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Chems are a sometimes overlooked part of Fallout 4, but they can give you a leg up with both social combat and the regular kind of blood and dismemberment combat. In this guide we’ve set out each type of chem in the game (including, for the sake of completeness, alcohol) and what effects they’ll have on you, as well as how addiction in Fallout 4 works and how to get rid of it.
Many of these chems you can craft yourself at a chemisty station without needing to invest in any perks, which we recommend as something you explore. It can save you money as well as help you win fights. Remember that there’s no limit to how many chems you can take at once, or the combinations to take them in. Have fun!
(Don’t do drugs; stay in school.)
Basic chems and their effects in Fallout 4
Alcohol in Fallout 4
Alcohol will increase your Strength and Charisma, but at the cost of your Intelligence, leading to speculation that perhaps the Strength and Charisma buffs are only in the mind of the player character. The stronger alcohols you can find like vodka and moonshine will have increased effects compared to booze like beer, but they also carry a higher chance of addiction.
As an aside, when you’ve had a drink and you skip dialogue in a conversation, instead of making polite interested noises you slur drunkenly to indicate total disinterest.
Buffout in Fallout 4
Buffout is useful for melee fighters, or if you’re suddenly encumbered and want to make a quick fast travel home. It gives you a plus two to your Strength and Endurance, and increases your max Action Points (AP) by a respectable 50.
Jet in Fallout 4
Jet is a popular dragon to chase in Fallout 4, and it’s not particularly rare to come across. It slows time for 10 seconds, so it’s good in confusing firefights or when an enemy is coming up fast on you, like a pack of ghouls, a deathclaw, or a queen mirelurk in a bad mood. Be warned that Jet is probably the easiest chem to get addicted to in the whole game.
Med-X in Fallout 4
Med-X is another fairly common chem, and it boosts your damage resistance by 25 points for a little bit, which isn’t the most exciting bonus on its own but it works nicely combined with a bunch of other chems at the same time.
Mentats in Fallout 4
If you’re travelling with Hancock he might tell you that Mentats are his favourite because they make him feel “intellectual”. They give a plus two to Intelligence and Perception, so they’re good for long range VATS use. Or any VATS use, to be fair. If you drop some Mentats before handing in a big quest you’ll get more XP from it, too.
Psycho in Fallout 4
If you’re in a big fight injecting some Psycho boosts your damage by 25% and your damage resistance by 25. You also go “RAAAARGH!” when you take it, which becomes a long eldritch moan if you take Psycho and Jet at the same time.
Advanced chems and their effects in Fallout 4
Berry Mentats in Fallout 4
This is a pretty good upgrade over regular Mentats. Berry Mentats will give you an extra five intelligence and will highlight living targets for eight minutes, so it’s especially useful at night or in dark areas where you don’t want to alert enemies by turning on your light.
Buffjet in Fallout 4
Turns out that smooshing Buffout and Jet together makes a pretty beasty chem, giving you a lot of extra Strength and Endurance, 65 more max health, 35 more max AP and slowing time all in one go. That’s a hell of a come down.
Bufftats in Fallout 4
This combines the plus 65 max health and increasing your Strength and Endurance by three from the Buffout, with the plus three to perception of the Mentats, all for eight minutes. Great for going in and getting VATS headshots without fear.
Day Tripper in Fallout 4
You can’t craft this one, and you’ll find it very rarely on your adventures, but Day Tripper gives a big plus three boost to your Charisma and Luck stats (at the cost of a minus 2 to Strength). Good for when you need to do some smooth talking.
Grape Mentats in Fallout 4
This give you a nice 10% boost to your bartering and five more Charisma for eight minutes, so dropping some of these before you try flirting with a companion or go on a big spending spree at the shops will give you the upper hand.
Orange Mentats in Fallout 4
Despite their name you actually need carrots, which we suppose would make them orange in colour if not taste. Taking these will increase your Perception by a whopping five points and give you increased VATS accuracy for eight minutes, so they’re good for snipers and long range fights.
Psycho Jet in Fallout 4
25% boost to damage, 35 extra damage resistance, 40 more maximum AP, and time will slow for 15 seconds. This lets you get in a few big hits on serious enemies before they even know what’s happening.
Psychobuff in Fallout 4
Psychobuff is a hell of a drug. A big buff to your Strength and Endurance, plus respectable boosts to your damage and max health, means you can go into a fight with confidence. They do say go hard or go home, right?
