So after buying the Nuka World DLC I was a little confused as to how to reconsile that content with the rest of the game. I wanted to play it to get my money's worth so in my current playthrough I decided I would design a "Cap-Queen"; a roleplaying, Raider-style character, that would not revolve around the main quest. In doing this, you are able to start the game "post-vault" and then imprint your own thought process to the character. The premise of the character is a bad-ass female who is more than capable of caring for herself. In this case, my inspiration was based on an article I was reading recently about the deadliest sniper in the history of the world, Lyudmila Pavlichenko; aka Lady Death. You can check out an abridged version of her real life story here. What I focused after looking at that was on her single minded approach as she became a "ghost who killed". We'll get into some more mindset in the Gameplay section of the build.
You awaken in Vault 111, shivering and cold. Death and decay are all around you as you look for survivors in the cryo-pods that surround you. There is not a sign of life anywhere as you go on the hunt through the vault, except for an occasional giant roach. You quickly realize you are alone and now you must find your way in this new wasteland. Using your woman's intuition and your nerves of steel you learn about guns and long rifles. You hone your skill and expand your street knowledge as you begin to roam the Wastes. With no family and no ties, you owe loyalty to no one and friendship only to those who can help you...and only for as long as they are an asset. With that in mind you set off on your journey. You seek help from those that you can control and you will eliminate those who stand against you. You quickly realize that there are these loosely aligned raider bands that are easy pickings for you but that could make a viable force if marshalled under one banner...the banner of Lady Death. Settlers are easy cowed and coerced into performing menial tasks, almost like slaves albeit treated a little better so you beat them with your smile...knowing inside that they are just an eye blink away from the lash if they should refuse your will.
STRENGTH: 3 (7) We want Armorer for better defense but will want to build up to Strong Back and Steady Aim. This will be one of that later perks we look to boost.
PERCEPTION: 3 (9) Use the bobblehead in Concord to reach 4 to open lockpicking right away. We eventually want to pick up Sniper and Penetrator further down this skill.
ENDURANCE: 1 Slow and steady wins the race for us.
CHARISMA: 4 (6) This gives us Black Widow for one of our main damage buffs. We want to get up to Local Leader for settlements pretty quickly. You can skip those if you don't want to do settlement building/development. Cap at 2 if you choose that direction and put the extra points into PERC and LUCK.
INTELLIGENCE: 5 (6) This gets us Medic, Gun Nut and Scrapper. Go for Science with 7 points if you want to use Lasers.
AGILITY: 7 We want Sneak, Sandman and Action Girl here. You'll want to move up to get Ninja at some point.
LUCK: 5 (9) Use the SPECIAL book at your house to bump this to 6 right away. We also take Idiot Savant for faster leveling. We'll want all the way up to 9 points for crits and damage boosts.
STR: Armorer; Strong Back; Steady Aim
PERC: Rifleman; Locksmith; Sniper; Penetrator. Awareness if you want it as she gains skill in the Wastes.
END: None
CHAR: Black Widow. Local Leader if you want to do settlement building.
INT: Medic, Gun Nut, Scrapper. Science is an option if you want to use/modify laser weapons.
AGIL: Sneak, Mr. Sandman, Action Girl, Ninja.
LUCK: Fortune Finder; Scrounger; Bloody Mess; Idiot Savant; Better Crits; Grim Reaper's Sprint; Four-Leaf Clover. You can stop at I.S. but the other skills farther down the tree work well with a sniper.
The focus of the build is into Agility and Luck for VATs, AP's and Crits plus faster leveling with Idiot Savant. We have a mid-range Intelligence but it still procs regularly to benefit from IS. Charisma gives us added damage bonuses (to men) and if you want to get into settlement building then go with Local Leader.
Rifleman is our damage boost in the Perception tree and we can benefit from Awareness although that is not a priority stat. Do take lockpicking for ammo gains mainly. We want Gun Nut and Armorer to boost our weapon damage and our armor defense plus to gain the ability for supressors. This also mimics being a Raider and able to scrounge and craft off the land in your travels.
