I wrote a game guide about popular Bethesda game Fallout 4 for a website called Fandomspot. They required screenshots and a detailed guide to answer a question that they provided. I did extensive research on the topic, sourced screenshots in-game and then wrote a comprehensive article including all necessary information.

Is high charisma worth it? (FO4)

A detailed guide on the benefits of high charisma

If you were to imagine life in the world of Fallout 4; that is – a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, populated by monsters, mutants, and marauders trying to kill you at every turn, you probably wouldn’t imagine that being charismatic could be more helpful than being strong, intelligent or lucky. 

Surprisingly though, orientating your character’s skills towards high charisma is definitely worth it. 

In Bethesda’s nightmarish vision of a future Boston and the Commonwealth, the Charisma stat is one of the most useful attributes to build up, especially early on in the game. If you are playing with a charisma  build, you can enjoy a completely unique gameplay experience altogether.

Screenshot: Smooth talking your way through the wasteland

Storylines, interactions with NPCs, your morality, even the world’s atmosphere – can all be altered depending on your charisma level from the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. statistics system.

If you enjoy building and micromanaging settlements, developing relationships with characters , being a more peaceful character and getting the most out of FO4’s storyline, then having higher CHR points should attract you.  

If you prefer to fight your way through the Commonwealth and don’t use the settlement system much, then a charisma build is probably not for you.

This guide will show you the many benefits of allocating your skill points to the Charisma attribute and how it will affect your playthrough. 

Contents

Quests and Storylines
Perks
Building Relationships with Companions
Bartering Prices
Vendors and Stores
Settlement Expansion
Pacifying and Commanding Enemies 

Quests and storylines

Throughout the game when meeting NPCS (both in and outside of quests), you will encounter speech checks. These are dialogue options that can take the conversation in a different direction and affect the outcome.

One of the earliest encounters you have after escaping the vault sees the Sole Survivor crossing paths with some drug dealers intimidating a drug addict’s mother. 

You can choose to kill them, help them, or move on, but one option is to deescalate the situation through speaking. Your charisma level determines the outcome of this encounter. 

Photo: Words not bullets

The higher your charisma skill, the higher your chance of succeeding in your dialogue attempt. There’s a formula that decides the outcome of speech checks – for each charisma point (CHR) you have, your chance of succeeding increases by 15%.

So if you have 1 CHR, you have a 15% chance of succeeding a green speech check. This increases proportionately – for example 8 CHR points (8*15) gives you a 120% chance of succeeding on a green speech check. 

Photo: Coloured options affect your dialogue outcomes

There is another modifier though. Depending on the colour of the dialogue option, the chances of success decrease as follows:
Yellow = -35%
Orange = -50%
Red = -65%

Red speech checks are the rarest but yield big results. So if you had 10 CHR and chose a red option in a speech check (10*15% =150%, minus 65%) you’d have an 85% chance of coming out of it with the best result. 

Screenshot: If you’re good at something, never do it for free

The majority of these conversations in the game simply lead to higher payment for work, sometimes up to four times as much. In the early chapters of the game, this extra pay can make a big difference. In the later stages though, 400 caps won’t seem like much.

Screenshot: Hard work deserves better pay

However, there are numerous quests throughout the game which involve speech checks that directly affect how the whole scene plays out. A lot of them mean you get to solve a problem without resorting to violence – and in a world where bullets are a precious commodity, this can really help your playthrough.

Screenshot: Talking can even help you to release someone from prison

Even towards the end of the main questline, having high charisma can affect what happens between you and important characters, such as convincing a faction leader to help you instead of just dying (minor spoilers!).

High charisma means more success at negotiation and persuasion, and less chance of situations turning into all out bloody chaos. So if you are trying to be a morally good character and resolve problems diplomatically, having high charisma is extremely beneficial. 

If you prefer to go in guns blazing or assassinating from the shadows, then your skill points may be better spent elsewhere. 

Perks

The Charisma skill doesn’t just influence dialogue trees. There are ten CHR perks (with a total of 29 ranks) that, while still all being related to your sociability, affect other aspects of gameplay. 

