My Zero Death New Vegas build (JSawyer mod/Very Hard/Hardcore)

[Trashos]

This is the Guns build that helped me do a full 150h ironman playthrough of New Vegas + dlc + Josh Sawyer Ultimate Mod on Very Hard/Hardcore. Other design mod I used was Economy Overhaul (it makes the economy tougher and therefore the Barter skill useful).

Note that the build on its own does not guarantee success. Lots of factors play a role, like having experience with the game, knowing how to approach situations, knowing where to go early/later, knowing where the mines and the ambushes are, knowing where to never fast travel to etc-etc.

This is NOT the best build ever, nor does it claim to be. There are many ways to approach the game. This is just how I do it.

Basic info on the build:

(initial) STR 5 PE 5 END 7 CHA 1 INT 7 AG 7 LK 8

You can improve all of these +1 at the Followers Clinic. However, I advise against improving CHA. Instead, get the sub-dermal implant for +4 DT. We will also get an AG +1 perk at Lvl 2. therefore, our build will in fact be like the following:

(early-mid game) STR 6 PE 6 END 8 CHA 1 INT 8 AG 9 LK 9

Traits: Skilled/Good Natured
Tagged Skills: Speech/Lockpicking/Repair

 

[Trashos]

PERKS

Spoiler

Lvl 2: Intense Training: Agility (requirements: lvl2)

Improves your midgame AP from 89 to 92. Will make a difference for how many times some of your weapons will be able to fire in VATS (like Maria and a Light Shining in Darkness).

Lvl 4: Comprehension (lvl 4, IN 4)

One of the best perks in the game. Gives +1 permanent skill point to every skill book and a +20 temporary boost to magazines, up from +10. The latter part be very useful when trying to open tough locks and hack tough computers.

Lvl 6: Hand Loader (lvl 6, Repair 70)

This is how you will create your bullets. You do not need to create bullets this early, however we want to take this perk now so that we do not delay other good perks later.

If you are having trouble getting Repair to 70 this early, just replace this with Toughness, and push all later perks back 2 levels.

Lvl 8: Grunt (Lvl 8, Guns 45, Explosives 20)

In our case, it will improve the damage output of our 9mm and .45mm weapons, as well as the Survivilist rifle.

Lvl 10: Finesse (lvl10)

Improves our critical chance when we are having to fight upclose. Even if we have sneak attack capabilities, there are many cases where this will come in handy.

Lvl 12: Silent Running (lvl12, AG 6, Sneak 50)

Absolutely fundamental for sneaking around successfully.

Lvl 14: Pack Rat (lvl8, IN 5, Barter 70)

This is the best "improve your carry capacity" perk. It has an inconvenient requirement of Barter skill. However, since I use the Economy Overhaul mod, Barter is very useful anyway. If you do not use that mod and do not want to invest in Barter, you can replace this one with Strong Back.

Lvl 16: Better Criticals (lvl16, PE 6, LK 6)

One of the best perks in the game, improves your critical damage.

Lvl 18: Light Step (lvl 14, PE 6, AG 6)

Crucial perk for everyone who does not want to die.

Lvl 20: Action Boy (lvl16, AG 6)

Improves your Action Points 92-->107. Results in 1 more shot in VATS for some of your weapons.

Lvl 22: Cowboy (lvl8, Guns 45, Melee 45)

This will improve the damage output of Medicine Stick, which we are going to be using against highly armored enemies like Deathclaws and some robots.

Lvl 24: Hit the Deck (lvl12, Explosives 70)

Improves your DT against explosives. Maybe you can do without this, but there is also a significant chance that you are going to regret not taking it.

Lvl 26: Math Wrath (lvl10, Science 70)

Reduces the AP cost of firing your weapons in VATS, therefore allowing you to fire more times in VATS with some of your weapons.

Lvl 28: Action Boy II (Action Boy I)

Improves your Action Points in VATS 107-->122.

Lvl 30: Imlant GRX (Lvl30, END 8)

Equivalent to having 3 Turbos available per day. Only problem is you cannot hotkey it. Especially great to have in Dead Money.

