Possibly the best Fallout Build (1,2, Tactics)

[Vorpalbob]

I have discovered during my latest play-through of Fallout Tactics an almost unbeatable build. Here it is:

Maxed Intelligence and Agility, average Strength and Charisma, whatever else.

Tagged skills=
Small Guns
Energy Weapons
Barter

Traits=
Small Frame
Fast Shot

Perks=
anything, but take Bonus Rate of Fire and Action Boy ASAP. Its BRoF that completes the build.

Weapons=
Early on use revolvers, later use Energy pistols; in both cases, AP cost for firing is reduced to 1 AP. With both Action Boy perks and a revolver, this allows for 10 shots per turn (2 APs are used for reloading). With the Laser pistol or Plasma pistol, you can fire the occasional 12 shots per turn. Combining these figures with the average damage of these weapons produces these results=

Spoiler

Show

Weapon= Avg. damage per turn(assuming start with full clip)
M29 Revolver= 150
Casull Revolver= 155
Laser Pistol= 192
Plasma Pistol= 300
Spasm Gun= 170 +stun
Pulse Pistol= 390 (ow)

Armed with a Pulse Pistol, my character soloed a Behemoth. The FIRST one I encountered.

Anyone know a better build?

[FMArthur]

I recall in Fallout 2 my best build centred around simply shooting people in the eyes and getting very reliable at crippling them horribly or killing them outright in single shots. Very ammo efficient. I don't have the exact build, though I recall that it was focused on small, one-handed guns. I distinctly remember that even the toughest enemies were reduced to blind cowering after a shot in the eyes. Talking about D&D on this forum taught me the insignificance of the distinction between 'severely disabled' and 'dead'.

[Harperfan7]

Sniper and a nice small gun will pretty much do it.

Your build is fairly close to what I tend to use.
Str 5, Per 10, End 2, Cha 2, Int 10, Agi 10, Luck 9
Gifted, small frame or one hander
tagged small guns, lockpicking, speech.
I always take awareness, then I focus on getting sniper.

[Lawless III]

I might be wrong here, but I think this belongs on the videogames section. Though I understand that the fallout games are technically roleplaying games, this board is more for tabletops.

[Dragonmuncher]

Yeah, Small Guns is the Win skill for pretty much all the Fallout games. And if you have really high Int, then you get enough skill points that you can flesh out the rest of your skills

[Jerthanis]

I always saw Gifted as a trap. You get enough in your prime stats to make it look attractive, more AP, more qualifications for this and that.

But your traits measuring your actual interaction with the entire rest of the game world are immeasurably crippled. It turns the game into "I have these three tag skills that are at all useful" when without it you have a host of 50% and 40% skills without even putting anything into them.

I always had better luck without it, but I've never seen another person on the internet or off agree with me.

[Vorpalbob]

I am not a proponent of Gifted, at all. The only kinds of characters I can see it working for are Melee/Unarmed fighters, who need three high stats to be powerful (Strength, Agility, Endurance) while a Sniper for example is okay with two (Perception and Agility).

Generally as a rule, I max out Agility, because there is very little in the game more useful than APs.

[EDIT]: Is it just me, or does HTH Evade seem slightly broken?

Lawless III, yeah, Fallout is an iffy one in this forum. I say that since we are discussing character building, much in the same manner as other threads around here, that it really could go either way.

[Cubey]

Gifted is not a trap. It's too awesome not to take.

You get a bucketload of stat points - the most valued commodity when creating your character. And what is supposed to be the drawback here? Less skill points per level, and reduced skill percentages at the start of the game? Your increased stats (especially int, which gives more skill points/level) easily take care of that.

Saying a character needs only X stats to be powerful works only if you treat Fallout as a battle game. So I guess it's kinda true for Fallout Tactics (but EVERYONE still benefits from Int and Luck in that game). But for Fallout 1 and 2, all stats are important - all provide plot or puzzle-solving benefits. So your best bet is a well-rounded but intelligent and charismatic character, just like in Planescape: Torment (but I digress). Gifted means your well-rounded character is good at everything rather than average.

[tyckspoon]

I always saw Gifted as a trap. You get enough in your prime stats to make it look attractive, more AP, more qualifications for this and that.

But your traits measuring your actual interaction with the entire rest of the game world are immeasurably crippled. It turns the game into "I have these three tag skills that are at all useful" when without it you have a host of 50% and 40% skills without even putting anything into them.

I always had better luck without it, but I've never seen another person on the internet or off agree with me.

Skills are easy to raise- you can read books to get up to about 60% in anything that has a book pretty easily (I think it's 70+ before the books just stop doing anything at all), there are relatively common in-game events that raise them, you get skill points at level up, you can use perks to boost them if you really have to, and in Tactics and Fallout 2 your companions can perform some of the skills for you. And, in the end, you only really need to focus on 3-4 skills to get through the game; raising *everything* to 100+% skill is only needed if you're looking for absolute completion of every single side-quest and best possible outcome of every interaction.

Base stats? Not that easy to increase after generation. The only really easy way is to (ab)use drugs, which has its own problems; other than that you'll be working with the same stats for 50% or more of the game, which can be very problematic if you had to dump Strength or Endurance or Luck. Gifted lets you maintain those stats respectably while still pumping up Agility/Intelligence/Perception/Charisma as your design requires

[EDIT]: Is it just me, or does HTH Evade seem slightly broken?

Nah. It's good for about 10-12 more AC. Doesn't have a major effect when you hit the point where you're relying on DR instead of AC to survive, because all the dangerous enemies hit you anyway.
Double edit: Both slots empty is the kicker that moves it from 'meh' to 'not worth using' for me. It means you can't have a rifle or something in the off-slot in case you need to switch and gun down a fleeing enemy or snipe a turret or something.

[Vorpalbob]

Skills are easy to raise- you can read books to get up to about 60% in anything that has a book pretty easily (I think it's 70+ before the books just stop doing anything at all)

I don't think there's a limit to book effects. I kept Stitch in the squad all the way through, having him read all of the Science textbooks I found (you can get seven, if you look hard enough) and he went from a 23-30 skill to about 120. Without me putting any points into it. Books are awesome!

Now excuse me, I'm off to read (and summarize) Proust.