Best SPECIAL starting stats to pick in Fallout: New Vegas

1 month ago 27

Choosing the best SPECIAL stats in Fallout: New Vegas's character creation is incredibly important, as this will affect your strengths and weaknesses throughout your playthrough. With 40 SPECIAL attribute points to distribute and three skills to focus on, you can create a mighty gunslinger, a sneaky burglar, a silver-tongued brainiac, or anything in between.

From the best SPECIAL attributes to the best skills, here's an overview of the Fallout: New Vegas stats we recommend for new characters.

Best SPECIAL attributes in Fallout: New Vegas

The first thing you must do after waking up in Doc Mitchell's house is distribute your so-called SPECIAL attribute points — the long-running Fallout attributes categorization, which stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck.

Each SPECIAL attribute requires at least one skill point and is capped at 10 skill points, so with only 40 SPECIAL attribute points to divide, you won't be able to maximize them all.

Since further opportunities to boost your SPECIAL attributes are limited, it's important to find the right balance before exiting character creation. If you're unhappy with your current SPECIALs, you get one more opportunity to adjust your character's SPECIAL attributes when you enter the wasteland for the first time. After that, it's permanent.

Here's an overview of every SPECIAL attribute along with the recommended number of attribute points.

SPECIAL attribute	Affected skills	Recommended number of attribute points	Why?
Strength	Melee damage Carrying capacity Weapon requirements	3-5 (at least 6 if going for a specialized melee build).	Since it only strengthens your melee damage, Strength isn't all that useful to most players. However, as most weapons require at least 3 Strength to wield, it's a bad idea to go any lower than that. Furthermore, running out of inventory space is really annoying.
Perception	Explosives Energy weapons Lockpicking Enemy detection range	4-6 (level 6 is required for the handy "Better Criticals" perk)	Don't worry about enemy perception, as this only affects how soon an enemy marker will pop up on the screen, and you'll likely detect most enemies before they get marked anyway. Better explosive and energy damage is nice, but they don't warrant a high Perception level unless you wish to focus on these damage types. You can acquire a decent Lockpick skill by choosing it as your focus skill (see next part of this guide), allowing you to lower your Perception and use those attribute points on something better.
Endurance	HP Poison/radiation resistance Survival Unarmed	6-8	If you'd prefer not to die all the time, it's best to keep your Endurance, and with that your HP, decently high. This stat is also a great candidate if you've got attribute points to spare and don't know where else to invest them.
Charisma	Speech Barter Companion nerve/damage/armor	1	You don't really need Charisma. Companions aren't usually that important in Fallout: New Vegas since you'll deal far better damage yourself, Barter only affects buying and selling prices (you'll get rich soon enough), and Speech can be chosen as your focus skill (see next section).
Intelligence	Skill point gain per level Medicine Repair Science	8-10	Intelligence is very important as it affects the amount of skill points gained per character level according to this formula: 10 + (0.5 × [int]). So, at Intelligence level 10, you'd gain four more skill points per level compared to Intelligence level 2. On top of that, having a high Medicine and Repair skill is very useful to heal more efficiently and unlock better crafting recipes, respectively.
Agility	Guns Sneak Action points Draw/holster/reload speed	7-9	Since it improves damage and accuracy on every conventional firearm in Fallout: New Vegas, improving the Guns skill is almost always a good idea, but Agility is especially important if you also plan to go for a stealth build. The extra action points are great for those who like to use the "V.A.T.S." special combat abilities, but better reload speed isn't highly noticeable unless you tend to use particularly slow weapons, like grenade launchers.
Luck	All skills Critical chance Casino win chance Encounter outcomes	1-9 (depending on whether you'll use critical rate)	This New Vegas stat is just great for anyone who relies on critical hits or wishes to get rich in the casino (which may help you get over a low Barter skill). If you don't care about critical rate, though, best to avoid the Luck attribute — the "all skills" improvement can't compete with specialized attributes.

Best skills in Fallout: New Vegas

Once you've allocated your SPECIAL attributes, it's time to distribute your skill points. During character creation, three skills of your choosing will receive +15 skill points each. Unlike SPECIAL attributes, note that you'll receive plenty more opportunities to boost your skill points as you progress through the game (from leveling up, using skill books, equipping armor, etc.).

Based on your preferred playstyle, here are the Fallout: New Vegas skills we recommend for new characters:

Speech: A high Speech level is absolutely essential if you'd like to improve your chances of passing speech checks during dialogue (possibly avoiding combat). Since we've just recommended a Charisma attribute of 1, dropping +15 points into the Speech stat is a great way to make up for that.
Lockpick: This affects the types of locks you're allowed to pick. Especially if you decided on a relatively low Perception attribute, be sure to boost your Lockpick skill early so you don't miss out on valuable loot.
Repair: With a high Repair stat, you'll need fewer materials to repair your armor and weapons and you'll unlock new crafting recipes faster. It'll be far easier to maintain your gear.
Guns: If you want to get an early-game combat boost, the Guns skill is your best bet as it improves damage and accuracy for every ordinary weapon (not including energy weapons, explosives, melee). Avoid Guns if you've already decided to focus on another combat type, though.

Read Entire Article