You'll have to make a few more choices for how you want to play but here is the basic setup.
Take Gifted and set you're attributes to:
S-6
P-8
E-4
C-2
I-10
A-10
L-7
Each attribute can be raised +1 during the game but I think Intelligence and Agility are better to have maxed out from the beginning. When you get the Power Armor it gives +3 to Strength so you can max it by the end of the game. Endurance directly relates to HP but one or two more points in it doesn't have a huge impact, and at 4 you qualify for the Life Giver perk which gives the same HP boost per level as 4 points of Endurance. Perception is great for shooters and 8 is the minimum for getting the Sniper perk.
This leaves you 1 free trait and 3 tag skills. This is where you need to decide a fighting style. There are 6 combat skills in the game: Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Unarmed, Melee and Throwing. Throwing weapons are few and far between so it's use is very situational. Unarmed and Melee are viable choices, I have played many times with No Guns characters, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first time player. You would also need a very different character build. This leaves guns, Small Guns are the most common and will be the least expensive. Big Guns are very powerful but also very heavy and expensive. Energy Weapons are the most rare and most expensive and not really available until late in the game. If you had to choose one then I'd suggest Small Guns and build yourself a Sniper.
The Sniper build is easy because you only need to get your Small Guns up to about 120-130 and then you can spend your remaining skill points however you want. I would go a step further and suggest a character class called Diplo-Sniper. For this take the Good Natured trait, it lowers all combat skills and raises some non combat ones. Since you are only using Small Guns this is a good trade off. Then tag Small Guns and Speech. Put all points into Speech until it gets to 100 and then put points into Small Guns. Get yourself an SMG in one hand and a Rifle in the other. Use the rifle to shoot far away enemies in the eyes and keep the SMG for when they get too close.
If you don't want to limit yourself to one weapon type and want to be an all around War Machine then take Fast Shot as a trait. You will lose the ability to make targeted shots but all guns will cost 1 AP less to use. For some weapons this means having either 1 targeted shot or 2 non targeted shots per turn. For Small Guns the AP is not too bad but Big Guns are fairly slow weapons that can't make targeted shots anyway. You could also take the Finesse trait, it lowers damage but raises critical chance. Later in the game there is a perk called Mutate which let's you swap out one of your starting traits. If you get the Sniper perk the advantages of Finesse are irrelevant as are targeted shots. So you can use Mutate to change Finesse to Fast Shot. There are some drawbacks to this but weighing risk and reward is what Fallout is all about. For tag skills I would still recommend Speech and Small Guns and getting them to 100 and 120 as fast as you can.
For the third tag skill avoid First Aid, Science, Repair and Outdoorsman because these can be raised by skill books and there is a shop with an unlimited supply of books. Depending on your playstyle you should choose Lock Pick, Steal, Sneak or Doctor. I like to raise Sneak for both builds and call it Stealth-Tank. I also like Doctor because it gives you XP for healing yourself after combat, which you will be doing anyway. If you are going with the War Machine build then you could also just tag another weapon skill.
One other note. There is a Bonus Ranged Damage perk that is not quite as good as it sounds. It promises +2 to damage from guns, but there is a catch, it is only applied to max damage. If a gun has a damage of 10-20 then the average shot does 15 points of damage. With the perk the damage rating becomes 10-22 which makes the average 16. However, damage is calculated per bullet so this perk is much better for burst weapons.
So the choice is yours but here are your two basic combat builds
Diplo-Sniper Build
Traits: Gifted & Good Natured
Attributes:
S-6
P-8
E-4
C-2
I-10
A-10
L-7
Tag Skills:
Speech
Small Guns
Lock Pick,Steal, Sneak or Doctor
War Machine Build
Traits: Gifted & Fast Shot
Attributes:
S-6
P-8
E-4
C-2
I-10
A-10
L-7
Tag Skills:
Speech
Small Guns
Big Guns, Energy Weapons or Whatever you want.
Hopefully this is enough to get you through the character creation pretty quick. Let me know if you have any questions about these builds.
