Fallout 4 Character Creation

In Fallout 4, the creation and development of your character is under your control. The decisions you make at character creation and at level-ups, as well as the gameplay choices you make, contribute to your specific character build.

Considerations for building a character
Building a character is largely a matter of mathematics, although given the lack of a level cap in Fallout 4 all characters will eventually tend toward max stats. As it would take an exuberant amount of experience to max a character in Fallout 4, it is still important to consider wanted SPECIAL and Perks for a given save file.

It is possible that future expansions will contain more perks such as in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas - although so far this can only be speculated upon.

SPECIAL
During the quest War Never Changes, you will choose your initial SPECIAL, which have a direct effect on:
 * which perks will become available to you at level-ups.
 * your derived statistics.

SPECIAL stats can be raised during the game by:
 * choosing to improve them at level up;
 * finding bobbleheads;
 * finding You're SPECIAL!;
 * wearing clothing and armor items;

The maximum value for a SPECIAL stat during character creation is 10.

Perks
Chosen perks have a variety of gameplay effects.

Which perks become available to you depends on
 * your level.
 * your SPECIAL stats.

You get to choose one perk or improve a special stat one point at every even level-up.

Equipment
Clothing and armor can have a direct effect on your SPECIAL stats but won't fulfill any SPECIAL requirements for perks.