Solo No Kill Run Character Build (No Active/Idling Companions)

You know what's a fun way to keep occupied while waiting for the second season of the Fallout show? Try playing the game with a no-kill run!

The idea is simple, just complete the game without killing anyone and reach level 50 without recruiting any companions. Now, I know there are parts where you have to do some killing in quests, but you can cheese it so the kill count stays at zero.

– TAKE REFUGE IN A GROUP OF ENEMIES
I always lure different enemies together so they fight each other if you lure a few cazadors to the NPCs your trying to kill they will weaken them enough that the venom can finish them. Take a moment to admire the view; it's a good idea to soften each of them up and let the others on scene finish each one off. It's free damage plus bonus xp if the enemy you gunned down to low health ends up dying - and it won't count against you.

– FRENZY IS YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND
You can save yourself some unnecessary kills if you frenzied an enemy. Frenzy is a good way to get enemies to stop fighting you and start taking each other out. The great thing about this is, kills made this way do not count against you. Just remember that even though this challenge involves keeping your kill count at zero, it doesn't mean that other NPCs must follow the same rule. It's perfectly fine to let the frenzied NPCs handle as many kills as they can.

– DISARMING
Disarm is a damn good disable mainly because it cut down an NPC's damage. Without a weapon, they have to either fight with their fists or run after their weapon or grab whatever's nearby. Even better, you can pick up the weapon yourself before they do, ensuring they remain disarmed all the time. Disarming can be done in two ways: either by landing a critical hit on their weapon, or by damaging their arms until it breaks. Having a high crit rate and VATS hit chance makes it way more likely to work for the first option, cause it's much faster than just smashing their arms until it breaks.

– PICKPOCKET
Actually, stealing someone’s ammo is typically easier than attempting a disarm – and that has the advantage of making sure they stay disarmed.

– GO FOR THE LEGS
Breaking an enemy's legs can give you an advantage because it hinder your enemies from chasing you. This can help out in situations where you're fighting a lot of enemies or trying to escape a fast one. Don't shoot it too much or it'll just die, but take a few shots at it and watch for it to start limping.

— LET THE BRIGHT LIGHT BLIND YOUR SIGHT
When you've shot an enemy's leg up until the point where one more shot will kill it and it's not limping yet, toss two flashbangs near yourself. This will temporarily drop your weapon skill by 100 points, which will lower the damage output of your weapon. This can help minimize the harm done to the enemy, which might be useful if you're trying to cripple them with a high-damage weapon. Also, since flashbangs lower the enemy's weapon damage as well, it can help protect you from their attacks. The effect doesn't work on creatures and robots unfortunately, but it works for all humanoid NPCs.

– REMOTE DETONATION
Much like gas canisters, and mines, shooting grenades while the enemy holds it will instantly explode and can damage any nearby enemies along with them. And the good thing is, this does not count as a kill if you shoot the grenades! I have tried this multiple times and it always works for me. Don't ever attempt to shoot a grenade if your VATS hit chance is at 15% (or lower) and the enemy is half dead or else your shot will miss and hit him instead and may outright kill him.

– DISCARD GRENADES IMMEDIATELY AFTER PICKING DISARMED WEAPONS
Enemies who have lost their weapons will try to find new ones. They'll look for weapons in containers, on dead enemies, and even grab stuff you've dropped. You can use this to your advantage by tricking the AI into picking up grenades instead. Simply discard them from your inventory and lead the enemy towards it. Keep an eye out for when they're about to toss a grenade, and if you see it, SHOOT IT, it'll blow up in their face and cause damage. AND, of course, you can take down some of them using this cheesy method without it counting against you.

– DEAD MONEY DLC
Here's something that might catch you off guard: if any entities in this DLC dies, their deaths get credited to your account regardless of whether you are responsible for luring them to their deaths or not! If you find yourself trapped and the only option is to kill Dean Domino, I suggest a different approach. Instead of being rude to him early on, try being nice to him, and help him on the gala event by activating the security holograms. By doing so, you'll ensure that Dean Domino doesn't end up fighting you later on. Keep in mind that any kills made by the security holograms will be counted as your own, so you'll need to quickly use the Pip-Boy freeze glitch to avert the holograms from killing Ghost People.

