Welcome to Fallout 2.

If this is your first playthrough, or even your second or third, then I recommend being unconcerned with min/maxing to achieve total efficiency. Instead, focus on experimenting with different builds until one feels right for you. The SPECIAL system of the Fallout franchise is wonderfully flexible. Even 'sub-optimal' builds can still see your journey through to the end.

However, unlike the also excellent Fallout: New Vegas, there are lots of boring or useless perks (for various reasons). Sure, one doesn't have to have make a character with maxed Agility to have a enjoyable trek across the Wasteland. Yet, there are skills one can ignore in any build and unbalanced traits to only pick as a personal challenge.

What This Guide Is and Isn't

As with Fallout 1, the Agility stat in Fallout 2 is op. One cannot go wrong with AG 8 and it's good practice to have it at 6 minimum for any character, unless intentionally pursuing a challenging run. Of the 6 builds, 2 focus on ranged combat, 2 on close combat, and 2 on staying out of combat as much as possible. There are 2 variations of each, one with the Gifted trait and one without. I limited myself to 5 recommended perks for each, as this allows some flexibility in picking the other 3. I say 3 because these builds assume players will reach at least 24 and don't have the Skilled trait, which means they'll have at least 8 perks total. The level max in FO2 is 99, but even a character in the vanilla game doing the most will probably not reach further than levels 27 - 30 by the very end.

My commentary and build recommendations are based on what's true for the base, unmodded game. The Unofficial Patch[github.com] and Restoration Project[github.com] make alterations that, while not significantly different from the base game in terms of character creation, are noticeable enough to make different choices (e.g. perks that literally don't function in the base game work as intended with them). Finally, it almost goes without saying that for total overhauls like Olympus 2077, you'll want to consult a different guide!

Here are their stats:

S 6
P 9
E 4
C 4
I 9
A 10
L 6

Traits: Gifted, Small Frame

Tagged Skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Awareness, Action Boy/Girl, Better Criticals, Bonus Rate of Fire, Sniper

Other Thoughts: For the Sniper perk, which you'll want to get when it's first available at level 24, Perception and Agility must be at minimum 8 and Small Guns 80%.

If more skill points per level are desired, then Perception can be lowered to 8 and Intelligence maxed out at 10. A big reason for such a high Intelligence is to balance the 5 skill point loss from Gifted. Another major reason is that a high Intelligence plus good Speech will open up most dialog options. Despite the loss of skill points from Gifted, this build can do pretty much everything.

For reference, the formula for skill points is 5 + (2 * Intelligence). Without the 5, it's simply 2 * Intelligence, so a score of 9 will give 18 skill points per level, which is a very good amount. But do not lower Intelligence below 6: Bonus Rate of Fire requires a minimum Intelligence of 6 to become available at level 15.

It's also viable to drop Strength from 6 to 5 (at the expense of some carry weight) and Intelligence from 9 to 8, then raise Luck to 8. Luck is important because Sniper, unlike Slayer, does not automatically upgrade hits into crits. The formula Sniper uses to upgrade all successful hits into crits is Luck * 10% (up to a maximum of 95%). So a Luck 5 gives you a coin toss. If the Sniper roll fails, your character can still score a critical the normal way.

If having more than 1 companion is unwanted, then lowering Charisma to 2 is fine. (With 2 being the lowest a stat can go with Gifted.) With Charisma 2, Strength 5, and Perception 8, then Luck can be raised to 10.

Conversely, if you want a squad of big damn heroes, lower two of these three stats by 1 point: Perception, Intelligence, and Agility (if lowering Agility to 9, be sure to grab Gain Agility at level 12). Then put the 2 points into Charisma. This combined with Magnetic Personality (available at level 6) gets you 4 companions. If you want the maximum of 5, you'll need to raise Charisma to 8 somehow and also get Magnetic Personality.