Lvl 32: Toughness (lvl6, END 5)

+3DT is nice, but feel free to replace with something else you might like better. If you cannot reach Repair 70 in time to get Handloader at lvl 6, take this at lvl 6 instead, and push everything else 2 levels back.

You can also take Implant GRX II instead.

Lvl 34. Karma Perk (lvl 34)

One of your best perks.

Feel free to play around with substitutes for Action Boy/Math Wrath/Toughness.

 

[Trashos]

SKILL PRIORITIES:

Tier I: Guns/Repair/Lockpicking/Speech/Science
Tier II: Barter/Sneak/Survival
Tier III: Medicine/Explosives/Unarmed/Energy Weapons/Melee

The most important thing, however, is fulfilling the upcoming perks' requirements.

Skill Details:

Spoiler

Barter: Slowly improve until you get to 70 at lvl 14 to get Pack Rat. Kill the guy who comes to talk to you about the star caps, and use his gear every time you barter.

Energy Weapons: Lowest priority as we are a Guns build. However, it may be a good idea to have invested in it before doing Dead Money.

Explosives: Not a priority, but gives good options. I start slowly improving it after lvl 15, once the more pressing skills have been taken care of.

Guns: Your main weapon skill. I devote to it around 5 skill points/lvl. You need Guns 75 to use the sniper rifle well, but you also want to maximize Guns relatively early.

Lockpicking: Lets you open locks, get loot, gives you additional XP. I rush to Lockpicking 48 ASAP to open medium locks, then I improve it slowly to 78. 78+ 2 (from hat's PE bonus)+ 20 (magazine) lets you open everything.

Medicine: Lowest priority, since most of the healing will be coming from food. I neglect it until I have nothing better to improve.

Melee: Generally neglect it, however you need to improve it to 45 to get the Cowboy perk later in the game.

Repair: Improve it to 70 ASAP to get Hand Loader at lvl 6. Prioritize its skill books. Helps you repair your stuff, makes you money by repairing weapons before selling them, allows you to make your bullets, and is also useful in some quests. Later get it to 90 for the .45-70 HL bullets.

Science: Improve it to 30 fast, so that you can hack medium computers with the help of a magazine. Then take it to 50 to save on magazines. You probably want decent Science before going to Old World Blues.

Sneak: There are better priorities in the early game. You start working on your Sneak as you approach lvl 12 in order to get Silent Running (you need Sneak 50 then). By then you have the essentials covered, and you can keep increasing it slowly.

Speech: Steady improvement throughout, until you reach 70-80. On average, I invest 3-4 points a level in Speech in the meantime.

Survival: This skill takes care of you nutritional and healing needs. However, it still does not need to be a very high priority, especially early when there are more pressing matters, as food is plentiful. You can start working on this after the basics are covered. You can make the awesome Desert Salad at Survival 55, but there is no rush.

Unarmed: Lowest priority.

SKILL BOOKS:

Maximum Lvl in the Josh Sawyer mod is 35, and leveling up is much slower than in the vanilla game. Therefore, skill books are very important here. Make sure you get all/most the relevant skill books before you hit a level where you want to take a perk with high requirements.

For example, getting the Hand Loader perk at lvl 6 is not very easy, especially if you are working on Lockpicking, Speech and Guns at the same time. However, unless I take it at lvl 6 (let’s say I take Toughness instead), I will have to push all other perks 2 levels back in order to get Hand Loader at lvl 8. So once I reach Novac, I drop everything I am doing and go after all the repair books before reaching lvl 6.

Know where all the skill books are and how easy it is to get them. Then plan your routing accordingly.

 

[Trashos]

WEAPONS

This is a Guns build. I generally carry a pistol, a rifle, a sniper rifle, and an SMG. I use hand loaded bullets for all of them.

Progression:

Pistols: 9mm→Lucky→That Gun→Maria→A Light Shining in Darkness
Sniper Rifles: Varmint → Hunting Rifle → Sniper Rifle → Christine COS Rifle
SMG: 9mm → Vance → 0.45/12.7
Rifle: Survivalist Rifle / Medicine Stick, depending on the DT of the opponents.


For almost everything I use the Survivalist Rifle, except for enemies with DT>~15, where I use the Medicine Stick instead. Alternatively, you could also use This Machine for all cases, but it is not going to be as good as knowing when to use Survivalist vs Medicine Stick.

