Perks for an Ironman build

[Extacide]

I want to wing an ironman build, regardless of whether or not it will work. I'll start the game from level one, level all the way to thirty without ever using any armor or weapons (except for skill checks ie naughty nightwear), with the difficulty on very hard/hardcore. I know its possible for the most part, I just can't decide on important perks.

 

List of perks:

 

Intense Training 2 10 You can put a single point into any of your SPECIAL attributes.

Rad Child 4 Survival 70 1 The more irradiated you are, the bigger the bonus to your healing.

Bloody Mess 6 1 +5% overall damage, more violent death animations.

Toughness 6 EN 5 2 +3 DT permanently

Toughness 6 EN 5 2 +3 DT permanently

Stonewall 8 ST 6, EN 6 1 +5 DT against melee and unarmed attacks and cannot be knocked down during combat.

Super Slam 8 ST 6, Melee Weapons 45 1 All melee (except thrown) and unarmed attacks have a chance of knocking your target down.

Finesse 10 1 +5% Critical Chance

Nerd Rage! 10 IN 5, Science 50 1 +15% DT and Strength increased to 10 whenever health is 20% or lower

Life Giver 12 EN 6 1 +30 hit points.

Piercing Strike 12 Unarmed 70 1 All your unarmed and melee attacks negate 15 points of DT.

Unstoppable Force 12 ST 7, Melee Weapons 90 1 You do additional damage through enemy blocks with melee and unarmed attacks,

Purifier 14 1 You do 50% extra damage with melee and unarmed weapons against centaurs, nightstalkers, spore plants, spore carriers, deathclaws, super mutants, and feral ghouls.

Better Criticals 16 PE 6, LK 6 1 +50% damage with critical hits

Paralyzing Palm 18 Unarmed 70 1 Can paralyze an enemy for 30 seconds with a V.A.T.S. unarmed attack.

Ninja 20 Melee Weapons 80, Sneak 80 1 +15%( 15 luck skill) critical chance with melee and unarmed weapons, +25% damage with melee/unarmed sneak attack criticals

Slayer 24 AG 7, Unarmed 90 1 The speed of all your melee and unarmed attacks is increased by 30%.

 

 

I need to eliminate two from this list. The damage/survival of this is extremely low, so every eency weency bit of damage and DT helps. Bloody Mess/Finesse seem like the two obvious ones, though I like the thought of making my enemies explode with my bare hands. Better criticals + 10 Luck + Piercing Strike = huge damage, and finesse squeezes in slightly more damage, though I don't know how it compares to Bloody Mess. What are your guys' opinions?

 

Perks I eliminated already:

 

 

Educated 4 IN 4 1 You gain two more skill points every time you advance in level.

Comprehension 4 IN 4 1 You gain one additional skill point for reading books and double the skill points for reading magazines.

Light Step 14 PE 6, AG 6 1 Floor traps or mines will not be set off.

Travel Light 4 Survival 45 1 While wearing light armor or no armor, you run 10% faster.

Silent Running 12 AG 6, Sneak 50 1 Running no longer factors into a successful sneak attempt.

Fast Metabolism 12 1 +20% Hit Points restored with stimpaks.

Adamantium Skeleton 14 1 Damage taken by limbs reduced by 50%.

Hit the Deck 12 Explosives 70 1 + 50% DT against explosives.

Ferocious Loyalty 6 CH 6 1 When you drop below 50% HP, companions gain DT.

 

 

I liked the idea of travel light/light step/silent running, but they weren't immediately beneficial to direct combat viability, and they'd simply be for role playing as some naked guy who could run really fast on water. Educated/Comprehension had to be cut for the nature of how little damage/DT I'd have. The rest are situationally beneficial to combat. I'm not sure if I'll need Adamantium skeleton to get by if I pick up small frame for the extra agility. (I actually have no idea how easily limbs are broken when engaging in melee with no armor on at all)

[pjz]

I give you the thumbs down for skillbuff clothing, what kind of ironman has to put on a nightgown to talk to some schmoes! Eat the missed skill check like a man! (or make party time mentats etc). You might as well wear a sissy 1st Recon Beret! (which of course you should because it's +5% crit chance)

 

Perks to dump:

Life Giver (30 raw HP does not compare well to Intense Training/+1 Endurance or Strength)

Unstoppable Force (dead/paralyzed/knocked down enemies do not block)

Nerd Rage (20% or lower health required, if something got you to 20% health then another 15 damage threshold is probably not going to save you)

 

Maybe you're thinking you can run around at 20% health all the time and have the benefit of Nerd Rage all the time, but the kind of things that can easily hurt you through your normal 10 DT (15 vs melee), probably will finish you off anyway despite another 15 DT, e.g. armor piercing attacks.

