Fallout New Vegas character builds to get you started

Fallout: New Vegas builds are largely an open book thanks to it's plentiful and open character creation. There are a near-endless variations and stats to change past the basic archetypes. However, such freedom can be daunting, which I why we've built out some of our favorite options below. 

It's best to use these Fallout New Vegas character builds as a starting point. If you want to take things in a different direction once you're settled in then the freedom the game gives you means you can easily change things if you want trying something else. And we can also help you pick the best Fallout New Vegas companions to give you some back up as well.  

Whether you're returning for another adventure or coming in for your first (it is one of the best games on Xbox Game Pass, after all) keep scrolling for our pick of the best Fallout: New Vegas character builds to help get you started.

Best Fallout New Vegas starter build

This one is called the “ultimate” starting build because it gives you a whole hell of a lot of benefits early on in the game. Very few of the other builds are going to be as well rounded as this one due to how the game works. If you’re not exactly excited about playing with these stats / tagged skills then all you have to do is re-spec your character when you go to leave Goodsprings as these three skills are basically designed to let you fully complete all of the missions in Goodsprings before moving on.

The main point of this build is that with the super high Intelligence. This will give you a lot of skill points to distribute for the first few levels you can gain during the prologue part of the game. If you level up twice you can gain 30 skill points before leaving the first town so you can raise up three skills rather significantly or just boost a whole bunch of others. Taking Swift Learner speeds this up immensely and allows you to more or less max out your character in rather short order.

There is only one thing to be aware of – many perks ask for 6’s or 7’s in particular SPECIAL traits. You can use the Intense Training perk to meet these requirements but this should be done sparingly. Instead it’s heavily suggested you find all of the snow globes, trade them in to Mr. House and use that money to purchase Implants at the New Vegas Medical Center for about 4,000 caps a piece. If you still don’t meet the requirements to take a perk then you can consider taking Intense Training.

• Strength: 5 
• Perception: 5 
• Endurance: 5 
• Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 10 
• Agility: 5 
• Luck: 5

Tagged Skills

• Speech 
• Barter 
• Explosives

Traits

• Good Natured 
• Wild Wasteland

Perks

There are no real set perks for this build. Instead you should look at the perks for the type of character you want to play and use those as a suggested list. So if you wanted to play a sniper you would take from that list or if you wanted to play a more talkative type you would take from the Wasteland Negotiator build. As your SPECIAL stats aren’t as important as your skill levels you can basically play whatever character you want with this starting build with no difficulty. This goes double for your partners – take the ones that compliment your skill build.

The only real suggestions are Retention, Comprehension and Educated. By taking these two perks you will be able to make very good use of the skill books in the game, allowing them to last for a good, long time and making them incredibly powerful. Using these will allow you to fill in any gaps in your skills as well as making you very powerful in and out of combat.

Also you might want to consider taking Nerd Rage if you’re planning on making a melee character as that skill is ridiculously powerful. This and a few other changes can make for some very powerful melee character. Take Nerd Rage, Chemist and Chem Resistant and then go into melee with some Buffout, Med-X and Psycho when your health is below 50% and just watch as you tear through enemies with your nerd monster.

Fallout New Vegas Stealth build

A build like this has one purpose and one purpose alone: to get into places nobody wanted you to get. Stealing things, sneaking up on enemies for criticals or just using your stealth to assassinate the crap out of your enemies are just secondary to getting where you’re not supposed to be. It’s actually possible with a talented enough build to get into enemy compounds, complete your objective and then get out without killing any enemies.

When it comes to actually fighting enemies you’ve got a few options. If you choose to go melee you can sneak up on enemies and chop at a vulnerable spot, like their legs. With guns you can just shoot them in the back of the head with a silenced weapon to take them out quickly. But really if you’re going sneaky you might as well enjoy it – get your hands on as many explosive munitions as you can. Set mines in the path of enemies, plop ticking explosives into an enemy’s pocket and just generally blow them to pieces.