Against High Armor, you should probably forget about SMGs. For lightly armored opponents, use the 0.45 SMG. For opponents with no armor at all, use the 12.7 SMG.

For Vault 34, I usually take the 10mm unique SMG Sleepytime instead of Vance with me, because there are lots of 10mm bullets around the vault.

Enemies with high DT: Deathclaws, Giant Radscorpions, Mister Gutsy Robots, Sentry Bots, Securitrons, Legendary Bloatfly, Super Mutants (not Nightkin), Power Armor. You will want Medicine Stick for them.

 

[Trashos]

ARMOR

Forget about light armor, it is a death sentence on Very Hard. My progression for armor looks like this:

Merc Grunt Outfit → Reinforced Leather → Combat Armor → Commando Armor (ASAP) → T51 Power Armor

The Remnants Power Armor is also a good choice for late game.

If for whatever reason you have different armors in your game, the general progression is:

best light armor you can find -->medium armor at Novac or a bit later --> best medium armor you can find --> T51 Power Armor.

And when I say "best", I mean best defense. The highest DT (primarily) and DR (secondarily) you can get, especially if it comes without other penalties. There are some combat armors lying around, but you might also want to check Novac, Mick & Ralph's, and the Gun Runners for further options.


CHEMS

Med X / Slasher / Battle Brew are your friends and saviors. Med X before tough fights, then add slasher/battle brew if things go south. They all stack.


DLC

There are many ways to go about it, but personally I go to the dlc on the following levels:

Honest Hearts ~lvl 18

Note that HH opponents have little armor in general. Have plenty of Med X for all the ambushes against you. Have your sniper rifle and its bullets with you. You will get other useful weapons there.

Old World Blues ~lvl 24

Have decent Science before going there. Take all you can with you, you get storage space immediately and you can easily return after the end of the dlc.

Dead Money ~ lvl 30

I specifically want to have Implant GRX before going there.

Lonesome Road ~ last thing before Hoover Dam

If you want to take Logan’s Loophole as a trait, with JSawyer mod it will cap you at lvl 21. Therefore switch HH and OWB, as OWB will give you the option to get rid of Logan’s Loophole before reaching lvl 21.

 

[Butter]

What's Commando Armor?

 

[Trashos]

What's Commando Armor?

It is a great medium armor. Good defense and improves Sneak. Sold at Mick & Ralph's.

I am not sure whether it exists in the vanilla game (I think it doesn't), this is a JSawyer Ultimate mod guide.

 

[JDR13]

Any other mods installed besides Sawyer's? (The "Ultimate" version isn't actually by Sawyer btw)

I'd add the Delay DLC mod if nothing else. It makes it more realistic in that you don't already have all the DLC quests when you start the game.

 

[Trashos]

Any other mods installed besides Sawyer's? (The "Ultimate" version isn't actually by Sawyer btw)

I know, I have played extensively all Vanilla, JSawyer, JSawyer Ultimate.
JSU has minor improvements over JS (and much better maintenance), and the changes are very well thought out. Best thing since sliced bread. I am perfectly confident that JSawyer would approve- if he still gave a shit.

The above guide holds true for the original JSawyer too. The only difference with regards to the guide is that I do not remember whether all the armors I am mentioning exist in the original mod.

As mentioned in OP, I also use the Economy Overhaul mod to make the economy tougher (basically, you will need to invest a bit in Barter). But it is up to you.

Other than those, I use a couple of bug fixing mods, a fast-access-to-Lucky38 mod, and a mod that adds a reloading bench and a hot plate to Lucky 38. That's it.

But I would rather we did not turn this thread into a mod discussion.

 

[Comte]

Did you experience any crashes? I recently tried to do a new fallout NV run and I would get a crash to desktop at least once every session.

 

[Trashos]

Did you experience any crashes? I recently tried to do a new fallout NV run and I would get a crash to desktop at least once every session.

No, I may have one crash every 20-30 hrs or so. Probably one of the mods you are using?

 

[Comte]

Did you experience any crashes? I recently tried to do a new fallout NV run and I would get a crash to desktop at least once every session.