 

Purifier is pretty iffy, most of the affected critters are not all that hard to kill or bypass. Super Mutants and the top tier Glowing Ones will be the only things it'll really be helpful for, and I dunno if that's really a great expenditure for a perk.

 

Especially for melee characters, I think Silent Running and high Sneak is pretty much mandatory. I've played a few melee characters up to around 20 and it's just so much less painful if you can at least sneak and pick your battles, and in my experience it's almost impossible to land a melee sneak attack without it.

 

I don't see how you're going to fit 10 Luck in without giving up something highly valuable elsewhere. Melee characters that are headed for Ninja and Piercing strike need a buttload of skillpoints, for Melee and Unarmed, and Sneak, and you will probably want to get Survival to at least 50 for poison crafting and for bigger (much bigger) benefit from food crafting. And then there's some form of unlock-stuff skill, Science or Lockpick. And you probably want 25ish Explosives so you can disarm mines and not have them blow your feet off.

 

Better Criticals applies to all criticals, which includes sneak attack criticals (pretty sure) so imo if you are into sneaking (and you should be, as melee) then you're much better off with this perk rather than Bloody Mess.

 

IMO 9 or 10 int would be of much more value than max Luck, especially since you're taking the various crit perks; +20% crit chance once you get Ninja, so the difference between 5 Luck and 10 Luck is less than it appears.

 

occurs to me that Ninja has 80 sneak required anyway, it'd be a shame to not take Silent Running and get some real use out of all those skillpoints

Edited December 4, 2010 by pjz

[pjz]

By the way I don't want to take too much wind out of your sails, but getting to level 30 using any particular setup is simply a matter of time, you can just farm easy stuff like bighorns. The bigger challenge is defeating the harder encounters with that kind of setup, e.g. the crashed vertibird or various deathclaw infestations.

[Extacide]

I somewhat disagree with your choices, though I do appreciate the thoughts.

 

Life Giver (30 raw HP does not compare well to Intense Training/+1 Endurance or Strength)

 

Intense training is the last place I'd want to invest valuable perks into. I take one rank, mainly because it's the best option at level two with none of the major unarmed/DT perks being available until level four. I should also mention I intend on eventually maxing out to 10 LUK, 10 END, and 10 AGI, with the rest of the special points being placed into perk requirements, and then INT. Intense Training would only end up dumping points into special stats like INT or STR in the end. (STR being useless to unarmed other than for certain perk requirements)

 

Nerd Rage (20% or lower health required, if something got you to 20% health then another 15 damage threshold is probably not going to save you)

 

No, not really, but considering the only DT I will have will be coming from perks (theres very few), the rest of my damage mitigation will be through raw health, chems, (and rad child). While I haven't gotten to test it yet, I imagine how much my HP will juggle with critical rad, and how much damage I'll take from deathclaws on very hard difficulty, it's an extremely valuable perk to have; one I'd almost consider necessary. The paralyzing palm/Super Slam points are actually really good points though with Unstoppable Force, since the entirety of this build is really only viable with those perks anyways, and definitely a perk worth axxing. Purifier, is fairly important for one thing really, and it's killing the legendary deathclaw.

 

I'm not too worried on skill points/SPECIAL stats: It's really easy to hit 100 in each stat with consumables/the appropriate amount of skill points invested. My perfect char is already perfect with max skills bar three (it's impossible to reach 100 in -every- skill). This char is made completely for the challenge of playing iron man on very hard difficulty.