Here are their stats:

S 5
P 8
E 4
C 4
I 6
A 8
L 6

Traits: Small Frame

Tagged Skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Awareness, Action Boy/Girl, Better Criticals, Bonus Rate of Fire, Sniper

Other Thoughts: ironically, this version of the ranged combat specialist earns slightly fewer skill points per level than the one with Gifted. At Intelligence 6, the total skill points per level is 17.

Lowering Charisma to 2 allows Strength to be raised to 6 and Perception to 8. Unfortunately, raising Charisma to 6 is not viable without lowering other stats in ways that would make the build extra challenging. If a third companion is desired with this variation of the ranged fighter, then selecting Magnetic Personality is preferable to increasing Charisma imo.

Here are their stats:

S 8
P 6
E 6
C 6
I 7
A 8
L 6

Traits: Gifted, Bloody Mess

Tagged Skills: Unarmed or Melee Weapons, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Action Boy/Girl, Better Criticals, Bonus Hand to Hand Attacks, Slayer, Toughness

Other Thoughts: Slayer requires Strength 8 and Agility 8 plus Unarmed 80%. However, it's possible to raise unarmed to 80% or higher fairly easily[fallout.fandom.com] without tagging it.

Endurance and Luck both need to be at least 6 to access Toughness.

Ironically enough, swapping Strength and Perception would create a solid stat line for a Chosen One who focuses on ranged weapon combat. Just not a min/maxed one.

If you don't care about having a squad of badasses, then lower Charisma to as little as 2 and use the extra 4 points to raise Agility to 10 and either Endurance to 8 or Intelligence to 9.

Because none of the perks I listed as "essential" have an Intelligence requirement, it's possible to lower Intelligence all the way down to 5 or even 4. Doing this will limit dialog options though and noticeably reduce skill points per level.

Perception is less important for a close combat focused build, but not totally useless as Perception also affects sequence and distance from enemies in random encounters. More importantly for this build, a Perception of at least 6 is required for Better Criticals.

Dropping Strength to 7 (since the basic T-51b Power Armor raises it by +3 anyway) enables raising a stat like Agility or Intelligence too. But as said, Strength needs to be at least 8 for Slayer, so if one lowers Strength to raise another stat, one must get Gain Strength before level 24.

Here are their stats:

S 7
P 6
E 4
C 4
I 6
A 8
L 6

Traits: Small Frame, Bloody Mess

Tagged Skills: Unarmed or Melee Weapons, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Action Boy/Girl, Better Criticals, Bonus Hand to Hand Attacks, Gain Strength, Slayer

Other Thoughts: Without Gifted providing extra stat points, this fighter is comparatively more fragile. They also need Gain Strength before level 24 to ensure Slayer's availability.

If at least 2 companions is unwanted, drop Charisma to 1 and redistribute those 3 points to Strength and Agility. If more than 2 companions are desired, then Magnetic Personality is a must.

Finally, if you want your Chosen One to solve all problems with combat, and you don't care about dialog options or companions, do this: make Charisma 2 and Intelligence 4, then use those 4 points to raise Strength and Agility to 8 and Endurance to 6. For the complete bloodthirster experience, replace the tag on Speech with another skill.

This character is a bit different from the ones above in that I'll give 2 versions of the same build: one pairing Gifted with Finesse and a high Luck stat and the other pairing Gifted with Fast Shot and a high Agility stat. They're similar, but differences in stats and perk choice create different playstyles.


S 5
P 6
E 4
C 8
I 10
A 6
L 8

Traits: Gifted, Finesse

Tagged Skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Magnetic Personality, More Criticals, Better Criticals, Master Trader, Living Anatomy


S 5
P 6
E 4
C 8
I 10
A 8
L 6

Traits: Gifted, Fast Shot

Tagged Skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Magnetic Personality, Bonus Rate of Fire, Master Trader, Living Anatomy, Action Boy/Girl


Despite being oriented towards resolving issues with their reason and charm, rather than with fists and guns, I'm still tagging Small Guns for both versions. It's worthwhile to have a least 1 combat skill tagged and Small Guns is the most useful and versatile. A Strength of 5 is viable for most weapons. With Power Armor, you'll be able to wield anything and everything without penalty. Lastly, with maxed Intelligence, the Gifted Diplomat will earn 20 skill points a level, which is enough to quickly boost skills like Science, Doctor, and Barter.