Fury in Fallout 4
Fury is a good choice for melee characters, although you will need to have a berserk syringe crafted first before you can make Fury yourself. While you’re on Fury your melee damage is increased by 50%, and your damage resistance is boosted by 25. You also get five more points to your Perception, which means you can make those punches count.
Jet Fuel in Fallout 4
We know we said we weren’t doctors earlier but we’re 100% sure that flamer fuel should never be ingested. That said, in the game it increases your maximum AP by 35 and makes it regenerate faster at the same time, so fans of VATS might want to give it a go.
Overdrive in Fallout 4
Overdrive is a good one to take – in combination with others – before what might be considered a Fallout 4 boss fight (the first time you face off against a mirelurk queen, for example). It increases your damage and your critical chance by 25%, which means you can take out some serious chunks of enemy HP in one hit.
Ultra Jet in Fallout 4
Like Jet, but more, you know? Time will slow for 15 seconds instead of 10 and at the same time you get 100 more AP, so you can get off a lot of hits before an enemy has had time to react or take a swing at you.
Healing chems and their effects in Fallout 4
Addictol in Fallout 4
The creatively named Addictol will cure all your addictions and give you a bump to health at the same time, but it’s pretty expensive to get hold of.
Glowing Blood Pack in Fallout 4
Pretty sure it’s not medically sound to say that mixing irradiated blood with regular blood will produce something that gives you an extra 75 rad resistance for 10 minutes, but then none of us here at VideoGamer are actually doctors, so we’ll just take the game’s word for it.
Rad-X in Fallout 4
If you know you’re holidaying in the Glowing Sea this year consider taking Rad-X. It gives you 100 points of extra radiation resistance. It’s also pretty commonly knocking around so don’t be shy if you need to use it.
RadAway in Fallout 4
RadAway gets rid of 400 rads in one go, putting your health bar back where it should be (and, presumably, preventing any long term effects like growing extra limbs).
Refreshing Beverage in Fallout 4
This can be crafted at a Chemistry station and it has a lot of weird stuff in it including blood and antiseptic, so we wouldn’t suggest it has any curative properties in real life. It will, however, get rid of all your rads and all your addictions in one fell swoop.
Skeeto Spit in Fallout 4
This gives you a little boost to your max health for an entire 20 minutes, which is not to be sneezed at. It requires a blood sac and a blood leaf to craft, though, which can be rare to get hold of.
Stimpaks in Fallout 4
This is your basic health booster in Fallout 4, and they’re so easy to craft or pick up from raiders and first-aid kits that it’s really not worth ever buying them.
Useful perks for using chems in Fallout 4
Chem Resistance is the obvious one. It only requires four points of Endurance but the first rank will make you 50% less likely to get addicted when using chems, and the second makes you completely immune. Chemist is based on high Intelligence but will massively increase the the length of time chems effects last once you’ve taken them, and will allow you to craft the more advanced chems.
If you’ve put a lot of points into Charisma then the Party Boy/Party Girl perk can give you immunity to alcohol addiction as well as increasing its effects, and Medic will boost the effects of Stimpaks and RadAway but only needs two points in intelligence.
Effects of chem addiction in Fallout 4
In a valuable lesson on substance abuse you can get addicted to chems and alcohol in Fallout 4. If you take too many performance enhancing chems (or drink too much booze) you’ll be notified that you’ve become addicted, which means that sometimes when you’re not riding that particular high (or a bit pissed) you’ll suffer penalties to your stats as part of your withdrawal, like losing some strength or endurance.
You can check what’s currently affecting you by going to the Status page of your Pip Boy (under STAT) and pressing the Show Effects button. This will also show non-addiction related problems: you can, for example, pick up diseases from some of the creatures in the wasteland.
Curing addiction in Fallout 4
In a less valuable lesson on substance abuse you can very easily get rid of addiction in Fallout 4. If you simply don’t take any of the substance you’re addicted to then after several days you’ll have gone through the withdrawal process and come out the other side a clean Vault Dweller. If you take even one shot of whatever dragon it is you’re chasing you’ll top up the addiction, but it will get rid of the withdrawal symptoms which is a kind of solution if you look at it from a certain angle.
Quicker ways to get rid of addiction include going to a doctor, who’ll cure you but for a price, or taking Addictol which you can buy from vendors in Goodneighbour and Diamond City, although you do occasionally find Addictol on your travels. You can also craft your way to sobriety by snarfing down a radscorpion egg omelette (guess what you need to make those?) or a refreshing beverage mentioned above. These can be made at the cooking and chemistry stations respectively.