• Strength: 4 
• Perception: 7 
• Endurance: 4 
• Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 7 
• Agility: 7 (+1 from Small Frame) 
• Luck: 7

Tagged Skills

• Sneak 
• Science 
• Speech

Traits

• Small Frame 
• Good Natured

Perks

• Friend of the Night 
• Travel Light 
• Demolition Expert 
• The Professional 
• Gunslinger 
• Quick Draw 
• Finesse 
• Night Person 
• Hit the Deck 
• Robotics Expert 
• Silent Running 
• Splash Damage 
• Light Step 
• Tag! Guns or Energy Weapons
• Laser Commander (if using Energy Weapons) 
• Infiltrator

How to play Stealth Build

Taking a look at this build you can clearly see one of the primary purposes of the perks: making you an absolute beast at night. Friend of the Night makes it easier for you to see during the nighttime hours which are when you should be actively moving around the Wasteland or dungeons. Night Person will help you with this as well by making it easier for you to detect enemies and shoot them from a good distance or sneak past them.

Other than that you’re basically focusing on making sure you character excels at using his small gun to destroy enemies. Sneaking up on enemies with the Silenced Sub-Machine Gun can do wonderful things especially if you’re capable of landing critical hits with any reliability. That and making sure that using your explosives will utterly devastate every enemy you hit, notably when you’re using mines.

Travel Light and Silent Running will make it much easier for you to get around the world. Since you’ll be wearing light armor most of the time anyways Travel Light will help you move around rapidly. When Travel Light is paired up with Silent Running this will allow you to move around rapidly while making no sound which makes it easier to get past enemies without having to even bother fighting them.

Partners 

Since you'll be rolling solo so much in order to stay hidden, a character with a passive ability outside of combat like Arcade or Raul works well.

Fallout New Vegas Melee build

A melee character is definitely a heck of a challenge in the Fallout games. Many of the enemies are stronger and more dangerous in melee than you are, so it’s a risk every time you get near them; also, Deathclaws. The hard part to a melee character is that you must wear light armor if you wish to close in on enemies fast enough that their guns won’t tear you to shreds but when forced into a heads up battle against multiple foes with guns light armor won’t help you too much.

Playing this character can be somewhat difficult if you’re not good at the game. You’re going to need to use strong weapons, target enemies vital points and then slice away at them. Since VATs only allows you to target the enemy in general you’ll need to do things manually. Aim for enemy limbs or their head when slicing away so as to hamper their ability to fight back. When fighting other melee opponents be sure to use VATs since those attacks are unblockable and be sure to block often.

• Strength: 7 
• Perception: 4 
• Endurance: 6 
• Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 6 
• Agility: 5 
• Luck: 7

Tagged Skills

• Melee Weapons
• Sneak
• Medicine

Traits

• Heavy Handed 
• Kamikaze

Perks

• Hunter Swift Learner 
• Black Widow / Lady Killer 
• Cherchez la Femme / Confirmed Bachelor 
• Travel Light (if using Light Armor) 
• Entomologist 
• Bloody Mess 
• Living Anatomy 
• Stonewall 
• Super Slam 
• Finesse 
• Fast Metabolism 
• Piercing Strike 
• Silent Running 
• Unstoppable Force 
• Ninja Slayer

How to play a melee build

With this build we’re doing our best to do as much damage to enemies as quickly as possible. Most of the Perks we’re taking are giving us damage bonuses against particular types of enemies: Hunter and Entomologist will grant you damage bonuses on animals, notably against Geckos and Cazadors. Perks like Black Widow / Lady Killer and Cherchez la Femme / Confirmed Bachelor as well as Bloody Mess and Living Anatomy will get you up a very nice damage bonus against all humanoids.

The rest of the perks will grant you bonuses to damage or help you with penetrating enemy Damage Thresholds. Travel Light and Silent Running will make getting the jump on enemies a whole lot easier. When paired up with Heavy Hitter and Kamikaze you can easily get the jump on an enemy, hit them for a Sneak Attack critical and then use VATs to murder the crap out of them before they can fight back.

