

Since each companion usually has less than 10 gifts that are special to them, it’s pretty obvious that ideal gift-giving requires you to give a companion all of their unique gifts, before non-special gifts (feel free to double check my math).

These gifts will give +10 Approval (with diminishing returns) instead of +5. However, what’s even more important is that each companion has a set of gifts that mean more to them.

Since most gifts only give +5 Approval, this obviously puts a pretty hard limit on how much affection you acquire via gift-giving. This means that each gift you give a companion is 1-affection-point-worse than the last gift you gave that companion. What’s important, however, is that gift-giving has diminishing returns. Most gifts can be given to any companion and will usually result in a change in their approval of you. Gifts are explained in high detail ( with MAJOR spoilers) here and here. If you don’t care about your companions’ approval rating, you can probably skip this section. Sadly, I can’t say anymore on that subject without any spoilers about your companions. Having said that, it’s somewhat hard to judge what your companions will be bringing to the tabel (especially when you haven’t met them yet). If a companion already has 2 points in Poison-Making, consider having them as your sole poison person. When I looked at my skills, I then saw and regretted the single point I put into Poison-Making.Īs another note, it is a good idea to make full use of your companions’ starting skills. As an example, there was one time when I suddenly realized that I needed the 4th and final skill in the Stealing skill tree. If you’re not console commanding, you won’t get that many opportunities to add skill points. The only advice I have with these is to (usually) try to max out a given skill tree. For the record, I’ve never done Trapping, but it seems like it could be pretty cool. If you think poisons sound cool, do that. For example, people who want to be able to Persuade NPCs obviously should consider Coercion. Your skills can be thought of as how you intend to interact with the world.
