Summary
The settlement building system is one of the most expansive aspects ofFallout 4,which allows you to transform run-down areas of the Commonwealth into bustling towns or cities. On top of creating homes, growing crops for food, and crafting generators that create power, you can also recruit a variety of different characters into your settlements.
On top of recruiting the basic settlers that wander into your settlements, there are actually unique NPCs scattered across the world of Fallout 4, which require specific standards to be met before they join your settlement. If you are curious about which of these unique settlers offer the best advantages, check out the list below to learn more about each of them.
Honorable Mention: Rylee
There are many Specialist NPCs in the world of Fallout 4 that can be recruited into your settlements, and when applied to a certain shop, will automatically upgrade these services to the highest tier available. While Rylee is a fantastic settler to recruit for your general trading needs, in classic Bethesda fashion, there are some bugs that can make it absolutely impossible to even speak to her.
For example, if you happen to find Rylee in the world and recruit her to your cause, you will have to actually walk her back to wherever she is assigned, that is, if you’re able to even access the dialogue to recruit her in the first place. While Rylee will certainly make trading in your settlement easier, the bugs surrounding her make her an easy character to skip.
10Duke, Mishka, And Gracie
If you have the Far Harbour DLC for Fallout 4, then you can head over to the wreckage of Horizon Flight 1207 and speak to the Super Mutant Erickson. He will sell you three different dogs for 250 caps each, which you can send to your settlement to hang out alongside Dogmeat.
Duke is a common boxer dog with some cool glasses, Mishka is a mutated wolf, and Gracie is a mutant hound that is commonly found with other Super Mutants. If you reach this area at a higher level, there is a chance that both Mishka and Gracie can spawn as glowing versions of themselves, meaning they will deal radiation damage around them.
9Sheffield
Out of all the unique settlers available in Fallout 4, Sheffield is definitely the easiest to recruit, but he also comes with some serious downsides. Sheffield is an NPC found in Diamond City, and is currently down on his luck after he found out that he can no longer drink alcohol due to liver failure.
Luckily, he has a newfound love for Nuka-Cola, and giving him one of these atomic sodas will lift his spirits and make him available as a settler. While you can send Sheffield to any one of your settlements, he does not offer upgrades or special items like other unique settlers, but many cruel players have turned Sheffield into a bartender for the other members of their settlement.
Your settlements are constantly raided in Fallout 4, meaning that your settlers will defend themselves against these attacks. However, as Sheffield is an NPC, he can actually permanently die in these raids, so place him in a settlement that is very well-defended if you do not want to lose him.
8Tina De Luca
Tina and her brother are residents of Vault 81, but she is secretly smuggling her brother the illegal drug Jet, meaning that the pair could easily get kicked out at any time.
To recruit Tina, you need to finish the quest ‘Hole In The Wall’ within Vault 81 and have a high charisma skill to convince her to leave the vault. Luckily, there is no settler limit needed to recruit her, so you can automatically assign her to a trading emporium to upgrade it to level four and snag some sweet deals.
If you happen to fail the charisma check to recruit Tina, you’re able to still recruit her if you are willing to do some truly dark deeds. If you secretly dispatch her brother without Tina realizing, she will ask to leave the vault and join one of your settlements.
7Anne Hagraves
Anne is a seamstress and actress who works at the WRVR broadcast tower, along with some other characters. Together, all of these coworkers hold radio plays that broadcast throughout the Commonwealth, and Anne even designs the clothes for the plays.
If you happen to talk to her while visiting this broadcast tower, you may ask her to join your settlement, where she can upgrade a clothing stand to level four andsell rare clothes.Luckily, Anne is very easy to recruit, since she has no population requirement, unlike some of the other traders.
6Vault Tech Representative
At the start of every playthrough, you will interact with the Vault-Tech Representative at your front door to determine your special stats. As it turns out, he did not have enough clearance to get into Vault 111 alongside you and your family, so he has been completely irradiated and turned into a ghoul.
If you want to recruit him to your settlement, you can find him in Goodneighbor on the second floor of the Rexford Hotel inside one of the apartments. Since he has no population requirement to join your settlements, he is commonly favored over other General Trading Specialists like Rylee or Tina.
5Ron Staples
You may remember seeing Ron Staples at the very start of the game, after you save Preston and the Minutemen, and fight off the Deathclaw. Ron Staples typically roams around the Commonwealth with a collection of his friends and has many different beverages and foods available that will fix up your health bar.
Sadly, you will not be able to recruit him when you first encounter him at the start of the game because you will need a settlement witha population of 20 before he will join you.Instead, you will have to randomly encounter him and his campfire throughout the Commonwealth, in locations like the Peabody House, The Museum of Witchcraft, or ArcJet Systems.
4Doc Anderson
Keeping up with her namesake is Doc Anderson, a doctor who travels around the Commonwealth healing her patients. If you have a population of 20 when you find her, then you may ask her to join one of your settlements, where she will take over one of your Surgery Centers and upgrade it to level four.
Unlike other merchants in the game, Doc Anderson has a large surplus of different drugs, like Jet, Buffont, and Psycho, which will restock every day. Finding Doc Anderson can be difficult since she can reside in over ten locations, such as Drumlin Diner, Concord, or Walden Pond.
3Drinkin' Buddy
Unlike the other humanoid options on this list, the Drinkin' Buddy is an absolutely adorable robot located in the Shamrock Taphouse. To find the Drinkin' Buddy Protectron, you will need to head to the Hotel Rexford and speak to Rufus to receive the ‘Trouble Brewing’ quest.
This will task you with finding Drinkin' Buddy in the basement of the Taphouse and sending him back to the Hotel Rexford to complete the quest, but you can actually tell Drinkin' Buddy to head to one of your settlements instead. While at your settlement, Drinkin' Buddy will automatically find and manage a drink stand, and you can even find recipes throughout the Commonwealth that you can give to the robot to increase his repertoire of drinks.
2Smiling Larry
Although his name is certainly creepy, Smiling Larry is one of the most valuable and hardest unique settlers to recruit. Larry is a fan of all kinds of weapons, so he can be added to your settlements to instantly upgrade the weapon emporium to level four.
However, to add Larry to your settlement system, you will need to find him across the Commonwealth, and you also must have a settlement with 30 settlers. When applied to one of your Weapons Shops, he will sell theLegendary Melee Weapon,the Ripper, a small handsaw that makes you take 15 percent less damage when you are standing still.
1The Scribe
Undeniably, the best Specialist to recruit in Fallout 4 is the Scribe, an ex-member ofthe Brotherhood of Steelwho fled after realizing that the organization was hurting more people than it was helping. By adding him to your settlement once you have ten other settlers, he can upgrade your armor emporium to level four.
On top of selling high-quality armor, he also sells three different Legendary armor pieces, including a Mark 4 Synth Left Leg, which increases your luck by two, a Mark 4 Chest that makes you harder to detect, and an Apocalypse Armor Chest Piece that slows down time when you drop below 20 percent health.
Keep in mind that if you have the Automatron DLC installed, then his spawn locations will be completely overridden, meaning you will have to spawn him and recruit him using console commands.