Screenshot: The charisma perks are a whole lot of fun

We’ll look at some of these in more depth later, but the perks (in order) are as follows:

1. Cap Collector; Prices at vendors are better, and you can invest in stores
2. Lady Killer / Black Widow; You can more easily persuade, damage or intimidate the opposite sex
3. Lone Wanderer; Grants bonuses for travelling alone
4. Attack Dog; Gives various abilities to your canine companion
5. Animal Friend; Pacify, Incite or Command Wasteland animals below your level.
6. Local Leader; Build workshops and stores at settlements and link them through supply chains
7. Party Girl Party Boy; Increase the effects of alcohol and become immune to addiction
8. Inspirational; Grants extra bonuses to your companions
9. Wasteland Whisperer; Pacify, Incite or Command Wasteland creatures below your level.
10. Intimidation; Pacify, Incite or Command human enemies below your level

Building Relationships with your companions

Screenshot: The wasteland really solidifies a relationship

The radioactive wastelands of the Commonwealth can be a lonely place at times – so it’s lucky that FO4 has so many companions to meet and bring along with you on your adventures. 

If you are trying to get the most out of the game’s story and immerse yourself in its environment, then you’ll want to build relationships with companions (unless you’re a lone wanderer, in which case that CHR perk would serve you well by boosting stats when travelling alone). 

When your CHR is at 8 or above, you can purchase the Inspirational perk, which grants special bonuses to your companions such as extra damage or carrying capacity. 

Screenshot: Being popular in the post-apocalypse

Although you can build maximum affinity with any characters regardless of your charisma, engaging in romantic relationships with them is aided by having a high CHR rank (and with the Lady Killer/Black Widow perk for the opposite sex). 

 Once you’ve reached a certain point in your friendship, a speech check will present itself allowing you to become ‘more than friends’.

Screenshot: Things can get pretty steamy with your companions

A high enough CHR skill will guarantee your wooing attempts land. You can start romantic relationships with seven of the games twelve companions and gain the lover’s embrace perk every time you sleep while travelling with them; granting +15% experience points for eight hours. 

Screenshot: Why sleep alone when you can sleep with a lover and get XP for it?

While romantic relationships don’t massively affect gameplay, there’s something comforting about having an in-game ‘lover’ accompany you through the dangerous open world. The experience bonus for every sleep adds up too and fastens your levelling up.

Screenshot: You can become more than just battle-brothers

Bartering prices 

On top of improving your relationships and progression through quest dialogue (and your payment) -another great benefit to having high charisma is how it affects your ability to do business and make money through bartering.

Screenshot: High charisma means being a haggling pro

As your CHR level increases, the buying and selling price changes in relation the base price of an item. The base price is multiplied by increasing modifiers relative to your CHR. The modifiers for those prices are listed here: 

Charisma	Buying Price Modifier	Selling Price Modifier
1	3.35	0.2985
2	3.20	0.3125
3	3.05	0.3279
4	2.90	0.3448
5	2.75	0.3636
6	2.60	0.3846
7	2.45	0.4082
8	2.30	0.4348
9	2.15	0.4651
10	2.00	0.5000
11	1.85	0.5405
12	1.70	0.5882
13	1.55	0.6452
14	1.40	0.7143
15	1.25	0.8000
16+	1.20	0.8000

On top of that, you can acquire the cap collector perk ranks to get even better prices when bartering. This is particularly helpful early on in the game, in order to start making and saving money quickly – but continues to be useful as you collect more valuable items at higher levels. 

Screenshot: Getting lethal guns at a third of the price!

With a maxed out CHR stat and the perks combined, you can get both buying and selling prices to be equal to 1x the base price.

Vendors and Stores

The second rank of the Cap Collector perk allows you to invest up to 500 caps in any merchant’s business. This increases their buying capacity (which is pretty low early on in the game) meaning that you can sell more expensive items to them and they can buy more from you. This is vital to your ability to earn more caps as you progress.

Screenshot: Invest in small businesses to support your local community

Perhaps the most desirable CHR perk though, is Local Leader (CHR 6 needed). Its first rank allows you to create supply lines between your allied settlements, meaning that junk, aid and miscellaneous items are shared between settlements, as well as excess food and water produced by each. 

