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With so many skills to level in the tabletop-inspired Fallout: New Vegas, these five skills stand out as must-haves for nearly every Courier.
Fallout: New Vegas is often considered the best Fallout game for fans of heavy RPG mechanics. There are some pretty complex formulas at work that harken back to the original games and their tabletop roots. Obsidian Entertainment going in a far more complex direction with New Vegas gave players a ton of creative freedom with how they build their characters, with this nowhere more apparent than with skills.
Skills are a wide range of fields that the player can put levels into each time they level up. Everything from shooting guns to repairing robots is covered by skills, with the game’s first mission in Goodsprings serving as an introduction to how skills impact the game. While players can pretty much make any kind of build work in New Vegas, it’s pretty well-known that certain skills are just far better than others.
5. Medicine
Medicine might be one of the most underrated skills in the game, as many players may overlook its relatively simple effects. Medicine in New Vegas buffs healing items by increasing how effective they are. Stimpaks, RadAway and RadX are all affected by the player’s medicine skill, making this skill almost essential for any playthrough. While it’s entirely possible to play through New Vegas without taking damage, most players will probably need to patch themselves up sooner rather than later.
If it weren’t for how effective the medicine skill’s primary effect is, it more than likely wouldn’t have made this list. As far as perks go, there really isn’t anything amazing that requires the player to have a certain medicine skill. The biggest non-healing bonus that players get from having high medicine is probably a quick solution to the side quest, “Et Tumor, Brute,” where players with a medicine skill of 75 can remove Ceaser’s brain tumor themselves.
4. Repair
The repair skill is basically the medicine skill but for weapons, as it increases how effectively players can fix their own equipment. While New Vegas gets rid of Fallout 3‘s annoying repair limit, players can repair equipment to 100% condition by default; leveling their repair skill changes how effective a single repair can be. It also unlocks new crafting recipes, such as the incredibly useful weapon repair kit at level 50. Given that damaged guns and armor are far less effective in battle, keeping repair high is always a good idea.
That being said, repair suffers from the same problem that the medicine skill does. There’s minimal use for the skill outside of simply fixing up broken guns and armor, though that one use is incredibly powerful. What sets skills like repair and medicine apart from other skills is versatility, whether by giving the player access to unique perks or simply having more uses for the skill.
3. Guns
Chances are, players will be using some kind of gun to deal with the myriad of threats spread across the Mohave Wasteland. While New Vegas does give players the option to use melee weapons or even their bare hands, they’re much less effective in combat than a pistol or shotgun. The guns skill boosts the damage and accuracy of nearly every single firearm in the game. The only things guns don’t touch are explosive weapons and energy weapons, which both have their own skills.
The guns skill is practically a no-brainer to level for any conventional New Vegas character since dishing out more damage is always a good thing. There are also some pretty solid perks that require players to level the guns skill, such as Run ‘n Gun and Concentrated Fire. The tradeoff is that there are only six dialogue checks in the game that use the guns skill, and most of them also require a secondary skill to pass.
2. Science
While the science and lockpicking skills are almost identical in terms of what they help the player do, science in New Vegas was given the added bonus of unlocking some crafting recipes. Science reduces how difficult the hacking minigame is, meaning that players will often have a shorter list of possible passwords. Hacking terminals can often help players bypass security measures, mission objectives and even doors that would otherwise have to be open with lockpicking.
Science is also used in a ton of dialogue checks, making it one of the more useful skills to level. There’s also the added benefit of making chems that the player can then use to either boost their stats or get some extra caps by selling them. Science in New Vegas is possibly one of the most versatile skills in the game, giving players far more options to explore the wasteland.
1. Speech
Anyone who’s played New Vegas probably knew the speech skill would wind up near the top of this list. While the game is certainly well-known for its hilarious low-speech dialogue options, it’s probably far more common knowledge just how broken a high speech skill can be. Outside of letting the player completely skip one of the game’s final bosses, speech also gives the Courier way more choices in dialogue.
Speech strictly only applies to dialogue options, though the sheer number of times the player will end up using it makes that trade-off incredibly fair. The perk locked behind a high speech skill is also pretty amazing, as the terrifying presence perk unlocks even more ways for the player to skip quests and combat. While some may call the speech skill overpowered, it’s pretty fitting that some natural charisma would go far in the Vegas-infused Mohave Wasteland.
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