You will want to create a character with both a small chance of dying early, and potential for growth later on.

Review of character attributes:

Gifted

+1 to all primary stats, 10% penalty to all skills, and -5 skill points each experience level. Despite the harsh penalty, this is advantageous. You need good stats if you want both the good perks and good long-term characteristics.

Small Frame

+1 agility, reduced carry weight. This is good. You don't really have to carry that much stuff before you get the car, and Sulik is a good mule before then. With the car, you are only limited by space considerations.

Finesse

+10 critical chance, reduced damage to every attack. While increased critical chance is good, you get much more out of targeted attacks, or later, sniper or slayer perks.

Heavy Handed

+4 melee damage, penalty to critical chance. This is okay in the early game, but it is wasteful once you move on to higher-damage attacks. Since the emphasis here is on a long-term character, this isn't quite worth it.

Kamikaze

+5 to combat sequence, base AC set to 0. Good sequence prevents opponents from taking double turns at the start of combat. If you can't think of something else to pick, this is worthwhile.

One Hander

Skill bonus to one-handed gun use, Skill penalty for two-handed guns. While most good ranged weapons are two-handed, this is not a strict negative.

Fast Shot

Ranged attacks take one less AP, but targeted attacks (even non-ranged) are not possible. This is only good when you have the sniper perk, but it is a good reason for choosing the mutate! perk in the late game.

Sex Appeal

Bonus to reaction by characters of the opposite sex, penalty to reaction of same-sex NPC's. This is mostly an aesthetic choice. It will not affect your chances of survival much.

Bloody Mess

People die spectacularly. This is another aesthetic trait. If you choose "maximum blood" in your game preferences, you have about the same effect (I think).

Chem resistant

Lower chance of addiction, effective time for a drug is halved. This is fairly neutral. You shouldn't have to use drugs under most circumstances.

Good Natured

Penalty to combat skills, bonus to speech, barter, first aid, and doctor. Barter is useless in the face of gambling, first aid can be enhanced by books, and you will want to pump up at least three combat skills. This isn't quite worth it.

Fast Metabolism

Healing rate +2, poison resistance 0%, radiation resistance 0%. Healing rate is overrated, since doctor skill and chems are much more efficient.

Chem Reliant

Faster recovery of drug aftereffects, higher chance of addiction. There is no reason why you can't rest some extra time to get rid of drug effects. This is a waste.

Jinxed

More critical failures in combat for everyone. This can be fun, but it lowers your overall chances of survival. Reliability of performance is very important when you don't reload. On the other hand, if you are jinxed in the New Reno boxing match, you can win without throwing a punch.

Skilled

+5 skill points each experience level, reduced perk rate (once every 4 levels instead of 3). Perks are worth more than skill points.

Bruiser

+2 Strength, -2 action points. This is also a waste of a trait. You're better off taking those two strength points from agility, thereby losing only one action point.

Summary: You want gifted and a second decent trait to change for Fast Shot once you have the sniper perk. Decent traits include Heavy-Handed, Finesse, Small Frame, and Kamikaze. Neutral traits are also okay.

Primary Stats:

Strength

This affects initial hit points, melee damage, carry weight, weapon handling, and some skills. The enhancement to hit points is irrelevant due to the role of endurance. Strength-induced melee damage should be irrelevant until the late game, as you never want to pick your strength above 6 because of power armor. Carry weight is an issue, but not a big one. Finally, weapon handling is an issue, and some useful weapons (e.g. Scoped Hunting Rifle) will impose a penalty if your strength is less than 5. I would consider 5 or 6 to be optimal.

Perception

This affects ranged targeting ability, combat sequence, some skills, and your distance to enemy parties in random encounters. If you want to do any kind of ranged combat, you want your perception to be at least 6. Make sure it is at most 9, because of the memory module.

Endurance

While the Lifegiver perk diminishes the importance of this stat with respect to hit points, I still think high endurance is key to survival. It also boosts poison and radiation resistance, though that isn't quite as relevant. I generally make it 10.

Charisma

This is a rather worthless stat. It determines the maximum number of NPC's in your party, and also affects barter and speech skills. If you develop your character's skills properly, you will not need any combat help from NPC's. On the other hand, you can get NPC's one at a time, set them to charge the enemy, and voilá, cannon fodder. If you want to see the interaction between NPC's you may waste a few points, but otherwise, make this stat as low as possible.

Intelligence

This is the second most important stat in the game. Conversation options and the number of skill points you earn each level is dependent on intelligence. I generally pick 10.

Agility

This affects the number of action points you have in each combat turn, your AC, and a lot of skills. You will want at least 8 AP's (Agility 6), so you can either make two targeted punches per turn in early game combat, or do hit-and-run attacks. Agility 8 gives you 9 AP's for more fun, but it may not be worth it.

Luck

This affects your chance of a critical hit, your chance of finding special random encounters, and gambling skill. The Sniper and Better Criticals perks require luck 6, and they are some of the best perks in the game. Make your luck at least 6. There is a good reason for making it 7, as it is possible to boost your luck by 3 points (NCR church and +1 perk), making the Sniper perk completely effective.

A sample long-term character is: Gifted and Small Frame, ST5, PE8, EN10, CH2, IN10, AG6, and LK7.

Tag Skills:

• Unarmed is the most important tag skill in the early game. It lets you survive without much trouble, as with agility 6, hit-and-run strategy will let you kill without being attacked for a while. When you encounter creatures with lots of action, you can resort toeye-punches. It is good to pump this skill up to at least 135% in the first few levels.
• Speech is a good skill in the early game, though it doesn't need to immediately pumped. If you tag it, you can talk your way out of the final temple battle for more experience. This should be pumped to about 100% after you are done with Unarmed.
• Gambling is often considered a game-breaker. Once you go to Redding or New Reno, you can get effectively infinite cash by pumping your gambling to about 100%, finding a casino, placing some kind of heavy object on the "3" key, and going out to lunch. Gambling trumps Barter, and once you have your cash, your limiting reagents are hit points, skill points, healing supplies, and ammo. The latter two aren't a big deal with good management, and the first two are covered by the primary stats.
• Energy Weapons come into play later in the game. It is worth getting the Tag! perk on some skill, but only after that skill has already been pumped up by a lot. This is because the skill points you spent then double, saving you a lot of points otherwise wasted on post-100% pumping. You can then subtract all of the points you gained to distribute among the skills you need. Energy weapons is the only skill for which it is worth your trouble pumping above 150%, as big guns do not need targeted shots.

The tag skills I chose are those which you will want to increase a lot in the beginning of the game. Other skills may be worth increasing, but they can generally wait. For example, your science skill should be above 120% eventually if you want to make Skynet happy, but that situation comes late in the game, and science can be pumped up to 91% with books. Some people like the steal skill, but if you aren't saving and reloading, the fact that you are never guaranteed a successful steal can make this cumbersome. Furthermore, if you want to do the Salvatore infinite experience trick, your steal skill doesn't need to be high at all.

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