How To Build A Great Character

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DwayneGAnd

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
This is where character creation gets more complicated due to lack of traits. Due to open sandbox style, in past playthroughs, I have often found myself facing opposition that is too strong for me. This even when I played on the easiest difficulty setting! So I have no idea how to navigate the wasteland safely and what parts of the map to stay out of until I achieve a higher level.

I have the Ultimate Perk Pack installed, but even then, the perks of fallout 3 are similar to fallout 1 and 2 in that certain perks affect either melee or long range combat, forcing you to choose between melee or guns. Yet from what I have read, it is possible to achieve 100 in all skills if you play right, using both guns and melee.

I have the following builds planned:

Sharpshooter: Uses small guns, energy weapons, big guns, in other words, specializes in long range combat.

Silent Assassin: Wears Chinese Stealth Armor and uses both guns and melee. Most weapons are silenced to remain undetected.

Melee: Uses melee weapons.

Brawler: Uses unarmed weapons.

Pyromaniac: Uses weapons affected by pyromaniac perk.

Heavyweight: Focuses on weapons that do not deal critical hits such as explosives, Eugene minigun, and Kneecapper. Luck is dumped.

As you can see, I focus on a certain style. Long Range, fire, stealth, melee, unarmed, or non critical. In previous playthroughs, I found that even after maxing all my important skills, I still had some levels left to achieve and get skill points to invest in combat skills that my build does not use.

I would like to know if any of the builds above are viable. How can I navigate the wasteland safely without encountering very tough enemies early? Should I stay on certain paths? How should I build up my skills? What should I set my attributes at for each planned character? How do I create a perfect character? What kinds of weapons should I carry with me so I can tackle any situation?
 
It's Fallout 3. All builds are "whiny 19 year old little shit looking for his or her daddy". Navigating the wasteland safely without encountering tough enemies? They're all leveled, anway, you won't encounter anything that can kill you. Build up skills by leveling up (duh doy).
Perfect characters don't exist.
Carry those weapons that do enough damage, that you have ammo and can expect to find ammo for, and that you like.
 
Fallout 3 makes Fallout 1-2 look like games designed by Adolf Hitler and Satan.

You can probably beat the game as a level 5 character.
 
DwayneGAnd said:
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Melee and Unarmed are shit in FO3. Hard enough doing the mirelurk quests and reaching all the unlimited respawning super mutatnts but they eventually land you in an unwinnable situation where Enclave troopers are firing at you from unreachable places while you have to protect a squad of 4 scientists.

Who knows. People have said Melee makes Vats an "I win Button" but I never really used Vats for anything else except Mirelurks with their tiny faces.
Only way to really play this game is using the "Terrible Shotgun" you can get by killing a merchant in a cave for negakarma.
 
MPPlantOfficial said:
Melee and Unarmed are shit in FO3. Hard enough doing the mirelurk quests and reaching all the unlimited respawning super mutatnts but they eventually land you in an unwinnable situation where Enclave troopers are firing at you from unreachable places while you have to protect a squad of 4 scientists.

Who knows. People have said Melee makes Vats an "I win Button" but I never really used Vats for anything else except Mirelurks with their tiny faces.
Only way to really play this game is using the "Terrible Shotgun" you can get by killing a merchant in a cave for negakarma.
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Literally nothing in the game barring the cheating 'ignore armour' DLC enemies are remotely challenging, melee, unarmed, guns, explosives, everything works on everything because DT isn't a thing.

Even worse, the shotgun is from a FRIENDLY RAIDER MERCHANT...Somehow.
 
MPPlantOfficial said:
He could probably count him as an "Unarmed Prisoner" after killing the Raiders except the son of a bitch has the strongest weapon in the game...
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Nah, just tell yourself he's a raider and shoot that bastard right in the face. If you don't lose Karma then you're cool.
 
MPPlantOfficial said:
Only way to really play this game is using the "Terrible Shotgun" you can get by killing a merchant in a cave for negakarma.
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We don't get negative karma. Smiling Jack is in the Raider faction and has Evil karma. We can kill him all we want without getting any negative karma ;-).
 
