Melee builds are a good way to go if you don't like the long waiting involved with cooldowns or the risk of losing gear in combat. First off I'll start off with the basic things you need to know:
*The unarmed combat tables; as you level different attacks add bonus damage or chance to crit. Knowing what does what is crucial so always consider this table.
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Unarmed*Fast shot affects hth and melee, this is essential to damage based builds.
*First aid is crucial in staying alive, with 10 luck you always heal the base amount of your skill so even a low FA with 10 luck is more powerful than high FA with any other amount of luck.
*Doctor skill has multiple benefits, the least of which is healing crippled limbs. You can removed weakend state 100% of the time if your skill is 10x your current level. Living anatomy is highly recommended for bypassing high armour values, the more hits you get in the better this perk.
*There is such a thing as too many skill points. With fast shot the most you should have in a melee skill is 130%. If an enemy has max agility and brotherhood armour thats 30 ac total, you'll still have 95% chance to hit.
*Melee crit builds can have 95% chance to crit on eyeshots with high damage and armour piercing, but the tradeoff is you get one to two hits instead of 4-6 with a damage build. You're looking at 30-50 damage per turn with chance to cripple vs about 130 damage a turn with no chance to cripple.
*With many hth damage bonuses most melee weapons become worse than fists, but at end level using a ripper will do about double the damage(and has piercing) but with 15% less chance to crit. Rippers can be found at 0% det. in caves pretty much everywhere but their owners can kill you quickly if you don't have a lot of health.
SPECIAL EDStrength: The most strength you need for unarmed attacks is 6, 4 for ripper builds. You get 1+ hth for each point you put in past 6.
Perception: No real use for hth builds, you can see whats within distance and long range chars will kill you long before you get near them so seeing them isn't much of an advantage. Also most instances are small enough that they will be within line of sight.
Endurance: Definitely a high priority put as many points into this as your build allows and remember never to put an uneven number as its a wasted point. I strongly suggest having 10.
Charisma: Another useless skill. For a first character you could put 3 but its a waste in the long run. Mentats can be taken to up even the most pitiful levels to do the starting quests which I will talk about later and talking to npcs is useless unless you have high barter (which you probably won't).
Intelligence: It is very important for most builds and depending on what skills you want you can sacrifice combat ability for other skills. One of my builds has 5 int and at 21 has 130 unarmed, 138 FA(with 10 luck) and 211 doctor with living anatomy taken as the last perk. This means I can get back to the game 60 seconds after being killed. The trade off is i only have 4 attacks and less health than I'd like.
Agility: 10 is always a good idea but you can get away with 8 with fast shot if you need points elsewhere. For 12 ap builds throwing is a good option for a secondary skill although it will eat up a lot of skill points. You can throw accurately with 1 pe with 150 throwing. Remember that 7 is the minimum for haymaker which is one of the best hth attacks in the game, especially for fast shot.
Luck: The least amount you should ever have is 6 for toughness, which is crucial to any build. 10 is ideal for the FA effect. If you have a jinxed char having 10 luck will limit your crit fails to missing a turn, where anyone with low luck can have everything from losing ammo to having a grenade explode in their hands. A lot of critters will cripple themselves trying to hurt you like this.
TraitsI'm only going to cover the ones that are useful.
*Fast shot is pretty crucial for obvious reasons
*Heavy handed is a good choice if you aren't a crit build. More damage all the time greatly outweighs a bit more damage infrequently.
*Small frame can get you that extra point and the downside isn't an issue when you don't have gear.
*Jinxed can be a fun extra but only if you have high luck, otherwise prepare yourself for frustration.
*Good natured can give low int chars that FA/doc boost they need.
*One hander affects all energy based melee weapons so if you want to save on skillpoints its an option, especially if you are going for eye shots.
