Builds

Fallout 4 asks you to define your character before you have seen any of it. You get 28 points at the vault door, seven attributes to spread them across, and no information about which of them the game will actually reward. Every build in our character builds guide spends that same budget, which makes them directly comparable in a way most build lists are not.

So the useful question is not which build is best. It is which single attribute each one is buying, and which attribute it is selling to pay for it. Laid out that way, the seven spreads are seven different answers to the same trade.

The seven spreads at a glance

One note on that table. Our source guide states the starting budget as 28 points, and six of the seven spreads land on exactly 28. Unbreakable totals 29, so one of its figures is a point over the budget the same page sets. Treat that row as an intent rather than a spreadsheet, and drop a point wherever it hurts least when you actually build it.

What each attribute is actually buying

Reading down the buys column, the seven builds cover six of the seven attributes, and the pattern in what they sell is more informative than the pattern in what they buy. Charisma is sold twice and Intelligence twice, and those two are also the two most often bought, which tells you they are the attributes with the sharpest returns in both directions.

Charisma and Intelligence together produce the most versatile character in the list. A Constructive Survivor spends nothing below 3 anywhere and takes Local Leader and Lone Wanderer alongside Gun Nut, Armorer, Scrapper, Locksmith, Science and Hacker. It is a poor combat build on paper and a strong one in practice, because Local Leader turns the settlement layer into a supply of rare and legendary vendor stock, and high Intelligence keeps the XP arriving fast enough to buy the combat perks later.

Intelligence alone pushes that further and pays for it up front. Nerdular Nerdance starts at 9 Intelligence with very little health and almost no conversation options, and it is openly a late-game build: the payoff arrives when laser, plasma and radiation weapons become common and your hacking, crafting and Power Armor uptime are all ahead of the curve.

Luck is the sideways answer to the same problem. Married to Lady Luck drops Intelligence to 1 and takes 9 Luck instead, then covers the XP shortfall with Idiot Savant, which pays out random experience from ordinary tasks. Combined with V.A.T.S. and Better Criticals, Critical Banker and Grim Reaper, the damage comes from critical generation rather than from good weapons, so it stays effective without a crafting investment.

The builds that pick one range

Three of the seven decide your combat distance at character creation and stick to it.

Long Distance Relationships takes 8 Perception with 6 Agility for V.A.T.S. and 6 Luck for criticals, and pays with 1 Charisma. Our guide is candid that this ruins the role-playing half of the game, and the compensation it suggests is buying a good melee weapon rather than crafting one, because with 2 Strength you will not be making your own. Big Leagues is on the perk list for exactly that reason.

Less Brains, More Muscle is the opposite corner: 7 Strength, Big Leagues, Blacksmith and Toughness, with Idiot Savant again patching the low Intelligence. It is the least complicated build here and the one that most rewards Fallout 4's crafting system, which treats melee characters better than any previous game in the series did.

Mr. or Mrs. Stealy pairs 6 Perception with 7 Agility for a stealth character and drops Endurance to 2, which our guide frames honestly: you die immediately when caught, and the answer is not to be caught. Sneak attacks pay extra XP, which is what covers the low Intelligence, and Blacksmith is worth taking despite not appearing to fit, because stealth characters end up on melee weapons more often than they expect.

The build that ignores tactics

Unbreakable is the only spread here that sells two attributes to the floor, taking Perception and Luck to 1 apiece to fund 7 Endurance and 6 Strength. That combination makes V.A.T.S. close to useless, which is the point: Strong Back, Heavy Gunner, Toughness, Radiation Resistance, Adamantium Skin and Chem Resistant produce a character who walks through damage instead of avoiding it.

It is also the only build in the list carrying 6 Charisma alongside a combat focus, which quietly makes it the second most settlement-capable of the seven.

Picking one

Two practical rules come out of comparing the spreads. First, every build that sells Intelligence has to buy Idiot Savant to compensate, so if you are not planning to take that perk, do not drop Intelligence below 3. Second, Charisma is the attribute whose absence you feel outside combat rather than in it, and the two builds that sell it to 1 and 2 both warn you about the same thing, which is a great deal more walking.

Beyond that, mistakes are survivable. Fallout 4 lets you keep investing in attributes as you level, so a bad start costs time rather than the run, though our guide puts the price of becoming good at everything at somewhere north of 400 hours. The mechanics guide covers which systems each of these builds makes cheaper, and the weapons guide covers which unique weapons reward a V.A.T.S. or critical build specifically.