Mentats (Fallout)

Mentats are a chemical substance found in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, and Van Buren

Characteristics
Mentats are most useful for characters with low Intelligence. Furthermore, they are one of the games' more valuable items yet are relatively easy to find. This makes them also useful as an easy source of money, particularly when first starting.

In Fallout 2
The +1 to Charisma can allow recruiting another companion if the new Charisma is an even number. The new member will stay once Charisma returns to the normal score.

Mentats are roughly a little bit less common than Buffout: a bit hard to find and a tad expensive, but nowhere near as rare as Psycho. However, the overall usefulness of Mentats -- aside from being able to recruit additional friends -- is a bit dubious. Even doubling up on Mentats will only increase a few skills marginally, and is far more situational.

Fallout

 * A locker in the storage section of Vault 13.
 * Sold by the Shopkeeper in The Cathedral.
 * Two can be found in a locker on level 3 of the West Tek research facility.
 * Sold by Mitch in The Hub.

Fallout 2

 * Joanne Lynette in Vault City.
 * Doc Johnson in Redding.
 * Bookcase in Broken Hills.
 * Eric in Broken Hills.
 * Dan in Broken Hills.
 * The Professor in Broken Hills.
 * Sold by Renesco in New Reno.
 * Sierra Army Depot level 4.
 * A few are carried by a raider guarding Vault 15's entrance.
 * The Flying Dragon 8 in San Francisco.

Fallout Tactics
Inside a chest in a tent in Brahmin Wood.

Behind the scenes

 * Their name is a reference to Frank Herbert's Dune, where, in the wake of humanity rejecting artificially intelligent computers and robots, Mentats are humans trained for computer-like mathematical and logical computations. Also of note is that the pills are colored red. Red-stained lips are a distinguishing characteristic of a Dune Mentat.
 * According to the Fallout demo, the Mentats were syringes . The first two Fallouts' graphic's filename SYRING2 reflect this.