When I first played Fallout 3, I chose Charisma as my #1 strong Special and found what I have since loved about these Fallout games. The different world/play-style that this opens up in gaming is, for me, my favorite thing about Fallout (next to exploring).

Anyways would love to see what more Beth has added in this field of play and what new ways of gameplay this will open up in the Fallout world. How many others out there have enjoyed this S.P.E.C.I.A.L. above all others?

Yeah I'm looking forward to making a charisma centric character. Charming "Roaring Twenties" style gangster, yes please!

I am very introverted in real life, so I have a hard time playing a charismatic protagonist. Not sure why that matters though, since I have no problem playing as an athlete, marksman, ninja or genius, but I'm certainly not any of those things. Some of the charisma mechanics though, are really interesting to me this time around, so I might try and get my head to wrap around a smooth-talking protagonist for a change.

I don't know about a character built around charisma, but as the settlement system is the new feature I'm most excited about and the one I'll most want to test, I'm sure my character will have all the settlement related charisma perks in the very least.

The thing that worries me about Charisma compared to, say, Strength is that it's harder to see what it's doing for you.

If you have a high Strength you can tell because you can haul around more stuff and your punches do more damage, etc.

But if you have a high Charisma, you may get better prices but other than that, how do you KNOW what it's doing for you? If you see dialog options, how do you know you would not have seen those dialog options ~anyway~, with a lower CHA score? Unless it explicitly lists [ CHA ] after a dialog choice or otherwise makes it clear that you would not have had that choice without your high CHA then the only way to tell would be if you had played through with a different-CHA character and happened to remember the difference in dialog options.

Seems like the times I played high-CHA and then low-CHA characters, I did not notice ~much~ difference at all. That may be different in Fallout-4, but then again, they have X amount of information to reveal to you, so they can't ~not~ give you the info you need.... so what would a high CHA really get you? Extra information? LIke, because of your high Charisma, the NPC may say, "You know, you're an okay gal --- I know this other, secret, entrance you can use".... but that's a dialog line the voice actors would have had to record (both player-character VAs and the quest-giver VA) that ~only~ certain characters with high CHA would ever hear. How often could they really do that?

Granted, having CHA "gate" some of the settlement building functions gives it a more tangible effect on the game, but I'm not yet convinced how big a role it will play in actual conversations and dialog.

It has a huge effect on gameplay because of the various perks tied to it (not only settlement building, but influencing other people, animals, and wasteland creatures). It will be extremely obvious when your Charisma changes the behavior of various encounters.

Well, granted, having a perk or not can make a difference, but in terms of the raw stat itself, it's hard to see the benefit other than at the bartering table. With strength, you lift more and hit harder regardless of what perks you pick.... with agility you have more action points than you would with a lower agility score..... with endurance you have more hit points, regardless of the perks you pick (EDIT: I know perks can give you ~more~ hit points than base endurance would dictate but it's still true that higher END = higher hit points than a lower END). But what does charisma ~do~ except gate perks (which all stats do)?

I'm not fond of the intimidation aspect of many of the charisma perks ---- my character isn't the kind of woman who'd terrorize a mole rat by pointing a gun at it or bark orders at a (lower level than me) raider to force him to let me into their base, eg. So omitting those perks, all that seems to leave are companion / no-companion tweaks and settlement options.

Still not clear on the ~base~ effects charisma will have if you do not really care about the specific perks it unlocks for you.

I do hope there are plenty of charisma checks to make the special itself worthwhile, and not just its perks.

I always play charismatic characters in games that allow it. And FO4 wont be any different.

My Special stats at the start will be this: S-3 P-6 E-1 C-9 I-7 A-1 L-1.

I can only hope that charisma and intelligence are just as viable to survive the waste, as endurance and agility are.

One of the aspects of Charisma that draws me to it is the Cha 8 Perk, "Inspirational" - which increases the damage done by companions, but also prevents companions from harming you. I do NOT want to be killed by "friendly-fire" in FO4. Perhaps the AI is a lot better this time around, but I'm not counting on it. I really don't want to be fighting some Raiders, just to get shot in the back by Piper or Codsworth or some other companion, trying to "help" me.

Spread herpes throughout the wasteland

I'm surprised you didn't find out how big of a mistake it was to invest in Charisma since it has been an utterly useless attribute in all Fallout games with the exception of Fallout 2.

Luckily, Fallout 4 fixes that and makes all of the attributes special in their own way now.

I don't think that will happen often enough to really be a problem... but if you were ever nervous about handing your follower a Fat Man, this is the perk for you.

I'll be going in with a Charisma of 8.

There's enough shooting to do, so I'll happily talk my way out of some of it..

Maybe not, but we'll see. What I am hoping is that they have stat-based dialog choices and that Charisma will matter there - plus I want to get my Settlements up and running and I want to be able to get good prices on stuff. So, Charisma is a good stat for me.

Actually looking forward to a Charisma build this time around. Never did before but it appears that Charisma is much more useful in F4.

I'm definitely dumping 8 points into charisma as my starting stat. I always love to play a charismatic/diplomatic/manipulative person in RPG games

I always have Charisma and Intelligence as my highest SPECIALs (7) and I try to maintain Neutral Karma. I enjoy playing the "Swiss Diplomat" in Fallout. Here's to hoping I can do it again.

I'm shooting more for a Rick Grimes type of character myself

Why did I read that as Rick James? "[censored] yo' couch [censored]!"

Charisma didn't do a whole hell of a lot in Fallout 3, so i didn't have a Charisma based character in it. In Fallout: New Vegas however, where Charisma gave companions Damage Boosts/Damage Resist through Nerve (i also had a mod that added numerous Charisma based companion boosting perks), one of my chars was Charisma based. She was a voluptuous temptress whom rarely went into combat herself, and let her companions do all her dirty work. She went the Independant path.

Ever since NV I go for a high charisma. Just a tad lower than intelligence.

Hopefully Bethesda gives us the freedom to play as a smooth talker who barely has to use their weapons. Since Speech is gone, I hope that Charisma picks up the slack in terms of dialogue gates.

I think that's the point. Instead of [50 Speech Required] it'll be [5 Charisma Required] - I don't think it'll be chance-based like in Fallout 3, either, since they went with solid tiers for Speech checks in Skyrim (although they never told you how hard those speech checks were).

This right here will be worth it, I've always avoided giving companions heavy artillery due to friendly fire, now I might try it out as an option during larger battles.