Hello all, I'm looking to try and get into this game, but oh boy, that character creation sheet sure is intimidating! I was wondering what a good combination of stats, skills, and perks would be good for a first run.

Specifically, I'm looking for a build that allows me just enough killing power to handle anything I have to kill while still having enough utility to potentially experience some of those old school rpg quirks such as non-lethal resolutions, secrets, and hidden funny dialogue.

If you want just a powerful character go for high Agility and Int, Gifted, Small Weapons, Speechcraft.
But it's more fun if you role play a character with both strengths and weaknesses.

Str 5, Per 10, End 2, Cha 2, Int 10, Agi 10, Luck 9

Small guns, lockpick, speech

At start raise small guns later start ramping up energy weapons, about when you get to a certain base

Fallout is one of very few CRPGs where the the "RP" part is actually true. You can role play just about any character and the game will react to it better than just about any other CRPG.

So it would be a bit of a shame to just power play it with a min-maxed character, IMO.

There's some good info about how the stats and skills work here
https://www.gog.com/forum/fallout_series/about_to_play_fallout_2_for_the_first_time_tips/page1

Putting 10 in any stat at character creation is a waste of points as you can get a +1 for all during the game.

With endurance and agility you want to end up at an even stat. Endurance asap as it determines the health points you get at leveling.
If it's your first playthrough, start with a small guns build:
ST 5, PE 7, EN 4, CH 1, IN 8, AG 9, LK 7.
Traits: Finesse and Small Frame.
If you take the Gifted trait instead of SF, you'll get an additional 6 stat points compared to the above:
ST 5, PE 9, EN 4, CH 2, IN 9, AG 9, LK 9.
Tagged skills: Small guns (150-180), Speech (min. 100), Lockpick (min.100)
You can increase Small Guns, First Aid, Outdoorsman, Science and Repair by buying books in 1 of the towns. Unfortunately SG is the skill you'll need to use a lot with this build.
Perks: lvl 3 Awareness, lvl 6 More criticals, lvl 9 Bonus rate of fire, lvl 12 Better criticals, lvl 15 Action Boy, lvl 18 Sniper, lvl 21 AB
This will allow you to switch to energy weapons should you want to.

Except Luck IIRC.

Luck can be raised by 1 in the game too (even by 2 with exploits).

except that would be at the end of game

It's not worth starting with more than 6 Luck, the benefits are minimal (only +1% critical chance per point of luck), 6 luck is enough for taking the better criticals feat and even with lower luck there are still very useful feats like action boy you can take.
For first time play I recommend starting with 6 strength and avoiding small frame since low carrying capacity is a pain if you don't know what to keep and you'll have to drag along other party members and circumvent their carrying capacity limits.

Sniper+better criticals skills combined with minigun at 10 LK, each of 40 shots has 20% of insta-kill.
WIth fast shot, its two volleys per turn.

Two contradictions to your argument:
- there are many more "past 18 level" perks, means its normally reachable without grinding
- in F2 these perks (sniper and slayer) were moved to 24 level, which indirectly suggests F2 devs understood that people got it too early, which means it was achieved during normal play.

I agree that the game can be finished within 15 minutes, but normal way is understood as exploring all places without guide, for which 18 level needs no grinding. Normal finishing time for F1 IMHO is somewhere around a week of gaming (5-7x ~3 hours daily).

In addition, only with sniper (or slayer) high-level enemies can be dealt with efficiently, unless player discovers unique overpowered ".223 pistol" or "alien blaster". Uniqueness is expressed through inability to revisit the location (.223 pistol quest allows to visit farm only once; and there is player level check)

Sniper is also requirement for using big guns, like minigun, laser gattling and so on, - this is evident when attempting to storm high-level places like Brotherhood of Steel or Military Base (typically 1-5 damage with minigun/5-10 damage with gattling against power armor, for example; but ~150+ critical damage).

For completeness, fast-shot + bonus rate of fire at 9 AG get 3 shots, which at ~20 damage (91% small guns) dispose power-armor enemy in one round.

As of "build being theoretical", I do it every time in both F1-2 games. Means it being "theoretical" is only your opinion.

If you check the available longplays in the web you'll see that no one reached level 18 without grinding. The FO1 guide linked above even writes about a perk "Still, better than in Fallout 2 since you'll never get Sniper."
In FO2 there are far more quests and XP to earn, level 24 can be reached there long before the end.

Even if you grind to level 18 to take sniper you'll still be overpowered with only 6 Luck, in your 40 shots Minigun example this means 99.4 percent insta-kill chance.