Originally posted by: HumblePie
Distance and monster level versus skill level is another big factor. If you use a leveling exploit, like talking to Pappy or the Sandman skill on kids in megaton, and go all the way to level 20 without putting a single skill point in any weapon skill then you aren't going to hit jack crap. I seriously mean that and you can literally have the barrel of the gun in their face and have a 5% chance to hit.
but yes, the game does take distance as too big of a factor in my opinion as well. Way to big. There are mods out there that fix this issue and hopefully bethsuda will give out an official patch doing this as well.
But how realistic is going to level 20 and not putting your skills into anything or picking up any bobble heads or picking up any books? By raising your level to 20 and keeping your skills artificially low you are creating an extremely unlikely scenario. My lowest skill at level 20 is around 50 right now. And that's the skill I absolutely hate.