Here are their stats:

S 4
P 5
E 4
C 8
I 8
A 6
L 5

Traits: Good Natured and One Hander or Fast Shot

Tagged Skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Speech

5 Essential Perks: Magnetic Personality, Master Trader, Action Boy/Girl, Quick Pockets, Living Anatomy

Other Thoughts: If Master Trader is unwanted, it's viable to lower Charisma to 6 and raise Intelligence to 10. With Intelligence 8, you're already earning 21 skill points a level.

Good Natured weakens combat skills, yes, but this character is designed around overcoming that. Either One Hander or Fast Shot can help make up for the loss by increasing either the accuracy or the frequency of attacks.

One Hander also syncs well with Strength 4. Though one is limited in options for weapons at such a low Strength, it's still viable. The non-Gifted Diplomat primarily uses pistols (like the Desert Eagle or, later, Gauss and Plasma Pistols) and one-handed SMGs (like the Grease Gun and P90c). Of course, once in a suit of Power Armor, meeting the Strength requirement won't be an issue and One Hander's +20% accuracy bonus stays helpful.

If going down the Fast Shot route instead, you'll want to pair it with Bonus Rate of Fire. BRoF requires a Perception and Intelligence of 6 and Agility 7. So change the stats by lowering Charisma to 6, investing those points into Perception and Agility (bringing them to 6 and 7, respectively), then grabbing Gain Agility.

Reviewing the regular perks as they exist in the unmodded game only!

Action Boy/Girl: essential for any character of every build type. Although, if one's agility is an odd number (e.g. 7 or 9), picking Gain Agility at level 12 instead of Action Boy/Girl is wiser. You'll get another action point plus all the benefits of increasing a primary stat (you'll still want to get Action Boy/Girl later though).

Adrenaline Rush: utter rubbish.

Awareness: the one perk every guide says is essential, and you only need a Perception of 5. Knowing an NPC's exact amount of hit points, their specific weapon, and the total ammo in said weapon (if it uses ammo) is so good I can't deny its excellence. But after hundreds of hours with FO2, it can be an interesting challenge to reject conventional wisdom and not choose Awareness.

Better Criticals: basically required if your character engages in combat at all. The exceptions to that are if your character won't pick up Slayer or Sniper, or isn't built around scoring crits.

Bonus HtH Attacks: a cornerstone perk for those fighting with melee weapons or unarmed.

Bonus HtH Damage: the +2 damage isn't much on its own and taking 2 or all 3 ranks is a heavy investment for mid benefits at best. Could be worthwhile if a character ignores Slayer or Better/More Criticals. But unless intentionally doing a challenge run to see how well a melee fighter could do without eventually having Slayer, there's not much reason to invest in this.

Bonus Move: nice to have for everybody, and a big help for close combat fighters.

Bonus Ranged Damage: only 2 ranks and not very useful for ranged weapons, with or without Sniper. However, because the +2 damage applies to every bullet in a burst, Big Gun characters who primarily use the Bozar or miniguns, and Small Gun characters who primarily use burst fire weapons, will see a decent benefit from even 1 rank.

Bonus Rate of Fire: what Bonus Hand to Hand Attacks is to melee this is to ranged attacks.

Cautious Nature: no.

Comprehension: if it's more skill points one wants, there are other perks for that. This is of extremely marginal usefulness.

Cult of Personality: completely bugged in the vanilla game. If one truly wants to try this, install the Restoration Project.

Demolition Expert: sounds cool on paper, but in practice FO2, unlike the subsequent Fallout games, just doesn't have enough explosives available to justify the perk.

