Quick start guide for noobs

If you find the game too hard here's how to get started.

Character creation

Take Gifted always. Stats are crucial to get perks and you wont use most of the skills so the stat bonus far outweighs the skill penalty. Fast Shot and Good Natured can be viable but just take Gifted for the first playthrough.

For Skills take Small Guns and Speech. There are many choices for your third skill - see my Skills guide for descriptions. Unarmed, Energy Weapons, Steal, Barter, Outdoorsman are all solid choices.

Stats should look something like this:

6 Str
6 Per
6 End
4 Cha
9 Int
10 Agi
6 Luc

or

5 Str
6 Per
6 End
6 Cha
8 Int
10 Agi
6 Luc

or

5 Str
6 Per
4 End
8 Cha
8 Int
10 Agi
6 Luc

Dont drop below 5 Str, 6 Luc, or 10 Agi.

Lets review our stats.

STR - mostly to determine weight capacity and ability to equip weapons. Also some dialog options and a tiny worthless effect on melee damage. All weapons have a minimum STR requirement. 5 covers most small guns, 6 covers almost all weapons. You also need 6 for your hand to hand attacks to progress. 4 will handicap you.
Recommended score: 5 - 6

PER - determines accuracy at range, a lot of dialog options, and how fast you get your turn to move in combat. I wouldn't go below 6, viable all the way up to 10.
Recommended score: 6 - 8

END - governs starting hit points, healing rate, hit points gained per round, poison and rad resistance. You can go down to 4 to make a high CHA character, viable all the way up to 10. 8 or 10 END + Lifegiver perk will make you a beast at high levels. The bonuses depend on even numbers, so 5 is no better than 4 for example.
Recommended score: 6 for Toughness and Lifegiver perks

CHA - Affects Speech and dialog options a lot. Affects Barter. Determines number of companions you can have. CHA can be raised with Mentats when talking to quest givers. If you dont care about Speech you can drop it to 2 for more END, LUC, PER, or AGI.
Recommended score: 4 - 8

INT - Affects skill points gained per level, and dialog options more than anything else. Close 2nd for most important stat..
Recommended score: 8 - 10

AGI - determines action points in combat. 10 AGI means you can shoot twice per round with almost all weapons from the start. The most important stat.
Recommended score: 10

LUC - determines crit chance and allows some crucial perks. (Toughness and Sniper) You need at least 6. Viable all the way to 10. 10 will give you 100% crit chance with guns with Sniper perk. Cannot be raised with chems.
Recommended score: 6 - 10

Temple of Trials

To kill the ants and scorpions let them approach you, punch twice then move away. Let them use up their action points to move up to you, then punch twice and move away again. Stick and move. This is a crucial tactic throughout the game. You should be able to clear the temple without taking much damage. You can also just run past most of them.

Loot chests and jars for some healing powder.

When you get to the locked doorway use the Lockpick skill - press S to bring up the skills menu.

In the 2nd section there is a C4 explosive in a jar, use them to blow open the doorway.

When you get to the guard at the end you can 1. Talk him out of fighting (Speech) 2. Fight him if you have Unarmed 3. Sneak past him and Lockpick the door or Steal his key.

Arroyo

You should level up soon, put all your points in Small Guns (or Unarmed/Melee if you went that route) until you have 150 skill.

Talk to the Elder to get the quest for the GECK.

Get healed by the Shaman and accept his quest to kill the plants.

Use repair skill on the well for XP. Talk to the guy by the stone head and the guy in the rightmost tent for training in hand to hand and melee.

Kill the plants and turn in that quest. Run away and get healing from the Shaman if you have too.

Talk to Nabor at the top right and accept the quest to find his dog. Exit the map to the west and use the punch and move tactic to kill the geckos. Bring the dog back to Nabor.

Talk to the bridge guard and you will get a quest to sharpen your spear if you have 6 Perception. Steal the flint from Morlis and loot $100 from her jar.

Leave and go to Klamath.

Klamath

Talk to Torr who is standing outside. Help him kill the scorpions. Punch and move until they are dead, then talk to him.

Exit that area and you will come out by Vic's shop. Loot the shelves and containers for a pipe rifle and ammo.

Search all shelves, chests, dressers and containers in town for items. Read the gun magazine when you find it for skill points. Trade the items for cash and you should have enough money to buy Sulik's freedom. Give him all your healing powders and a combat knife as soon as you find one. Sulik has a lot of hit points and can tank a lot of damage for you, do your best to keep him alive.

Go to the bar and talk to the guy at the bottom left for a boxing lesson.

Exit the map at the top left and kill the robot. Punch and move.

Go back and take the bottom left exit to the west part of town. Talk to the guy inside for a key, use it on the locked door. Find the rats and kill them. Take the rubber boots from the lockers. Go down the ladder underground.

Kill all the rats in the caves. Punch and move to conserve ammo. Search containers for ammo. In the 2nd section there is the Rat God, there is a pistol on a dead body near him. Shoot him in the eye for an instant kill.

Clear the 3rd section of the cave. Feel free to shoot the larger rats. Blow open the locked door with dynamite from the shelf. Grab the part from the car and this should put you at level 3.

For your first perk you can take Awareness (shows you enemy hitpoints and weapon) or Toughness (damage resistance).

Leave town and go southeast to The Den.

