I've been trying to figure out how to use some of these traits. I've been playing this game for over a decade, so I figure it's about time I try using some of the less optimal of the traits. How, then, to make these dark horses interesting?

Fallout 1 and 2 have nearly identical Traits, with the exception of Night Person being swapped for Sex Appeal in Fallout 2. I've omitted Bloody Mess because it doesn't actually matter to gameplay, only potentially to enjoyment thereof.

Bruiser
Chem Reliant
Chem Resistant
Fast Metabolism
Fast Shot
Finesse
Gifted
Good Natured
Heavy Handed
Jinxed
Kamikaze
One Hander
Skilled
Small Frame
Night Person (F1)
Sex Appeal (F2)

I'm interested in what character designs make

What sets apart a trait is its downsides. Bruiser is much maligned, and perhaps rightly so, because its tradeoff is so harsh. Two lost Action Points which never shall return! And for naught but two stat points, by default in Strength? Yet it is such a thing I wish to try to optimize around. This is our challenge.
Some of these are exceedingly popular traits, and don't bear a lot of discussion. Gifted seems to be the favorite all around, despite my own misgivings. I do not like my characters to be overly specialized. Nevertheless, Gifted might turn out to be useful in some of the builds involving less practical Traits. It simply won't spark any new debate by its lonesome.

Initial thoughts:
Bruiser - The loss of action points tells me this character will be slower and less able in combat. To optimize around this, I would be tempted to place those two extra stat points in Intelligence and Charisma, so that this character talks his way out of situations instead of fighting. I feel this might be a more effective use than attempting to regain AP by plugging them into Agility. On the other hand, such a character's best chance might be to perfect Sneaking so that combat needn't be engaged in the first place. Where combat is necessary, what do folks think of building around Fast Shot, Big Guns, Extra Ranged Attacks and Sniper? At risk of making a mountain out of a mole here, such a character might hardly be able to afford to miss anyway. May as well make the shots count.
Chem Reliant - Actually, this one's a favorite of mine. If you use drugs often, you could do worse, as there's all the time in the world to sleep it off and much to be gained. I don't think this trait significantly impacts play, and in a way it makes the drugs more entertaining. For such a character, it might be wise to optimize around getting maximum benefit from drugs by keeping stats below maximum in most physicals and even some mentals.
Chem Resistant - I'm not honestly sure how to feel about this one. Just as it's true one has all the time in the world to sleep it off, one usually doesn't spend too long after drug use before one has no further need of them. There will be times, of course, when this trait means using more drugs, but it's well designed for it.
Fast Metabolism - Such a character as has this... Would s/he be better off with high Endurance, or low? High endurance won't help what this trait removes, but it will augment the existing healing rate to usable levels, perhaps.
Fast Shot - This one's easy. It's a Burst Weapons trait, and therefore should never be used with One Handed. (See below.) Fertile and actually kind of fun when you get used to it.
Finesse - Does anybody know how this Trait interacts with the Sniper perk? This trait makes your damage less consistent, and probably combines best with a high Luck and some effects to otherwise improve your chance of high-class critical hits. Still, Slayer would render it useless or worse than useless in melee, and Sniper... Well, I just don't know what it would do.
Good Natured - This trades 60 skill percentages between four and six skills. Combined with the reduced AP pool of Bruiser, this might render a character nearly combat-incapable. At least it's an even trade, though.
Heavy Handed - I have no idea how to make this useful. Obviously this character must wield a melee weapon or a weapon suited to Unarmed combat to make this useful. Does the penalty to the critical table apply to ranged attacks? Give it this: The consistency of the character's damage will be almost pleasantly straightforward, always higher but never absurdly high. A high strength would be important, I would think, and a high luck less so. Your crits aren't worth much anyway! Note: In Fallout 2, this could be combined with One Handed to make quite the amusing hand-to-hand fighter. Not the best combo, but interesting nonetheless.
Jinxed - Whereas Heavy Handed makes you more consistent, Jinxed makes you less. What to make of this? There must be a way to make such a character as useful as possible in combat by using that strength to one's advantage. I think, perhaps, a high Endurance and a large variety of defensive powers, including movement, to reduce your own character's danger to himself while allowing his opponents to remain dangers to each other.
Kamikaze - I'm tempted to say "Big Guns" on this one, too. Again, if you're stuck making that first shot count... But really, what does everybody else think? Is this, in fact, an opportunity to reduce one's Perception to 1 with little penalty to Sequence? Or should this be used to bank on always getting in two turns with a surprise round?
One Hander - The key here is to figure out what classes of weapons never use two hands. In Fallout 1, this combines nicely with Small Guns if one doesn't mind being dependent on the cut down rifle from the farm mission. It's a powerful pistol anyway. In Fallout 2, I very much suspect this would provide a bonus to hit in all Unarmed attacks, including Power Fist. Any takers on that wager?
Skilled - Oh god. I never touch this one. I love my skills, but the cost involved is horrendous. How does one use this? Less dire but also less useful in Fallout 2, since the level cap for both absolute and practical purposes is higher in the sequel.
Small Frame - In an unpatched Fallout 1, this one means that you'll be leaving a lot of loot behind. It's simply not always feasible to take pet humans around with you to load them down with stuff, and in my experience your inventory fills up very fast. On the other hand, if you cycle through inventory quickly such as by constantly stealing and selling, you should be fine for most purposes, and you have an otherwise free stat point to put where you like.