Dodger: nice to have! But as in all Fallout games, the best defense is a good offense. If for some reason a character has the Kamikaze trait, then this is a decent choice.

Earlier Sequence: going first in the first round of combat is nice. But sequence in FO2 is poorly designed. This isn't Pathfinder or other similar isometric RPGs, where there is initiative and so turn order matters. After the first round, sequence has practically no effect[fallout.fandom.com]. Skip.

Educated: I actually like this one! If you want more skill points to utilize, but want to avoid the many "+[x%] to skill" perks, this fits the bill. It would be more useful if it was available at level 3. As is, one rank at level 6 will net your character an additional 36 skill points by level 24. At the end of the day, though, more interesting options are available at level 6.

Empathy: kinda fun to try once just to see what it's like. Otherwise ignore.

Explorer: special encounters in Fallout 2 are generally very good and this gives the strongest bonus[fallout.fandom.com] to finding them. But if one of the wanderer perks is desired, then Scout and Ranger are slightly better imo.

Faster Healing: no point. Healing isn't primarily done by resting or letting days pass. It's done with stimpacks, paid medics, or the player's own medical skills.

Fortune Finder: this is a great perk in Fallout 4! But this is FO2. If one needs extra money, hoping to find more in random encounters is a poor way to do so.

Gain: the Gain SPECIAL stat perks are context dependent. If your build has the stat requirements for desired perks already met, then these can be ignored. These Gain SPECIAL Stat perks are still good, mind you! Better than most "gain +X% skill" ones. It's simply that they're more noticeably effective when used to raise an odd numbered stat.

Gambler: gambling in Fallout 2 is alright! Not New Vegas levels of fun, but there are more opportunities to make money betting than in FO1. Still, if you know you're going to gamble regularly - and you don't want to save scum until you win every time (which I personally find tedious and boring) - you probably already have Gambling tagged. The amount of skill points necessary to raise a tagged skill from 50% to 70% is 10. If this had some other benefit, it might've been useful. As is, skip unless you're hurting for skill points. This will apply to most perks that increase skills.

Ghost: at least this provides a situational benefit?

Harmless: an interesting idea (a thief with positive karma has an advantage in stealing). But in practice it's simply another skill boost. Not worth it.

Healer: if your character gets a lot of use out of First Aid or Doctor, this is very good.

Heave Ho!: another perk dedicated to the worst combat skill.

Here and Now: there's a reason this shows up in FO2 (and Tactics) and then never again. Avoid like the plague.

HtH Evade: a seemingly nice boost to armor, but the requirements (e.g. must have both item slots empty except for unarmed weapons, throwables, and non-weapon items) make this too niche.

Kama Sutra Master: pointless with the Sex Appeal trait or Sexpert reputation, the latter of which can be obtained without using up a perk slot by simply having lots of sex. Skip.

Karma Beacon: in vanilla FO2, it has no affect on the game whatsoever. But even with the Restoration Project, this perk sucks.

Lifegiver: better than it may seem because it's retroactive. Although levels 12 and above are crowded for must have perks, this is decent for everyone and excellent if your character likes to get up close and personal with enemies.

Light Step: bugged in the vanilla game. But even if it worked like it's supposed to, it's meh.

Living Anatomy: a real gem of a perk. It boosts one's Doctor skill, sure fine, but more importantly it increases damage to organics by 5, which is more than 2 ranks of Bonus HtH Damage or Bonus Ranged Damage. Sadly, this extra damage isn't per bullet. It's a straight +5.

Magnetic Personality: good for any character, if one wants a larger squad. But if Charisma is an odd number, waiting to pick up Gain Charisma is probably the better option (of course, one can do both to maximize the number of campanions).

Master Thief: it's a considerable amount of skill points (+30% total across two skills). Though as with Gambler, it's more cost effective if you don't have either Lockpick or Steal tagged, and you definitely have Lockpick tagged if you're playing a roguish Chosen One.