So this build takes a left turn from a normal build. As noted this is getting into some roleplaying to help it make sense. Although we ride through the entrance videos in the Vault, our character comes to life after leaving the vault. You are no longer Shawn's mom, you are a raider scavenger bent on survival in the Wasteland. Your goal is simple. Survive and Conquer. You are on an endless quest for Caps and Survival...if not Glory. You are good and evil personified in one entity. As with the real life Lady Death, she started off wholesome and somehow morphed into that savage beast and then, eventually, found herself again and came back to the land of the living.
We will basically bypass the entire main quest (as much as you choose to do so). In our character background, she is not the mother of anyone and is simply looking to survive, make caps, rally raiders and settlements under her banner. To that end we will not go down the Minutemen path the normal way (again, this is an option up to you however) but we can still get settlements by visiting them (not being directed to them by Preston) or WTH, you can always play Garvey for a fool, and take over the Minutemen and The Castle as well. No one will be the wiser, those dolts!
Settlements are your personal conquests. Yes, you set them up and they might actually help people. But how do you profit from them personally? Easy, they work for you. They grow crops and harvest water for you. They spend the little money they have in stores that you own...lock, stock and barrel. You profit from their weakness and in return, you provide a safe haven for their meager existence. Easy caps for basically doing nothing except protecting your investment which you would have to do anyway against rival raider gangs, super mutants and Gunners.
Nuka-World. You've heard of raider gangs there enjoying plunder and riches. So after you've established a base of operations and gotten your own gang up and running with your followers, you set out for Nuka-World only to discover it's deception. Can you persevere and take over the entire operation for yourself? Sure you can. Raiders all come under your flag when you sieze control of the park and all it's surroundings. You decide how to deal with the gangs in Nuka-World. I chose to go with the Operators because of their perk buff that is awesome for snipers.
Are you just a blind killer on a rampage? No. Deep inside, there beats a heart, somewhere. You kill for a cause. Granted the cause is yourself but you also find mercy...if it too benefits you. You make the moral choices and are guided by your own compass. The strong survive, the strong flourish and the weak bend to your will.
We are a sniper class using non-automatic rifles. I worked my way up to a .50cal being my primary weapon but also packed a .45 and a .308 for a solid mix. Use suppressors if you can make them. Use VATs if you want. The build does allow for them but for my sniping I did all that manually. I worked on my relationship with McCready to get his head shot perk as a primary goal to further enhance my sniping. VATs was mainly limited to smaller creatures (mirelurk babies and bloatflies) that are harder to hit or to take out limbs when they were advancing into melee range and I could not use my scopes any longer.
I bypassed the main quest as a main goal. It doesn't appear you have to go that route until you want to crack the Institute. I still rescued Nick Valentine and viewed him as my Intelligence Officer for my organization. But I didn't sit in his chair that continues the main quest. He works for me! When you have to go in that direction (main quest), maybe Shawn's mom was your neighbor in Settlement Hills and you're getting him back as revenge for her memory and the fact that Kellogg went after someone close to you. Plus he did make a snide comment to you in the Vault which pissed you off but good.
So again, you have to suspend the events of the game for a little while from the beginning but once you get past that you can begin to imprint a different background onto the game with some imagination. I played her as cold and abrupt, a wicked sense of humor and used the sarcastic comments alot to effect this.
There is no specific gear or weapon motif in this build so let your imagination run wild. Naturally you're looking at basic leather/raider gear in the early going with some pipe rifles; or even pipe pistols until your first rifle drop/mod. We're going stealth so Muffled is a solid mod option and if you do go into settlement building then Pocketed is a good option too, especially until you get STR up and take Strong Back. As for rifles I recommend suppressors, once you get your perks, in order to silence them and make you more stealthy. I kept a good combat rifle with a circular target on it for hip firing and for close range stuff as the long range sniper weapons (.308, .45, .50) all had low rate of fire.
