Fallout New Vegas Companions: Where to Recruit Them and Their Perks

The base game of Fallout New Vegas has eight permanent companions: six people (one of them a nightkin) and two machines, a cyberdog and an eyebot. Each one is recruited in a different way, each carries a perk that applies to the Courier while they follow, and each has a personal quest that unlocks through trust, travel or a set of triggers rather than a quest marker. This page covers the Fallout New Vegas companions one by one: where they stand, what it takes to bring them along, how their quests start and what makes them walk away.

The companion perks themselves are tabled on our perks page alongside the ten upgrade perks the companion quests hand out, and the effects quoted below follow that table. Recruitment steps and quest triggers come from the Independent Fallout Wiki, with a second check against published companion guides where one existed.

How to recruit each companion

Craig Boone

Boone is the NCR sniper who watches Novac from the mouth of Dinky the dinosaur between 10 PM and 9 AM. Talk to him there and he hands over his beret and a job: find out who sold his wife Carla to slavers. The proof is a Bill of Sale in the floor safe behind the Dino Dee-lite front desk, opened with a lockpick or Jeannie May Crawford's safe key. At night, ask Jeannie May to walk with you to the front of the dinosaur and put the beret on; Boone fires. Bring him the Bill of Sale afterwards (or pass a Speech 55 check) and he agrees to travel with you. Frame anyone else and you lose karma and lose Boone.

His quest, I Forgot to Remember to Forget, opens once you have banked five history points while Boone is in your party. Killing Vulpes Inculta or Silus gives one point each, rescuing the Nelson hostages or the enslaved Powder Gangers in Booted gives two, clearing the Legion from Cottonwood Cove in Eye for an Eye gives two, and killing Caesar gives two. The quest ends at Bitter Springs, where the two of you hold off three Legion waves. Boone refuses to join a Courier with a positive Legion reputation, tells a recruited one to stop working for Caesar, and leaves for good if you keep at it. He will not follow while you wear Legion armor.

Veronica Santangelo

Veronica is at the 188 Trading Post, northwest of Boulder City. She asks what you think of the Brotherhood of Steel; answer neutrally or well and she asks to come along, with no skill check. Her perk turns her into a portable workbench, so the recipes on our crafting page that call for one can be made in the field. Give her Formal Wear or White Glove Society Attire and she teaches the Scribe Counter unarmed move.

I Could Make You Care starts after three of nine triggers fire with Veronica present: Tom Anderson's talk at the Casa Madrid Apartments, the Vault 3 entrance, coming near Nelson, Cottonwood Cove or the Fort, the Camp McCarran terminal building, meeting Doctor Hildern, Pete's full talk in the Nellis museum, meeting Julie Farkas at the Old Mormon Fort, Jason Bright's speech at the REPCONN test site, and Gloria Van Graff's greeting in the Silver Rush. She then wants a word with Elder McNamara in Hidden Valley. Keeping her with the Brotherhood earns Bonds of Steel (+4 DT); sending her to the Followers earns Causeless Rebel (30% faster unarmed attacks). Becoming Vilified by the Brotherhood makes her warn you and leave, and if the Hidden Valley bunker is destroyed before she is recruited she attacks on sight.

Rose of Sharon Cassidy

Cass is drinking in the Mojave Outpost barracks after her caravan was wiped out. She only becomes recruitable once Cassidy Caravans has been sold, which happens during the Crimson Caravan job You Can Depend on Me: convince her with Speech 50 or Barter 50, or win her whiskey contest with Barter 75 and twelve bottles of whiskey. Heartache by the Number begins on its own once she is recruited, provided your karma is neutral or good; it never starts for an evil Courier, and at karma of -250 or lower she leaves and cannot be talked round. The quest walks three caravan wrecks (Cassidy Caravans, Griffin Wares, Durable Dunn's) and ends either by killing Alice McLafferty and Gloria Van Graff, which gives Cass Hand of Vengeance (+15% gun damage), or by pulling evidence from their safes for Ranger Jackson, which gives Calm Heart (+50 hit points).

Raul Tejada

Raul is locked in the prison building on Black Mountain during Crazy, Crazy, Crazy. The first terminal's sixth entry holds the password (123456789) for the terminal beside his door; Tabitha's equipment key, under the stairs in her room, opens it too. He joins with no reputation or karma condition, and he is the one companion who also appears on our repairers page, where his repair skill is listed at 100 for the times he is at home rather than following you. Old School Ghoul needs Raul at your side while you talk to Ranger Andy in Novac, Loyal at Nellis and Corporal Sterling at Camp McCarran, in any order; after each, Raul starts a conversation of his own. Pushing him back toward gunslinging gives him Old Vaquero (33% faster fire with revolvers and lever-action rifles), talking him into retirement gives Full Maintenance (75% slower wear), and Speech 66 sways him either way. No faction or karma condition is recorded for him.