Partners

Since you’ll be in melee, Rex is somewhat redundant so you’ll want Ed-E instead. As for your humanoid companion, Boone is one of the best; his incredible sniper abilities will compliment you well. However going with Arcade Gannon will grant you extra healing from all sources (always helpful) and Raul the Ghoul will ensure that you spend less time worrying about equipment maintenance. Choose wisely.

Fallout New Vegas Close-combat build

For when using a melee weapon is just too safe there’s also the obligatory hand to hand combat route. The thing that makes unarmed combat so tricky is the fact that when using your bare hands you don’t do much damage at all. Getting your hands on Spiked Knuckles will set you down the path to actually dealing appreciable damage with your attacks. It’s very important that you upgrade to a better weapon as soon as possible.

It’s actually a good deal more important to play things sneaky with this build than it is with the melee build. With the melee build you can actually deal some rather impressive damage with the right weapons. But it takes a good long while into the game to get weapons that deal enough damage to be helpful to an unarmed build. Sneak up on enemies to put the hurt on them, especially once you start unlocking the special unarmed attacks (unlocked at skill ranking 25 and 50).

• Strength: 7 
• Perception: 4 
• Endurance: 6 Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 5 
• Agility: 5 
• Luck: 8

Tagged Skills

• Unarmed 
• Medicine 
• Sneak

Traits

• Heavy Handed 
• Good Natured

Perks

• Hunter 
• Swift Learner 
• Black Widow / Lady Killer 
• Cherchez la Femme / Confirmed Bachelor 
• Travel Light (if using Light Armor) 
• Entomologist 
• Bloody Mess 
• Living Anatomy 
• Stonewall 
• Super Slam 
• Finesse 
• Fast Metabolism 
• Piercing Strike 
• Silent Running 
• Unstoppable Force 
• Paralyzing Palm 
• Ninja Slayer

How to play close-combat build

While increasing the three Tagged Skills, especially Unarmed and Sneak, you will also want to increase Speech. There are a few areas where you can talk your way out of fighting entirely which is very helpful during any unarmed playthrough. Much like the melee build we have mostly focused on taking the perks that will enable us to deal more damage with our hand-to-hand attacks to kill enemies before they deal too much damage.

To maximize the effectiveness of this build you will absolutely want to complete a few side quests and associate with a few followers in particular. Ranger Andy in Novac can be talked into teaching you a NCR Ranger power move that is very helpful, if you give your follower Veronica a dress of any sort she will teach you a counter attack, complete the side quest: Aba Daba Honeymoon to learn a nasty Khan trick, and if you’re siding with them, Lucius of Ceasar’s Legion can teach you another nasty attack.

Partners

Ally with Boone and Ed-E as quickly as possible and stick with them. Get Boone some good weapons and armor and he will keep you covered from a range when a fight breaks out, weakening or killing enemies for you. While Gannon can help keep you healed, you'll reallyneedBoone's extra damage dealing talents here.

Fallout New Vegas Sniper build

To be frank, a sniper is probably one of the easiest ways to play through Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. You will rely heavily on VATs for the earlier portion of the game, but with the right guns this can be incredibly deadly. Later on, when you have a good sniper rifle, you can use that to take shots on the enemies from far away without needing to use VATs quite as much. VATs is a death sentence for your enemies by level 12 – 14, since the repeated, very accurate, headshots will kill most foes in no time.

With this build you’ll find that it’s very important to carry around a few separate weapons. A Sniper Rifle helps with extreme range shots although these wear down easily, so using them for close encounters is a bad idea. Cowboy Repeaters are very strong, fire quickly and are all around a great weapon to carry for mid to long range encounters. Lastly if you’d like to keep a holdout weapon like a Silenced Pistol / SMG or an overly powerful sidearm like a Hunting Revolver, then do so for close range combat.