Night Vision (F1) - I suppose you'd want to level at night, which means taking on most missions in low lighting. To me, this entails frequently getting to close range with an opponent for your sanity's sake. In my opinion also, this trait also is useless if either statistic, Perception or Intelligence, is at 10 in the daytime, or even at 9 at character creation.

Sex Appeal (F2) - For shopping purposes, it may help that the Fallout Wiki (The Vault) claims that most shopkeepers are male in Fallout 2. This would imply that a female character would have an easier time shopping than a male one where this trait comes into effect. In some towns, of course, this is decidedly not so. Might this be used, however, to finally craft a trader who makes a profit when buying and selling? It's a difficult proposition, perhaps impossible, but this might help.

I've never used bruiser but now that you mention it, it makes an ideal addition to a diplomat/sneak character, as twisted as that might seem. Even if you keep the extra strength it's always handy to be able to carry a bit more. :)

Fast shot, is something I often use with one-handed. Coupled with bonus rate of fire later, and maybe an action boy or two, you can build a pretty devastating pistolero. Also, you could use this to negate bruiser.

Gifted is the best Trait to pick. Extra stats is great and the loss of skill points is not that big a deal. Just boost your Int to 8+ if you feel you need more skill points.

I never use Fast Shot. I like my aimed shots too much. Aimed shot between the eyes with one more ranks in More Criticals can be an insta-kill on even the toughest opponents.

Skilled is worthless. The whole point behind gaining levels is to get Perks. Delaying Perk acquisition is bad. No amount of extra skill points can compensate for that.

Small Frame is easy to work around in both games and gives an extra point of Agi (or where ever you want to put it)

Good Natured isn't too bad. You'll never use every single combat skill but you're likely to use all 4 non-combat skills. In terms of skill points it's a win but when all's said and done it's just skill points and you might hurt a bit in the early game.

Heavy heanded can be useful for a melee only character who doesn't score many criticals, someone with low luck who doesn't use aimed attacks for example.
A FO1 melee build with 1 luck, heavy handed and fast shot should work well. You can have up to 12 melee attacks per round with power fist or super sledge, the extra 0-4 damage per hit will be a nice addition.
This will be a character who has plenty of attribute (dumped luck) and skill points (no need to aim) to spend, maybe a diplomat with enormous combat power.

This build won't work well in FO2, but at least the beginning will be easier.

"Skilled" is a horrific trait for spoiled powergamers who play and choose their feats and skills according to character developing guides to optimize combat power.

But for the average unspoiled Fallout1 roleplayer "skilled" is very useful.
It grants +10 to all skills at creation, that's a total of 190 skill points and for the beginning (level 1-2,4-5 and 8 , which is the hardest part of the game there isn't even a drawback.

Players who didn't read guides to tell them which skills and feats are useful don't raise the optimal skills or take the optimal feats, the extra skill points everywhere will be more useful than most combat feats and all non combat feats.

I'm not sure it advances discussion to disagree with somebody in this topic by referring to him/her as a "spoiled powergamer." I find that solid Perk acquisition is very important when I'm playing a Good Natured character, for example, in order to balance precisely that heavy loss in combat skills.
That said, you otherwise have some interesting points.
(I wonder if Gifted makes Good Natured easier, or harder?)

Gnarbrag, it's interesting that I picked up Fast Shot with a character precisely because I valued aimed shots so much. With this character I eventually perfected what I jokingly call the Forge: Hit a melee-dependent enemy with a Flamer, then smack it with the Super-Sledge. The result is massive damage, even without critical hits to the eyes, and the enemy must close distance to strike back.
This is useful against relatively few enemies, but exceedingly nice against the Mother Deathclaw; and a good skill in heavy weapons is nothing to sneeze at.
I recommend trying it once, to see if it shakes things up for you a bit. I still play crit-dependent characters all the time, such that all my characters eventually aim for the eyes, but I enjoyed the change for a time.
While I can see why KMonster would champion Skilled in the early game, I feel it's both at its least harmful and least useful in Fallout 2. In Fallout 2, if you really wish you can build any character later, assuming you can muster the minimum stats. The level cap is on your side. In Fallout 1, Skilled results in a net loss of two perks. While the net possible loss of perks in Fallout 2 is actually higher, the odds of ever caring is almost nil. (If anything, I'd almost welcome the slow Perk acquisition on a character I'm playing to Level 99!)
Honestly, though, I avoid Skilled as well. The tradeoff never sounded worthwhile, even when I didn't specifically value Perks or combat capability.

