It is supposed, more or less. 8 is average, 9 is more than average, 10, outstanding, 11, intelligent, 12, really smart, 13, Harvard Student, 14, Dr., 15, Who knows, 16, Sheldon Cooper.
Oh, and at 17 you can read XKCD whithout opening ExplainXKCD.
Stats:
STR 10
DEX 9
INT 8
PER 8
Traits:
Packmule, Parkour Expert, Night Vision, Animal Empathy
Addictive Personality, Lightweight, Weak Stomach, Trigger Happy, Truth Teller, Ugly
Skills:
Firearms, Dodge, Melee, Driving, Cutting Weapons
Profession:
Unemployed
I usually also play with skill rust set to Cap, which lets me take Forgetful and put a few more points into my stats.
I’ve cobbled together an archer class with a strategy:
STR:10
DEX:12
INT:8
PER:12
This carries no ranged penalty whatsoever, and allows most bows to be used (not the reflex recurve bow however, that requires 12 STR. You should be able to figure out an alternative, eg. taking two points out of PER). If PER is traded for STR it also makes a decent melee build with a bit of trait tinkering.
Positive Traits:
Night Vision
Light Step
Fleet-Footed
Fast Learner
Negative Traits:
Insomniac
Heavy Sleeper
Bad Back
Forgetful
Poor Hearing
Weak Stomach
I play with skill rust capped, but if you play vanilla I’d trade forgetful for another trait of your choosing. Also, if I take insomniac I also take Heavy Sleeper so when I finally fall asleep I’m not awoken by a deer trying to peek into my window. The other traits are fairly nonessential and should only affect gameplay in minor fashion.
‘Profession’:
Shower Victim
It’s a free point, just throw on the rags of the first Zed you drop. Chain Smoker is also extremely manageable, as Medicine said.
Skills:
1 Archery
As a kickstart, you should be gaining skill pretty fast anyways.
How to start:
Since it’s an archer class, you should get a bow fast. Just smash some windows in the shelter, or if you want to stay there longer, a house. Windows drop string, sticks, and sheets. Making a self bow is going to be your first choice, and by training fabrication (make more bows or smash benches and make ‘Two-by-Swords’) you can make better bows. If you took Shower Victim you’ll have to improvise for storage, beating a few zeds to death with your wooden swords isn’t too tough, just use bushes to slow them down, and throw on their rags. Field point arrows are your most readily available arrows early game, so just make those. Quivers take two tailoring, Large Quivers take three tailoring. Those are useful if you don’t want to use up space, although torso encumberment doesn’t affect ranged combat, so take your pick.
10/10/10/10 with fabrication and mechanics in general. Your melee/dodge rise pretty quickly, and you are one single rubber hose away from a crossbow, forgetting other things as well.
A memorable fact:
What sounds like “ouch ouch ouch! Ouch! Ouch OUCH! OUCH OOOUCH!!!” whilst running from zombies?
A mutated octopus character wearing four sets of steeltoed boots that just don’t fit.