Best starting traits in Fallout: New Vegas
Traits are a lovely little twist on character creation in Fallout: New Vegas. They tweak your build in ways that can make fights smoother, conversations smoother, or—if you pick the right one—make the Mojave even stranger than it already is. Honestly, who’s turning that down?
From Wild Wasteland to Good-Natured, here are the best traits in Fallout: New Vegas.
Right at the top of the game you can choose up to two traits. You don’t have to pick any, but most builds benefit a lot from them. They’re permanent (without mods or console magic), with one early chance to reshuffle when you first step out into the wasteland.
With that in mind, here are the traits worth grabbing:
- Skilled: +5 to every skill across the board, with a -10% XP gain for the whole run. It’s an absurd early-game boost even if your leveling pace slows a bit. Note: when the “rebuild your character” prompt appears as you first hit the wasteland, you can select Skilled again for another +5 to all skills; the XP penalty stays the same.
- Good-Natured: +5 to Speech, Medicine, Repair, Science, and Barter, but -5 to Energy Weapons, Explosives, Guns, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed. Great trade if you want a talk-your-way-through-it approach or a support-focused, non-combat lean.
- Built to Destroy: +3% critical chance, but weapons wear out 15% faster. Extra crit chance is almost always a win, and repairs are manageable. Skip it if you’re building around non-crit damage (like explosives).
- Claustrophobia: +1 to every “special” attribute (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) when you’re outdoors, -1 when indoors. Since a lot of tricky encounters happen outside, you’ll usually come out ahead.
- Early Bird: +2 to all “special” attributes from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m., but -1 from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Plan tough quests for the morning and you’ll feel the difference.
- Wild Wasteland: Doesn’t touch your stats—just sprinkles the Mojave with oddball encounters and pop-culture nods. It also unlocks the alien blaster and the holy hand grenade. Perfect if you want a weirder, more memorable run.
If “fun” is the priority, Wild Wasteland is hard to beat. For raw power, Skilled is the safest overall pick since it benefits almost any build. Pairing Skilled with Good-Natured sets you up nicely for a smooth-talking, utility-heavy playthrough without leaning on gunplay.
Leaning into crits? Built to Destroy plus Skilled gives a clean damage spike early on.
Claustrophobia and Early Bird take a bit of clock-watching, but if you run them together and schedule morning excursions, you’ll feel downright overpowered when the sun’s up.