No, I may have one crash every 20-30 hrs or so. Probably one of the mods you are using?

Was playing vanilla. Maybe windows 10 is the culprit. I have the gog version with the 4 gig patch.

 

[Trashos]

Was playing vanilla. Maybe windows 10 is the culprit. I have the gog version with the 4 gig patch.

I have the steam New Vegas Ultimate version myself, but the original vanilla game was a bugfest. Not sure how to help, you probably need to look into the bug fixing mods in Nexus. I haven't been around Nexus for a while, but I seem to recall some anti-crash mods.

 

[Comte]

Was playing vanilla. Maybe windows 10 is the culprit. I have the gog version with the 4 gig patch.

I have the steam New Vegas Ultimate version myself, but the original vanilla game was a bugfest. Not sure how to help, you probably need to look into the bug fixing mods in Nexus. I haven't been around Nexus for a while, but I seem to recall some anti-crash mods.

I will check those out. Was a bummer man I got sick of it and uninstalled.

 

[Trashos]

I added some general advice on armor progression for people who have different armors in their game.

 

[Stella Brando]

I can't really imagine playing games like this. I wish I could just go through the story and not fight anybody.

In Fallout: New Vegas I was chased by deathclaws and I just ran as fast as I could and hid under a low deck and threw explosives at them. After that I just turned on god mode when ever I saw a death claw.

People use mods to make Baldur's Gate battles super-hard, but I find the fights annoying even on easy.

One game I played (Divinity: Original Sin?) had a 'never die in battle' option, but that may be going to far...

 

[Lurker47]

Imagine playing a hardcore mode of a game where the combat and AI isn't even good. This is advanced autism.

 

[Trashos]

Imagine playing a hardcore mode of a game where the combat and AI isn't even good. This is advanced autism.

There are 2 layers to combat, the tactical layer and the strategic layer. Strategically, New Vegas is not bad at all. It may even be the best of Fallouts due to the breadth of options. But you will not be able to tell, unless you use the JSawyer mod and up the difficulty to maximum.

 

[Lurker47]

Imagine playing a hardcore mode of a game where the combat and AI isn't even good. This is advanced autism.

There are 2 layers to combat, the tactical layer and the strategic layer. Strategically, New Vegas is not bad at all. It may even be the best of Fallouts due to the breadth of options. But you will not be able to tell, unless you use the JSawyer mod and up the difficulty to maximum.

You are not correct and that is funny to me.

 

[Yosharian]

I've played this game so many damn times... I have ONE interesting build left that I haven't tried which is a Logan's Run build where you stop leveling at 30.

 

[Trashos]

I've played this game so many damn times... I have ONE interesting build left that I haven't tried which is a Logan's Run build where you stop leveling at 30.

Even though I did not recommend it above, I have taken Logan's Loophole a couple of times and it is a decent trait. Chems are very strong, so it is very convenient to not fear addiction.

JSawyer Mod (which I strongly recommend to you, if you have not tried it) has an overall cap of 35, and Logan's Loophole caps you at lvl 21. However, the trick is that you can change your traits during/after Old World Blues, so you can get rid of Logan's Loophole before reaching its cap, if you go to OWB early enough.

You can finish the game being lvl 21 too, but the above trick combines the best of all worlds.

 

[Yosharian]

That's even better. I much prefer the game when it isn't bloated by hp boosts... Hmm damnit you're tempting me to play it again

 

[Daemongar]

Did you experience any crashes? I recently tried to do a new fallout NV run and I would get a crash to desktop at least once every session.

At a minimum, you should never play FO:NV without:
New Vegas Stutter Remover - Fixes graphics stutter and improves stability.
NVAC - New Vegas Anti Crash - prevents crashing
FNV4GB - FN:NV > 4GB memory ceiling - makes game run smoother

Should also use the unofficial patches, but at a minimum - should run the three above. They really work.

 

[Comte]

What Mod manager would your guys recommend?

 

[Nano]

What Mod manager would your guys recommend?

Mod Organizer 2 is the most advanced and user-friendly mod manager these days.

Edit: also, don't use New Vegas Stutter Remover if you're on Windows 10. Use NVTF - New Vegas Tick Fix instead.