So after buying the Nuka World DLC I was a little confused as to how to reconsile that content with the rest of the game. I wanted to play it to get my money's worth so in my current playthrough I decided I would design a "Cap-Queen"; a roleplaying, Raider-style character, that would not revolve around the main quest. In doing this, you are able to start the game "post-vault" and then imprint your own thought process to the character. The premise of the character is a bad-ass female who is more than capable of caring for herself. In this case, my inspiration was based on an article I was reading recently about the deadliest sniper in the history of the world, Lyudmila Pavlichenko; aka Lady Death. You can check out an abridged version of her real life story here. What I focused after looking at that was on her single minded approach as she became a "ghost who killed". We'll get into some more mindset in the Gameplay section of the build.
You awaken in Vault 111, shivering and cold. Death and decay are all around you as you look for survivors in the cryo-pods that surround you. There is not a sign of life anywhere as you go on the hunt through the vault, except for an occasional giant roach. You quickly realize you are alone and now you must find your way in this new wasteland. Using your woman's intuition and your nerves of steel you learn about guns and long rifles. You hone your skill and expand your street knowledge as you begin to roam the Wastes. With no family and no ties, you owe loyalty to no one and friendship only to those who can help you...and only for as long as they are an asset. With that in mind you set off on your journey. You seek help from those that you can control and you will eliminate those who stand against you. You quickly realize that there are these loosely aligned raider bands that are easy pickings for you but that could make a viable force if marshalled under one banner...the banner of Lady Death. Settlers are easy cowed and coerced into performing menial tasks, almost like slaves albeit treated a little better so you beat them with your smile...knowing inside that they are just an eye blink away from the lash if they should refuse your will.
STRENGTH: 3 (7) We want Armorer for better defense but will want to build up to Strong Back and Steady Aim. This will be one of that later perks we look to boost.
PERCEPTION: 3 (9) Use the bobblehead in Concord to reach 4 to open lockpicking right away. We eventually want to pick up Sniper and Penetrator further down this skill.
ENDURANCE: 1 Slow and steady wins the race for us.
CHARISMA: 4 (6) This gives us Black Widow for one of our main damage buffs. We want to get up to Local Leader for settlements pretty quickly. You can skip those if you don't want to do settlement building/development. Cap at 2 if you choose that direction and put the extra points into PERC and LUCK.
INTELLIGENCE: 5 (6) This gets us Medic, Gun Nut and Scrapper. Go for Science with 7 points if you want to use Lasers.
AGILITY: 7 We want Sneak, Sandman and Action Girl here. You'll want to move up to get Ninja at some point.
LUCK: 5 (9) Use the SPECIAL book at your house to bump this to 6 right away. We also take Idiot Savant for faster leveling. We'll want all the way up to 9 points for crits and damage boosts.
STR: Armorer; Strong Back; Steady Aim
PERC: Rifleman; Locksmith; Sniper; Penetrator. Awareness if you want it as she gains skill in the Wastes.
END: None
CHAR: Black Widow. Local Leader if you want to do settlement building.
INT: Medic, Gun Nut, Scrapper. Science is an option if you want to use/modify laser weapons.
AGIL: Sneak, Mr. Sandman, Action Girl, Ninja.
LUCK: Fortune Finder; Scrounger; Bloody Mess; Idiot Savant; Better Crits; Grim Reaper's Sprint; Four-Leaf Clover. You can stop at I.S. but the other skills farther down the tree work well with a sniper.
The focus of the build is into Agility and Luck for VATs, AP's and Crits plus faster leveling with Idiot Savant. We have a mid-range Intelligence but it still procs regularly to benefit from IS. Charisma gives us added damage bonuses (to men) and if you want to get into settlement building then go with Local Leader.
Rifleman is our damage boost in the Perception tree and we can benefit from Awareness although that is not a priority stat. Do take lockpicking for ammo gains mainly. We want Gun Nut and Armorer to boost our weapon damage and our armor defense plus to gain the ability for supressors. This also mimics being a Raider and able to scrounge and craft off the land in your travels.
