Making a third Fallout: New Vegas character. Suggestions?

[Jeivar]

I first played New Vegas with a charismatic male sniper, but never got my hands on the proper sniping gear. Then I played a female melee expert, which was far easier after a certain point and a lot of fun. I'm thinking of doing a third run, but I'm wondering what to do with the character. Is there a feasible middle ground build between those two?

Oh, and I took the Cherchez la Femme perk with the female character, but only got a chance to use it ONCE. Do the checks have a Charisma requirement? (I only had CHA 4)

[Reprimand]

Might I suggest a crit based unarmed build?

If you google "Hauntbot" on gamefaqs he always has some tasty advice for ninja/unarmed characters. Ballistic Fist is OP imo. I played hardcore/veryhard with a crit based unarmed build and wrecked it sooo badly.

As for the girl/girl perk (can't remember how to spell it) it isn't charisma based it just has less uses than say lady killer or black widow. Most of the uses for it are quite powerful though, I usually just take it for flavor.

[Trekkin]

If you want a middle ground between sniping and melee, I'd suggest either ninja-esque stealth melee or Explosives.

[Bouregard]

If you want a middle ground between sniping and melee, I'd suggest either ninja-esque stealth melee or Explosives.

Oh explosives... If you want to see entire camps of baddies disolve to red goo with just a few rockets....

However you should really have a spare melee weapon, 'cause you don't want to fire Merci or Anabelle up close.


My most recent playthrough is a maxed out explosive charackter... and I grow to love him.

[Timberwolf]

Guns and speech are always good skills to have, just for when the explosives would blow you up too.

[Jeivar]

My Melee character had Explosives as well, though I never got much use out of it, what with the scarcity of rockets and the fact that a lot of the enemies run straight into melee.

I was thinking more about Perk and SPECIAL-points allocation. It takes a bunch of Perks to make Melee and sniping truly effective. I'm wondering how best to balance those two out, and whether it's truly effective, or if it just makes the character suck all around.

[Triaxx]

Missiles are not where explosives is at. Missiles are supplemental weapons, for dealing with snipers or huge groups.

Explosives live in Grenade Launchers, Dynamite, and Frag Mines. Dynamite to open fights, VATS to throw hand grenades at fast movers who closes in, Grenade Launchers to deal with slow moving enemies. Frag Mines to line paths, and approaches to defensive redoubts.

Remember you can throw mines as you're moving backwards, and that C-4 is absurdly rare, and also insanely powerful. Lure a Death Claw over C-4, and you've got an 'I Win' Button.

Carry two Grenade Launchers. A standard one, and a Long Tube. (Default and Thump-Thump work well)

Missiles should be saved for up armored targets, Cazadores, and Legionnaires. Unless you add the Mixed Missile Mod, which gives you more types, and the ability to build them.

[Cespenar]

Don't forget to take the perk that increases the book bonuses from 10 to 20. It pays off.

[Tengu_temp]

Unarmed with Super Slam and Bloody Mess is a lot of fun. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dEY9alhVb8)

[shadow_archmagi]

I first played New Vegas with a charismatic male sniper, but never got my hands on the proper sniping gear. Then I played a female melee expert, which was far easier after a certain point and a lot of fun. I'm thinking of doing a third run, but I'm wondering what to do with the character. Is there a feasible middle ground build between those two?

Oh, and I took the Cherchez la Femme perk with the female character, but only got a chance to use it ONCE. Do the checks have a Charisma requirement? (I only had CHA 4)

GENERAL BUILD ADVICE: (You probably already know this)
Always Always Always Always Always max Repair, and then grab Jury Rigging at the first opportunity. It is one of the very best perks.

Repair by itself is pretty nice. It lets you combine low quality items into higher quality items. That means you're getting three huge benefits for the price of one:
1. All weapons deal more damage at higher quality levels
2. All armor protects better at higher quality levels
3. All loot sells for more at higher quality levels.

When I first started playing the game, I was somewhat doubtful about Repair. "Why should I combine two guns worth 300 into one that's worth 500? That's value lost!" But it really comes in handy when you find five guns but only have pack space to carry one. That way, you can adventure a lot longer between pitstops, and when you hit your 200 pound allowance and have to head back to the trader, instead of selling eight guns worth 200 each, you can sell eight guns worth 2000 each.

Jury Rigging then goes ahead and makes Repair exponentially more useful by allowing you to use vaguely similar items to repair each other. This not only lets you repair unique items, but also means you can get a huge value boost. There's nothing like buying a Thermic Lance for 1000 caps, fix it using pool cues for 20 caps, and then selling it back for 6000 caps.