Risewild said:
We don't get negative karma. Smiling Jack is in the Raider faction and has Evil karma. We can kill him all we want without getting any negative karma ;-).
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And who cares if you do get negative karma, give some hobo a bottle of water and all sins are forgiven. ^_^
 
ThatZenoGuy said:
And who cares if you do get negative karma, give some hobo a bottle of water and all sins are forgiven. ^_^
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Of course. Water hobos are actually Jesus in disguise.

iu
 
ThatZenoGuy said:
And who cares if you do get negative karma, give some hobo a bottle of water and all sins are forgiven. ^_^
Click to expand...
Hey, purified water is highly valuable in the Capital Wasteland. After all, they need to make a purifier to save it. That is why a bottle of Purified Water costs... 20 caps?!?!?
 
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Risewild said:
Hey, purified water is highly valuable in the Capital Wasteland, after all they need to make a purifier to save it. That is why a bottle of Purified Water costs... 20 caps?!?!?
Click to expand...

>Planks of wood with nails literally worth a week's supply of water.

>Still can't afford water.

<;D
 
Fallout 3 has a few skills I never touched. Big guns, Melee, Unarmed, Explosives, Barter, Energy Weapons. Due to the amount of skillbooks, you can leave those at 40-50 and just book them to 80-90 each.

And that's not even on a min-max build. Small guns are just so prevalent, that it's a challenge to go on a melee run and definitely a unarmed run. Unlike more D&D games with proficencies in weapons, a Small Gun master gives you barebone sniper, assault, pistoleer and the like mastery, and most specialized perks are for V.A.T.S only, right? I count 8 V.A.T.S perks. If you don't use V.A.T.S, those perks are worthless for more generalize damage perks.
 
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I've taken my character to level 30. He specializes only in Small Guns for combat. Science, Repair, Lockpick, Speech, Barter, Medicine, and explosives are all maxed. His S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats are maxed after taking the Almost Perfect perk at level 30 and then getting all the stat bobbleheads. I didn't touch Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Unarmed, or Melee Weapons.

My armor is the Ranger Battle Armor and Ranger Battle Helmet, I wear the lucky shades. My weapons are the Reservist's Rifle, Blackhawk, Terrible Shotgun, Xuanlong's Rifle, Railway Rifle, Sydney's Ultra 10mm SMG, and Paulson's Revolver.

I found that the enemies get tougher at higher difficulties, with more super mutant overlords replacing the weaker variants of the mutants.

I'm starting to wonder if the way I built my character was strong or if he could have been made a lot better. Can someone give me any tips for future replays?
 
I've done a lot of changes to my planned builds. Using what I've learned from studying the tables on the fallout wikia site for fallout 3 weapons. Choosing weapons with high damage, high critical chance, and high critical damage, I've come up with new builds. For small guns, energy weapons, and melee, I've made two different builds, one for non-stealth and one for stealth. The non stealth builds use Ranger Battle Armor and Helmet, and the stealth builds use Chinese Stealth Armor and Recon Helmet. Stealth builds raise perception and luck only enough to get better criticals and take silent running while investing in sneaking. Non-stealth maxes luck and take finesse while ignoring sneaking.

I've deleted the ultimate perk pack because I believe the perks raising damage of certain weapons are not strong enough and the damage increases are marginal, which feels like a waste.

For the builds using either energy weapons or small guns, I've chosen both one handed and two handed weapons, depending on whether gunslinger or commando is chosen. For these two weapon types, a scoped weapon is taken for long range sniping.

Non stealth Small Guns

Reservist's Rifle

Gunslinger
Blackhawk/Callahan's Magnum
Sydney's 10mm Ultra SMG

Commando
Backwater Rifle
Xuanlong's Rifle

Stealth Small Guns

Reservist's Rifle

Gunslinger
Dart Gun
Sydney's 10mm Ultra SMG
Paulson's Revolver

Commando
Terrible Shotgun
Perforator

Non Stealth Energy Weapons

Gauss Rifle

Gunslinger
Novasurge
Microwave Emitter

Commando
A3-21's Plasma Rifle
Destabilizer

Stealth Energy Weapons

Gauss Rifle

Gunslinger
Colonel Autumn's Laser Pistol
Protectron's Gaze

Commando
Metal Blaster
A3-21's Plasma Rifle

Other than armor, the stealth melee build takes ninja as it invests in sneak unlike the non stealth melee build. Weapons choices are Jack, Deathclaw Gauntlet, Fisto, and Man Opener.