Lily Bowen

Lily, a nightkin, tends the bighorner pen outside the Jacobstown lodge. Accept Guess Who I Saw Today from Doctor Henry inside, and the option to invite her appears; she takes the humanoid slot despite her size. Her unmarked quest, Lily and Leo, needs four things: talk with her about Leo, see her lose control in a fight at half health or below, watch her take her medicine and discuss it, then sleep, wait or fast travel until a recording of children greeting their grandmother plays. Full doses end her episodes but fix her Melee Weapons skill at 60; half doses keep the breaks at a quarter health but she calms if you crouch; no medicine leaves the breaks at half health and sets Melee Weapons to 100. No faction condition is recorded for her.

Arcade Gannon

Arcade is the Followers researcher in the southeast corner of the Old Mormon Fort in Freeside. He joins for a high Followers reputation, a Speech 75 check, the Confirmed Bachelor perk, an Intelligence of 3 or lower (he takes pity), or an offer of help after finishing High Times and giving supplies to Julie Farkas, who is on our doctors and vendors page. Like Boone he refuses a Courier with a positive Legion reputation or Legion clothing.

For Auld Lang Syne runs on like points: the crashed vertibird, REPCONN headquarters, the Fort and Caesar's tent, conversations with Thomas Hildern, the That Lucky Old Sun mainframe and the outcomes of The White Wash each give one or two, and around five plus progress in the main story starts the quest. Dislike points (siding with Anderson, extorting the Westside Co-op, praising Caesar, killing innocents) only trigger a warning. The quest gathers the five Enclave Remnants, Doctor Henry, Daisy Whitman, Cannibal Johnson, Orion Moreno and Judah Kreger, at their bunker and pays 500 XP, Remnants power armor and the Power Armor Training perk. Arcade leaves permanently if you enter the Legate's camp for Caesar, turn the Remnants to the Legion, fire ARCHIMEDES, or report to Caesar after killing Kimball.

ED-E

ED-E is slumped over the counter in the Nash residence in Primm. Fix it with Repair 65, with Science 55 followed by Repair 35, or with 3 scrap metal, 2 sensor modules and 1 scrap electronics. As a machine it shares a party with any of the six humanoids. ED-E My Love plays out through two stored recordings. The first is set off by conversations touching its past, with Old Lady Gibson, the troopers at HELIOS One, Doctor Henry, Knight Torres or Michael Angelo on the Strip; the second follows after several in-game days and another such conversation, with the Hidden Valley scribe, Michael Angelo, Veronica, Apprentice Watkins or Ignacio Rivas at HELIOS One. Take the data to Senior Knight Lorenzo in Hidden Valley for an armor upgrade (DT from 8 to 20) or to April Martimer of the Followers for a weapon upgrade. No faction condition is recorded for ED-E.

Rex

Rex is The King's cyberdog at the King's School of Impersonation in Freeside. Do The King's first errand, looking into the bodyguard Orris at the north gate, and the dialogue about Rex opens. Nothin' But a Hound Dog sends you to Julie Farkas and then to Doctor Henry in Jacobstown, who needs a replacement brain: Rey's, bought from Old Lady Gibson at her scrap yard (700 caps, or free with Barter 70) for Faithful Protector (+25% damage), Violetta's from the Fiend camp near the Poseidon gas station for Unshakeable Tracker (+50% speed), or Lupa's at the Fort, won in the arena with a machete and no armor, for Blood of the Legion (+10 DT and +100 hit points). Rex hates rats, chases them if he smells them unless you have Animal Friend, and dislikes hats. No faction condition is recorded for him either.

Companion rules

The party holds two companions at once: one humanoid and one non-humanoid. Boone, Veronica, Cass, Raul, Lily and Arcade compete for the first slot; ED-E and Rex compete for the second. To swap, dismiss the current one through dialogue, and they are moved straight to their home rather than walking there. Once you have spoken to Mr. House, the Lucky 38 presidential suite opens and every dismissed companion can be told to wait there instead; they wander the suite, eat and drink what is lying about, and can be picked up again. Companions cannot ride the elevator to the penthouse and wait where you left them.

In normal play a recruited companion is essential: knocked out for a short while, never killed. In Hardcore mode they can die and stay dead. Commands go through the companion wheel, a radial menu with eight sections: Use Melee or Use Ranged, Open Inventory, Stay Close or Keep Distance, Back Up, Be Passive or Be Aggressive, Use Stimpak, Wait Here or Follow Me, and Talk To, which is also where dismissal happens. Companions refuse to follow while you wear faction armor unless it belongs to their own faction. The rest of the Mojave's paid help, its doctors, vendors and repairers, is mapped sector by sector in ourNPCs guide.

Companions and the add-ons

None of the four add-ons adds a companion to the Mojave roster. Entering the abandoned Brotherhood bunker for Dead Money sends your companions home with an on-screen message; Old World Blues and Lonesome Road both state that companions cannot come along, and Lonesome Road adds that anyone found in the Divide cannot come out. Each add-on instead lends temporary followers who are not controlled through the companion wheel: Dog and God, Christine Royce and Dean Domino in Dead Money; Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud and Joshua Graham in Honest Hearts; Roxie, a cyberdog built in the X-8 research center, who never leaves that facility, in Old World Blues; and a second ED-E unit in Lonesome Road, whose eyebot upgrade circuit boards feed the Camarader-E perk on our perks page.