Fallout 4 Intelligence Perks

Stat Benefits and Making Use of INT Perks

Fallout 4's Intelligence Stat is primarily used to unlock new Perks. Of all the SPECIAL Stats, it probably has the least direct impact on your character, though the Perks themselves can be wonderful. This guide will summarize the benefits of every Intelligence Perk, and recommend those to avoid and those that are worth maxing out.

Jump to an Intelligence Perk! - Just need the Perk ID to cheat, or want to know more about one of the INT Perks? Click to jump to info about that perk:

• VANS
• Medic
• Gun Nut
• Hacker
• Scrapper
• Science
• Chemist
• Robotics Expert
• Nuclear Physicist
• Nerd Rage

Intelligence Effects

Increased XP Gains
Intelligence's primary (and really only) purpose is to increase XP gains - 3% per point, up to a maximum of 30% + 3 per point you go over. This is not in itself that important, given the abundance of quests and battles you'll encounter in Fallout 4. That's not to say it's worthless, it's just a nice aside that will make you level a bit faster while your real reason for taking points in Intelligence is to get access to a number of its best Perks, which serve most builds very well.

There are no speech checks related to Intelligence in Fallout 4, a deviation from the game's tradition. Here's hoping they fix this some day, so we can have stupid characters and/or get through quests faster with our intelligent character.

Where to Find the Intelligence Bobblehead: Inside a room on the Northern side of Boston Public Library's second Floor. You'll find it there, sitting on a computer.

Intelligence Perks

This is the list of all Intelligence Perks in Fallout 4. Every perk starts with a minimum SPECIAL rank, which does not go up with future points in the perk - only the level requirement changes. You will find the Perk ID for the player.addperk cheat, as well. This is useful in order to avoid leveling your character to get perk points, or to remove perks and respec your build with the player.removeperk cheat. In case I've made a typo in any of these, you can find any Perk ID in the cheat menu by typing help perkname 0 - for perks with multiple words, try only one word in the perk name. Expect to see them listed without ranks. You can omit the 00s when using these cheats - start with the first non-zero character to save yourself some typing.

About V.A.N.S.: This is not a very useful Perk. Yes, you might find the path a bit sooner but we already have quest markers to show us about the world. To use it, you HOLD the button for V.A.T.S. when no enemies are around. It will not appear even in normal VATS unless you perform this hold, so it won't always annoy you. At times, it may help you to get out of an area when you have difficulty navigating a large building - but that's it. Sometimes going the wrong way leads to a discovery, and always knowing the right path to choose will take away from the adventure. That said, if you're a person who is frequently lost, go ahead and let VANS light the way.

About Medic: Medic takes Stimpaks and RadAway from restoring 30% Health or 30% of a bar worth of Radiation to 40/60/80/100%. This means you'll get much more out of one, allowing you to avoid buying them and maybe even stockpiling enough of them that they become yet another form of currency alongside ammunition. The last rank allows you to heal so quickly that you'll be to full before the character is done with the injection animation, unless you're playing on Survival where healing slows. I think that difficulty is where this Perk being at rank 5 is going to help the most, but only as something you take well into the 40-50+ range in order to keep up with enemies' level scaling and higher damage.

About Gun Nut: Gun Nut is recommended if you're in for the long haul with Fallout 4, but isn't 100% necessary if you don't mind scrounging for mods on weapons that are randomly dropped. The best weapons mods require it, and sometimes at least a rank or two in Science, though Science is mainly used for energy weapons (and sometimes all you need to upgrade them). Thankfully, if you will not use Energy weapons, you'll probably only need Science at rank 1 to get the best damage-boosting modifications.

Since you can take Rank 2 at level 13, it's worth noting that you should probably have a look at your weaponry and the upgrades/crafting materials available to you and see if you will really even benefit from Rank 2 at such a low level

About Hacker: While not required to enjoy Fallout 4, this Perk can get you some great stuff and sometimes help you complete a quest or clear an area easier by opening safes electronically, doors, or even disabling turrets. Fallout 4 does not allow you to even attempt Advanced, Expert, or Master Terminals without these specific Perks - your character just says they're not good enough at hacking.

