Both powerful and fun, explosives builds are some of the most fun playstyles available in FNV. Explosives builds are unique in that they allow the player to easily deal with massive crowds of enemies, while also debuffing enemies in numerous ways.

Quick notes about explosives builds:

• Dangerous to everyone. Explosives are notorious for being able to injure everyone in their radius, which includes the player, but also companions and friendly/neutral NPCs.
• Cumbersome for Hardcore mode runs. If you intend to play on Hardcore mode, you may want to pick a different build, as explosives are incredibly heavy and you’re likely to have issues carrying enough ordinance around.
• Great supplement to another build. Thanks to explosives requiring less investment than other builds, they are a great addition to an existing build. Doing this will allow you to get around some of the weaknesses of a pure explosives build.

Stats

S.P.E.C.I.A.L

Many explosive weapons require a Strength stat of 6 or above, with weapons like the Fat Man requiring 8. For this reason, a higher Strength attribute is recommended. In addition, explosives are very heavy, as are the weapons that work with the Explosives skill, meaning that the extra carrying capacity is very welcome.

Endurance is another very important stat, mostly because you’re likely going to blow yourself up at some point, meaning that the extra HP could be the difference between walking away or having to restart the fight.

Other than that, your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats are mostly up to you and your playstyle. 

Below is my preferred S.P.E.C.I.A.L. array for explosives builds.

Strength	8
Perception	5
Endurance	10
Charisma	1
Intelligence	10
Agility	5
Luck	1

Skills

As far as skills are concerned, you only need to get Explosives up to 100, however, 3 other skills stand out:

• Repair. This skill allows you to craft unique and more powerful explosives at workbenches. This goes double if you have the Gun Runner’s Arsenal DLC, as that DLC adds the Mad Bomber perk, which we’ll discuss later.
• Guns. If you have a Guns skill of 45 and the Honest Hearts DLC, you can pick up the Grunt perk, which boosts the damage of Frag Grenades, which you are very likely going to be using throughout a large part of the game.
• Medicine. This skill is relevant solely for 1 reason: the ability to more effectively utilize healing items. If you blow yourself up, you are most likely going to need to use several Stimpacks/Doctor’s Bags (on Hardcore mode), making this skill a worthwhile investment.

For the reasons listed above, I recommend that you tag Explosives, Repair, and Medicine during character creation, and then invest in those skills as you play the game.

Traits

Thanks to the existence of the Holy Hand Grenade, picking up the Wild Wasteland trait is highly suggested. While there are only 3 of these grenades, they are very powerful and incredibly fun to use.

The guide to getting the 3 Holy Hand Grenades can be found here.

Other than that, the Loose Cannon trait comes to mind. It’s a trait that increases the speed at which you throw explosives by 30% (as well as decreasing the AP cost to throw explosives in V.A.T.S. by 30%).

This, however, comes at the cost of 25% of your range with these explosives.

In my experience, this is a worthwhile tradeoff, especially when you consider that the “Heave, ho!” perk more than compensates for the range decrease.

Perks

Below is a list of perks that I recommend you pick up for this build, alongside any requirements they may have and the DLCs that you must own for the perks to be available. 

Due to the nature of this build, the order in which you take these perks is irrelevant, and mostly down to personal preference.

Perk Name	Requirements	Benefits	DLC
Heave, ho!	Explosives 30, Strength 5, Level 2	+50% range for all explosive weapons (thrown and launched)
Hit The Deck	Explosives 70, Level 12	+25DT against all explosions
Splash Damage	Explosives 70, Level 12	25% larger area of effect for all explosives
Demolitions Expert	Explosives 50, Level 6	Each one of the 3 ranks increases the explosive damage you deal by 20%, up to a total of 60%
Mad Bomber	Explosives 45, Repair 45, Level 12	Unlocks many different crafting recipes for powerful explosives	Gun Runner’s Arsenal
Grunt	Explosives 20, Guns 45, Level 12	Gives a 25% damage bonus to many weapons, the Frag Grenade being one of them	Honest Hearts
Adamantium Skeleton	Level 14	You take 50% less limb damage
Rapid Reload	Level 2, Agility 5, Guns 30	+25% Reload Speed
Quick Draw	Level 8, Agility 5	+50% Weapon Draw Speed.

Equipment

Weapons

There are many great choices for your main damage-dealing explosive weapon, however, your choice will often be dictated more by what you have available at the time, rather than what you want to use.

Below is a list of great choices to build your build around

	Red Glare	Thump-Thump	Mercy	Frag Grenade
Pros	High Fire rateHigh magazine capacity	CheapEasy to maintainEarly-game acquisitionA large variety of grenade typesGreat range	High fire rateBest-in-class magazine capacityDecent range	Moderate damage, range, and splash radiusCheapPlentiful from the very start of the game
Cons	Expensive ammo/upgradesLonesome Road DLC requiredLow splash radius	Single-shotLong reload times	Difficult acquisitionBurns through ammo quickly	Not as powerful as the other optionsIt’s thrown, rather than launched
Quick Analysis	This is going to be your late-game go-to. It’s very powerful and easy to use, and its large array of ammo types should make dealing with any threat a breeze.	The perfect early to mid-game workhorse. Its ammo is plentiful and can be bought from most merchants. It’s easy to maintain and has enough range to deal with most threats.	Being the base-game counterpart of the Red Glare, it’s an obvious choice for late-game builds, though it has the tendency to leave you without ammo quickly.	During the early game, Frag Grenades are going to be your best friends. They are plentiful, fairly cheap, and can deal with enemies very quickly compared to the other early-game options, such as Dynamite.
Guide	Weapon guide here	Weapon guide here	Weapon guide here

Armor

The armor choice is mostly up to you, as this build does not require any specific choices, however, there are some notable picks that you may find useful.

• The Black Combat Armor is an armor suit that you can pick up at level 1 if you so choose, and it will carry you throughout a large part of the game. Guide for that armor here.
• Any of the power armors are a great choice, though my personal favorite has to be the Remnants Power Armor due to its incredible DT. Guide for that armor here.

Final Tips

• Carry multiple launchers. Due to a bug, all weapons are automatically reloaded whenever you swap weapons. Due to most explosive weapons having slow reload times, carrying multiple of them is a very good idea for hectic fights.
• Manage your distance from enemies. You always want your enemies at middle range – if the enemy is too close, you’ll blow yourself up, if the enemy is too far, your explosives can’t reach them.
• Avoid companions. The only arguably useful companion with this build is ED-E (recruiting guide here) after his Lonesome Road upgrades (guide for the eyebot upgrades here). 

The reason for this is simple – all companions, including Boone (a sniper), have a tendency to get way too close to enemies, leading to you blowing them up way too often for them to be of any real use. ED-E at least has the benefit of being able to craft Satchel Charges once per day, giving you a source of free, powerful explosives.

• Use Mad Bomber grenades. All of the grenades craftable with this perk are incredibly powerful, notably, however, the MFC Grenades and MFC Clusters are both very good options for getting rid of Microfusion Cells (which you probably aren’t using anyway). In addition, the Nuka-Grenade happens to be the most powerful thrown explosive in the game (other than the Holy Hand Grenade, of which there are only 3).