I like the idea of Heavy Handed being coupled with low luck. I like that enough I may have to do it. Why do you say such a character would not work well in Fallout 2, though? Does F2 require a lot more in terms of crits?
Would such a character be harder hit by Jinxed, or would it benefit him?

Anyway, Kmonster, your input will be welcome if you can cool the attitude. Understand?

I didn't want to offend anyone personally with my post about "skilled", I just showed 2 extremes, the playing style for which this trait is the worst and the playing style for which this trait is most useful. "spoiled powergamer" is no offense, I looked at character creation guides before my first playthrough too to get a powerful character.

The "Heavy Handed" build doesn't work well in Fallout2 since there are enemies with extremely good armor (like the wanamingos) which you won't be able to hit seriously without good criticals. When you get the "slayer" perk in FO2 (in FO1 the game is usually over before) you'll have 100 percent criticals, and the drawback will suddenly apply to all hits.
Fast shot doesn't work for melee in FO2 either.


"Jinxed" doesn't affect the chance to hit anything, it only turns half of all misses into critical misses. There's a critical miss roll which is strongly affected by luck and the hit percentage you had, with 10 luck you'll only have harmless critical misses and with 1 luck there will be quite some very bad critical misses.
If you have companions "jinxed" isn't recommended since it affects them too which won't be fun.
A "jinxed" character with 1 luck is playable, just attack only if you have 95 hit chance, you have to miss in order to get a critical miss.

Interesting! So Jinxed works best with maxed Luck and high skill, making it a very poor fit for Good Natured.
I wonder if it's a good fit with an Unarmed character with One Handed. One Handed would mean you get a bonus to strike on most or all unarmed attacks, allowing the character to reach 95% chance to hit very quickly. Although, I suppose with Hand to Hand: Evade increasing an opponent's miss chance and half of those misses being really nasty, one could have a truly hilarious time watching your opponents play Three Stooges at point blank range. And none of this negatively impacts one's chance to hit like Good Natured, to my knowledge.
I may have to try this Jinxed, Heavy-Handed HtH: Evade character. I expect a great many save/loads, but only because I'm depending on defense instead of offense.

(Note: Heavy Handed might be especially bad for a character with an Unarmed specialty, since critical hits are often one's only chance even against lightly armed opponents, much less Wanamingos and the Enclave.)

Is Heavy Handed any better or worse with a build that is never intended to get the Slayer perk? It's probably no great benefit to somebody who's going for the Sniper perk or any form of ranged combat, and in fact probably a nasty detriment.

Update: I've seen no discernible effect in using One-Handed with Unarmed, even with Brass Knuckles. To be fair, I didn't get the knuckles until hitting everything in the eyes is a 95% chance anyway. I'll continue testing, but it doesn't look promising.

It's been a few days. I worry the thread may be dead. If anybody has any thoughts on any of the other suboptimal traits, such as whether Fast Metabolism better serves a high or low Endurance, feel free to chime in.
On the bright side, I got an interesting idea to test out by doing this, so at least I've improved my game once so far.

Still being on my first playthrough I have very limited experience of the various traits, this will be very handy as a reference point for my next playthrough.

On another note, I have learned to my discretion that Finesse, as much as I love it in theory, doesn't quite suit a character with a luck of 2...

Indeed! Finesse decreases your damage on most attacks, so it's very dependent on a high critical hit rate.
It's also not especially useful for those who will someday surpass their normal critical hit rates by the use of the Slayer perk. Indeed, for Slayer it is counterproductive because one who Slays never rolls for critical hits, only for hits.

Finesse is most useful if you have the "better criticals" perk which requires at least 6 luck. It isn't bad for slayer since critical hit damage is unaffected by this trait.

Finesse can work even with 2 Luck if you take aimed shots.
Assuming you hit at the eyes you'll get the following percentages:

without finesse: 62 critical, 38 normal damage
with finesse: 72 critical, 28 damage*0.7

28 percent of your attacks do 30 percent less damage but 10 percent of your attacks do about 200 percent extra damage, so your average damage output will benefit from finesse when aiming at the eyes.

with unaimed attacks you'll have:

without finesse: 2 critical, 98 normal damage
with finesse: 12 critical, 88 damage*0.7

Criticals at the torso do about 150 percent extra damage, so your average damage output decreases a little if you took fast shot and cannot aim, but at least it will be advantageous versus heavily armored enemies you won't be able to hurt with normal hits anyway. Don't forget that criticals can also have benefits like "knockdown" as side effect.

So if I've got this right, a character with a meaningful chance to hit the eyes, 10 Luck, Finesse and aiming for the eyes will get critical hits on... 80% of his hits? (And 95% of those will hit, at that.)
Such a character would have very little use for Slayer or Sniper perks!

Slayer or sniper will still change 20 percent normal hits for 70 percent damage to criticals which will make a difference.
Those feats also grant the 100 percent critical chance for hitting without having to spend an extra AP for aiming.