Speech

Speech is a Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout 3 skill. In Van Buren, it was divided into two skills - Persuasion and Deception.

The ability to communicate in a practical and efficient manner. The skill of convincing others that your position is correct. The ability to lie and not get caught.

Fallout and Fallout 2
Initial Level: Starting Speech skill is equal to 25% + (2% x Charisma). Average characters will have a 35% skill.

Speech skill was in the first draft of Fallout Tactics skills, but was eventually left out.

Fallout 3
Occasionally, you will be presented with a Speech Challenge. A Speech Challenge is a response preceded by the word “Speech” and the percentage chance of success (e.g., [Speech 25%]); the higher your Speech skill, the greater the chance of success.

Succeed in a Speech Challenge, and you’ll achieve the results indicated by the response. Fail a Speech Challenge, and future Speech Challenges with that character will be more difficult.

Having a weapon draw will dcrease your percentage to succeed at a speech challenge.

From time to time you may also be presented with dialogue options where a word appears with no percentage (e.g., Strength or Lady Killer/Black Widow). In this case, this is a dialogue option that is available to you because of the level of the indicated S.P.E.C.I.A.L. statistic, Skill, or Perk and you will always be successful when selecting it. You only get one chance at each Speech Challenge, so if encounter one has a low percentage to succeed, you may want to exit dialogue and try the Speech challenge at a later time, after you’ve raised your Speech skill.

In order to gain a 100 in the speech skill, without putting skill points into it, it is necessary to only have a 13 to start with. 87 points can be obtained in game from items, perks, and quests.


 * +10 to your speech skill can be earned as a possible reward from the quest Oasis.
 * +10 for the Speech Bobblehead.
 * +50* collecting all 25 Lying, Congressional Style books.
 * +15 for the Speech perk. (+5 for each level of 3 total.)
 * +2 for the Paradise Lost book from Tulip in the Underworld.
 * (+2 per book with the Comprehension perk. Normally +1 without the perk.)

=Appendix=

List of Fallout 3 Speech Challenges
For the Silver-Tongued Devil achievement, you need to win 50 speech challenges. For this purpose this page will contain a list of those speech challenges. Please continue to add challenges here.