Traits are back in Fallout: New Vegas after a brief absence in the last Fallout title. They are essentially bonus perks that have both positive and negative effects on your character. You may choose up to two when you create your character, but you can choose to pick less if you prefer. Of course… the expansions have added a few new traits, some of which are really, really great… This makes all the perks that were formerly mediocre seem downright detrimental-ratings have been adjusted, harshly.

The Sink Psychiatric Evaluation¶

During the expansion “Old World Blues”, you’ll be able to consult the Auto-Doc in The Sink… once its personality matrix is back online, anyways. One of the many tasks it can perform is to give you a “psychiatric evalution”. While this is synonymous with nonsense in reality, in New Vegas, it allows you to re-select your Traits. So… if you were starting to regret picking/not picking something earlier, you get a second chance at it! And in case you’re wondering, no, you cannot level up past level 30 and pick the trait-that-shall-not-be-named, nor can you pick ‘Wild Wasteland’ and score both the YCS and the Alien Blaster. You can, however, drop skilled and pick up another trait without dropping your Skill Points. Score! Built to Destroy seems like a good replacement… gotta love some critical hits… Or, if your Skill Points are somewhat lacking you can pick Skilled again and get another five points to each skill! Seriously.

Built to Destroy¶

The Flamer that burns twice as bright burns half as long. All weapons have +3% chance to Critically Hit, but equipment condition decays 15% faster.

Three percent critical rate doesn’t sound that great at first, but it is equal to three points of Luck, and over the course of the game you will be scoring lots of hits… On the other hand, 15% weapon degradation kind of sucks. Here’s the rub, however. Early weapons will be relatively plentiful, allowing you to just recombine them and fix them at will. More expensive weapons, like the Riot Shotgun, Brush Gun, Sniper Rifle, etc., could end up costing several thousand Caps to fix… which is not a good thing. You can, however, create Weapon Repair Kits at a Workbench, allowing you to repair weapons for a handful of Caps using a variety of items that can be purchased from most any merchant. This will save you thousands of Caps, and makes the downside of this trait negligible. Still, it’s a mediocre trait, you can pick better.

Claustrophobia¶

You have a fear of enclosed spaces (probably because of the mutants that live there). You have +1 to S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes when outside, but suffer -1 when indoors.

The first of several give/take traits which give you bonuses half the time and penalties the other half of the time (or give you a bonus all the time to one statistic, but a penalty to another). Why suffer during half the game for a benefit that’s not really going to give you most of what you’ll want from S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, like perk selections? Also, once you max all your skills at 100, the skill point bonuses from your boosted attributes won’t count, so in the long-run, this trait is more detrimental than useful.

Early Bird¶

Hey early risers! Enjoy a +2 to each of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes from 6 am to 12 pm, but suffer a -1 from 6 pm to 6 am when you’re not at your best.

It’s Claustrophobia, with a time factor. If you weren’t playing on Hardcore mode you could manipulate the time so you’re almost always playing at your best… but come on, this is lousy.

Fast Shot¶

While using Guns and Energy Weapons, you fire 20% more quickly but your shots are 20% less accurate.

Accuracy and shooting speed are both important factors, neither of which you should sacrifice to boost the other. There are better traits out there.

Four Eyes¶

While wearing any type of glasses, you have +1 PER. Without glasses you have -1 PER.

Glasses are plentiful and cheap… but the fact that you can also just wear a hat for the same bonus makes this trait less useful. Oh, and the fact that Perception isn’t terribly useful in this game. Also note that this is an equipment bonus to your Perception-not a permanent one. In fact, picking Four Eyes permanently lowers your base Perception-which is then supposedly made up by receiving an extra point to Perception from glasses. There are lots of stupid traits out there, but this is the only one that makes your character weaker just so you can break even by wearing some clothes.

Good Natured¶

You’re Good Natured at heart, more prone to solving problems with your mind than violence. You gain +5 to Barter, Medicine, Repair, Science, and Speech, but have -5 to Energy Weapons, Explosives, Guns, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed.

It’s not worth considering anymore. You’ll get all your skills up to 100 with any smart build, so any skill point traits are useless.

Heavy Handed¶

Your melee and unarmed attacks do more damage, but less critical hit damage.

This trait makes you choose between damage per hit, and critical hit damage. It seems pretty obvious that you’re going to score more normal hits than critical hits, so that’s probably not a bad option. However, if you then go ahead and get Finesse, Better Criticals, and Ninja, you’re just gimping yourself.

Hoarder¶

You gain +25 lbs. to your carrying capacity, but suffer a -1 to all attributes any time the weight you’re carrying drops below 160 lbs.

Seriously, this game is going to kill me. Who thought of this? The extra carry weight you’ll get will be offset by the fact that you can take advantage of the ability to travel light without gimping your character. Die please.