Since the reset time is only 10 seconds should you get locked out, it's really not worth taking the last rank although if you do not like the hacking system it can let you keep trying at random until you guess the password. Really, hacking isn't so hard that this is ever needed.

About Scrapper: Scrapper is a wonderful perk for getting extra crafting materials after looting enemies. Without the Perk, you will not even see these items available when scrapping - even a Gauss Rifle will yield you only Steel and Wood. With the perk, items like Pipe Pistols and regular Shotguns will provide you with Steel, Screws, and slightly better items offer Copper (the mods of the weapon seem to matter big-time, notably if it's a component required in the recipe to make the mod yourself).

Overall it's an incredible Perk for someone who uses weapon and armor mods heavily, and who doesn't? It's really the only way to stand up to the waste's toughest enemies - you can absolutely double the damage and accuracy of weapons, while giving yourself incredible protection even without Power Armor if you have the right modifications. Plus, you can make specialized gear. Items like Circuitry and Nuclear material can come in such small quantity that it's hard to pass up rank 2 as soon as it's available - and it's when it will really come in handy (level 23). By the time you're in the mid-20s-30s and enemies are using much better weapons against you, you'll get all you need to outfit yourself in the very best with this Perk.

In order to make best use of Scrapper when you must be selective of what items you loot from enemy corpses, head to your inventory and the junk tab. From there, select component view. When you do so, you can tag items for search. Those without scrapper can do this too. This allows you to see a little magnifying glass next to the item when you're looting if the item has components on your favorite list. Where Scrapper comes in and what's special about it, is items in the game world will be highlighted green so that you know to pick them up and miss less of the components you're looking for.

About Science!: The usefulness of this Perk depends entirely upon the needs of the player. It is required to line armor with lead, which increases radiation damage resistance. For Power Armor, you will not be able to go past Model B without the Science! Perk. All later designs rely on increasing ranks of the Armorer Perk and 1 rank in Science is enough. For Power Armor Material modifications, Science can come into play for allowing Energy and Explosion resistances. The really good stuff is found in Misc Mods, where you can put in blood cleansers (to prevent chem addiction) or increase Action Point recharge speed. Changing headlamps requires Science, as well. If you want a Jetpack, you will need both rank 4 Science and Armorer.

For Weapons, there are a wide array of useful upgrades related to this Perk. Special scopes on normal kinetic weapons requires Science, but most of those upgrades are provided by the Gun Nut Perk. If you're going to use Energy Weapons a lot, go with Science in order to give them the best Capacitors possible. You may need a dash of Gun Nut here and there. This is where Science comes up most in terms of weapon mods.

Science will also let you make laser turrets and industrial water purifiers for your Settlements. All in all, it's a wonderful Perk BUT you should not bother taking ranks until you're sure you need it. Every modification and structure you can make in Fallout 4 states its requirements. If you do not even have the items you need to make the mod/structure anyway, you're better off putting a point elsewhere until you can. For the most part, 1 point in Science early in the game will suffice, and only later will you need ranks 2-4 - but then, that's when they're available. Later.

About Chemist: I cannot make a major recommendation about this - it's all about your playstyle. I'm not personally a big fan of drugs in Fallout 4 and never have enjoyed them in the series, but some players will use them heavily enough to get addicted. I use them in very tough battles - certain drugs like Psycho and Jet can be incredibly helpful, so a point or two in this will not hurt although there are better Perks. It can make Mentats last 24 minutes, Psycho 15, and Jet 30 seconds. All of the durations these typically have are quite long enough, but in a large battle only 10 seconds of Jet is not that much. I guess the big point I'd make here is, if you're a fan of the shorter-acting drugs and do not want to get addicted, this Perk will let you use them less frequently by getting a larger effect out of them on each use.