Master Trader: finally, a 'themed' specialization perk that isn't just a skill point boost! The downside is that in FO2, there's so much loot that one can rely on selling lots of stuff to make up for crap barter prices. Due to how reputation affects barter prices[fallout.fandom.com], the discount will actually range from 20% to 40%!

Medic: one of the worst skill point boost perks. Avoid even if you've tagged Doctor.

More Criticals: synchronizes very well with the Finesse trait and/or a high Luck stat. Sadly useless after level 24 if your character takes Slayer. But a good investment for crit focused character builds.

Mutate!: situational use only. Note that if you created a character with 0 traits, this won't give you one.

Mysterious Stranger: fun perk in the 3D Fallouts. But in FO2, it's easy to basically never see the Stranger if you travel by car, or have a good Outdoorsman skill and skip random encounters. But if you know you'll opt to engage with random encounters, the Stranger can be a solid ally.

Negotiator: tell this perk to negotiate these nuts.

Night Vision: syncs well with Ghost. But who needs sight when you've got lots of bullets?

Pack Rat: strictly for solo runs or if you don't want to hoof it to and from your car a lot.

Pathfinder: has the side benefit of reducing the Highwayman's battery drain by 25%. But despite Hakunin's insistence via dream sequences, you're not pressed for time in FO2.

Pickpocket: one of a couple of Steal focused perks that enhance the skill without being a simple stat boost. Worthwhile for rogues who tagged Steal.

Presence: aura farming, the perk. Also, pointless.

Pyromaniac: flamers in FO2 kinda suck, imo. So a perk dedicated to improving the least fun Big Gun is not worth it.

Quick Pockets: much improved over FO1's version and great for everybody, even for characters who avoid physical combat. Enables you to open your inventory, do what you need to do, then exit with enough ap leftover to take other actions.

Quick Recovery: I'll defend this perk. The normal AP cost to stand back up is 4 and this reduces it to 1. As with all defense perks, it's generally better to build up a good offense instead. Still, this can be a lifesaver under specific circumstances.

Rad Resistance: as Per Jorner's famous guide states, radiation just isn't a factor in FO2 outside of the Toxic Caves and a specific random encounter. Plus, RadAway is common.

Ranger: best paired with a big iron on one's hip! This also has a hidden benefit of increasing the likelihood of finding special encounters. More useful than Explorer, imo, and definitely an improvement over FO1's version of this perk.

Salesman: the price perk is wrong! You're a better barterer with Master Trader!

Scout: of the 4 wanderer perks (Explorer, Pathfinder, Ranger, and this), I'd rank Scout above Explorer and below Ranger. Too bad companions can't have perks. This'd be great for Vic or Sulik.

Sharpshooter: you know the drill by now, you're a better sharpshooter without this!

Silent Death: I like Silent Death thematically, and it's the only perk that requires a 10 in a primary stat. But Slayer renders it pointless. That's because this only doubles the damage of a normal hit, whereas critical hits usually do twice the normal amount of damage.

Silent Running: convenient for characters that sneak a lot and that's it.

Slayer: I've already mentioned this and Sniper a lot in this guide. What's not to love? Slayer automatically upgrades all hits in hand to hand combat to critical hits. Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and listen to the lamentations of their women.

Smooth Talker: you're better off picking Gain Intelligence tbh. It's neat in theory, but requires multiple investments to make a difference for even Intelligence 4 characters.

Snakeater: poison comes up more often than radiation in FO2, but not as much as in New Vegas or FO4. Antidotes are pretty common though.

Sniper: As anyone can tell you, Better Criticals is a must-have with this perk. Even characters with a low crit chance can still benefit with an OK Luck stat. Remember, it's each successful hit, so characters who primary Big Guns still benefit from being a Sniper. The only potential exception to this perk's usefulness is for characters that use the hunting rifle, sniper rifle, or gauss rifle to make targeted shots to the eyes, as those shots are basically always crits anyway. Still an excellent perk nonetheless.

