TTW Patch Available Here

Summary:

• Level requirements make a little more sense now
• Top-tier perks are just as powerful, but have been given harder conditions
• Bottom-shelf perks have been buffed to make them more desirable
• No perk gets left behind, and none have been added
• The free Old World Blues perks are nerfed

JSawyer is pretty much the definitive way to play New Vegas. However, one area I feel got slightly overlooked were the perks offered in the vanilla game. While JSawyer balances a few of them, it still leaves many perks that are so useful they are ubiquitous to pretty much any build, and left a lot of others in the dirt. Its level cap changes also leave the player with less perk slots, so your choice every two levels matters more. I sought to try and fix this, with the basic design principles outlined below:

1. All level requirements have been looked over, and polished up. In JSawyer, some fairly overpowered perks like Better Criticals were available at pretty low levels, while quite a few crappy perks (like Roughin' It) were unavailable to players with Logan's Loophole. I changed this, making all the perks pretty much evenly distributed between levels 2 and 20, with the exception of 5 perks that would be absolutely batshit to have alongside Logan's Loophole, or only make sense being taken as late as they are. Perks for each skill are neatly spaced out from each other, avoiding them clumping at certain levels, and progression is clearer now; levels 2 and 4 have basic perks with simple SPECIAL or low skill requirements, and Level 20 is home to only the best.
2. No good perks taken away, just moved to a higher shelf. Vanilla New Vegas has some crazy good perks that tend to get taken every playthrough regardless of build, like Better Criticals or Chemist. I didn't want to ruin everyone's fun by nerfing them, but in order to make them harder for just about any character to obtain, they've been giving higher SPECIAL requirements, so you'll have to specialise if you want those perks. The only exception to this rule is Educated, which I've reworked, but boosting skill rate is still possible via perks.
3. Bad perks and boring effects begone. There are, even after JSawyer is installed, too many forgettable perks in vanilla. For some of these, I have simply upped the numbers on their effects. For many others, I have overhauled their effects entirely, giving them a new lease on life. A few perks that were on the lower end of quality in vanilla, but make sense as early-game picks, aren't buffed, but a lot of their competition is now only available at higher levels. Finally, all boring bonuses are gone, like xp modifiers and instant level-ups, because people would rather have tangible effects on their gameplay and builds rather than hitting the level cap a little bit faster.
4. No perk left behind. I wanted to give a new lease on life to ALL vanilla perks, and preserve vanilla assets. Some perk mods remove Here and Now, I just overhauled it. Many others add perks, to which I say nay. With the tiny exception of making Bloody Mess a trait (it made sense, okay?), no perk is removed, added or renamed.
5. No more OP organs. Beyond traits and level-up perks, I wanted to change the OWB organ perks. They're given to you for free, and had some crazy radical bonuses, especially +2 STR which might as well have removed weapon strength requirements as a mechanic. I've toned them down, so that they still provide some benefit, but if you're still mad, at least you didn't waste any perk slots on them.

There are 4 versions of the file, compatible with the original JSawyer, SawyerBatty FNV, JSUE and Vigor, and patches are available for YUP, UPNVSE+ and Push's Tweaks (I give full credit to their authors and the amazing work they do).What this mod doesn't really touch is traits; while I'd be willing to do so, there's already some pretty good options on the Nexus so far and I don't mind the balance of them too much in JSawyer. PLEASE NOTE, THE VIGOR VERSION REINTRODUCES THE LEVEL 35 CAP, TO ALIGN WITH THE BALANCE CHOICES I'VE MADE.

Qolore7 for Vigor