add-ons installed, it is only possible to achieve a functional maximum in roughly ten skills by using skill magazines and the Comprehension perk for a temporary boost to 100 from a base level of 80.
To offset the necessity of a minimum value for a certain skill, Fallout: New Vegas introduces skill magazines, which provide a large but temporary boost to their associated skill (+10 or +20 with Comprehension). By using one prior to conversation, a check can be passed that might otherwise be failed. They can also be used to boost skill with weapons temporarily or gain access to crafting recipes beyond the player's current skill. Like skill books, magazines are consumed once used, and more need to be collected to maintain the effect.
Formula
The initial value of each skill is a base value of two, plus an amount depending on a character's value in the relevant attribute, plus a bonus determined by their Luck attribute, rounded up.
Example: A starting Endurance of five and a starting Luck of five will give you an initial Unarmed skill of 15.
Later changes to the SPECIAL stat have a similar influence on the respective skill.
During character creation, the player will tag three skills, instantly adding 15 points to each one. When leveling up, the character will distribute ten skill points plus a number equal to half their Intelligence, totaling 15 at maximum IN. The Educated perk grants two additional skill points per level if chosen. Assuming the player has an Intelligence of ten from level 1 and takes the Educated perk at level 4, a maximum of 487 skill points can be distributed without any DLC. Each DLC raises the level cap by 5, thus adding a possible maximum of 5 x 15 = 75 points (or 5 x 17 = 85 points with Educated) to the total available.
Skill Points available with a starting INT of 10 and with/without Educated:
Base game : 487 / 435
One add-on : 572 / 510
Two add-ons : 657 / 585
Three add-ons: 742 / 660
Four add-ons : 827 / 735
Base game : 487 / 435
One add-on : 572 / 510
Two add-ons : 657 / 585
Three add-ons: 742 / 660
Four add-ons : 827 / 735
It can be seen from the above figures that the Educated perk confers an advantage relative to the number of add-ons/levels, so that a player with three DLCs and Educated actually has more skill points to distribute than a player with four DLCs but without Educated.
List of skills
Skill | Description | Associated stat | Associated skillmag | Associated skillbook |
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Barter | Proficiency at trading and haggling. Also used to negotiate better quest rewards. | Charisma | Salesman Weekly | Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor |
Energy Weapons | Proficiency at using energy-based weapons. | Perception | Future Weapons Today | Nikola Tesla and You |
Explosives | Proficiency at using explosive weaponry, disarming mines, and crafting explosives. | Perception | Patriot's Cookbook | Duck and Cover! |
Guns | Proficiency at using weapons that fire standard ammunition. | Agility | Milsurp Review | Guns and Bullets |
Lockpick | Proficiency at picking locks. | Perception | Locksmith's Reader | Tumblers Today |
Medicine | Proficiency at using medical tools, drugs, and crafting medical supplies excluding chems. | Intelligence | Today's Physician | D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine |
Melee Weapons | Proficiency at using melee weapons. | Strength | Tæles of Chivalrie | Grognak the Barbarian |
Repair | Proficiency at repairing items and crafting items and ammunition. | Intelligence | Fixin' Things | Dean's Electronics |
Science | Proficiency at hacking terminals, recycling energy ammunition at workbenches, crafting chems, and many dialog checks. | Intelligence | Programmer's Digest | Big Book of Science |
Sneak | Proficiency at remaining undetected and stealing. | Agility | ¡La Fantoma! | Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual |
Speech | Proficiency at persuading others. Also used to negotiate for better quest rewards and to talk your way out of combat, convincing people to give up vital information and succeeding in multiple speech checks. | Charisma | Meeting People | Lying, Congressional Style |
Survival | Proficiency at cooking and surviving in the wastes. | Endurance | Lad's Life | The Wasteland Survival Guide |
Unarmed | Proficiency at unarmed fighting. | Endurance | Boxing Times | Pugilism Illustrated |
Improving skills
Temporary
- Skill magazines will raise the particular skill by 10, or 20 if the Comprehension perk is chosen.
- Certain armor or clothing can raise certain skills when worn.
- Taking chems can augment S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and thus raise the coinciding skill by a small amount.
Permanently
- Reading any skill book will raise that particular skill by 3, or 4 if the Comprehension perk is chosen.
- Certain perks can raise skills permanently.
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TL;DR
- Default difficulty is fine for casual players. Hardcore is bad if you're using companions and not modding the game.
- INT is good. All weapon types are viable mains. Lockpick, Medical, Repair, and Science are good. Hauler is good.
- Play the DLC in release order (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and then Lonesome Road) starting at about level 20, then gain 5-10 more levels before moving onto the next.
- If you're modding, get a UI fixer (MTUI), New Vegas Script Extender (NVSE), an unofficial bugfix patch (YUP or UPP+), and the Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM). Don't add anything else unless you want something specific, and add them one at a time.
Character Building: SPECIAL and Traits
- Don't neglect Strength (carry load), Endurance (max HP), and Intelligence (skill points per level.) Charisma is a safe dumpstat. High Luck can make for easy money grinding at casinos, but if that doesn't interest you then it is also a safe dumpstat.
![Fallout New Vegas Starting Skills Fallout New Vegas Starting Skills](/uploads/1/1/9/7/119712365/805208116.jpg)
- Don't put anything to 10, there are implants that can permanently upgrade stats, and the max is 10 even with buffs/chems/etc.
- If you have an Intelligence of 2 or 1, the game changes in some pretty significant ways, but this is better suited for a second run than a first.
- A high Charisma/nonviolent character is also viable, but also better saved for when you know what you're getting into.