[pjz]

Not really getting how you plan to get by with a low Int but okey doke, have fun :)

[pjz]

IMO 9 or 10 int would be of much more value than max Luck, especially since you're taking the various crit perks; +20% crit chance once you get Ninja, so the difference between 5 Luck and 10 Luck is less than it appears.

 

I have since discovered that that info is completely wrong, Ninja applies a 15% multiplicative bonus to your base crit chance. You may want to look at this mod. For a level 20 perk that has the hardest prerequesites of all of them, it should probably give more benefit than Boone's sissy hat.

[secksegai]

I'm pretty sure at least one person has completed the game without killing a single person and relying heavily on speech, so its definitely possible to "complete" the game, but you'll probably be ignoring or at least avoiding certain mobs (namely cazadors or deathclaws).

 

Endurance is definitely something to focus on since it also affects implants (aside from the general health per level)

[pjz]

Major oops: I highly recommend Cannibal. Fun and extremely useful.

[Extacide]

The build isn't a charisma oriented build though; it's optimized for maximum survival (ironically with unarmed instead of guns), while still pitting the challenge of not being allowed to use armor or weapons. It's also possible to kill deathclaws/cazadors, at least from how I see things it will be. I'll eventually upload videos of me doing s***. Also, not enough perks to fit in cannibal; Rad child should provide sufficient healing. Edited December 5, 2010 by Extacide

[Park77]

ONES TO CONSIDER:

 

Silent Running - If you are gonna run around without armour. It's going to be necessary to get the drop on enemies quickly, especially if you are going bare-fisted.

 

Sub-Dermal Armour (I pseudo-perk, I guess) - goes without saying

 

Stonewall - apparently this is glitched and gives +5DT against everything, so long as YOU are unarmed

 

Built to Destroy Trait - Since you don't have to worry about weapon condition anyways

 

Good Natured Trait - You'll get 20 SP in useful stuff (+5 for barter is useless since you will be rolling in caps from selling guns, ammo, and armour) and only suffer a 5 point loss in your unarmed

 

Entomologist and/or Hunter and/or Robotics Expert- Cazadores and Fire Geckos are a pain without guns. Taking out Robots with bare fists can be difficult - being able to do more damage or deactivate them is useful

 

Education/Comprehension - If you are going to have a med to low IN build, this might be necessary for the extra SP, and times when you need the extra 20 points to pick a lock of hack a PC. I've parked my guys lockpick and science at 55. But I digress, it seems you already have a system for efficient SP allocation.

 

GET RID OF:

 

Small Frame - AG isn't critical for an unarmed build (VATS is a lot less useful), and you don't use guns, so getting this trait would be only for walking speed at the expense of limb strength. (I dont think you'll need Adamantium Frame. I play unarmed on VH:Hardcore as well, and really, the only things that cripple me are frag mines and running head-long into a large mob)

 

Rad Child - More than enough Sarsaparilla Sunsets, Stimpaks, and food to keep you alive in this game. I'd rather opt for Monocyte Breeder: one fast travel = fully healed

 

Nerd Rage - Just not that useful, having ST10 might be more helpful if you are already weak AND have the SPECIAL Fixes mod (which provides a 20% damage increase at ST10). And the extra 15DT probably won't help much if you find yourself in a situation where you are weakened that much. But more than that, it doesn't provide a continuous benefit. It'll probably be useful in less than 10% of your battles.

 

Unstoppable Force - Most things don't block, and almost all the ones that do are weak anyways (like Thugs and Fiends)

 

Hit the Deck - 95% of all explosions can be avoided by just walking away. Since you won't need VATS as much, there is less chance of getting caught in a blast during a VATS sequence

 

Fast Metabolism - Not sure about this one. Might be better just to jack up your medicine skill instead.

 

Ferocious Loyalty - Because it will require spending precious SPECIAL points on CH, which could be used on EN or LK. CH should be 1 for this build.

 

 

If you play smart this should be more than possible.

 

To give a perspective, up until maybe level 10, I ran around in leather armour in poor condition and spiked knuckles, and literally ran straight into any mob I found between Novac and Freeside. No sneaking, no strategy, just closing the gap and pounding them.

Once you get the Ranger Takedown in Novac, it'll totally change your deadliness.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Park77