I wanted to make 1 fighter character who is good at preserving ammo for marksman allies. The other 2 or even 3 chars will be marksman. My question is what is the deal with skills/stats?

1 Does armor class affect your character's chance to get hit?

2 What are the builds for the fighter and what are 2 marksman builds?

3 I have played fallout but this is different game so I got to brush up on info. I could probably figure out a few things but if people can point out 3 or 4 skills to focus per class to get by with a 3 or 4 man party.

I have played Wasteland dozens of times, but I am a bit confused by your post. Perhaps Wasteland doesn't play quite the way you imagine it.

There are no special "builds" which can help your character be a better marksman. For example, if your character have the "Assault Rifle" skill, you may choose each round to either fire a single shot, a burst, or go full auto. But there are no other skills you can choose which will make your character better at any of these options, it's up to you to decide how much ammo you want to expend. Overall the way I play I find I have no shortage of ammo (except for pistols in the early parts of the game).

The only two different builds I will make are "Melee" and "Guns". The brawling skill is somewhat overpowered in Wasteland (you get multiple attacks with high Brawling, and double XP). I usually make a party of Brawlers, although I make sure at least one character has Assault Rifle and Energy Weapon for those occasional enemies resistant to brawling. Sometimes for a change I'll make an all Guns party and no one with Brawling.

With regard to Armour, I don't think they reduce your chance of getting hit, but AC reduces the damage your character receives (up to and including negating the damage entirely). Always use the best armour, there is no cost for doing so.

Essential skills (in my opinion, others may disagree):
All characters: Perception, Medic, Doctor
At least one character: Picklock, Safecrack, Bomb Disarm, Cryptology
Leader (character in the #1 position): Climb, Silent Move

My rating of the attributes:
STR: Need one character with good STR, average is OK for Brawlers, useless for Guns
IQ: I usually reroll until I get 15+ for this at the start.
LUCK: is apparently very good for Brawling... I find the #ranks in brawling makes a big difference. Also increases ranged damage (apparently). Good for all characters (high for brawlers, avg for guns)
SPD: useful with Brawling (avg is OK, useless for guns)
AGL: useful to avoid attacks (?) and Climb/Silent Move (good for leader). (nearly useless)
DEX: useful for Ranged Combat, and Picklock (good for one character if using mostly Brawl)
CHA: useless

Overall, I find that the #ranks in a skill is more important than the base attribute.

Any further questions, I'm happy to help :).

Yes armor class definitely affects your character's chance to get hit.

01Kipper has solid arguments, but I'm not sure if the question was for the first game or the second. 01Kipper seem to be focus in the first.

If its for the second game, maybe you can wait a little to the GOTY edition because will includes perks for custom NPC.
About the armor, in the second game its not affect the chance to be hit (you has Luck and agility for that). I don't remember very well if its the same case for the first game.

In the second game, the energy weapons are dangerous when you carry the best armors, but again with the GOTY edition there will be important changes (Mostly aim attacks which can reduce the armor penetration properties)

Another issue with many of the armours is that they are heavy and therefore reduce the distance you can move in combat (not played in ages, but Speed iirc). Combined with armour actually being HARMFUL when up against energy weapons (lots of this in the end-game), many walk around 'naked' instead. You can move about more, and won't get pawned by energy weapons. Okay, you'll take some more damage here and there, but that usually isn't a big problem anyway, and there is no shortage of healing kits, which I found were often not needed to take during combat, so I could take my sweet time after combat to heal up anyone that needed it.

I actually gave up on this game a while past. I find that everything is good about the game except that there are too many statistics. Whatever happened to just sticking with strength, dexterity, constitution and intelligence. As soon as there are two dexterity stats I say Im done with this game.

Wasteland 2 is probably a worse game though. The graphics wont likely run on my computer because "when are graphics" ideal. Graphics dont ever make me want to buy a game anymore but if the game is frustrating/confusing that can make me not want to play it.

Maybe I will understand it Wasteland 1 some other time, but not right now. I still will say this-the game holds more for me than the sequel likely will so I can still someday get into it. Just got to figure out the stats!!!!

Oh, you are talking about Wasteland 1? I thought you meant the second game, which my advice was meant for. No idea about Wasteland 1, because I've never played it.

I'm not sure if I understand correctly, Wasteland 2 has the same attributes than Wasteland 1, and a gameplay a little more polished. The graphics in Wasteland 2... well, let say that even the developer team make a in game joke about had be used Unreal engine. By the way, seem to be very friendly with low specification machines.

The thing about "Dex", you has one for defining how quickly you will act in the battle (and how often), and one for aiming and avoiding attacks.

Personally, for me, the Wasteland 2 is the climax of Wasteland and Fallout (1,2) games. All the skills are useful, all the attributes are useful, has a lot of dark references (ok, maybe this is a weakness for other people) and though has turn battle system is not that awful (I personally dislike the turn concept in PC particularly Fallout 1), once you got the best armor the battles are still hard (or even worse) and... you has a nasty red button in your citadel that play with your mind. By the way, with the GOTY (or Director Cut that seem the name had been changed) the game will have perks (Similar to the Fallout series).

I played the first game too, and is hard, mainly because software limitation, but if you are able to understand its mechanics, wasteland 2 is the same.

Ah... it's not that bad with the stats once you're into it! And Wasteland is a great game and has a lot to offer, I rate it even higher than Fallout 1&2 (also because of that totally stupid indirect party management there). If you want to give it another try at some point, read this walkthrough here

[url=http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/wasteland.html]http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/wasteland.html[/url]

the first three chapters and probably chapter 4 until 4.1, where the "real" walktrough begins.

This helped me a lot to get into the game (uhmmm... I mean, I was born in the same year as the game was released *lol*) and you probably have understood als those stat stuff after reading this.

Here are a few things about weapon skills in Wasteland 1.

Brawling is very useful, and it might make sense to start with 2 skill to make the early game much easier. All the good melee weapons use this skill, so don't bother with Pugilism or Knife-Fighting. Also, all melee weapons use Brawling for extra attacks.

The only firearm skill that is actually important is Energy Weapons. Clip Pistol and Rifle are weak and only prevalent in the early game where melee combat is your best bet. SMG and Assault Rifle are unimportant because ammo is plentiful and going full auto gives a bonus to hit equal to the number of shots fired; In other words, you don't need any skill for those weapons to be effective. Assault Rifle will rise nicely if you put one level in it because weapon leveling is based on enemy defense.

Grenades are useful only before you get automatic weapons.

Anti-tank weapons are scarce. Maybe give one character the skill (ignoring defense is useful), but you will need to use it sparingly. Some of the anti-tank weapons you find are better off sold. (Would you rather have a single-use weapon or enough money to buy a lot of ammo or a powerful melee weapon?)