There are, of course, means of removing addiction in the game. Time is one factor, and the other Power Armor and its ability to keep addiction at bay entirely. You can also buy/craft the refreshing beverage and possibly visit a doctor to remove addiction.

About Robotics Expert: There's a major flaw in this perk, in that to really benefit you'll probably also need stealth to make good use of it. You've got to sneak up to hack a hostile robot. There are a number of opportunities to take control of Protectrons and Turrets via hacking, but this Perk seeks to let you do this directly. It absolutely does work on powerful bots, there just aren't many opportunities to use it to justify a Perk point that could be spent elsewhere to raise your combat effectiveness in all situations.

Still, I'm sure some of you will come up with some great uses for it and tell me I'm wrong. If I change my mind, I'll certainly come back and give this Perk a more favorable review.

About Nuclear Physicist: There are two components to this Perk, though you should only use it if you want to use Power Armor heavily. First, let's just look at the Power Cores. If you're a fan of Power Armor, then you'll probably want this in order to allow yourself to use it freely without buying somewhat expensive cores while finding them sparingly. Doubling the duration is great, no doubt, given the massive amounts of protection and carrying capacity that good Power Armor can give you. Take this, with Science! and Armorer and you'll be able to make great armor that can be used constantly later in your adventures.

The second component of rank 3 in Nuclear Physicist will allow you to eject Fusion Cores, though you cannot throw them. You do this just as you would a grenade, holding the weapon bash button to eject it. Since cores go in the back of the unit, they'll appear just behind you, armed and ready to explode. It's best done while running with multiple enemies just behind. The core does indeed do a lot of damage - comparable to a mini nuke - and it may be used in desperate situations in order to save your life. The core is consumed, and they seem to do the same damage no matter the energy level - so a core at 10% can be ditched to do this extra damage and another core will automatically go in with 0 delay. You'll just notice your 'fuel' stock has gone down by one.

The other component of Nuclear Physicist is to raise the damage of Radiation Weapons. This is a very, very specific weapon type that comes down to mainly the Gamma Gun, which itself is not particularly great when compared to other weapons given some enemies are highly resistant to Radiation. Now, with an unique variant (which I'm currently not sure about) it could be much better. Thankfully, you're getting both parts of this perk and the Radiation Weapon damage increase may be just an added benefit that occasionally comes in handy.

About Nerd Rage!: Hanging out at around 20% life is not a good thing. This is a desperation move that may come in handy for characters with already high health. It seems to restore a small percentage of life when you make a kill - nothing spectacular to justify it, though the damage increase is indeed huge (the resistance not so much). It's more an I'm out of resources and need to kill these guys Perk than something that you will use regularly, and most of my perks I like to use regularly. The boost to damage and slowed time (which is like using Jet) may help you finish a tough fight and come out ahead, but being that low on life has the odds stacked against you anyway. With Life Giver and high Endurance, it might not be so bad. The higher your level, the more likely you are to survive and make good use of Nerd Rage, yet at the same time the less likely you are to even see it trigger in the first place.

Intelligence Builds

Intelligence is more a utility class of SPECIAL stat, and its Perks can compliment just about any build - from melee to marksman. Most characters are going to need at least a little investment in this tree in order to make better gun, armor mods, and power armor variants. Along the way, you'll gain increased experience gains and - if you so choose - be able to hack master level Terminals, allowing you access to more loot and sometimes giving yourself strategic advantages.

Because of Scrapper, Gun Nut, and Science, I would say that most characters should aim to at least hit the 6 Intelligence required to take points in Science! The last 4 Perks are largely optional and focused on specific playstyles. Like chems? Take another point. If you think you'll find enough opportunity to make use of hacking bots, go for 8. Nerd Rage is one of the weaker level 10 Perks in my opinion, though it's not scripture. I tend to heal when I find myself low on health like most players.