To perform this glitch, you must first remove the control key from your right mouse button. Next, go to your Pip-Boy map, close it, and then press both the "tab" key to open your Pip-Boy map and right-click on the map to activate marking. After doing so, the Pip-Boy will close automatically and an in-game message to mark the map will remain on the screen. Avoid clicking either Yes or No or else the game will revert back from being paused and the holograms will start blasting.

– SOLO LEVELING
I don't have much advice in terms of leveling faster other than questing. Base game absolutely showers you with quest EXP, enough to level your character to 20 likely before or around 18. Quests in Honest Hearts and Old World Blues DLCs can significantly aid in leveling up. The higher level you are, the more XP it will provide, as it scales with level.

SPECIAL

STR 1 (+1 Implant)
The extra carry weight from strength is less important and somewhat easily remedied with alcohols and cooked meat. Those things are by no means scarce, even in the early game, and can save your butt on numerous occasions. Also, the further in the game the less you will use high STR weapons to the point where you won't use them at all.

PER 7
Putting at least seven points into Perception is good for anyone. Not for the lockpicking, necessarily, but for the constant awareness. Having the advantage of knowing where all the enemies are in your compass is quite the advantage, indeed.

END 4 (+1 Implant +1 Lonesome Road Completion)
Provided you're careful, you'll rarely ever get injured so the bigger drain on resources won't be an issue. You should aim to keep a safe distance between yourself and the target thus avoiding being hit. If you're not being hit, you don't need much HP right?

CHR 4
Despite what some big mouths might say, yes we won't be having companions but we need a good starting points in both Barter and Speech. And Speech checks is a good source of XP. Due to not killing stuff, you will level up much more slowly than usual. You'll probably have to do pretty much every speech checks there is to level up. Feel free to change it, since it's your game, your world, but having starting points helps tremendously as well, since it makes leveling these skill permanently faster than not having it.

INT 8
More skill rate helps a lot since it's hard as hell to level up.

AGI 9 (+1 Implant)
You don't have to fight much anyway, and in the fights you cannot avoid, disarming is very strong. Disarming enemies through VATS is often the quickest way to reduce the threat. VATS consumes AP, so you need more AGI to increase your base AP and you need it that you won't ever run out of AP even with a lot of bad luck.

LCK 7 (+1 Implant)
If you didn't notice, critting on the enemy's weapon is an automatic disarm. So, in a way, a crit is a defensive option for a No-kill build! So I would recommend to go all in with the crit chance stat. Seven is enough because you get a lot of crit chance from perks as well as crit chance multiplier from weapons.

Tag Skills

• Lockpick - is most vital as nearly all EXP is awarded from picking locks
  
• Speech - along with Lockpick is one of the main ways to gain EXP in the game. You also want to try and increase speech as much as possible - passing high speech checks gives more XP.
  
• Survival - food and drinks are the most common way to heal as they are basically found everywhere. More survival = more heals from food/drinks.

Starting Traits
Early Bird — The trait gives you an eye-watering +2 to all attributes in the morning–making it easier to pass speech checks, effectively wield weapons with high STR requirements, and increase your chances of winning at gambling. This trait is particularly useful in the early stages of the game, but its benefits become less significant as you acquire more of Dr. Usanagi's SPECIAL implants. As a result, you may choose to replace it with a more beneficial trait later in the game.

Hoarder - It's a good trait if you like looting at the beginning.

(Alternative) Wild Wasteland - Remote detonation is my guilty pleasure. *wink wink*

Perks
In this part, we'll go over the must-have perks for this Build. You're free to choose any other perks that fit your playstyle, but these are the ones you can't skip if you want the Build to work effectively.

Level 2: Swift Learner — The community debates this, but anybody who disagrees is wrong. A no-kill run is a pain in the ass to level through 2-26, but it picks up once you get XP gain perks. Since you're going to leveling alone and without help of a companion, quests are pretty much going to be the thing that levels you up. This is what I mean by leveling being a pain in the ass. The Swift Learner perk is definitely worth picking up for this reason; it'll help lower the exp requirements by a minor amount and make leveling way less cancer. This is a decent perk to get, but only if you rush to it as soon as possible (Level 2 is the earliest).


