Skill Rate

 is a derived statistic in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout Tactics, Van Buren and J.E. Sawyer's Fallout RPG.

Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics
The amount of skill points received on each level up is primarily dependant on the intelligence of the player. Every level of experience will give the player character  skill points. It might also be furthermore modified by certain traits or perks, notably, the Skilled and Gifted traits, and the Educated perk.

Your character can also tag 3 skills. Tag skills are skills your character specializes in. Each tag skill gains +20% and increases twice as fast. With the Tag! Perk you gain an additional 4th. Tag skill.

Fallout 3
Skill points are gained by the formula. The Educated perk can be taken for 3 additional skill points per level.

Fallout: New Vegas
Bethesda/Obsidian has gone to great lengths to handicap the player. In this regard, with the current system now employed, it it now impossible to max out your character to a perfect "10/100" state.

In Fallout 3 (F3 for short), a player could set their Intelligence to 10 and gain a whopping 658 points if they chose the Educated Perk at Level 4. F3 Intelligence works on a formula of IN+10. Unfortunately in New Vegas (NV for short), a player who chooses and IN of 10 with the NV Educated Perk can only gain 473 points. This is because the Intelligence formula was change from IN+10 to (IN x 0.5)+9.5 (rounded up).

For example, an IN of 9 will grant the player 14.5 skills points per level-up. As stated in the official strategy guide on page 5 under Intelligence, and I quote... "Any 'half-points' are carried over to an even level number. So an adventurer with a 9 Intelligence gains 14 Skill Points at level 3, then 15 Skill Points at Level 4, and so on."

In Fallout: New Vegas, all of the perks granting additional skill points have been redacted or removed entirely. The Cyborg Perk is gone, so the 10 extra points to Energy Weapons are gone. The Silent Running Perk no longer grants 10 10 points to the Sneak Skill. Daddy's Boy/Girl, Gun Nut, Little Leaguer, Thief, Scoundrel, and Size Matters (along with their ascending ranks or level ups) have all also been removed.

There are no long 25 skill books for each skill granting 1 point per book (+2 with the F3 Comprehension Perk). This means in Fallout 3, you could have acquired somewhere in the area of 325 points with collection skill books (650 points with the F3 Comprehension Perk). In New Vegas, there are only 4 books per skill (except for Explosives which only 3 books exist) granting 3 points a piece (+1 with NV Comprehension Perk). This means that you can only acquire a measly 153 points (204 with NV Comprehension Perk).

The Educated Perk now only grants a +2 point addition to later level-ups rather than the "F3" traditional +3 points.

So far, the only skill point related perk to have survived the transition to New Vegas is the new version of the G.O.A.T. exam which is given by the Doctor and grants you 3 Tagged skills for 15 points a piece (45 points total). There is only one perk which also grants skill points, and that is the Tag! Perk, which as before, adds 15 points to another skill of your choice one time only.

Lastly, the only other way to attain more skill points at this time is by utilizing the Intense Training Perk to raise your stats by 1 point, which in effect raise which ever pertaining skill or skills by 2 points.

For now, or until Bethesda/Obsidian adds downloadable content and hopefully raise the level cap, the player will have to rely on skill-assisting clothing and items to help their skills in times of need. *I.E.* if a player needs to pass a rather difficult speech check, then even a level 30 character would need to wear certain clothing and/or read a skill magazine to pass said speech check.

J.E. Sawyer's Fallout RPG
Skill points are gained by the formula.