Clover's my favourite companion. Loyal, effective and the best clotheshorse of all the companions, but at times it feels like when I drag one of my children around a museum or some other place they'd rather not be. She and Dogmeat seem to get on though.

What are the little things you find annoying or endearing about your companions?

no

Clover is very "high maintenance" for a slave. I actually like all of her "annoying comments" except when she wonders what Eulogy is doing :facepalm:

I've actually only had Clover, Jericho and Charon as a companion. Charon is just way too business like. He might be the most powerful of the three but he also seems the most boring to me.

For Jericho I really think it's great when he says something like "What?!?! Did I just step in something!?!"

I have had Clover, Dogmeat, Paladin Cross, and Fawkes for companions. Of them all I preferred Clover. Most of what she says is true. No matter where you are, it does svck (it is the wasteland after all). Whatever gun she has, there are probably better, and well, if she's not killing something she likely is bored.

I avoid companions for the most part though. They are guaranteed to ruin any sort of stealthy approach you want to make by charging directly at the enemy. Not to mention stealing your kills.

I hate how Fawkes always steals my kills when I need them and when Dogmeat always runs in and gets in trouble. Like this one time I was trying to kill a super mutant behemoth and I shot a mini nuke at him but I shot too low and since Dogmeat had run in to attack him I accidently killed him. :shakehead:

I think that all followers have annoying sides, having tested all of them except star-paladin Cross. But in my corversation with her, I already got the impression that she would annoy me really badly, really fast. She sported a certain Victoria Watts-ish way of "goodie two shoes" self-righteousness.

Fawkes: Where to begin? It starts with the way he looks, includes the way his footsteps and voice sound, to his lines, to the way he made me visible to the foes whenever we entered a building - even though I was wearing the Chinese Stealth Armour and sneaking. The kill stealing adds more annoyance, even though I've now found a mod that fixes this.

Clover: I don't mind the "this place svcks" and "I wonder what Eulogy is doing" at all. What I do mind are any and all of her innuendo lines; more particularly the way how she delivers these. No, don't get me wrong. I like innuendo lines, if they are delivered well. For instance, I loved to have Safana in Baldur's Gate around. It's just that Clover delivers them in a way that sounds like a submissive robot who has been beaten dropped on the head as a child too often.

Dogmeat: I have issues with dogs, so this is my main problem with her. The other problem is that she is also making everyone aware of me, even when I am crouching and wearing the CSA. Or perhaps I ditched her too quickly to figure out how to avoid this. On the other hand, to avoid other companions from breaking your stealth, all you need to do is to tell them to keep their distance; and Dogmeat does not offer this dialogue option at all.


Now as for the followers who I actually like a lot:

Sergeant RL-4: The thing that makes him enjoyable (accusing raiders of being commies) is what can make him annoying over time. I mean, it get's a bit old to hear him say this to everyone and everything that moves; though of course it's fun to listen to him fight commie giant ants or commie mole rats.

Charon: Too business like. The one single instance where he made me crack a smile was when we visited my Megaton house for his first time ever, and he instantly declared that he didn't like the look of this place. I didn't know at that time that he says this about every place. He is mighty expensive, too, given that I would never murder anyone just to get a companion and given that I don't particularly aim for high barter skills.

Jericho: I find the way he addresses me as "kid" tiresome. Also, he does get a bit tetchy as soon as the karma shifts from evil to neutral or worse. That aside, I love to have him around.

Butch: What's there to say? Gorgeous, looking good in leather armor and sunglasses, uses sniper rifles and CAR very well, and can give a haircut in the middle of a battle. I was afraid that he would deliver bad innuendo lines, but his lines are just right. Well, the issue here might be that you have to give him these guns and armor so that he can carry less clutter for you. I was annoyed with the vanilla GUI because I had to scroll to the "let's trade equipment" dialogue option, but the Darnified UI fixes that. He sometimes forgets in the middle of a fight how to use his sniper rifle, but now that he has both a CAR and the sniper rifle, he is doing fine.

I love Clover's dialogue, its the one reason she has become my favourite companion. In particular I like 'Whatever you say, honey' when exiting conversation. Its just the way she says it.

She is the most high maintenance follower, though. She costs a lot to buy (and there is no option to get her for free, like Charon) initially, and then you must spend even more upgrading her armour and weapon as her default gear is woefully inadequate.

