I've been playing a charisma focused 'talky' character and so I was happy to see that there's some fun/powerful stuff you can do with higher CHA. However, I feel that the inability to use these two perks without having your weapon up is a bit of a departure from the spirit of characters played in this way. The reason you're able to talk down these enemies is because of your personality, not because you happen to be holding a shotgun to their face.

I love the dialogue that your character shouts out (the Ghoul line and 'HUMAN IS FRIEND!' always makes me smile), and the fact that there's different variations for the various enemies. That's great. However.. I'd honestly really like it if there was some way that your character could attempt pacify without aiming down the sights of a weapon. For example, holding a key/button (eg E/A/X) when an enemy is under the crosshair or whatever. This seems like a control limitation rather than a conscious design choice.

Additionally.. when you put your weapon away, the enemies suddenly forget that they're pacified and aggro you again. Perhaps that's appropriate for humans (again, though, it shouldn't be about your weapon, it's about your commanding personality) but not for creatures, they don't care a damn about your gun. I've had to start point-blank executing pacified creatures so that I can put my weapon away to do stuff and this just feels terrible

So another suggestion is that if the whole weapon part of pacify is kept, then you're able to actually put away your weapon versus enemy creatures.

edit: I also feel like the third tier of these perks are far too high level to meaningfully impact your game, and should be lowered if the gun aspects above aren't changed. Otherwise the perks are sadly less powerful than they should be for CHA 9/10 perks.

in summary:

- allow pacifying enemies without having a weapon out

- pacified enemies shouldn't re-aggro when you put your weapon away

- lower the third tier level cost of these perks a bit so that CHA based characters can use these abilities earlier in their game.

Great points. I agree. I'd love to see this reworked.

You can get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.

I'm sure that is true of the world of Fallout, and you know, perhaps the perks could be extra effective versus humanoids if you had a gun out. But I don't feel like it should be absolutely necessary.

From the wording of the perk, having a weapon out in an intimidating manner is the very reason it works. Something in your voice and body language is letting those animals know that you fully intend to use the business end of that weapon if they don't cooperate, And that they're in the presence of a greater predator.

For anything else... the game would just require more dialogue opportunities, period.