Fallout : New Vegas skills Background . " Fallout : New Vegas " shares a similar skill set to its predecessor , " Fallout 3 " , with the following important differences : Small Guns and Big Guns have been combined into the Guns skill , which now covers all conventional firearms ; weapons using explosive ordnance ( missiles and grenades , for example ) are now covered by Explosives ; new throwing weapons ( such as the throwing spear ) have been added , and are categorized as Melee Weapons ; and the Survival skill has also been added to the roster , allowing the crafting of various items such as food , stimpaks , and poisons that augment the effectiveness of weapons . Unlike " Fallout 3 " , the base game will not give the player enough points to max out every skill , even taking into account every perk and skill book . It is possible to achieve a functional maximum in roughly ten skills by using skill magazines and the Comprehension perk for a temporary boost to 100 from a base level of 80 . With two or more DLCs installed , 10 Intelligence , the Educated perk , and having consumed roughly 20 skill books , it is entirely possible to max out skill points by level 40 . With all four DLCs ( max level 50 ) it is possible to max out all skills even with low intelligence . To offset the necessity of a minimum value for a certain skill , " New Vegas " introduces s that provide a large but temporary boost to their associated skill ( + 10 , or + 20 with Comprehension ) . By using one prior to conversation , a check can be passed that might otherwise be failed . They can also be used to boost skill with weapons temporarily , or gain access to crafting recipes beyond the player ' s current skill . Effect of skills . Skills can be largely thought of as either " combat " or " non - combat . " " Combat skills " are skills that influence the effectiveness of weapons , such as Energy Weapons , Explosives , Guns , Melee Weapons , and Unarmed . " Non - combat skills " include Barter , Medicine , Repair , and Speech . The Good Natured trait will penalize combat skills in order to boost non - combat skills . Combat skills . For all combat skills , having a higher score helps meet minimum weapon requirements ( some weapons also have a Strength requirement ) . Not meeting the requirements for ranged weapons drastically penalizes your V . A . T . S accuracy and increases weapon wobble . For melee / unarmed , the penalty is a slower rate of attack . For non - Unarmed weapons , your skill score also increases the damage done ( where base damage is the damage listed on an individual weapon page ) : In other words , at a hypothetical score of 0 , a weapon will only do half the listed base damage . At 100 , the weapon will do full base damage . The Unarmed skill does not affect unarmed weapon damage , instead it adds a slight bonus damage on top of it ( see the unarmed damage page for specifics ) . Further increases in unarmed damage are driven primarily by special unarmed attacks and special V . A . T . S moves that are unlocked at higher skill levels . Note that the game can occasionally list incorrect damage on weapons , generally when you have a weapon selected but " not equipped " . This happens if you have currently equipped weapon that uses ammo type with damage multiplier . ( For example , shotguns with buckshot ammo . ) Unequipping current weapon , or equipping the weapon in question will fix the issue . Non - combat skills . Non - combat skills have varying specific uses that are covered in their individual skill pages . In addition to their normal uses , many non - combat skills tend to be used as skill checks during dialogue ( this being the primary purpose of Speech and a secondary purpose of Barter ) . Combat skills do occasionally get used in dialogue skill checks , though not nearly as frequently . As opposed to past Fallout games , New Vegas uses a score - based skill check in place of a probability - based skill check . That is , your skills meet a minimum value , or they do not - chance plays no part . For example , in order to convince Easy Pete to provide some dynamite to protect Goodsprings during the quest Ghost Town Gunfight , the player must have a minimum Explosives skill of 25 ( an example of a less - frequent combat skill check in dialogue ) . In the case where a player ' s associated skill level is too low , a dialogue option ( highlighted in red ) is presented that will fail the skill check , and will not grant a speech success . Unlike " Fallout 3 " , where the same dialogue option is presented regardless of your success or failure , a check that will fail uses a humorously unconvincing response , while a passable check uses a well - thought out argument , thus reflecting the nature of the check . XP is awarded in proportion to the difficulty of the check . Formula . The initial value of each skill is a base value of two , plus an amount depending on a character ' s value in the relevant attribute , plus a bonus determined by their Luck attribute , rounded up . Example : A starting Endurance of five and a starting Luck of five will give you an initial Unarmed skill of 15 . Later changes to the stat have a similar influence on the respective skill . During character creation , the player can " tag " three skills , which instantly increase them by 15 . When leveling up , the character distributes 10 + half Intelligence skill points . ( For odd intelligence scores , the " extra " skill point is given on even levels , so a character with 1 intelligence will gain 11 skill points at level 2 , then 10 at level 3 , etc . ) The maximum number of skill points that a character can have throughout the course of the game is partially dependent on what DLCs the player has installed , as four of them increase the level cap by 5 . The level cap starts at 30 and goes up by 5 with the addition of each of Honest Hearts , Dead Money , Old World Blues , and Lonesome Road . As two quick examples , a player with 1 Intelligence and no DLCs will have only 304 skill points , whereas a player with 10 Intelligence and all DLCs will have 735 . In contrast to Fallout 3 , very few perks contribute extra skill points directly , preferring instead to