Personal Game Progress Log

[HighElderStark]

This is a personal game progress log, that I intend to update upon each level gained.  I intend to describe the general actions I performed throughout that level in regards to experience points as well as what skills I took upon leveling, etc.

CHARACTER CREATION - My goal with this character was to create a decent unarmed fighter, supported by THREE companions, of which I hope to eventually outfit with power armor.  I also intent upon purchasing the old bunker base for use of a personal mine and a bit of roleplay whenever I create the faction which will be based upon a Lost Brotherhood outpost or a splinter sect of the main brotherhood, hence my character name High Elder Stark. 

CREATION STATS

S: 8
P: 1
E: 6
C: 10
I: 6
A: 8
L: 1

Tags: Close Combat, Repair, Outdoorsman
Traits: Heavy Handed & Good Natured

Explaination:  In order to gain the max number of Companions who cost 100 party points each, I needed to have Charisma at 10 and I had no intention of wasting perks on gaining a point in it later nor using implants.  I set endurance at 6 in order to ensure I got some of the defensive perks.  Strength was set at 8 which in unison with heavy handed should be good at dishing out some damage.  It's also useful for the mining I intend to do later.  Agility was set at 8 which provides me 9 action points which goes well with spiked knuckles early on allowing 3 hits per turn as well as the mega power fist later.  I intend to eventually get Bonus HtH attacks as well as Action Boy once, which will grant me 5 total attacks per round.  The three tags were chosen primarily because outdoorsman is needed at 100 as soon as possible in order to get a safe house rather than a tent and helps with avoiding combat early on when travelling.  Getting repair up to 100 early on is important as well so that you can get the profession perks and start making some money.  It's also necessary to tag a combat ability to keep the price for upgrading low.

[HighElderStark]

After exiting the Tent, I accepted the Fargo Scout Quest from the caravaneer and then proceeded to head to the Hub.  Once there I unpacked the 10 boxes from the caravan master in order for some quick caps and more importantly the xp.  I moved down to the brahmin guy and got a shovel and proceeded to shovel shit till I got it cleaned which put me a bit past leveling up.  I turned my shovel in to Dan for another 100 xp and deposited all my cash at the FLC bank.

At level, 17 skill points granted.  All used on outdoors.

COMMENTARY WELCOME

[HighElderStark]

Took the wasteland band quest offered in the Maltese and quickly deposited that 200 caps into my bank.  There was no point in travelling to Junktown with caps and only at level 2.  I avoided the tent quest to the South for the time being though it was automatically accepted.  I don't intend to set up a tent until I have the ranger perk.  So instead, I headed up to Junktown with my newfound sledgehammer, avoiding combat where possible.  With 4 brahmin pens available, I committed to making the 200 caps necesary plus some in order to complete the first leg of the wasteland band quest, in the process I managed to get to level 3 by shovelling shit. 

17 skill points distributed to bring Outdoors to 100 and repair to 50.  The former was in preparation for the Ranger Perk, the 2nd was to ensure I have the skill required to gain the first level of the smithing professions.  The perk taken at this level was Bonus HtH damage.

Commentary Welcome.

[HighElderStark]

I cashed in my shit for caps and paid off Ronnie to join the band, then attempted to head back to the Hub to obtain the 2nd leg of the quest and cash in my current caps.  With my 100 in outdoors, I was able to avoid combat and thus better protect my caps while in transit.  I talked to ronnie again for my 450 xp and hit up the fargo company to complete the fargo scout quest for another 400.  All caps deposited, I had roughly 2500 caps and was equipped with a shovel and a sledgehammer. 

Destination: Gordon's Gas Station
Reason: Ranger perk
Route: Hub to Junktown to Brotherhood to Mariposa to San Francisco to Gordon's Gas Station

Stopped along the way to each place gaining xp for discovering and completed the 2nd leg of wasteland band quest.  Managed to get to the gas station with only a few fight encounteres i ran away from.  While I was generally in the North, I thought it prudent to head to Klamath in order to gain the gecko skinning perk which is always useful for crafters.

Destination: Klameth
Reason: Gecko Skinning Perk
Route: Gas Station to Redding, Redding to Den, Den to Klamath

Managed to barely avoid being killed in a fight between 2 large groups of bootleggers and gun thugs by running away.  I was forced to fight a large group of ants and another group of molerats along the way to redding, and gained 150 xp by discovering it.  By the time I'd made it to Klamath, I was less than 100 xp from leveling up, so decided to do a bit of shit shoveling after gaining the skinning perk and used the cash to get me a nice shiny bald head at the barbers. 

Skill Points 17, spent on bringing close combat to 102 and the rest spent on repair with the eventual goal of 100.

