Build 4 — The Executioner (No-Crit-Until-Slayer)

TRAITS: Gifted + Small Frame
STATS: ST 6 • PE 6 • EN 8 • CH 4 • IN 8 • AG 10 • LK 6
SKILLS: Speech, Doctor, Lockpick — leave Unarmed untagged

The core insight

Slayer makes every hand-to-hand attack a guaranteed critical — and "hand-to-hand" covers both Unarmed AND Melee Weapons. Once you have it, crit chance is 100% no matter what your Luck is. So this build spends zero resources chasing crit chance before Slayer. No More Criticals perk, no Finesse, no Luck stacking.

Instead every stat point and perk slot goes into things that make each guaranteed crit land more often and hurt more: raw damage, action points, and staying alive long enough to reach level 24.

SPECIAL Radar

Chance vs. Quality — the one nuance. Slayer gives crit chance (100%). It does not raise crit quality — how good each critical rolls on the crit table. Luck and the Better Criticals perk still improve that roll (more armor bypass, knockouts, instakills). This build keeps LK 6 as a floor (it's really there for the Toughness perk) and treats Better Criticals as an optional post-Slayer pick, not an early investment. That honors "no crit chance until Slayer" while leaving the door open to sharpen crit quality later.

SPECIAL — final values (after traits)

Total = 48 points. Luck deliberately low; Charisma raised to 4 to field two companions.

Stat	Val	Why
ST	6	Bonus HtH Damage; →9 in Power Armor
PE	6	Awareness + Earlier Sequence
EN	8	Big HP pool to survive the pre-Slayer grind
CH	4	Two companions as front-line meat
IN	8	All quest dialogue; 16 skill pts/lvl
AG	10	Max AP; Slayer's AG 8 gate
LK	6	Floor for Toughness — NOT for crit chance

Derived stats @ Level 1

Hit Points

Action Pts

Armor Class

Base Crit

Skill Pts/Lvl

Companions

Companions (CH 4 → 2 slots)

Party size = Charisma ÷ 2, so CH 4 fields two companions. Great picks for a melee lead: Sulik (his own melee bruiser), Vic or Cassidy (ranged cover), or Sulik + Cassidy as the classic pair. They tank and shoot while your crit-less early character wears enemies down.

Want a third? Take Magnetic Personality (+1 party slot) or pop Mentats (+1 CH) at the moment you recruit — the game checks current CH when a companion joins.

Tag skills — and why NOT Unarmed

Don't tag Unarmed. Its base is already high — 30 + 2×(ST+AG) = 62% at AG 10 / ST 6 — and free trainers carry it past Slayer's 80% with zero skill points: John L. Sullivan in Klamath (+10%), the Sierra Army Depot punching bags (+10%), New Reno Prizefighter (+5%) and Lo Pan / the Dragon in San Francisco (+20%). Tagging it even wastes that free training (fixed-target trainers stop helping once it's tagged). Spend all three tags on things you can't get free:

Speech the real "talking" skill in FO2 — gates the most quest XP, and talks Cameron down for 600 XP in the Temple.

Doctor unlocks Living Anatomy (+5 dmg vs living) and Vault City training.

Lockpick pure utility you can't train for free — opens the Temple's chapel door and endless containers.

Unarmed: leave it untagged; the base + trainers do the work. Nudge it with a few level-up points only if you're impatient for the 80% Slayer gate.

Perk progression — damage & AP only until Slayer

Lvl	Perk	Req	Purpose
3	Bonus HtH Damage I	ST 6, AG 6	+2 melee damage
6	Bonus HtH Damage II	ST 6, AG 6	+2 damage
9	Bonus HtH Damage III	ST 6, AG 6	+2 damage (+6 total)
12	Living Anatomy	Doctor 60%	+5 damage vs living
15	Bonus HtH Attacks	AG 6	−1 AP per attack
18	Action Boy I	AG 5	+1 AP
21	Action Boy II	AG 5	+1 AP
24	SLAYER	ST 8*, AG 8, Unarmed 80%	100% crit on every HtH hit
27+	Toughness • Lifegiver • Better Criticals (opt.)	—	Survivability, then crit quality

*ST 8 satisfied by Power Armor (ST 6 + 3). Notice not one pre-Slayer perk touches crit chance — exactly the plan.

How it plays

Levels 1–23 you're a volume-and-brute-force fighter: no reliable crits, but +6 Bonus HtH Damage, +5 Living Anatomy, a Mega Power Fist, and up to five or six attacks per turn chew through anything, while two companions soak aggro. Then at level 24 Slayer flips the switch — every single one of those 5–6 attacks per turn becomes a critical. With EN 8 and Toughness you're also far sturdier than the glass-cannon Build 1. This is the "patient" melee build: it delays the crit fantasy but hits like a freight train the moment it arrives, and survives comfortably getting there.

⚔ Temple of Trials — clearing the opener

Every build starts here in Arroyo. A melee character breezes through it — save often.

Step	What to do
Don't hit Klint	Never attack Klint at the entrance (or any Arroyo tribal) — it can turn the village hostile later.
Chapel — fight	Kill the giant ants & radscorpions with your starting Spear (good early XP). Trick: attack once, then use leftover AP to run 3 hexes — they can't reach you.
Locked door out	Open it with Lockpick — any value works, just retry.
Passage traps	Disarm the spear/dart plates with Traps for 25 XP each (save first — a crit-fail locks that trap), or hug the right-hand wall to avoid them.
Sanctuary door	Only plastic explosives (in a nearby pot) open it. "Use" one, set the 10-second timer, place it, run.
Cameron (final test)	Talk him down (needs IN 4+ and Speech tagged) = 600 XP; steal his key (Steal) = 600 XP; or fight unarmed = 300 XP (drop then re-grab your weapon; he yields after ~20 damage but can still kill you — save).
Exit	Leave via the top grid: +15 Karma, and you step into Arroyo with the Pip-Boy 2000.

Cameron's training — why you skip it: he also offers +10% Unarmed / +10% Melee training, but only to characters with Agility ≤ 6 AND no combat skill tagged. This build runs AG 10, so it doesn't qualify (and doesn't need to). Critical hits are disabled for the first in-game day, so don't bother aiming here.