The Den

Find the children standing by doorways. They will steal from you. Punch each one until you have inflicted about 5 points of damage, they will run away from you and never steal again. DONT kill them, you will get a Childkiller reputation that will screw up future quests and be hunted by bounty hunters. DONT have Sulik with you, he will kill them and then leave you because you are a Childkiller.

Find the house full of metal armored peeps, take the gun magazine from the shelf and read it.

***THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE GUIDE***
There are two merchants here - Flick and Tubby. Tubby is the first building you see. Tubby typically has a Desert Eagle, 10mm SMG and some drugs. Flick is in the building below the bar. He can have Leather Armor, a Shotgun, Hunting Rifle, and 44. Magnum. Plus ammo for any of those. Kill them and take their stuff. If Flick doesnt have a lot of gear reload your save and walk around outside of town them come back to reset his inventory. Now you have a pile of guns. There is also the option of leaving Tubby alive to trade with - he has fewer guns and there is no good merchant until you get to Vault City. But killing Flick for his guns is the best thing you can do for a smooth start. In the long run these merchants don't matter at all, you'll be in the Vault City area soon enough with access to several good merchants.

Go back to Klamath with your new arsenal. Talk to everyone in the first building. Accept Whiskey Bob's quest and complete it, take the exit to the South. Go to the cave that Mama Buckner sends you to, kill all the geckos and rescue Smiley. Equip the rubber boots when walking over the radiocative goo.

Go back to the Den and complete the gang wars questline with Sulik. Talk to Lara to start it. You can come back later if the final battle is too hard or if Lara dies and can't reward you.

There are more pickpocket children on the east side, leave Sulik on the other side of town and punch them like the others.

Do whatever else you want in the Den. Become a Slaver is easy money but has consequences with NPC reactions and bounty hunters coming after you. You'll find Vic being help captive by the slavers. You can kill them all (difficult), buy his freedom or come back later. . Before you leave the Den talk to the drunk Karl in the restaurant and get his story out of him, you will need the info for the next quest.

So you're a few hours into the game now. You should be level 5'ish after being done with the Den and you have a nice gun collection. Move east to Modoc and Vault City. There are some major questlines that can be resolved peacefully for large XP rewards. Should be smooth sailing from here, except for the raider encounters. Large groups of raiders will slaughter you until you are in the teens with good gear and lots of stimpacks. Just run away.

Combat tips

Attack and move. This works throughout the game. A lot of enemes with guns wont shoot until they run up to you, burst them or shoot them in the eye and run away.

Raider encounters can be lethal at low levels, dont hesitate to run away and exit the map. 10 AGI and Bonus Move help you run away and live. So take 10 AGI and Bonus Move.

The 10mm SMG is devastating against human raiders. At certain angles it barely does anything but at other angles its guaranteed instant death. Figure it out. Burst and move.

Some weapons fire faster than most, like the .44 Magnum. With 10 Agi you can fire two aimed shots in a round which is very effective.

Some weapons are much easier to hit than others - particularly the hunting rifle at long range. Use it to finish off fleeing enemies or kill the toughest enemy first with two shots per round.

As you progress you will find Shotguns with burst capability, these are generally your best all around weapons until the endgame.

Random encounters can give huge amounts of XP. Look for caves where you can hear sounds coming from it, it will be full of rats, geckos, scorpions or Deathclaws. You can level up quickly with Deathclaw caves. Shoot them in the eyes.

Perk progression

***TIP - you can use chems to meet minimum stat requirements and choose perks that you couldnt otherwise***

Level 3: Awareness - shows you exact HP of enemies and equipped weapon, best choice for 1st playthrough
OR
Toughness - 10% dmg resistance per rank before armor is factored in. You can stack this up to 3 times, makes a large difference with each rank. Requires 6 END.
OR
Strong Back - carry 50 more lbs of gear which is significant.

Level 6: Bonus move - two extra movement AP for running away or closing the distance, extremely powerful and better than it sounds.
OR
Toughness again

Level 9: Better criticals - more dmg from criticals. Late in the game you are completely reliant on crits to do enough damage.
OR
Bonus move again
OR
Toughness again

Level 12: Lifegiver - 4 extra hitpoints at every level up. It is not retroactive and there is a more important perk at 15, so take it at 12 or not at all.
OR
Tag - Tag another skill. Unarmed to do boxing quests or Big Guns/Energy Weapons to use advanced weaponry.

Level 15: Bonus Rate of Fire (or Bonus HTH attacks for melee skills) - Best perks in the game. You must take this. Reduces action point cost for attacking. So now most guns cost 4 AP for an untargeted attack letting you shoot twice per round if you dont have 10 AGI. If you do have 10 AGI (you should) now you can do two aimed shots per round. Unarmed attacks are reduced to 2 base AP giving you 3 aimed attacks. Absolute must have perks.

Level 18 and 21: Any of the previous perks you didnt take already.

Level 24: Sniper, or Slayer if melee. Nothing else. Slayer means automatic crits from melee attacks. Sniper uses your luck score as a percentage chance to upgrade your ranged attack to a critical hit. So 6 LUCK = 60% increased chance to crit. ***YOU HAVE TO HAVE 6 LUCK MINIMUM FOR SNIPER AND CHEMS CANT RAISE LUCK***