[Kaaon]

C: 10

just small btw to your build - you dont need 10 CH for 3 companions, you can use beer, mentats, mirrored shades and bonus armor to increase your charisma for partypoints.. so 5 CH + 1 beer + 2 mentats + 1 mirrored shades + 1 bonus armor = 10

edit : you also need alot of speech for partypoints so i suggest you to tag Speech
you could rather take 9 AG which can be increased by 1 by using Nuka Cola, you can buy unlimited amount of nuka colas for 100 caps each in bars
rest of points from CH could be putted into ST or EN

also melee is not good class for companions as you need to have them in your filed of view to be able to command them and melee chars got 1 PE which means very low FoV

[HighElderStark]

Considering there are so few people who go to Klamath, the Brahmin pins were completely full of shit.  Though it's not much xp anymore, it was easy xp and granted caps so I went ahead and shoveled both.  I ended up with over 1000 in caps and was a bit worried about travelling such a long distance back to the Hub with such so stopped off in Redding which was just as risky though atleast closer and deposited my caps there.  Headed back towards the hub, avoiding what encounters I could and fighting some molerats that I thought I could handle even without armor and only equipped with a sledge.  Making it back to the hub, i completed the next leg of the wasteland band quest and then deposited 500 caps into the bank.  Now I was finally ready to get my 1st tent.  I headed down to the tent blip on the map south of the hub and spoke to the woman there in order to clean out her farmhouse.  Arriving at the farmhouse and utilizing my sledgehammer, I killed the 12 rats and picked up a bb gun, hatchet, knife, healing powders, as well as a leather jacket from the northwest grave.  I managed to level on my very last rat.

Skill Points: 17 spent bringing repair up to 98... damn... so close.

=================

I wanted to thank Seki for his experienced suggestions: lowering charisma and using other means of gaining the party points necessary for 3 companions.  As it stands now I have 166.  He also made an excellent point regarding field of view, which might be better raised with the lowering of charisma. 

As always, commentary is welcome by all.

[Corax]

To fast increase Repair and Outdoorsman (also science and barter) you could use books instead skill points.
They can be bought in Hub or in Library or from other players.

Btw. Nice idea.
Good luck in your jurney

[HighElderStark]

Upon completing the tent quest and gathering up the rope as well, I debated upon where to set my first tent.  I would obviously set it up somewhere near a mine as crafting is an excellent means of income, but I had to ensure that there would be buyers for my stock as well as a bank nearby, lest I lose caps or items in the process of transport.  Two options came to mind.  Option 1 was to place a tent somewhere near the Junktown Quarry which would allow me to sell to both junktown and the hub with a bank at the latter and the hub also has fields to obtain fiber if necessary.  The negative to this was that the mine only yields regular raw materials.  The second option was to try to travel up north to Gecko and I'd be able to garner better quality material in the mines up there and I could trade with both Gecko and Vault City and the latter has a bank.  The negative would be that Gecko is dangerous especially to lower level characters and there area always faction wars there and getting my first tent there without dying in the process was risky.  I have chosen to opt to set up camp near Junktown so at the least I have a safe place, Gecko can come later.

Since I had the ranger perk, instead of getting a tent I got my safehouse complete with a workbench.  I unloaded the few possessions I had, save the sledgehammer, and headed off to the mine for some raw materials.  After 4 trips back and forth from the mine to my safehouse, I was able to craft 1700 shotgun shells and 10 pairs of spiked knuckles and netted me well over 4000 xp.  I'm proud to say the first weapon I used that was meant for an unarmed character was made by me (Spiked Knuckles). 

17 skill points: 1 spent to bring repair to 100 and the rest spent on speech bringing me to 66 and in hopes of eventually getting the max 100 for party points which currently stand at 172.

Perks: It was a tough choice this time, but given my luck is at 1, I opted against taking the hth crit stuff and instead took toughness.


=========================

Thanks for the suggestion Corax, skill books would definately be useful, though they can be expensive.  I will however take your suggestion regarding science and barter and use skill books for them now that I managed to make money.

As always suggestions and commentary are always welcome.

[Henry]

Fun idea, to make a log like this. It might take too much time, but it's fun (and frustrating) to read. I was dying to say the same thing Seki said about CH, and i have to say for most tanky characters, especially for HtH, you'll want EN 10 for max hit points. With low Luck, skip crit perks, like you are doing, and go for defense perks like Toughness, Even Tougher, but also Adrenaline Rush. Ignore all AC perks like Livewire and Dodger. 2 or 3 Lifegivers is advised.

Also, it is always best to do Close Combat with ST 10, so register ST 7 and use Buffout and Psycho for ST 10. Drugs may seem like a pain now, but they are cheaper in the long run, and you can craft them too.

And, always go for max AG. The more Action Points you have, the faster you do whatever you do. You mine faster, you fight faster, you even do basic grab/drop items faster. The higher your AP, the faster your AP will recharge in Real-Time.

3000xp await you, via a simple quest in Necropolis to delivery holotapes back and forth to Gecko, and you get to keep the tapes. Check wiki. Then do some quest(s) to uncover the train stations; some of these have NPC merchants that get less traffic due to many players overlooking them.

The Big One: get on irc and also use TeamSpeak. You meet players in both places.