- Wild Wasteland is serious about making the game sillier, including most of the shout-outs and goofy events/locations. Everything else depends on your build, but if you can't decide, Hoarder (from the DLC) is excellent and the downside is extremely easy to avoid.
- Don't play on Hardcore if you plan on using companions and not modding the game. Their AI is questionable and there are several bugs that can kill them dead with very little recourse, especially melee companions, and especially especially the good, good robot dog.
- The hard part's over now, you can skip the next section if you want.
Skills and Perks
- For combat skills, pick one and go all-in. Whether it's Melee, Unarmed, Guns, Energy Weapons, or Explosives, pick one, and pick out perks that support it and work well with it. It doesn't hurt to be putting points into a secondary weapon type, but focus your combat perks on whatever you intend to be best at. (Do note that some of the best Melee perks require Unarmed skill, and vice-versa.) Explosives are a bit expensive to be a main if you don't know what you're doing, but exploring the right areas can take some of the edge off.
- Survival is a garbage skill that does nothing of value, even in Hardcore mode. Most of what you'd want it to do is actually behind Medical, Science, or Repair.
- Speech and Barter can be worth putting a few points into even if you don't lean into them. If you're just shy of making a check, fancy clothes, a magazine and chems/alcohol can close the gap.
- Make sure to level at least one of Lockpick and Science, most good loot is locked behind one or both of them.
- Perks that increase skill point gain are not retroactive, so take them early. Avoid XP-boosting perks, there is more than enough to comfortably hit the level cap with even a modicum of exploration.
Gameplay / Exploration
- There are no missables, although you can't do everything in one playthrough. There is no way to totally fail most quests (except contradictory ones from different people - kill this guy vs rescue this guy) so pick a character archetype to roleplay and just do it. You might 'fail' some quests but you really won't.
- Much like Fallout 3, if a container isn't 'secure' then the game may or may not remember what you stored in it. Containers in your personal houses and rooms are secure, containers elsewhere generally aren't. The first accessible ones are the blue Mohave Express drop boxes, which will freely hold and transfer an infinite amount of stuff between them once you find two or more. (There are five, one each in Goodsprings, Primm, Novac, Freeside, and the Strip.)
- Karma is basically a nonissue, it's faction reputation that's important. The only companion (and really the only NPC) who gives a shit about Karma is Cass, who'll leave if it's too low for too long, but several care about faction reputation.
- If you are wearing a faction's armor, people will think you are a member of that faction. For example, you will be attacked if you return to Goodsprings wearing Powder Ganger armor.
- At a certain point in the main plot, there's a one-time event where negative reputation with the NCR and the Legion will be cleared. Outside of this, there isn't really an easy way to repair your reputation with a faction once they start getting violent.
- Run from Cazadores until you get lots of poison antidotes or have done the Old World Blues DLC. The poison is bugged and can infinitely stack every time they hit you. This is also one of the fore-mentioned enemies that can kill companions dead extremely quickly.
- Armor uses Damage Threshold (which subtracts points of damage off the top) now instead of Damage Resistance (which reduced all damage by a percentage). This makes Deathclaws even deadlier than before, if you can believe it. Use AP ammo on them, preferably from an extreme distance. There's no Dart Gun equivalent to neuter them anymore, either.
Building a Combat God
- Wanna just play the game for the story and absolutely roll over everything even remotely challenging? Or, alternatively, wanna stand a fighting chance at max difficulty? This is how. Mechanical and location spoilers follow.
- 5 STR, 8 PER, 7 END, 1 CHA, 9 INT, 5 AGI, 7 LUC. Tag Energy Weapons, Repair, and Science. Take Hoarder and Wild Wasteland.
- Key perks early/mid perks are Educated, Comprehension, Toughness, Meltdown, Vigilant Recycler, and Jury Rigging.
- Make Overcharged and Maximum energy cells at repair benches once you have Jury Rigging to easily repair the damage to your weapons.
- The Plasma Caster is the best all-round energy weapon in terms of damage, fire rate and ammo usage. You'll find it in the Silver Rush in New Vegas. Steal it or kill everyone inside.
- The Pulse Pistol in Vault 34 (where the Boomers live) eviscerates robots.
- Northwest of the strip is a little town called the Horowitz farmstead. Just north of that is an extremely deadly Wild Wasteland-specific unique energy weapon, wielded by a unique enemy. Use the ammo carefully, you're not getting any more of it.
- Don't use a melee companion, Meltdown will kill them dead fast.
DLC / Modding
![Skills Skills](/uploads/1/1/9/7/119712365/863655225.jpg)
- Play through the DLC in release order, so Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and then Lonesome Road. They're individual side stories but each one also contains buildup for the last one and they're all pretty awesome in their own ways. Dead Money recommends level 20 or higher, but it can be done at as low as 10-15 if you're a combat monster. It does have some high Speech and Lockpick checks, so pump those skills first if you plan to go in early.
- Before even starting the game, if you're on PC, you're going to want a UI fixer (MTUI), the New Vegas Script Extender (NVSE), New Vegas Anti-Crash (NVAC), an unofficial bugfix patch (YUP or UPP+), and the Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM). These can be added quickly and painlessly even if you don't want to fuck around with modding.
- If you want to mod more, add one at a time, make sure it works, and unless all of the mods you're using are explicitly compatible, be prepared for some odd crashes and fiddling with load order. Good places to start are Project Nevada, Weapon Mods Expanded, and The Someguyseries (New Vegas Bounties, et al.) for gameplay, and Fellout, Interior Lighting Overhaul, Fallout Character Overhaul, and one of the several texture replacement mods for visuals.
Fallout New Vegas Starting Builds
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