• Strength: 4 
• Perception: 7 
• Endurance: 4 
• Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 6 
• Agility: 7 
• Luck: 7

Tagged Skills

• Guns 
• Sneak 
• Lockpick

Traits

• Kamikaze 
• Trigger Discipline

Perks

• Rapid Reload 
• Friend of the Night 
• Travel Light 
• Bloody Mess
• Commando 
• Living Anatomy 
• Finesse 
• Sniper 
• Silent Running 
• Robotics Expert (can be helpful for dealing with problematic robots) 
• Better Criticals 
• Action Boy / Girl 
• Grim Reaper’s Sprint Concentrated Fire 
• Nerves of Steel

How to play sniper build

Where the previous builds focused on increasing your damage against every type of enemy in the game, this build instead focuses on making each shot as deadly as possible. By sneaking up on foes for a close range series of VATs headshots you can take down even the toughest of enemies in rather short order. Early on this build is somewhat weaker because of this, but as the game progresses they slowly begin to utterly dominate combat until most enemies pose little to no threat.

One of the things to note about sneak heavy builds like this one is that when you’re out in the wilderness it’s hard to sneak around and move in any sort of timely manner. Even with Silent Running you’re still moving rather slowly. As such it’s best to keep Ed-E around so he warns you of any enemies before they even notice you allowing you time to enter sneak mode to go after them or avoid them. With this character type your equipment becomes incredibly important.

Partners

Since you’ve got the long ranged combat covered, you have a few options. Bringing Rex is better for helping you in combat but Ed-E’s increased sensors will help you know when enemies are around. The same goes for your human companions: bringing a melee fighter like Veronica or Lily is probably best for helping you with actual combat but by picking a ranged fighter, like Boone, enemies can be cut down long before they get anywhere near you. Pick whatever suits your fighting style, so if you bring Rex then it’s best to bring Veronica or Lily and let Boone compliment Ed-E.

Fallout New Vegas Tank build

Since you’re almost always going to be burdened down with lots of weapons and equipment, this guy is going to need to be tough but still able to use his guns. He’ll require a good deal of strength, endurance and perception to be able to function properly. First and foremost you’re going to need to aim for the best weapons and armor that you can possibly get your hands on.

When creating the character decide what sort of guns you’re going to use. If you want to use mini-guns and machine guns take Guns, but if you want to use flamers and gatling lasers take Energy Weapon. Your ultimate goal is to get your hands on some Brotherhood Power Armor and the biggest, loudest weapon you can get your hands on.

• Strength: 7 
• Perception: 7 
• Endurance: 6 
• Charisma: 4 
• Intelligence: 7 
• Agility: 4 
• Luck: 5

Tagged Skills

• Guns or Energy Weapons 
• Explosives 
• Repair

Traits

• Fast Shot (if planning on using mini-guns)

Perks

• Rapid Reload 
• Educated 
• Hand Loader / Vigilant Recycler 
• Demolition Expert (up to three times) 
• Rad Resistance 
• Scrounger 
• Strong Back 
• Hit the Deck (if using explosives regularly) 
• Pyromaniac (if you’re planning on using fire weapons) 
• Splash Damage (if using explosives regularly) 
• Jury Rigging Tag! Science (if using energy weapons) 
• Meltdown (if using energy weapons) 
• Solar Powered Laser Commander (if using energy weapons) 
• Spray and Pray 
• Rad Absorption

How to play a tank build

Your perk progression here is heavily dependant upon how you’re going to play the game. If you are planning on using lasers then you’ll find Vigilant Recycler, Tag! Science, Meltdown and Laser Commander to be the most helpful. If you’re going to put a lot of effort into using Explosives, then take Hit the Deck and Splash Damage to tear through enemy offensives. But you’ll have to be careful because you will be prone to running out of ammo if you aren’t making good use of multiple skills. For example you can use Guns and Explosives (Rocket Launchers and Grenade Launchers) or abuse the crap out of a variety of Energy Weapons (even Flamers).

Even if you’re not planning on using too many explosives you’ll still want to put a good bit into the Explosives skill. Dealing with melee enemies will be made much easier indoors by using frag mines to line a path. This will prevent enemies from rushing you or in the least leave them entirely crippled by the time they reach you. Sneaking around with a Stealth Boy and laying down some mines can do amazing things.