Speaker: quietly ignore this one.

Stonewall: covers the same niche as Quick Recovery, but less useful unless your character struggles with being knocked down a lot.

Strong Back: it's Pack Rat but with ranks and for characters with a decent Endurance stat. Strictly for solo runs or if you're challenging yourself to not use the car.

Survivalist: it's a nice increase to Outdoorsman, sure, but Ranger is a better choice as that has a side benefit in addition to the skill boost.

Swift Learner: Although a staple of Fallout games up through New Vegas, Swift Learner has never really been good. Plus, in FO2, it requires too much investment to be decently beneficial. Skip.

Tag!: arguably the most useful of all the perks that grant skill points, this allows the Chosen One to rapidly improve another skill (like energy weapons) in the mid to late game.

Thief: a jack of all trades boost for the 'rogue' skills. Nice in that it boosts 4 skills at once, but if all one cares about is Lockpick and Steal then Master Thief is better.

Toughness: an underrated perk and the reason to have an Endurance of 6 or better. Though arguably at its most useful in the early to mid game, before one gets the best Power Armors, it's still very good after that. It's, imo, the best defensive perk.

Weapon Handling: ahahaha, no. Even if your character is at Strength 4, you'll get +3/+4 from the Power Armors. Gain Strength is strictly better.

Small Guns - governed by Agility. This is arguably the most useful combat skill in the game, thanks to the availability of small guns suitable for each stage of the game. Improvable with Guns and Bullets.

Big Guns - governed by Agility. This is obviously needed if you'll use miniguns, rocket launchers, or almighty Bozar. Oh and the flamer, but it sucks lol. This skill can wait to be increased until a bit later on in one's journey, because big guns are scarce to non-existent early on.

Energy Weapons - governed by Agility. Some of the most powerful pistols and rifles, as well as the Gatling laser, are covered by this skill. But not unarmed and melee weapons that use energy cells. Power fists utilize Unarmed while rippers and cattle prods are covered by Melee Weapons.

Unarmed - governed by Agility and Strength. This can be an extremely powerful skill when combined with a decent Strength (at least 6 for the most powerful punches and kicks that unlock at levels 15 and 16), high Agility (at least 8 to unlock all punches and kicks by level 16), and raising the skill to at least 130% (by level 16). Which, as described before, is very easy to do especially if the skill is tagged.

Melee Weapons - governed by Agility and Strength. If you want a close combat character, but don't care about maximizing hand and feet attacks, this is the weapon skill you'll tag.

Throwing - governed by Agility. This is the worst combat skill. Yes, there are rocks, grenades, knives, and spears to throw. But unlike New Vegas, these items are few and far between. Do not waste a Tag on this.


These skills must be deliberately activated. Whereas passive skills are automatically utilized.

First Aid - governed by Perception and Intelligence, this skill is fairly useless. Doctor does everything First Aid does and more, and is used for more quests. First Aid is at best a tertiary healing option after Stimpacks and Doctor. It can be raised by the First Aid Book and enhanced by First Aid Kits.

Doctor - governed by Perception and Intelligence. This your skill to tag if you want to be a Wasteland medic. Unlike First Aid, there are no books that can raise Doctor, making it important to invest in if you want to effectively heal wounds and fix broken limbs on your own instead of paying for medical aid. Note that you don't need a doctor's bag to in order to heal limbs in FO2.

Sneak - governed by Agility. This can be an interesting skill to use, with caveats. First is that it's very easy to not realize one's accidentally exited Sneak mode, because, unlike in Fallout Tactics, there is no visual indication you're sneaking beyond the UI marker. Iirc, there is a "smart run" option with the High Resolution Patch (see this install guide) that ensures your character won't run when sneaking. Second, sneaking is not like how it is in the 3D Fallouts: you are not guaranteed a critical hit when attacking while sneaking. Sneaking is primarily for getting around a location you have a negative rep in and lockpicking or stealing without getting caught.

