Intimidation is a perk in Fallout 4.
Effects
| Rank | Requirements | Description | Base ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CH 10 | Time to show everyone who's boss! With your gun, aim at any human opponent below your level and gain a chance to pacify them. | 001D02B5 |
| 2 | CH 10, LVL 23 | When you successfully pacify someone, you can incite them to attack. | 001D02B6 |
| 3 | CH 10, LVL 50 | When you successfully pacify someone, you can give them specific commands. | 001D02B7 |
To use this perk, you must aim a ranged weapon at a human enemy and press your interact button (X on PS4, A on XBOX). This perk is not guaranteed to work, even on enemies with a significantly lower level than yours. Once an attempt is made, another is possible after waiting a short amount of time. If successful, the target will raise their arms and surrender and become a friendly according to your HUD; however, it seems like after waiting a span of several minutes some pacified targets can become hostile again.
Once intimidated, the individual appears to lose their faction allegiance, but will still react to crimes committed against them. For example, an intimidated enemy will not attack if their allies are wounded/killed, or if loose objects are looted. However if you damage them or are caught pick pocketing from their inventory, they will attempt to attack you. Note that damaging/killing one intimidated enemy will have no effects on other intimidated enemies, only that specific individual
This perk can be used on non hostile NPCs, however it is counted as an assault on them, so if it fails or if someone detects you during the act, they will become hostile and attack you.
Wasteland creatures that can be intimidated
Dialogue
The Sole Survivor will sometimes make faction specific comments when pacifying and inciting targets.
| Faction | Pacify | Incite | Command |
|---|---|---|---|
| Church of Atom | "Hands up, nutjob" | ? | "Atom commands you!" |
| Gunners | "Don't move, soldier" | ? | "New orders for you" |
| Raiders | "Just chill out, asshole." | ? | ? |
Notes
- Legendary enemies can be pacified.
- Hostile companions can not be pacified.
- Enemies incited by rank 2 of this perk may attack each other.
- Sneak bonus damage is applied to attacks on pacified enemies, if applicable.
- Holstering your weapon will make all pacified enemies hostile again. This includes using terminals or sitting down.
- Commanding another foe with Rank 3 of the pacification perks will cause the previously commanded foe to go hostile. (Note that this is only true per perk type. You can have a raider, a molerat, and a deathclaw following you all at one time, but if you try to command another animal, the molerat will go hostile.)
- Pacifying an enemy will not satisfy any objective that requires clearing enemies out of an area. Instead, you will have to dispose of them before the objective is counted as complete.
- Black Widow or Lady Killer perk is meant to aid in your chance to pacify, but actually has an opposite effect. Instead, it lowers your odds by 5% or 10%, depending on your rank.
- If the player character successfully pacifies a friendly NPC, orders them to stand at a certain distance away and then holsters their weapon, the pacified NPC will not become hostile.
Bugs
- It appears as though sometimes when you intimidate an enemy it may become immediately hostile after you succeed, forcing you to kill them.[platforms tag needed][verification overdue]
- Wearing power armor causes hostiles to immediately start attacking after intimidating them.[platforms tag needed][verification overdue]
- Rank 3 of the perk makes the target effectively your follower, however, it will be lost after any trespassing either in/out of structure or through the map navigation.[platforms tag needed][verified]
- Alternatively, the target may remain "loyal" after any trespassing, but it will not do any command and also will lose its voiced dialogue or any vocal sound whatsoever.[platforms tag needed][verification overdue]
- When you first pacify an enemy and then incite them, they will not attack after shooting them.[platforms tag needed][verification overdue]
- Followers will ignore a successful intimidation and will continue attacking until the pacified target is defeated.[platforms tag needed][verification overdue]
