Fallout: New Vegas skills

History
Like its predecessor, Fallout 3, previous skills like Doctor and Traps have been omitted, while brand new skills like Survival having been added to the roster. In addition, Small Guns has been renamed Guns. Big Guns has been eliminated, with the weapons from that skill being placed into the other skill categories as appropriate. The Throwing skill remains absent, with new throwing weapons like the Throwing spear being categorized as Melee Weapons. Obsidian Entertainment has also gone to great lengths to emphasize that the amount of skill a character possess will influence dialog choices according, e.g. if one has enough Explosives skill, Easy Pete will provide some dynamite to protect Goodsprings.

Formula
The initial value of each skill is a base value of 2, plus an amount depending on a character's value in the relevant attribute, plus a bonus determined by their Luck attribute, rounded up.


 * $$2 + (\mbox{Stat} \times 2) + \left\lceil\frac{\mbox{Luck}}{2}\right\rceil$$

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 and a starting Luck of 5 will give you an initial Unarmed skill of 15.


 * $$2 + (5 \times 2) + \left\lceil\frac{5}{2}\right\rceil = 15$$

Later changes to the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat have a similar change to the respective skill.

At level up, the character will distribute 10 (12 with the perk Educated) skill points plus a number equal to half their Intelligence. With a IN of 10, you can distribute up to 15 (17 with the perk Educated) skill points when leveling up. Unlike with Luck, skill points from an odd Intelligence don't round, the .5's are tracked giving a skill point every other level.

Maximizing Skill points
Thus far it is possible to achieve 1083 out of the maximum 1300 skill points. It doesn’t allow much choice in choosing Perks or starting stats and might not be fun for many players. Starting stats need to be Intelligence 10, Luck 9, Perception 5, and Endurance 5 (so that 5 implants can be taken) while the rest are 4. This will give a base of 237 points plus the 45 points for the three tag skills totaling 282. Taking Educated at level four when it becomes available allows a gain of 502 points by level 30. Additionally, skill books with Comprehension will give you 16 points per skill plus another 4 for the fifth Big Book of Science if you find/read them all adding 212 to your pool of skill points for a grand total of 996. The last few points are gained from taking Tag! and SPECIAL increases. SPECIAL increases will give you +2 per increase per skill that ability score modifies. Using all of your perks minus the three slots to gain educated, Comprehension and Tag! there is a possible 12 ability increases. Additionally, 5 increases from the surgical implants for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma and Agility are possible for a total of 17. If these increases are used to max perception and put an average of 7.66 in Endurance, Charisma and Agility, it will squeeze out another 76 points. Your final stats will be Perception, Intelligence and Luck 10, Strength 5 and a minimum of 5 in the other remaining stats with 8 points to assign as desired. Your average skill will be over 80 allowing skill magazines to max your skills temporarily. Remember if you are looking to max a skill permanently, keep track of the skill books read, so you don’t spend skill points when a book would have sufficed. Also with the newly added Dead Money DLC pack it is possible to get an extra 52 points from skill books, 85 points if you have Intelligence 10 and the Educated perk for the extra 5 levels, and 4 points if you use the Intense Training Perk totaling an extra 141 points making it possible to get 1224 out of 1300 skill points.