So this build takes a left turn from a normal build. As noted this is getting into some roleplaying to help it make sense. Although we ride through the entrance videos in the Vault, our character comes to life after leaving the vault. You are no longer Shawn's mom, you are a raider scavenger bent on survival in the Wasteland. Your goal is simple. Survive and Conquer. You are on an endless quest for Caps and Survival...if not Glory. You are good and evil personified in one entity. As with the real life Lady Death, she started off wholesome and somehow morphed into that savage beast and then, eventually, found herself again and came back to the land of the living.
We will basically bypass the entire main quest (as much as you choose to do so). In our character background, she is not the mother of anyone and is simply looking to survive, make caps, rally raiders and settlements under her banner. To that end we will not go down the Minutemen path the normal way (again, this is an option up to you however) but we can still get settlements by visiting them (not being directed to them by Preston) or WTH, you can always play Garvey for a fool, and take over the Minutemen and The Castle as well. No one will be the wiser, those dolts!
Settlements are your personal conquests. Yes, you set them up and they might actually help people. But how do you profit from them personally? Easy, they work for you. They grow crops and harvest water for you. They spend the little money they have in stores that you own...lock, stock and barrel. You profit from their weakness and in return, you provide a safe haven for their meager existence. Easy caps for basically doing nothing except protecting your investment which you would have to do anyway against rival raider gangs, super mutants and Gunners.
Nuka-World. You've heard of raider gangs there enjoying plunder and riches. So after you've established a base of operations and gotten your own gang up and running with your followers, you set out for Nuka-World only to discover it's deception. Can you persevere and take over the entire operation for yourself? Sure you can. Raiders all come under your flag when you sieze control of the park and all it's surroundings. You decide how to deal with the gangs in Nuka-World. I chose to go with the Operators because of their perk buff that is awesome for snipers.
Are you just a blind killer on a rampage? No. Deep inside, there beats a heart, somewhere. You kill for a cause. Granted the cause is yourself but you also find mercy...if it too benefits you. You make the moral choices and are guided by your own compass. The strong survive, the strong flourish and the weak bend to your will.
We are a sniper class using non-automatic rifles. I worked my way up to a .50cal being my primary weapon but also packed a .45 and a .308 for a solid mix. Use suppressors if you can make them. Use VATs if you want. The build does allow for them but for my sniping I did all that manually. I worked on my relationship with McCready to get his head shot perk as a primary goal to further enhance my sniping. VATs was mainly limited to smaller creatures (mirelurk babies and bloatflies) that are harder to hit or to take out limbs when they were advancing into melee range and I could not use my scopes any longer.
I bypassed the main quest as a main goal. It doesn't appear you have to go that route until you want to crack the Institute. I still rescued Nick Valentine and viewed him as my Intelligence Officer for my organization. But I didn't sit in his chair that continues the main quest. He works for me! When you have to go in that direction (main quest), maybe Shawn's mom was your neighbor in Settlement Hills and you're getting him back as revenge for her memory and the fact that Kellogg went after someone close to you. Plus he did make a snide comment to you in the Vault which pissed you off but good.
So again, you have to suspend the events of the game for a little while from the beginning but once you get past that you can begin to imprint a different background onto the game with some imagination. I played her as cold and abrupt, a wicked sense of humor and used the sarcastic comments alot to effect this.
There is no specific gear or weapon motif in this build so let your imagination run wild. Naturally you're looking at basic leather/raider gear in the early going with some pipe rifles; or even pipe pistols until your first rifle drop/mod. We're going stealth so Muffled is a solid mod option and if you do go into settlement building then Pocketed is a good option too, especially until you get STR up and take Strong Back. As for rifles I recommend suppressors, once you get your perks, in order to silence them and make you more stealthy. I kept a good combat rifle with a circular target on it for hip firing and for close range stuff as the long range sniper weapons (.308, .45, .50) all had low rate of fire.
