One thing a lot of people have pointed out is that Fallout 4 is largely just a kill-fest. Nearly every mission is a “go kill X”. Personally, I’m not so interested in a pacifist approach, but I do find it dumbs the game down that the only option to the majority of quests is to just kill everything. It also dumbs it down in the sense that every NPC thinks they can take you on. After a while wouldn’t at least one person get out of your way? Part of survival is sometimes, you know, NOT using your rusty pipe revolver against a legendary-gatling laser wielding, power armored wasteland legend!



Diplomat (CHR 10?)

Rank 1: You now have a chance to parlay with the enemy leader of raider locations. Successful parlay with the leader of a settlement (this option is only for settlements) can be requested to leave for 500 caps.

Rank 2: You now have a chance to parlay with the enemy leader of gunner locations and children of atom locations. Successful parlay with the leader of a settlement can be requested to leave for 500 caps (not sure there are currently any settlements controlled by these groups…)

Rank 3: When you come to a hostile super mutant location you now have a chance to parlay with the enemy leader. Successful parlay with the leader of a settlement can be requested to leave for 500 caps.


A successful parlay will mark that location as neutral (for the case of most quests this would be the equivalent of cleared, some quests would still require actual killing of all). This would also turn all NPCs to non-hostile in that area, which means you can loot without disturbance (unless you pickpocket or steal ofc!). And of course any hostile action by you towards a ‘Neutral’ location would turn it back to hostile.


Parlay would work similar to pacify, once parlay is successful a dialog wheel opens up with the leader. If you fail a parlay with a full health leader you will get another chance once the leader has lost 25% health, you can attempt to parlay again, your chances will be better. Every 25% drop in health you get another chance to parlay and your chances for successful parlay are increased. If on the last 25% of health you attempted a parlay and failed you can either leave the location or try a day later or just kill the leader any everyone there. Leaders would now have 25% sections marked on their healthbar.


A successful parlay grants 200XP. Parlay would be chance based, the chance could be increased by charisma, level gap, and luck. Charisma and level much more so than luck. High enough level gap, charisma, and/or luck would guarantee it (although it have to very very high). Gunners and children of atom would be harder to parlay with than raiders but would grant more XP. Supermutants would be twice as difficult to parlay with but would also grant twice as much XP. Also, Bethesda would have to go in and ensure that each location has a designated leader. Since you could only parlay with the leader you would either have to fight you way to them, sneak, or use Intimidation. This may not allow for an entirely ‘pacifist’ approach, but it does allow for less violence and certainly adds more interesting alternatives to some missions.

nice..

how about having certain companions would grant even higher chances for successful parlay? Strong would surely help with those muties!

Or even further, turn the whole map into a live diplomat board. showing each settlement, facility, etc and which faction controls it. make those parlay rolls into a sort of mini-game where you could "roll" your chances and turn red sections to green!

Could then go even further and have to thwart your own settlers from uprising against Raiders or whatever on their own. Now, you have to parlay them into a peaceful agreement.

hmm..

Already thought about the companion bit but left it out since it was already a pretty long post!


Yes having strong would definitely help your parlay chances. On the flip side having Danse as a companion, he would turn hostile if you attempted to parlay with super mutants. Other conpanions would be less dramatic but would have like/dislikes associated with parlay.


Also, I assume this perk could be added as part of a DLC. Would be cool if there were certain items you could obtain to help parlay with each group, or just one or two Say some unique helmet you take off a powerful and respected super mutant as part of a side-quest - same sort of thing for the others.

You Supermutant, you angry. Me understand, me gives caps, you leave, I not attack. You not angry, you have many caps. We have deal now !

I like the basis of the idea a lot, but I think the last level of the perk needs to be tweaked. What use do the super mutants really have for caps? It's not like they can just walk into DC or GoodNeighbor and barter with the locals, nor would they likely want to. They may respond better to ammo or meat.

You do bring up a good point about super mutants not really needing caps.


I think there's only one or two mutant controlled settlements in the game - they could have specific needs. Perhaps a certain amount of various scrap, or ammo. Plenty of options.