Hot Blooded¶

When your health drops below 50% you gain +10% more damage, but you also suffer -2 to your Agility and Perception attributes.

The health requirement isn’t so low that you’re unlikely to ever reach it, and +10% damage is… okay. In the midst of combat, a few Action Points and Perception aren’t going to hurt you, so at least say this trait is potentially more beneficial than harmful.

Kamikaze¶

You have +10 Action Points but your reckless nature causes you to have -2 Damage Threshold.

In the grand scheme of things, two points of Damage Threshold isn’t a huge deal. With Power Armor and Toughness you’ll easily gloss over this deficiency. On the surface it might seem like it’s saying you’re taking two more points of damage per hit… but if your Damage Threshold is still higher than the enemies’ damage with Kamikaze slowing you down, you’re really not suffering at all. That said, many enemies like Cazadores and Deathclaws will easily surpass your Damage Threshold. At the end of the day the two-point penalty is fairly unnoticeable later on in the game, but the ten point bonus to your Action Points boosts a VATS system that is nowhere near as strong as it was in Fallout 3.

Logans Loophole¶

No one’s going to put you out to pasture ‘cause you’re going to stay young (and level 30) forever! You’ll never again become addicted to chems, and they’ll last twice as long… but after level 30 you can kiss experience, perks, and skill points goodbye!

Well… uh… yeah… twenty levels of perks and skill points, wasted? That’s just… no. Just no. Addiction is cheap and easy enough to cure, and while doubling the duration of chems can be nice, nothing stops you from just popping another one. If you must pick this perk, do so by taking Psychiatric Evaluation in The Sink (Old World Blues), after you’ve already hit level 50.

Loose Cannon¶

From Frag Grenades to Throwing Spears, you can throw weapons 30% faster at the cost of 25% less range.

What do Frag Grenades and Throwing Spears have in common? They’re not decisively powerful. This trait allows you to waste more of them, while sacrificing range. Granted, you’ll still lob thrown weapons pretty far, but this whole trait just stinks of who-gives-a-crap.

Skilled¶

You’re skilled, but not experienced. You gain +5 points to every skill, but you suffer -10% from experience gained from now on.

Skilled is, hands down, the best trait in the game. Five skill points per skill? That’s 85 skill points! Almost as good as the Educated Perk-one of the best skill point boosting perks in the game. And you get to pick it-for free! The downside is a -10% experience penalty… which if anything just extends the game. Experience is everywhere, you can glitch it, you can kill another Deathclaw, pick another lock… whatever, but 85 skill points is a huge bonus. Pick this trait. Don’t argue. Just… pick it.

Small Frame¶

Due to your small size, you have +1 AGL but your limbs are more easily crippled.

First let’s look at the bonus. Agility is a fairly useful attribute, governing two skills and influencing your Action Points, draw speed, and reload speed. And what is the downside? More frequently crippled limbs? If you’re not playing in Hardcore mode, this is a no-brainer. Who cares about crippled limbs? Beds and Stimpaks are plentiful. If you’re playing in Hardcore mode… well, still, who cares about crippled limbs? You can buy Doctor’s Bags at every doctor in the game. It seems like a small price to pay for a better SPECIAL stat.

Trigger Discipline¶

While using Guns and Energy Weapons, you fire 20% more slowly but are 20% more accurate.

Pretty much the opposite of Fast Shot, and again, you want both accuracy and speed, not one at the expense of the other. Pass on this trait.

Wild Wasteland¶

Wild Wasteland unleashes the most bizarre and silly elements of post- apocalyptic America. Not for the faint of heart or the serious of temperament.

Seriously. What good fallout game doesn’t have abundant references to Monty Python and alien encounters? This perk might not do anything for your build, but it should read “Remember the old Fallout games? Pick this trait to make New Vegas more like them.” Nostalgia makes this an interesting choice, indeed.

Suggested Build, Traits¶

Okay, be prepared to be surprised… Pick Skilled and Small Frame as your traits. See? You’re surprised because you were warned about a surprise… and there wasn’t! These are probably the best traits you can pick; happily take the 85 Skill Points and +1 Agility boost, and laugh away the limb crippling and experience penalty. Laugh! Oh, Built to Destroy is pretty nifty, too. It can easily substitute for Small Frame.

Once you get to “Old World Blues” and get the Auto-Doc back online, you can have it perform a psychiatric evaluation on you, like was mentioned earlier. This allows you to reset your Traits. The best exploit to take advantage of here is with the Skilled Trait. Since it gives you a one- time permanent boost to your skills when you pick it, you won’t lose its bonuses if you drop it now. At this point in time you can switch to Built to Destroy and Small Frame, or pick Skilled again and get another +5 bonus to all your skills. Awesome.