Level 4: Swift Learner — No it's and or buts. You need two ranks. 4-26 will feel the same as if you were having sex with cattle prod. Without killing, your leveling would be slowed down dramatically and this forces you to rely solely on XP through quests. And there's not a whole lot of quests to make it to level 50. Therefore, you'll want to pick Swift Learner again, as it will grant you 20% more XP on top of the base XP gained. The earlier you get it the better. I wouldn't be taking one on the later levels. If you don't want it, then enjoy watching your XP bar move while it can lol you’ll be wishing it was faster.


Level 6: Educated — Levels are hard to come by so it's best to just start with it unless you're a masochist.

Level 8: Travel Light — You will be doing a lot of running and sneaking, so the bonus to your movement speed is appreciated.

Level 10: Miss Fortune — When I play with Miss Fortune, it causes every good thing that happens to me. When I play without it, I know that's what's causing all the bad things to happen to me. Miss Fortune appearances are equivalent to rolling a d20, and when she appears, she'll attack anyone in her path, and send them flying. What's more, this pseudo-AOE attack has a random roll on NPCs/Creatures she strikes, which can disarm them, destroy their weapons, paralyze, or break all their limbs. Each target receives their own individual 'roll' per attack. A paralysis effect on one target doesn't mean every target will get paralysis on the same attack. Furthermore, any NPC that has grenades/mines in their inventory will explode when affected, potentially causing a chain reaction of explosions if they have more in their possession. Kills caused by the explosion does not count as a kill on your part. This is because Miss Fortune is the source of damage, not you.


Level 12: Silent Running — Enemies are basically completely blind to your existence when you're sneaking fast.

Level 14: Commando or Gunslinger
The earlier levels is the roughest as you have low VATS hit chances. More hit chance is good because missing sucks.

Level 16-18: Action Boy/Action Girl — Hit chance is important yes, but you are severely lacking in AP due to the VATS cost penalty of your weapons. So I was thinking of getting Action boy/girl to make up for that.

Level 20: Mysterious Stranger — This build is not very strong on the damage side, so this helps to cover up weakness and speed up fights. But, just so you know, the Stranger will not appear if a NPC has more than 150 HP, and he doesn't hit multiple foes like Miss Fortune does. And just like Miss Fortune, the Stranger's chance to appear is low, but you will go through hundreds of VATS attack in a run (imagine each targets has a 150 HP) so this is actually a very valuable perk to have. Additionally, the Stranger's kills do not count towards your overall kill count


Level 22: Fight The Power! — NCR and Legion are common hostiles throughout the game, making this 5% crit chance and 2 DT boost something that you can have active very often.

Level 24: Light Touch — is basically a must have for anyone going for a crit build. Wearing light armor grants you a 5% crit chance, which allows you to have a better chance of disarming your enemies, which in turn, can help keep you alive for longer by preventing them from dealing damage. This perk also reduces the likelihood of your enemies landing critical hits on you, which further minimizes the damage taken.

Level 26: Lesson Learned — 26-50 is slow af because the amount of XP needed to level from 26 onwards is way way way higher than at the levels below 26. The closer you get to end game levels the longer it will take for you to level. So if you want to get some fairly dramatic jumps in level, go grab this perk. It modifies the base XP received equal to your current level, which means that you will gain much more XP the higher your level is. This stacks nicely with the Swift Learner perk and Well Rested buff, ultimately making your leveling journey faster; Gaining XP through quests alone may not be enough to max out your level hence having perk can make reaching max level possible. Lesson Learned is considered by most to be a useless perk however it takes nearly 136,200 exp to gain those extra 24 levels to reach level 50. For a no-kill run, that's like leveling from 1-31 TWICE. This perk cuts that time in half and let's you move on with your life.


Level 28: Nerves of Steel — VATS spamming has officially begun.

Level 30: Pack Rat — The lack of carry capacity does suck, but once you get Pack Rat it's not a huge deal. This halves the weight of ammos and consumables, which assures you that you have more room for disarmed weapons to pick up. It's a very solid perk that you should never skip out on.

Level 32: Atomic! — Endurance 6 is an important milestone as it lets you unlock this perk. This one is legitimately fu-cking absurd as it fits the build's playstyle perfectly. It gives AP regen speed based of off your radiation sickness. The higher the sickness, the faster you will regain AP. This and Nerves of Steel should have you pretty much covered.