Since you’re going to have to load up on weapons and armor you’ll want to do your best to minimize whatever else you’re carrying. By eliminating the need to carry Rad items you can sell these to fund your bullet addictions, Solar Powered will let you heal naturally while hiking through the Wasteland, Scrounger will net you lots of spare ammo you can sell for money / other ammunition and Strong Back helps you carry everything.

Partners

While you would normally want to have some close combat allies to back you up here it’s an incredibly bad idea here. This build can tear your followers to pieces if they aren’t careful. Instead, take Ed-E as well as a ranged human companion. While you will be vulnerable to enemies who rush you, like Nightkin, most enemies will be shredded by the fusillade of bullets they will face in coming at you.

Fallout New Vegas Laser build

The Laser Gunner is probably one of the most powerful attackers in the game. A talented Energy Weapon user will absolutely shred through enemies, dealing more damage than a close range shotgun blast at extreme ranges with the right weapons. Plus it seems to have a fairly easy job of blowing through armor which will help you deal with the heavily armored troops that are running around in the late game.

With this in mind your primary focus is going to be on hitting enemies and hitting them in the vitals. Enemies die rather easily to laser weapons so you don’t have to put too much work into killing enemies just so long as you can actually hit them. Early on it’s in your best interest to stay close to enemies and bean them with shots to their limbs. Take out the legs of melee enemies while trying to injure the arms of ranged attackers to disarm them. Later on though you can just aim for enemies heads and absolutely decimate foes.

• Strength: 4 
• Perception: 7 
• Endurance: 5 
• Charisma: 6 
• Intelligence: 6 
• Agility: 6 
• Luck: 6

Tagged Skills

• Energy Weapons 
• Science 
• Barter or Repair (whatever you prefer to use to repair your weapons)

Traits

• Good Natured 
• Kamikaze

Perks

• Rapid Reload 
• Comprehension (to aid in ammunition crafting) 
• Vigilant Recycler 
• Commando 
• Scrounger 
• Finesse
• Jury Rigging 
• Meltdown 
• Better Criticals 
• Sniper 
• Robotics Expert 
• Action Boy / Girl 
• Grim Reaper’s Sprint 
• Laser Commander 
• Nerves of Steel

How to play Laser Gunner build

Pretty much the entire purpose of the perks for this character build are basically taken around two basic ideas: keeping your equipment at top functionality and inflicting lots of damage with your lasers. Vigilant Recycler and Scrounger will keep your ammo supplies fairly high while Jury Rigging will help keep your guns in top functionality. Most of the other perks that you’re taking will help you slaughter your enemies with devastating VATs attacks that will blow through enemy defenses.

In many ways this build works quite functionally like the Sniper build does with the main exception of this being a good deal more devastating. You’ll have a pretty easy time beaning enemies in the face with your laser blasts and they won’t survive too many of those as you get more and more deadly perks. If you can get your hands on a Gauss Rifle and pair it up with these perks then most enemies will be blown away easily, while the corona effect of Meltdown helps you kill off other enemies.

Partners 

With this build it’s quite easy to completely recommend Rex as your back up with this build. He will close to melee range and tear enemies up while you take shots at them from a distance. As for your human companion you can either take Cass along, since she can do melee reasonably well but also shoot if you don’t want her in melee, or Lily since she can tear through enemies like a hot knife through butter.

Fallout New Vegas pacifist build

Every now and again it’s fun to just want play a character that is about as non-violent as possible. Oh sure, it might not have the charm of finishing every battle with a slo-mo decapitation due to a shotgun blast to the face, but there’s something special about conning people out of their money or seducing everything on two legs. If you really want to experience all of the dialogue in the game this is the build for you.

Just remember that some of the dialogue trees will require certain skills at particular levels. So if you want to convince someone to hand over some explosives you’ll have to have a fairly high Explosives rating to talk them into it. As such it may be to your advantage to play through the game once, beating down all enemies in your path, and taking note of what skills you require in each conversation. Then simply raise up your stats to meet the requirements for each conversation and talk your way through life.

