Starfield has brought a lot of new folks to the world of Bethesda open world RPGs, and with that also comes a lot of people confused by the persuasion system.. So, here’s a nice and clear guide to how Persuasion works in Starfield!
Understanding Persuasion in Starfield
Persuasion is deceptively simple once you understand it, although there are some opaque aspects to it that may make things seem a little more confusing than they actually are. Let’s break it down.
In order to persuade someone, you need to fill up the “Persuasion” meter in the bottom-left. You do this by picking dialog options and succeeding with them; If you pick a dialog option that has a “+1” next to it, that’ll mean it’ll fill one pip in the persuasion bar assuming you succeed. If you pick a “+3” option and succeed it’ll fill 3 pips.
The dialog options are color-coded showing their general difficulty; The easiest – light blue – is only available as a limited option for some special quest dialogs and typically require you to do some extra reading related to the quest in order to unlock them. As far as I’m aware these will always succeed, FYI.
Green is the second-easiest option; These have a reasonable chance of success. Yellow tends to provide more points, but is more likely to fail. Red is the hardest to succeed at, but sometimes you may not have a choice for especially large persuasion meters.
Once you select an option – regardless of whether you succeed or fail, assuming you haven’t filled the persuasion meter – you’ll get a new set of choices with number values. You typically have 3 turns to persuade someone, so be sure to plan accordingly. Also, the number values assigned to conversations is not fixed; You can occasionally see a green option provide +2, yellow to provide +4, and more.
Additionally, your persuasion skill’s influence (and any bonuses from clothes, drugs or magazines) on your success isn’t shown; Yellow options won’t become green, for instance, with a high persuasion skill, so keep in mind that if you’ve maxed out your persuasion it just means that you have a better chance on the more difficult options.
Other things to note about persuasion in Starfield
Sometimes you can have a “critical success” when performing persuasion in Starfield; this means extra pips will be filled beyond what was part of the dialog option you chose.
Every little bit helps, so don’t forget to wear clothes that give a bonus to persuasion!
Auto-persuade is a bit of a misnomer; it doesn’t automatically succeed, but tries to pick the best options to ensure success for you. In most cases you’ll want to just do your thing and pick your own dialog options.
Be careful with chems! Like in Fallout, you can become addicted to them, and you’ll have to hit up a doc in order to clear your addiction fully.
Additionally, alcohol can help you succeed if you’re facing a particularly challenging bit of persuasion, but in most cases you can get by fine without it.. Unless you didn’t invest at all in persuasion ๐