Lockpick - governed by Perception and Agility. This skill is enhanced with a set of lockpicks. To be more explicit, a set of lock picks is necessary because lockpicking without lock picks, mechanical or electronic, gives a -20% to the roll to successfully lockpick! A few more things to note. One, if a lock jams, it will reset after midnight. Two, you can lock doors as well as unlock them (which NPCs are helpless to do anything about). Thirdly, some doors can be opened with explosives and some doors and containers can be opened with a crowbar.

Steal - governed by Agility. The Shady Sands Shuffle is when you activate dynamite or plastic explosives, then plant them on an NPC without being noticed. You might not kill someone, but you will soften them up. Also noteworthy is that one gains experience from each item stolen. So instead of a taking a whole stack of, for example, money or ammo at once, you can take items from a stack one at a time to maximize XP - at the risk of increasing chances of getting caught.

Traps - governed by Perception and Agility. This is the skill the use of explosives relies on (i.e. make them go off at the time you set them to). One can set as well as disarm traps, though setting isn't recommended because that can cause crashes. As previously stated, there aren't enough traps in the unmoded experience to justify tagging this or putting too many points into it.

Science - governed by Intelligence. This covers all fields of science. It's used for some dialog options, though obviously not as much as Speech, in several quests, and opens up some possibilities that a character with low Science skill wouldn't have. It can be improved with the Big Book of Science.

Repair - governed by Intelligence. There are uses for this sprinkled throughout the game. Certainly there are far more uses for it here than in FO1 (though not as much as in New Vegas). But it's hard to recommend this. Especially when you can ask Vic to do any repairing.


Speech - governed by Charisma, though ironically most dialog options that include a stat check will check Intelligence rather than Charisma. Speech joins Small Guns and Lockpick to form the trinity of most essential skills. With a high Speech skill, you can negotiate better deals with NPCs or find peaceful solutions to many quests, as well as access better and smarter things to say.

Barter - governed by Charisma. Barter is usually neglected based on the assumption that your character will go everywhere, do (almost) everything, search every nook and cranny, and simply accumulate enough stuff that it doesn't matter how little you get for it because you've got so much of it. But for playthroughs where, say, your character primarily resolves issues outside of combat, then this skill will see more use. But even then, the reality is that even if you're not searching every desk, bookcase, locker, and so on, or doing every quest, this skill will be at its most useful early to mid game as it tapers off in usefulness in the late game. Note that in FO2, the highest barter skill in the party is used. So if a companion has a higher barter skill than the hero, their barter skill will be used. Of what I could find online, Sulik's is at 50% (and so is Myron's) and Cassidy's got the highest at 80%.

Gambling - governed by Luck. Gambling boosts your odds of winning and allows you to bet at higher stakes, e.g. to wager $50 at once requires a Gambling skill of 120% or better. Applies to roulette, slots, Tragic the Garnering, and betting on boxing matches, but doesn't affect the chances of winning at craps or betting on Molerat Mambo.

Outdoorsman - governed by Endurance and Intelligence. Unlike in FO1, where the skill only affects rockfall and dehydration random encounters, Outdoorsman in FO2 affects the chance to see random encounters at all. The better your Outdoorsman skill, the more likely one can opt out of one. The max chance to "see" a random encounter before running into it is 95%. Also, after getting the Highwayman up and running, your character will always have a 50% chance to avoid any random encounter when driving, regardless of Outdoorsman skill. As with Barter, the highest skill in the party is used. Of the possible companions, only Sulik's is notable at 80%. Outdoorsman can be improved with the Scout Handbook.

Bloody Mess - the only trait without an in-game downside.

Bruiser - tied with Jinxed for the worst trait in the game. The tradeoff of action points for Strength is terrible and one's character has to be built around compensating for the AP loss. Yes, a melee fighter will take Action Boy/Girl and Bonus Move anyway, but what's better than those? Not having a -2 AP malus that's what.

