Fallout: New Vegas skills

This page lists all 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 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 skill magazines 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 V.A.T.S accuracy and increases weapon wobble. For melee/unarmed, the penalty is a slower rate of attack.

For non-Unarmed weapons, the skill score also increases the damage done (where base damage is the damage listed on an individual weapon page):
 * $$Final\ Damage=Base\ Damage\times\Bigg(\frac{50+Skill\times1}{100}\Bigg)$$

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 1.5x base damage.

The Unarmed skill does not affect unarmed weapon damage this way; instead, it adds 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 having a weapon selected but not equipped. This happens if the currently equipped weapon uses an ammo type with a damage multiplier, e.g. a shotgun with buckshot ammo. Unequipping the 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 previous games, Fallout: New Vegas uses a score-based skill check in place of a probability-based skill check, meaning that skills meet a minimum value, or they do not - chance does not play a part. For example, in order to convince Easy Pete to provide some dynamite to protect Goodsprings during the quest Ghost Town Gunfight, a minimum Explosives skill of 25 is required. If the 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.
 * $$2 + (2 \times \mbox{Stat}) + \left\lceil\frac{\mbox{Luck}}{2}\right\rceil$$

Example: A starting Endurance of five and a starting Luck of five will gives an initial Unarmed skill of 15.
 * $$2 + (2 \times 5) + \left\lceil\frac{5}{2}\right\rceil = 15$$

Later changes to the SPECIAL 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 books) 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:
 * Strength 1
 * Intelligence and Perception 3
 * Luck all, but only at 1/4 of the stat score and rounded up.
 * Agility, Charisma, and Endurance 2 each

Maxed skills
With all DLCs, it becomes fairly trivial to max out all skills at 100. At the base level, 1300 skill points are needed for complete maximization (100 points for 13 skills). At level 1, 45 skill points are received for free by selecting the 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 needed to 1060 (1300 - (45 + 15 x 13)).

For 49 levels at 5 intelligence, 612 skill points (12.5 x 49) are received, which is enough to get all but 6 skills completely maxed out (remaining 448 / 85, rounding up).

Taking Educated at level 4 grants another 92 skill points, with 356 remaining to completely max out. Taking Comprehension at level 6 (and saving skill books until then) means that reading 89 skill books is enough max out all skills.

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 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.

Note that when taking Logan's Loophole, maxing out all skills becomes impossible due to the reduced level cap, unless the Skilled trait glitch is used.