Level 34 though is more of a toss up.

Potential choices:

Mister Sandman — Another reliable way to cause kills to not register in your stats is using Mister Sandman. This is actually a glitch in the game. Basically, when you use the "Mister Sandman" perk to perform a kill on a sleeping NPC, the game's code gets confused about who actually killed them. Since the animation itself doesn't have a player character associated with it when you're completely hidden, the game doesn't know who to attribute the kill to. So, the kill doesn't get counted in your pip-boy stats, even though you were the one who initiated the kill! As long as you remain hidden throughout the animation, the game will treat you as if you were non-existent, and will not register you as the killer. If, however, you are spotted at any point during the use of the perk, then the kill will be counted as yours.

Note that you can basically get XP any time you use Mister Sandman. It can be made "very easy" to use a location like Nellis Barracks, as there are numerous NPCs sleeping in one place - this is a good place to ramp up XP. Non-essential NPCs will respawn, so you will have to check in once every 3 in-game days and reuse Mister Sandman over and over in the game. So how much does it take to get to level 50 using Mister Sandman? Well, its still a lot. Assuming you start using the perk at 34 and the total XP needed to reach 50 is 100,400 and each use of Mister Sandman grants 50 xp (assuming no xp modifiers), you would need to use the perk approximately 2,008 times (1,181 with swift learner (2) and lesson learned). As a source of XP, this isn’t great, but this is definitely an option to consider.

Here and Now — If it's the quests and you already hating them before getting to the level cap, pick Here and Now. It'll let you jump straight to the next level, saving you time and effort that you'd otherwise spend pursuing EXP through quests.

Roughin' It — This perk allows you to quickly regain full health and limb condition by sleeping outdoors. There are plenty of beds scattered around in the game, so you'll always have a quick way to heal yourself when you're not in a fight. Each time you rest, you'll receive the Well Rested buff, which functions as a pseudo swift learner 3. Stacking this with XP gain perks will make a huge difference in the time it takes to level. Keep in mind that the level cap is 50. It can help you level faster, but once you reach the end, it does nothing for you. It's still useful for health restoration, though. Also free's up inventory space by carrying less doctor's bag.


Level 36: Paralyzing Palm — The supporting force of this build is Paralyzing Palm. With an 30% success rate, it prevents your enemy from attacking and moving. And it lasts for 30 freakin’ seconds. Paralyzing Palm is COOL because it gives you the opportunity to ignore your targets as they are rolling down in their stupored state. And if that's not quite enough, you can disarm them and take their weapon. If you don't plan on disarming the opponent or simply don't have the time, crippling him is useful nonetheless, since the enemy has no chance of catching up once he gets up. This perk could of been taken earlier because it's quite useful at level 18 and beyond but there was better perks at the time. You might as well take it now.

(Alternative) And Stay Back – can be taken if punching isn’t your style.

(Alternative) Mad Bomber – craft your own grenades instead of buying from merchants.


Level 38: Living anatomy — Playing without it really forces you to have your senses on high alert 24/7; since you don't have the luxury of knowing the exact numerical value of the NPC's HP.

Level 40: Nuka Chemist — Quartz/Victory; These Nuka Colas are quite rare, as they do not spawn in the normal places you can find Nuka-Cola vending machines. The most likely place to find them is in fixed locations, personally I f-ucking hate the hassle of searching for them so I will gladly take Nuka Chemist so I don't have to waste time looking for them.

Level 42: Hobbler — Leg parts are usually the best place to focus on, and by pouring all your attacks there, you can easily cripple your target faster. And with Hobbler, breaking legs is even easier.

Level 44: Finesse — Boosting your crit rate is worthwhile because this will increase the likelihood of disarming your opponents. By this point, critical chance likely becomes less of a concern, as you should be nearing or achieving 30% (ish?) critical chance.

Level 46: Tunnel Runner — This will pretty much make you a ghost with this build.

Level 48: Math wrath — This perk will reduce your AP usage by 10%, leaving you with a bit of extra AP to spare, but those aren't all that big to really be worth it imo. Your choice though.

