Fallout was great except for one thing- very little variety in character builds. You either build guns or melee. Or if you're really dedicated, do a charisma run with no combat. Perks spice things up a bit, but I almost always end up playing basically the same character.
I guess that's the downside of a classless system.
I agree that it could use more diversity, but there are nice builds:
- Diplosniper (AKA the cookie-cutter Per Jorner build)
- Fast Shooter/Gunslinger (Fast Shot, 9-10AP, get a lower-AP weapon like the Magnum)
- Lone Sniper (Focus on crits and PE, no companions, full implants)
- Melee/Unarmed
- Fast Shot Melee/Unarmed (in FO1 only)
- Solo Melee/Unarmed
- Pure Diplomat
- Dumb (aka Extra Dificulty Mode)
- Junkie (tailor your stats according to drug bonuses, keep yourself in constant drug use)
Then there's the choice of Weapon Skill (generally Small Guns or Melee/Unarmed, but Big and Energy can be worth it too. Throwing is junk). Another choice is going Good or Bad Karma - in 1 its bugged because everyone hates you with bad karma, but in 2 you can do a lot of fun, evil and dastardly shit, and get paid for it.
Evil in 2 is practically an alternate gamepath. Most people shun you, the bad guys think you're badass. Most party-members won't join or will abandon you. After -500 karma or with Childkiller, Bounty Hunters will come after you, and they're some of the hardest encounters in the game, but beating them gets you better weapons earlier. A lot of people won't like or even talk to you if you're a Childkiller, Berserker or Slaver. You get to do a lot of different, nasty quests for people that you would normally be fighting in the good karma playthrough.
The system could be better on a lot of things, tho:
- It really needs the ability of going past 10 on stats, or otherwise its simply not worth it to max most stats, they're lost points. Strength in FO2 is the worst case, PA + Perk + Implant gives you +6 ST. Hell, ST is a really weak stat in general, the bonus in melee combat is rather weak, compared to, say, building a crit-oriented character.
- PE, IN and AG are king. ST, EN and CH are lame. LK is meh.
- Ultimate domination of Small Guns, Lockpick and Speech. The other skills are either tangential, or can be gotten from books. Sneak's main feature is that it allows you to do "stealth-kills" in one round, if you do it right.