Butch and Jericho are hilarious, Jericho even has the advantage of being a competent fighter. I'd have Jericho around more if I didn't have to be evil for it. And you have to get further into the story than I usually care to in order to get Butch.


Clover is brilliant in how sinister and damaged she is, but I find her too suicidal to use too often.

Dogmeat is a killing machine.

Fawkes gets in the way, and by the time he brings that slow minigun to bear I've usually killed all the enemies.

Cross is a great all around fighter, her death at the hands of three supermutants armed with rocket launchers in a forsaken dark cavern haunts me to this day. At least she went out fighting for a cause.


RL4: flight comes in handy, but too prone to dying when surrounded.

Charon: Useless as far as I'm concerned. He is oten too far away for his shotgun to do any significant damage, and anything else I equip him with falls short of the mark.

Odd how different people find different companions effective and annoying. Or maybe not. Different companions for different styles of play.

The only Clover comment I find really annoying is the one about Eulogy. Stop talking about old boyfriends/abusers girl!
Her whining is amusing, she sounds like a 14 year old brat.

I found Charon very useful but his constant "Be cautious, this place may not be safe" etc regardless of where you are gets tiresome.
Have to be careful if I give him grenades too, he seems to time throwing them for when I'm moving in on a foe.

Jericho's comments are good but I haven't forgiven him yet for stepping on a mine and dieing after the battle was over. Stupid man.

Dogmeat is formidable and usually gives me early warning of foes I haven't noticed. Ok, he can be a bit over-aggressive, but I still seem to get quite a few sneak kills by hanging back when he hares forward.

Haven't tried the others yet. Don' t think I'd like Star Paladin Cross, even the name is annoying.

Here's my two caps:

Jericho is awesome. He's hilarious as others have said. Give him Hellfire Armor, Hat of the People, Lucky Shades, Shiskebab and a heavy Incinerator, and he will take all your kills. He even knows when to switch from melee to ranged to heavy.
Clover is just as great, especially with shiskebab and a plasma rifle. She looks retro 70s cool with Red's Bandana and Lucky Shades. But sometimes she starts to get annoying. And I don't reload when she dies.
Star Paladin Cross... is so friggin annoying. I never hire her.
RL 3 is great too, though his tendency to attack anything and everything at all times leads to his quick death, at least in my experience. His dialogue is hilarious.
BS Dogmeat is game-breaking. You can temper this by taking the Animal Friend Perk, to reduce enemy encounters, and by never healing him.
Butch, never really hired him but once.
Charon kicks serious butt and when I choose a follower it's either him or Jericho for first pick, or both sometimes.
Fawkes goes postal often, and I only hire him when he's karma available as a one way mule. Then I fire him. He attempts to kill other followers, scavengers, friendly people and me. Out of the blue. On many, many characters.

Charon telling me "I don't like the look of this place" when we're hanging out in my Megaton home. Well screw you buddy, you can wait outside in the cold if you'd prefer.

I spent ages decorating it. So rude.

His shotgun has terrific range as it is a hybrid of something like Lincoln's Repeater and a vanilla combat shotty; it has a much tighter spread than the vanilla combat shotty and a much longer range. He's great at quite a distance with that thing. And, if you have the time and energy to keep him in ammo (or The Pitt) he is deadly effective with Blackhawk. Although, if you don't have The Pitt or aren't playing on a PC keeping him in ammo is a royal PITA.

What annoys me the most:
Charon's "I don't like the look of this place." Definitely the phrase that annoys me the most of the companions I will take with me (anything Cross says is more annoying than that). Especially since he says hardly anything anyway and has hardly any greetings and would always say it to me in my Megaton house. When I finally stopped playing on the 360 and moved to the PC it was the first thing I modded in his dialogue. What a relief to not have to listen to that all the time. Clover wondering about what Eulogy is doing is a distant second.

Jericho is my bro and everything, but I don't like having him wait for me inside my house cuz when I'm equipping/unloading gear I don't want to hear "Are we actually gonna do somethin? Or am I gonna stand here all day?" 50 times. I like to do the glitch and get one extra companion so I can have clover too so my party won't be a sausage-fest. I equip Clover with the Gamma Shield Armor and I kill the ghoul who sells Aqua Cura in Underworld so I can give his wig to Jericho (makes him look like he's from the 1970's lol), with some sunglasses and Ashur's Power Armor. And I let Dogmeat maul people on rare occasions if I'm not feeling like being stealthy.