The pyromaniac and big guns builds do not focus on critical hits due to the fact that the weapons either deal too low critical hit damage or have too low critical hit chance.

Pyromaniac

Lag-Bolt's Combat Armor
Combat Helmet
Slo-burn Flamer
Shishkebob
Heavy Incinerator

Big Guns
Lag Bolt's Combat Armor
Combat Helmet
Eugene
Vengeance

Maybe now I can finally create the perfect character to get me through the game on my next playthrough.
 
Looking over my notes about each build and what I have listed as the most important perks for each build, I have come to the conclusion that it may be possible to combine perks from one build with another. Perhaps it is due to the perk rate being every level instead of every three levels in previous games or two in New Vegas.

For example, combining my big guns build with a pyromaniac build. Or small guns or energy weapons thewith melee. I can also combine certain small guns, energy weapons, and big guns together based on damage and critical damage. Same for unarmed and melee as that's very difficult with no long range support. I should try to have both close range and longe range fighting. After all, with all the skill books, and the skill bobbleheads, it's possible to actually get 100 in all skills.

Melee Weapons is more powerful in the beginning because there are more weapons in that category, but with all three ranks of Iron Fist and Paralyzing Palm, Unarmed is more powerful endgame. However, in my opinion, unarmed is more useful and powerful for the nonstealth build. Melee Weapons is better for the stealth build because Ninja requires 80 in Melee Weapons together with 80 in Sneak. The best melee weapon for a stealth build is Jack according to the Fallout wikia. It can deal much more damage than any unarmed weapon.

Also, because unarmed damage is not raised by strength, it is good for even lower strength builds as long as you have the strength requirement. Even though melee weapons get more damage from strength and deal more damage than unarmed even with all three ranks of iron fist, Unarmed is still better for Big Gun Users. Deatchclaw Gauntlet is the best choice in terms of damage if using high criticals and Fisto for low critical characters. Man Opener is also a good choice for low critical characters due to the fact that it ignores enemy DT.

Okay, now I'm ready!
 
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I have builds planned for Small Guns/Energy Weapons Sharpshooters, Small Guns/Energy Weapons Assassins, and Big Gungs. The sharpshooters are non-stealth builds, the Assassins attack from stealth, the Big Guns build focuses on pure damage without criticals. Both the sharpshooter and assassin build will raise perception and luck enough to get Better Criticals while the Big Guns build dumps luck. All three builds will use melee, ranged, and explosive weapons. Since it's possible to max all skills by level 30, even the sharpshooter will be able to use big guns against the strongest foes. Armor of choice for the sharpshooters are Ranger Battle Armor with the helmet, or Lag-Bolt's Combat Armor and Ledoux' Hockey Mask. The Big Guns build uses either Power Armor and helmet or Lag Bolt's Combat Armor and Ledoux' Hockey Mask.
 
My Fallout 3 Master Build:
-invest in Small Guns, Energy Weapons and Sneaking
-collect junk until you can buy Dart Gun schematics in Tenpenny Tower or steal it from safe
-build Dart Gun
-go to Deathclaw Sanctuary, use Dart Gun and kill all Deathclaws
-get Vengeance
-do Operation Anchorage to get Stealth Armour
-do MZ to get all of that Alien Epoxy to keep Vengeance running
-get Silent Running and Grim Reaper's Sprint
-when you run out of ammo stock up in Citadel
-you are demi-god of FO3 now
 
What if I wanted to tackle harder difficulty levels such as hardest? Would any of the builds I have planned be viable?
 
I found that there just aren't enough useful perks, so I redownloaded the ultimate perk pack. I also got some more mods installed such as the sprint mod, but nothing that changes the game too much.
 
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