Quick advice for my first playthrough.

[Mystic Exarch]

I'm just really anxious about starting this game because I'm worried that I'll pick a build on one or more of my characters that sucks. It just seems like every time I play a modern RPG there always ends up being some archetypes that are really bad which end up forcing me to restart halfway through. Like when I played Underail for 15 hours only to find out stealth is a complete and utter joke. Or finding out in Pillars of Eternity that mages suck and ciphers are gods. I guess it's a popular thing devs like to do nowadays.

Anyway, I just wanted to know real quick if there are things I should totally avoid. Thanks in advance guys.

[red255]

I guess having 10 INT is good.

IN the director's cut initiative should be pretty high because it influence how fast your turns come. if you have 7 initiative things with 14 will take 2 turns before you get one.

There are really only 2 traits I considered.

Delayed gratification. Basically +30 skillpoints (a point of INT is 25 skill points) with no penalty after level 20.

and ascetic. which is 1 point of attribute and 5 skill points. but no trinket. Trinkets generally have penalties but they are useful for those +1 skill pieces. Generally I'm wearing the 3% critical one. which isn't that much of a loss to lose.

and you get it when you start the game. if you import a hero to a new game. you get it again. I think.

Strength is good because its +HP per level

Luck and CHA are dump stats.

NPC wise you get one with High INT from Ag Center or Highpool. after that I'd probably suggest Chisel and Tatsuki. With High Strength for tanking purposes. both are rather dumb characters though so they won't be good for much else besides melee and carrying stuff. but Melee is good.

Honestly speaking you got Assault rifles, Sniper Rifles and Melee. (Bladed/Unarmed/Blunt)

everything else mostly sucks.

Oh and give one of your rangers High Charisma to be a Leader. and Since it probably won't be able to do well in combat due to not getting its own bonuses make it a medic?

[DocDetroit]

If you take the advice by red (the luck and charisma) as a dump stat. One thing you should definately consider doing is giving you "leader" (the first ranger you create) a decently high charisma... I'd say about a 4 isnt bad. Also, very important to make this character your "Smart Ass"-skill character as what you will want to do is get the "perk" you get at a decently high smart ass skill that Doubles YOUR charisma. Meaning this will effectively give him an 8 Charisma (given the 4 you gave him doubled to 8) (or 5 to 10, etc). The reason for this is certain NPC's only join your party if your entire parties combined charisma (including NPCd's that have allready joined you) are a certain level. I think one of my favorite NPC's require at least a 22 total charisma of the party.

So, if your first 4 chars are a 4(leader) 2, 2, 2 charisma that equals 10 total but with the doubling perk it is 8, 2, 2, 2 or 14. So when you meet someone requiring a 22 total you would need a total of 8 more charisma out of your other 3 followers (not too hard)... plus Never sell or ditch the spiked collars that give you +1 charisma... you can use them when you need a boost to recruit NPC's.

There is another way to boost charisma but it requires you to follow a certain questline which I didn't prefer over the alternative, myself.

One last HUGE word of advice. Your going to want to specialize each of your characters with skills. IE only have 1 with the "smart ass " skill, and one with "hard Ass", or "lockpicking" etc.. if you don't you will never have enough skill points to get good at anything. Also, as you find other followers to join you pay attention to what they are allready good at as they may take over a certain skill path and let you invest more heavilly in another one you were working on.

One more thing too... your going to want bare minimum 8 AP (some might consider this lowish?) and maybe 10 Combat Initiative although that is easier to raise than AP.
AP is number of things you can do per turn or how many times you can fire a weapon...
Combat Initiative is who gets to act first and it keeps going as Bob said so you may actually go twice before your enemy if its high enough.. I'd consider 14 CI to be really really high and think none of my guys started over 11, maybe 1 did. But as you gain levels you will allot be focusing on raising these 2 things AP and CI.

Good luck and enjoy the game! Its a ton of fun once you jump in :)

[red255]

Guh. you take two ranks of Weaponsmithing on everyone and give them tinker for +1 AP while wearing armor. Your snipers have Deadeye and Bloodlust they can fire a 7 AP Anti material Rifle Twice with 11 AP.

Assault rifles need around 10 AP In the Non-director's cut version I had them with 11 AP to crouch, Burst fire headshot.

IN this one you got 5 AP to fire and 7 AP to 2 round burst at -20 or -15 with a perk theres also 4 AP to fire 6 AP burst guns but the damage isn't worth using them. well except on a substandard AP NPC.

This being Endgame stats. and if you take assaults to 11 AP you can do a burst + regular shot on your second turn. (or move and shoot)

Not sure why you like the 22 CHA NPC. is it dialog? She doesn't seem to have good skills or stats.

