Fallout 2 perks

General information
In Fallout 2, perks are selected every 3rd level (or every 4th level if you have the Skilled trait). There are 70 regular perks and 12 special perks. For perks with multiple ranks the benefit listed should be interpreted as "per rank".

You can take chems (e.g., Mentats or Buffout) to increase desired SPECIAL stats temporarily; This way you can get perks that wouldn't normally be available. Perks taken under drug influence remain permanent, even when your stats fall under the requirements after the chems wear out.

List of perks
Not all perks are equal due to the way the game is structured. A quick breakdown of the usability of perks is as follows:


 * Recommended
 * Awareness: Essential for any sort of planning in combat.
 * Bonus Rate of Fire/Bonus HtH Attacks: Self-explanatory.
 * Slayer and Sniper: Ultimate combat perks, for a brawler and gunner respectively.
 * Good
 * Action Boy: Universally useful. Bonus Move is good for melee characters.
 * Gain Agility: Good when your Agility is an even number, to get an extra action point.
 * Living Anatomy: +5 damage per attack and a small bonus to Doctor (which is actually useful in Fallout 2).
 * More Criticals and Better Criticals: Good pairing if you don't plan on getting either Slayer or Sniper. Otherwise, Better Criticals is strictly superior.
 * Quick Pockets: Improved access to inventory.
 * Average
 * Dodger and Toughness: Protection is good.
 * Gain Charisma, Gain Intelligence, Gain Luck, Gain Perception: Depends greatly on the situation, allowing the player to respectively gain an additional party member if the new value is even, more skill points if Intelligence is less than 7 or 8, improving critical hits, and/or sniping. Situational.
 * HtH Evade: Perfect for unarmed experts (unarmed weapons like the power fist can be used in conjunction with this perk).
 * Lifegiver: Accumulates a lot of hit points over the course of the game. Probably a good choice for those who get hurt often.
 * Magnetic Personality: Useful for those with low Charisma and an even score to boot (otherwise, Gain Charisma is superior).
 * Mutate!: A good choice of traits renders this useless, unless used to replace Finesse with Fast Shot after taking Sniper.
 * Tag!: Can be used on previously increased skills to gain a whole lot of skill points.
 * Bad
 * Bonus HtH Damage and Bonus Ranged Damage: The bonus to max damage is too low to make a noticeable effect (short of using burst weapons).
 * Explorer, Ranger, Scout: Marginally helpful if playing with low Luck and Hard difficulty. Otherwise pointless.
 * Gain Strength: Pointless with power armor and chems.
 * Pickpocket: Failing at stealing causes everyone to turn permanently hostile regardless. Save scumming is effectively mandatory for any sort of normal gameplay, rendering the perk null.
 * Silent Death and Silent Running: Sneaking is poorly implemented and the perks follow the pattern. Silent Death only affects the first attack made, while Silent Running is a convenience.
 * Smooth Talker: Diplomat characters will have a good starting intelligence.
 * Pack Rat, Strong Back: Inventory capacity is hardly an issue, especially with a party member to use as a mule.
 * Weapon Handling: Negligible impact. More skill points in the governing skill compensates for this.
 * Useless
 * Adrenaline Rush: Negligible bonus requiring the character to be heavily wounded.
 * Animal Friend: Animals are not a threat.
 * Cautious Nature, Mysterious Stranger, Pathfinder, Scrounger, Survivalist: All world map perks are useless, as the effects are marginal at best and there's more than enough gear to find in it.
 * Comprehension: Does not affect the threshold that makes reading skill books useful.
 * Cult of Personality, Karma Beacon, Presence: The reaction system is broken, rendering these useless.
 * Demolition Expert: Marginal use.
 * Earlier Sequence: Minimal impact on combat.
 * Educated, Gambler, Harmless, Master Thief, Medic, Mr. Fixit, Negotiator, Salesman, Speaker, Survivalist: There are enough skill points in the game without the need to waste perks on getting more skill points.
 * Empathy: Marginal effect.
 * Faster Healing, Healer: Healing rate is never an issue.
 * Fortune Finder, Master Trader: Money is not an issue in the game.
 * Gain Endurance: Lifegiver is better than raising a dump stat.
 * Ghost: Even less useful than Silent Death.
 * Heave Ho!: No effect at Strength 4.
 * Here and Now: Gaining levels to gain a perk that gains a level. Useless.
 * Kama Sutra Master: Achieves nothing that Sexpert, Sex Appeal, or good stats don't do already.
 * Light Step: Utterly marginal.
 * Night Vision, Sharpshooter: Marginal effectiveness in any combat situation. Directly increasing a weapon skill has a much more noticeable effect.
 * Pyromaniac: Marginal effect.
 * Quick Recovery, Stonewall: Marginal effect.
 * Rad Resistance, Snakeater: Radiation and poison are marginal threats.
 * Swift Learner: Useless. The purpose of levels is to gain perks. The purpose of perks is not gaining more levels.

Abilities
Perks in this category provide miscellaneous bonuses that do not fit in other categories. Awareness is among the most useful of perks.

Combat
A group of useful perks, especially those increasing the frequency of attacks. Bonuses stack.

Dialogue
Perks in this category are useless, either tied to broken mechanics or easily bypassed with drugs.

Survivability
Perks in this category should generally be chosen only if no better perks are available. See notes for details.

Skills
These perks provide flat bonuses to skills or modify them. They are best avoided, as the skills they affect have marginal use in gameplay, with the exception of Tag!.

Criticals
General perks affecting criticals.

Weapon perks
Weapon perks are enjoyed when one uses a specific weapon.

Armor perks
Armor perks are enjoyed when one wears a specific piece of armor.