do this indirectly ( by increasing SPECIAL stats or by increasing the yield from skill book s ) or not at all . The lone exception is Educated , which yields an additional 2 skill points per level ( though the character has to be at least level 4 to take it ) . Note that because the benefit from Educated is the number of levels the character gains " after " having taken it , the relative gain in skill points is based both on how early the character gets it and how many DLCs the player has installed . S . P . E . C . I . A . L . distribution . Points allocated to S . P . E . C . I . A . L attributes affect different numbers of associated skills . Different attributes give bonuses to different amounts of skills : Maxed skills . With all DLCs , it becomes fairly trivial to max out all your skills at 100 . At the base level , you need 1300 skill points for complete maximization ( 100 points for 13 skills ) . At level 1 , you get 45 skill points for free ( from your 3 Tag ! skills ) , and an average character ( 5 in all SPECIAL stats ) will have 15 as a base for all skills . This reduces the amount of skill points you need to 1060 ( 1300 - ( 45 + 15 x 13 ) ) . For 49 levels at average intelligence , you get 612 skill points ( 12 . 5 x 49 ) . Just with these base stats , this is enough to get all but 6 skills completely maxed out ( remaining 448 / 85 , rounding up ) . Simply by taking Educated at level 4 leaves us with 356 skill points remaining to completely max out . Taking Comprehension at level 6 ( and saving skill books until then ) means that reading 89 skill books is enough to net you the remaining skill points ( so long as you adapt your per - level skill points to the remaining skill books ) . As a note , the base game contains 53 skill books ; Old World blues contains 16 skill books / recipes ; Dead Money also contains 12 ; and Honest Hearts can contain anywhere from 0 to 8 , 0 to 2 per workbench ( and may require a bit of saving and reloading before entering caves ) . With diligence in finding skill books / recipes ( all well - documented on this wikia ) and a bit of reloading in Honest Hearts to generate all 8 , you can max out all skills without any other special character effort . With simple variations , the task of maxing out skills can become easier or harder . A character with Intelligence of 10 with Educated at level 4 and starting off with Skilled will be short only 408 skill points , not including skill points from initial character creation ( which will yield at least 111 : 45 from three Tag ! skills and 22 from Repair / Medicine / Science , ignoring Luck ) . This character will need only very few skill books by comparison , about 42 if all other SPECIAL stats are left at 5 . All of the above also ignores the effect of implants from the New Vegas medical clinic , the special Old World Blues perks , and other perks , traits , equipment that can effectively make permanent alterations to your SPECIAL stats or skills . These can range from Tag ! , which gives 15 skill points to a skill ; getting an implant or taking Intense Training to increase Luck to an odd number , which yields 13 extra skill points ; or even something like Night Person which yields up to 12 skill points ( + 2 Perception and Intelligence ) at night . In short , due to the increased level cap , extra content , and perks / traits from DLCs , the task of maxing out your skills is nowhere near as exacting as it once was , requiring incredibly specific SPECIAL scores or perk / trait selection . Even " dumb " characters ( Intelligence of 1 and no special perks or traits ) will be able to max out many skills . Note that when taking Logan ' s Loophole , maxing out your skills becomes impossible due to the reduced level cap ( unless the skilled trait glitch is used ) . Even with perfectly optimized SPECIAL scores , Skilled as the other trait , all possible implants , including the effects of completing Lonesome Road and Old World Blues , and the following perks : Comprehension , Educated , 10 Intense Training s , Tag ! , Solar Powered , and Walker Instinct ( all perks that give you non - contradictory ways to increase your skills ) , you will be exactly 19 skill points shy of maxing out all your skills . Not to mention that such an exacting character will probably not be very fun to play and will be trying to cancel out one of the major benefits to Logan ' s Loophole ( double - duration skill magazines ) . Comprehension / Educated perks . Allowing for some variation due to S . P . E . C . I . A . L . point distribution and raising those stats by the Intense Training perk , you will normally end up at level 50 some 140 points short of maxed skills . This assumes you buy all 7 implants pertaining to stats and the Lonesome Road extra point , find some 80 of the books , and do not take the Comprehension / Educated / Tag ! perks or the above temporary perks , or Logan ' s Loophole . Hence , taking both the Comprehension and Educated perks is definitely overkill , netting you some 80 points and 92 points respectively . Taking both makes for some accelerated skill - progression early and mid - game , but little effectively so . You might consider taking both if you have a stat distribution giving you a low skill raise , i . e . high STR and low INT , but might as well make up for it with the Skilled trait . The latter may be a very good choice anyway as outlined here . While the Comprehension perk depends on diligence in searching books , it might be preferable to Educated , as it will also make skill mags twice as effective on top of the bargain and net almost the same number of points as Educated . With Comprehension those will give a major boost of + 20 to the relevant skill and enable you , e . g . to get past some locks , computers , or skill dialogue checks otherwise out of your skill range by a large margin . Some missing skill points at lvl 50 are far apart from tragic . For skills not used constantly ( like weapons skills , survival or sneaking ) , but only in foreseeable occasions ( such as barter , lockpick , science , repair , speech ) , there is always some lightweight apparel or chem at hand , giving those skills a boost for up to 10 points .