Level 50: Ain't like that now — could later further increase AP regen by 25%, totaling a 45% increase. This makes you self-sufficient, with almost no need for AP consumables. Additionally, it provides 25% attack speed, making it the perfect all-in-one package for VATS users.


Traits (Respec)
Trigger Discipline — The general improvement of this build seems to favor VATS alone. Since we already picked Commando/Gunslinger and Hobbler, it makes sense to further boost VATS hit chance to effectively target enemies' legs and weapons. However, there is a drawback, which is that your gun's fire rate is reduced and burn through AP more quickly, but that's something that can be managed with chems.

(Alternative) Kamikaze — More action points, less armor? I guess it could be worth taking if you want to queue more shots before running out of action points. The penalty normally have little to no affect on the character since apparels pseudo-counters it.

Built to Destroy — This helps you close the gap toward the 30% (ish) crit chance goal and you can disarm enemies fast with high crit. However this will deteriorate your weapon's condition more. I'm not sure exactly what difference it makes, but with VATS, weapons doesn't deteriorate that often.

Special Perks
Big Brained – This increases your total DT by 10%

Cardiac Arrest – Late in the game, when you have more health, this becomes important in tough battles. Having more health restored helps you stay in the fight for much longer.

Reinforced Spine – You should be overjoyed to get since that's how u gonna get over the problem of having barely any DT. The extra STR is really just the cherry on top.

Lonesome Road – This perk is the reason we're not bringing any companions with us. This perk increases VATS hit chance when you don't have any active/idling companions.

Ranger Takedown – The Ranger Takedown can be a real good way to knock enemies down for players that don't have a good crowd control. This attack is just hilarious as it knocks away enemies, no matter how big they are. If you ever knock an enemy to the ground, it will stay grounded for quite a while. Take that time to run around to its legs then shoot it to cripple him. It's not really important which kind of unarmed weapon you choose for this perk to work. You could use your fists, which work just fine in most cases.

Khan Trick – This attack can briefly stun enemies to a complete halt and set them in an animation where they stagger about. This stun doesn't last long, so react quickly with Ranger Takedown afterwards.

There are numerous weapons in the game you can use, but really you will only need a couple.

Silenced .22 Pistol
This pistol.... is basically.... your mother. Your mother is the person who pushed you out, provided for you, and made you awesome. Well, this is what this pistol does. It may not pack the biggest punch, but it's definitely handy in the early game before you've got your hands on some of the heavier weaponry. It has a crit chance multiplier of 3, which means it's great for disarming enemies quickly. Silenced .22 Pistol just feels so much smoother, you never even have to acknowledge the fact that AP is a thing.

Ratslayer
What... The... F**K? Screw your mother, this is where it's at. This gun is not only god, but its also your sex toy. It's the thing that pleasures you and makes you feel like everything in the world is good once you reach your orgasm. Ratslayer may not look like much in terms of damage but don’t be fooled - it’s a good weapon. With a crit chance multiplier of 5 you'll be able to land critical hits almost every time, making it super easy to disarm your targets. Plus, it's completely silent, so stealth players will love it. However, the AP cost is high and you can only fire off 2 or 3 shots in VATS before running out of AP.

Meleeing
Use Dr. Mobius glove, the crowd control from its knockdown+frenzy effect can make up for your lack of defense. A high crit chance helps a lot in proccing its effects. If you can get your crit chance up to around 30% (ish), you'll be doing a nice crowd control. Not only does it save ammo, it creates a high comical value. You see Deathclaws jumping at you - no problem. Hit one or two and they'll be at each other's throat like scalpers fighting for pokemon cards.

Armor-wise you should get 1st Recon Beret + Lucky Shades + Ulysses Duster. These items provides VERY nice crit chance bonuses that you CANNOT PASS UP. I don't care if you have to give up your first born child, you MUST get these. If you still lack AP, grab the Courier Duster Legion variant.


Consumable items I would say mandatory to bring;

• Turbo – Your last line of defense. This item makes everything slowed down for a few seconds. It’s a life saver if you get into a sticky situation.
  
• Steady – This is just to make it easier to hit things. What’s high crit chance good for if you can’t land a blow, you know?
  
• Rebound – will help you recover your AP bar much faster.

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Thanks for reading! Please rate this guide and I hope it has helped if there is anyhing you want me to change or you want to say something please leave a comment thank you.