I only keep dogmeat as a companion and I don't take him with me I just have him wait at my house in Megaton for when I come home ( I did put a food dish and meat in it on the floor for him though).

According to the wiki, Charon's shotgun has a spread of 0.5, which is equal to the 10mm pistol and even the Perforator. When you consider that this is only marginally worse than the Hunting Rifle (spread of 0.3) then Charon's shotgun is probably even more valuable than the Terrible Shotgun, for this reason alone.

So I've stopped giving Charon non-default weapons now. He burns through ammo so quickly it's just not worth it. He uses the Railway Rifle as if it were an assault rifle and uses up 100-200 spikes in no time at all. The constant train noises are quite funny, though.



This is by far top of my list of irritating quotes. Everything comes a distant second to this. :stare:

I like Jericho, Dogmeat and Fawkes. I don't like Clover. She is creepy.

Jericho is cool. He has a lot of personality. What he says is usually good or makes sense and is not irritating. And the smoking constantly is funny, lol. But he wanderers onto landmines a lot. After the fifth time he died from landmines, I left him dead in the very evil playthrough.

Dogmeat is smart. Him you do not have to worry about too much.

Fawkes is awesome. Unkillable in most situations.

I have only had them as companions so far. I will get the rest later or in this playthrough.

I hate how whenever I take Fawkes anywhere he always jacks my kills at the last second, so I've taken to waiting until he gets the enemy's health down to 1 bar then stealing his kills.

I'm still pretty new to the game.

Played earlier, got to level 13 or 14, then got so frustrated with the difficulty that I just uninstalled the whole game. Everytime I would fast travel somewhere, there would be numeroous mercs or super mutant brutes and masters awaiting. It got very frustrating. Never had a companion, never had one offer, didn't even know you could have companions.

So now, on my second playthrough attempt, out of the blue I'm wandering the Wasteland, get in a fight with a Protectron, and Dogmeat shows up. At first I'm overjoyed since I didn't know you could have companions and figured it would help with that whole too diffult thing above, plus it was DOGMEAT!!! Brought back memories.

But now I'm frustrated because s/he's so good at killing opponents, and I discovered I don't get the XP when s/he kills them, that now I think I liked it better without companions.

So my question is, is it somewhat doable to beat the game without companions (by doable I mean not so hard only true masters can do it) or do most players need at least one companion to survive, particularly later in the game???

Thanks for any replies, and double thanks if you can answer generally without spoilers.

Two questions: Are you playing on PC? And have you got the DLCs?

Let me explain the reasons for these questions. If you are playing on PC, you can use mods. There are mods around that allow you to gain XP for kills done by your companions, as long as you fired at least one shot at the target. So, this would be worth the time spent searching the Fallout Nexus to find and download the mod.

As for the DLCs: Mothership Zeta, Point Lookout and especially Operation Anchorage offer new equipment which makes the game really easy, even at higher levels and on harder difficulty settings. Zeta has some alien weaponry which deals quite nasty amounts of damage. Point Lookout has a glitched perk which increases your damage output by 5 points per bullet - this is quite an increase on any automatic weapon. It also has at least one very lovely rifle. And Operation Anchorage has either the nearly indestructible tank armor or the godmode Chinese Stealth Suit. Plus some nice weapons, but I think that they are more like an afterthought. All of these should make your life in the Wasteland much easier.

On the con side of DLCs: Broken Steel adds stupidly designed uber-monsters, which will make the game harder than it normally is. In exchange, you can level higher than without Broken Steel and the game won't end upon completion of the main quest.


If you're stuck on a console without the DLCs, then you need to doublecheck the perk and skill setup that you've chosen, plus your combat tactics. Chose perks that make you tougher and better in battle, sneakier, or otherwise better than before. Put your skillpoints into skills that are useful for your survival instead of all of them into Speech and Barter (as examples). And if you are fighting some big critters, go behind cover and shoot from a position which covers most of your body. Only psychopaths or hysteric civilians would run around without cover during a gunfight.