Chem Reliant - fine if one wants to create a character who does loads of drugs chems. Addiction is a bit more manageable with this, assuming one doesn't opt to reload a save every time one's character becomes addicted.

Chem Resistant - also good for chem users, but for avoiding addiction altogether instead of managing it.

Fast Metabolism - the weakened resistances don't hurt as much as one would think. But healing rate just isn't very important. I suppose it'd be interesting to try with a theme build, e.g. a tough Outdoorsman who shrugs off poison thanks to their high metabolism?

Fast Shot - not as op as in FO1, but still impressive when paired with a high Agility, Bonus Rate of Fire, and Action Boy/Girl. You do sacrifice the ability to make aimed shots though, so with this your character cannot aim for specific parts of the body to cripple or crit strike an opponent.

Finesse - the reduction in damage is big (-30%!), but the idea is that you pair this with high Luck and More and Better Criticals to make sure your character stays dangerous.

Gifted - the most op trait. The -10% to all skills and loss of 5 skill points per level do suck, but those disadvantages are easily overcome with a high Intelligence, skill books, talking to NPCs that can raise certain skills, or, Dharma forbid, skill boost perks. So the only real reason not to select this is because everyone takes Gifted and that's boring. And it's a good challenge to balance the stats and beat the game without it.

Good Natured - not as bad as one thinks. The -10% loss to all combat skills will hurt early on. But if your character focuses on non-combat skills like Doctor, Science, and Barter, this is a great way to raise those without using a perk slot or tagging them.

Heavy Handed - to be clear, the -30% is to the crit table not making critical hits. So, for example, being less likely to get an "ignore armor" crit, knock someone down with a crit, or even instakill. Better Criticals gives a +20% to the table, so this effectively cancels out Better Criticals. The extra damage is nice. But if your character is built around crits rather than DPS (and in Fallout 2, you can easily do both), you'll want to skip this.

Jinxed - could be fun for a joke playthrough, but obviously you don't actually want this.

Kamikaze - generally regarded as a terrible trait and rightfully so. In Fallout Tactics, the bonus is +25% damage rather than +5 sequence. But this is FO2 and sequence is irrelevant past the initial round of combat, meaning this trait's benefit is niche and the downside of having no armor class bonus from Agility is pretty dangerous.

One Hander - I like this trait tbh. Of course, the -40% chance to hit means your character will not use two-handed weapons pretty much ever. So, no super sledge, not plasma rifle, no miniguns. But there are many one-handed weapons in the game that are quite powerful, like the ripper, super cattle prod, .44 Magnum revolver, gauss pistol, plasma pistol, and Alien Blaster.

Sex Appeal - finally, a trait that lets the player roleplay as him, her, or themself! Jokes aside, this can be a useful perk for influencing barter prices and, of course, sexual encounters like having an extramarital affair with a mob boss's wife or becoming a porn star. Arguably more useful for female characters since most merchants are male, but this is still useful for men.

Skilled - this trait is much better in New Vegas. It's also arguably better in FO1, where it's a massive skill boost immediately and there are fewer decent perks. But in FO2, it's hard to justify. Sure, +5 skill points a level means that by level 24, your character will have earned an extra 120 skill points. But then again, a character without Skilled will have 8 perks at level 24, whereas one with Skilled will only have 6. It's an interesting challenge to play the game with this trait. But it's worse than Gifted because with Gifted there are basically no stat compromises and that makes it easier to meet perk requirements. I've been dismissive of a lot of perks in this guide, sure, but ones like Action Boy/Girl, Bonus Move, Lifegiver, More Criticals, and Toughness have multiple ranks that, in their case, really are beneficial to take advantage of!

Small Frame - along with Gifted, this is usually regarded as a must have trait, should your character opt to have any traits at all. A bit problematic if you're going solo, but there are perks to help with carry weight. If you're going to run with at least 2 or more companions plus the car, then there's essentially no downside.