[DocDetroit]

She is the only NPC to start with good energy weapons from the start (actually the only NPC to have energy weapons at all from the start). I also use her for her other skills she comes with. She fits my party perfectly.

[Nuee]

There is a wealth of information in the game guides.

[IX -- The Hermit]

In addition to the above, don't bother with any values of Intelligence other than 1, 4, 8, or 10. (Those will give you 2, 3, 4, and 5 skill points respectively).

You'll likely also want to give your "Leader" (i.e., whoever has the Leadership skill) a high Charisma value (ideally 7-8+), as this boosts how far the Leadership radius extends -- +18m at 10 CHR.

[Tactics Precise]

Interesting. I'll use this general advice for my first play through.

[red255]

Yeah I mean I don't wan t to build your characters for you.

All stats are important in their own way.

For Combat you have

Initiative (how fast your turn comes up if you have 20 initiative and the enemy has 10 initiative you'll get 2 turns to his one, so its important not to have very low initiative.

Drived from Awareness (one point per point) and speed (one point per two points)

AP. how many actions you can do when its your turn. also very important. derived mainly from Coordination, but Speed, Strength and Intellegence also give AP just a lesser amount like one AP per two points of Coord and 4 points of STR/INT/SPEED.

you want AP to meet the breakpoints of what weapons you are going to be using.

Armor. If your target has more armor than your weapon has penetration its going to do reduced damage, but you need like 4 points more armor than weapon penetration for it to be noticable. Basically get this really high or don't bother with it.

Skill Points per level, pretty self explainatory, skills cost 2 for 1-3 4 for 3-6 6 for 7-9 and 8 for the 10th level. Skill books exist for non-combat skills one per skill

Strength is also CON and gives bonus HP per level. probably shouldn't be neglected.

Generally speaking you'll want a leader, generally speaking he'll want high charisma, which will make him worse at combat. so you can give him something sub-optimal you have alot of ammo for to plink away with.

Combat skills-
Assault Rifle
Sniper Rifle
Melee.

these work and are viable.

SMG
Energy weapons
Pistol
not viable.

Heavy weapons. possibly viable late game except they jam ALOT. and don't take magazines.
Shotguns aren't very good. not as bad as the not-viable weapons. but nowhere near the viable weapons for damage.

Melee-
You have 3 choices. and I do like to put some skills here to get them to level 3 regardless.
Usually bladed. for early game ammo conservation.

Breakdown:
Bladed-Quick Several quick striking 3 AP weapons that can get a mod installed for 2 AP
Great for a secondary early game for killing raider scum.

Blunt- Slow, more damage more AP cost, more damage not really worth the more AP cost
Except for using it for overwatch to protect your squad from melee units charging your position.

Unarmed-sorta constant 3 AP doesn't take mods so its always 3 AP but its damage scales up as you level, making it quite considerable endgame.

the game gives you two Melee specialists, Chisel and Tatsuyuki. (I guess Lexicon is an unarmed specialist)

I recommend them for the purpose of dumb meat to keep the enemy dumb meat at bay I wouldn't use to attack the enemy really, thats bad tactics.

So I'd probably recommend them + the NPC you get from Ag center or Highpool. for filling out your party. Highpool being the one more combat ready. if you take Ag Center, you probably want to give her a new weapon skill. Assault rifles or snipers. she is too weak for melee.

[wizard_of_wor]

shotguns suck

[Victor]

Here's a great starter guide if you want to run a customs quad: http://i.imgur.com/RSSnwbV.png https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNKpc8tIsvw

[CaptainBipto]

Does anyone know if Heavy Handed/Opportunist and Tactical Positioning damage boost stacks? As I was thiking of a Shotgun user with Opportunist (+25% damage on targets with 30% or less con), Bloodthirsty (+1 AP on kill), Tinkerer (+1 AP light armor) and Tactical Positioning (+15% damage attacking target from behind).

Is Psychopath better on a high coordination Handgun/SMG type character?

[.//slayer]

Originally posted by CaptainBipto:

Does anyone know if Heavy Handed/Opportunist and Tactical Positioning damage boost stacks? As I was thiking of a Shotgun user with Opportunist (+25% damage on targets with 30% or less con), Bloodthirsty (+1 AP on kill), Tinkerer (+1 AP light armor) and Tactical Positioning (+15% damage attacking target from behind).

Is Psychopath better on a high coordination Handgun/SMG type character?

Heavy handed and Tactical Positioning do stack (I took this combo for one of my custom rangers). I think that Tactical Positioning stacks with every other damage boosting skill - at least it did stack with what I had both on my sniper and on my melee ranger. Can't see a reason why it wouldn't work with Shotguns or other weapon types.