• Strength: 4 
• Perception: 5 
• Endurance: 4 
• Charisma: 9 
• Intelligence: 9 
• Agility: 5 
• Luck: 5

Tagged Skills

• Speech 
• Barter 
• Survival

Traits

• Good Natured 
• Four Eyes

Perks

• Intense Training +1 INT 
• Educated 
• Black Widow / Lady Killer 
• Cherchez La Femme / Confirmed Bachelor 
• Terrifying Presence 
• Animal Friend (Rank 2) 
• Tag! (Weapon skill of choice) 
• Comprehension 

How to play non-violent build

The main purpose of this build is to enable you to use basically every single dialogue option you can during the course of the game. If you can seduce someone into siding with you, use your speech to convince someone to pay you more caps and Terrifying Presence will let you intimidate your way through many encounters. Last but not least Animal Friend at Rank 2 will make the animals in the Wasteland take your side, acting as body shields against Deathclaws or Raiders.

For the rest of your perks it’s in your best interest to fixate completely on perks that will boost up the weapon skill of your choice. Consult the other various builds here to find out what perks can help you with each weapon type and then just focus entirely on that. It’s very possible to make, for example, a chatty negotiator who picks up some Brotherhood Power Armor and a Super Sledge when it comes time to bash in some faces.

Partners

Boone, Veronica.

Fallout New Vegas Hardcore build

This is a build meant to ease the burden of playing on Hardcore mode. There is an achievement / trophy wrapped up in completing it so this should help out. Note that you don’t need a build particularly suited to playing on Hardcore difficulty, you just need to play a bit smarter, but this will make it a whole lot less painful.

The main point of this build is to make you mostly dependant on yourself. With a high Survival you can hunt animals and turn them into better food at campsites which removes your need to carry quite as much food. Pick between Guns and Energy Weapons as your primary source of offense as melee combat is a bit too dangerous. Lastly you’ll want Barter so that when you bring all those animal skins and looted equipment back to town you can buy enough stuff to resupply for another trip into the Wasteland.

• Strength: 5 
• Perception: 5 
• Endurance: 6 
• Charisma: 5 
• Intelligence: 7 
• Agility: 6 
• Luck: 5

Tagged Skills

• Survival 
• Guns / Energy Weapons 
• Barter

Traits

• Good Natured 
• Trigger Discipline

Perks

• Hunter 
• Educated 
• Hand Loader 
• Lead Belly 
• Gunslinger or Commando (as your weapon choice) 
• Pack Rat 
• Rad Resistance 
• Scrounger 
• Strong Back 
• Animal Friend (Should take 2 Ranks) 
• Adamantium Skeleton 
• Jury Rigging 
• Tag! (Repair) 
• Solar Powered 
• Spray and Pray

How to play in Hardcore mode

This is probably one of the most fun character types to play as you really feel like you’re living the life of a Mojave Wastelander. Each Perk fills a particular niche: Hunter makes it easier to get food by killing enemies, Educated gives extra skill points and so on. The most important ones are probably Pack Rat and Strong Back as these let you carry extra weight. Also having Adamantium Skeleton makes it so that you need less limb recovery. Lastly once you have Solar Powered you will need less healing items during the day.

Since ammunition has weight in Hardcore mode you’ll want to approach this in a more intelligent manner. Break down as much of your ammunition as you like into its components and sell everything else. Only ever keep one or two types of ammunition on you for very particular weapons. Carrying .308 and .357 rounds for a Hunting / Sniper Rifle and a Cowboy Repeater isn’t a bad idea.

For this reason going with Energy Weapons is almost suggested more than regular guns. Since there are only three or so types of ammunition for energy weapons you can carry two or three different guns but only need to worry about a few different types of ammo.

Regardless of how you do it, it’s suggested that you keep each weapon stocked with a different type of ammo. So keep your rapid fire weapons stocked with basic ammo, your sniper weapon stocked with Hollow Points if going for head shots or armor penetrators / Max Charge if going for body shots and keep your close range weapons stocked with armor penetrators / Overcharge. This allows you to change guns to suit each situation you end up in while also automatically equipping the ammo that best helps in said situation.