And perhaps you should adapt the difficulty of the game to whatever you are comfortable with: there is absolutely no reason to play it in "very hard", for instance, unless you like it that way. There are two difficulty levels lower than "normal", and nobody will look down on you if you use these. It is a single player game, after all. No harm done by anything you chose to do.

Sticky is the best companion because he makes up stories to pass the time.

Thanks for your reply.

And I apologize for my thickness, but I'm still unsure of your answer to my question. At first you mentioned a "fix" for the XP thing, thus indicating a companion may be necessary. I.E. it sounds like you're saying "No, don't play without a companion, get this XP fix." Then, you offer some sage combat advice that sounds like you're saying "Yes, with a little work, you can complete this game without a companion."

I appreciate all of the advice, really I do, but mostly I would like to know if the game is moderately beatable without companions, or do you either need companions or need to be a combat expert to do so? At "Normal" difficulty.

Oh, and sorry, I almost forgot to answer your questions.

I'm playing the Game of the Year version on a super-duper PC! (New, and BLAZINGLY FAST with AWESOME graphics).

Yes, absolutely, in fact I'd argue companions can be as much of a hindrance as a help, as they often blow your cover, charge off into highly dangerous situations without a second thought or set off every floor-based trap you come across. Keeping them alive can become quite a task at times, as they have little-to-no sense of self-preservation.

It is definitely possible to beat the game without using companions at all, indeed this is the normal run of it, unlike say the first games where doing a no-companion run was an elite, hardcoe-only challenge. In FO3, you're the Lone Wanderer, after all. You're kind of meant to fly solo.

If I may ask, what in particular are you finding frustratingly difficult?

Ah, thank you SO MUCH.

That was what I was hoping was the answer, as I liked it better alone after just a few encounters with Dogmeat at my side. (Which is very different from 1 and 2, where I found I liked the companions). I think the big difference is, in 1 and 2, combat was turned base, and you could therefore plan around your companions, although even then Dogmeat tended to make explosives obsolete since he was always up close. In 3, it just doesn't feel nearly the same, and IMO feels better solo.

As for the frustratingly difficult part, well, part of it is my own lack of patience. It got real old fast travelling almost anywhere and being greeted with multiple tough foes. Once, when I fast travelled to one of the metro stops, can't remember which one, I was met with TWO MASTERS AND A BRUTE. At level 13 or 14. That was the one that had me, in a fit of disgust, uninstall the game. Come on, your screen just refresshes from the fast travel and you've got TWO Super Mutant Masters with miniguns blazing right off the bat???? And another brute was there too. I died quickly, threw up my hands (because it was just one of several times I fast travelled somewhere only to met with overwhelming combat odds right at screen refresh.

But the week off left me in a better frame of mind this time. I realize when that happens that you just need to not panic, remember that the B button is your friend, and work through it. In fact, if you keep enough ammo and stimpacks, and remember to use the B button when needed, I'd guess it's actually pretty hard to die in combat. But I am still learning (and loving) this game. I think it's replaced my old ALL TIME FAVORITE game of any kind on any platform. For years that honor was bestowed upon Gothic and Gothic II (Gothic 3 svcked IMO), but this one I think has finally unseated that long time champion. Although Gothic will always have a special place in my heart.

Yep. Companions only make the game more difficult. The destroy any chance you have of using stealth, setting up ambushes with mines, or otherwise planning out how you want to attack your enemies.

I saw two complaints or questions in your original posting. One about the fact that companions stole your XP, the other about the possibility of completing the game without companions. I tried to answer accordingly.

Yes, it is definitely possible to finish the game without a companion. Especially if you don one of the armors from Operation Anchorage; in one case, you are heavily armored. In the other case, you can just sneak at everyone and punch them, retreat until they calmed down, and then punch them again. That happens to be my favourite way of dealing with overpowered enemies. If you use this strategy, then you absolutely do not want to have a follower along, because then the foe won't calm down again.

I think I know the spot where you were assaulted by those supermutant masters, because I had a similar encounter when fast traveling to some metro station once. I did hide behind one of the metro signs then and shot around this shield; circling away when they approached and tried to flank me. It's also a good idea to shoot at their weapons because this can break the weapons' durability, and then they will just try to punch you instead of assaulting you with their rocketlaunchers and miniguns.