Screenshot: Connect your settlements to rebuild society

So as you create new workshop settlements, all you need to do is establish a supply line and then that new, barren and unpopulated space will have access to resources from other locations. Then you can start to easily build and recruit (more on that later).

The second rank of Local Leader perk really introduces a whole new way of playing – with it you can build your own stores and workstations at each of your settlements and become a business owner.

Be the boss of your own wasteland franchise

Having your own stores in your settlements not only allows you to generate passive income (living the dream!) but also means that you will have numerous extra locations all over the map that let you trade whatever you need to with ease. 

You can build markets in the most scenic locations

Combine this with the third rank of the cap collector perk, while connecting settlements through supply lines and constructing stores in each settlement and you’ll soon have a post-apocalyptic business empire on your hands!

A fancy shopping hub built in Sanctuary

Larger stores (emporiums) can be bought once you have rank 2 for both cap collector and Local Leader. A larger store generates more daily caps and sells better items. 

Building stores inevitably means that you will need more settlers to work in those stores, and to be customers too. As you expand your settlements and empire, you will need more citizens to designate as vendors. The more settlers you have in each settlement, the more income your stores will generate.

SETTLEMENT EXPANSION

Rebuilding civilisation can’t be done alone

The Commonwealth doesn’t need to be a desolate and lonely place to live when you can fill your various bases with settlers looking for a home. As a player who enjoys building settlements and populating them with people, charisma is an absolute must. 

The Castle – home to dozens of freedom fighters

As mentioned earlier, you can use the Local Leader perk to share resources between settlements. This makes it a lot easier to build the necessary objects (such as the Radio Recruitment Beacon) for attracting new settlers and keeping them there, but there is a population limit. 

The population of your settlements is heavily dependent on your CHR skill. The default maximum population for any settlement is ten settlers plus each CHR point the player has (up to 22 points with all magazines and +1 from a bobblehead). 

Screenshot: Maximum Settlement Size with max CHR and seven companions

With high charisma, you can reach settlement populations of up to 32 settlers (and also send your companions to reside there to increase that number). This means they’ll generate more caps, but also that you’ll have your own customized hubs of lively activity to retreat to after a hard day’s work killing super mutants and feral ghouls. 

Screenshot: When you’re not busy toppling powerful organizations you can run your own popular bar

Pacifying and commanding enemies 

Out of all of the benefits of high charisma, last on the list (but not least) is the ability to pacify, incite and command the wide range of (organic) enemies you’ll inevitably clash with. 

Keeping in line with a playstyle that focuses on building relationships, sorting out problems diplomatically, and rebuilding civilization – the higher-level perks allow you to stop living things from attacking you without having to engage in combat. 

Screenshot: Not much of Super Mutant Master now are you?

The Animal Friend, Wasteland Whisperer and Intimidation perks allow you to neutralize animals, wasteland creatures and humans, respectively. When you see an enemy, you simply aim and press the interact button to have a 40% chance of pacification. 

Screenshot: Hands up! Raiders are people too

With the higher ranks of those perks, once a threat has been pacified, you can even incite them to attack other enemies in the area, or command them in the same way you would a companion.

It might not seem worth it to reach 10CHR to get the second rank of Intimidation, when it works less than half the time. However, if you are attacked by 5 raiders, and incite just one of them to fight with you – you turn a 5v1 fight into a 2v4 one, which greatly increases your odds of survival. 

Not to mention there’s something incredibly satisfying about making your enemies put up their hands in fear, instead of trying to kill you. 

Screenshot: Getting the bad guys to fight for you

Now, imagine commanding a Deathclaw to attack a group of enemies and you can see why having high charisma can make the game so much more fun. 

Screenshot: Who would’ve thought Deathclaws could seem cute?

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the answer to “Is high charisma worth it?” really depends on how you want to play the game. As with all of Bethesda’s open world action-RPGs, the skills you decide to focus on can determine what kind of gameplay experience you have. 

If you want to feel like a smooth-talking, diplomatic leader attempting to rebuild some semblance of civilization; by developing meaningful relationships, creating profitable businesses, and sparing lives instead of only ending them – then high charisma is the best way to achieve that.    

Screenshot: A true leader of the Commonwealth

Written by Jason Law