Highlights
- Customize and play through Starfield with various combat styles, including options for those who want to avoid confrontation. Focus on social certifications for non-combat abilities.
- Invest in the Stealth skill to enhance sneaking abilities, including a stealth meter to gauge enemy awareness and increased difficulty to detect while sneaking.
- Use skills like Concealment, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Xenosociology to avoid or end fights. These skills offer advantages like rendering players invisible, forcing NPCs to stop fighting, intimidating multiple targets to flee, persuading NPCs easier, and even controlling alien creatures.
Like many Bethesda titles before it, Starfield grants players the grand ability to customize their character completely, even while playing through the game. There are many different combat styles that players can utilize, even those that seek to avoid confrontation entirely.
To maximize these various styles to their next ability, fans will want to focus their skill points on the correct skills, sometimes known as certifications. There are many great options within skills that support those who like to bypass combat the best they can. Most notably, these gamers will want to focus their attention on the social certifications list in Starfield first.
6 Stealth
- Rank 1: Adds a stealth meter; makes players 25% harder to detect; grants suppressed weapons a 5% bonus to sneak attack damage.
- Rank 2: Upgrades the stealth meter; makes players 50% harder to detect; grants suppressed weapons a 10% bonus to sneak attack damage.
- Rank 3: Makes players 75% harder to detect while sneaking; grants suppressed weapons a 15% bonus to sneak attack damage.
- Rank 4: Makes players 100% harder to detect; grants suppressed weapons a 20% bonus to sneak attack damage; doors won't alert enemies while sneaking.
Of course, the number one way to avoid fighting against NPCs in Starfield is to take advantage of the stealth options that the game lends players (though not at first). Though Starfield has very limited options starting out for gamers who wish to fight stealthily, investing in the Stealth skill will encourage sneaky techniques later down the line. The two largest takeaways from the Stealth skill are the stealth meter and the percentages that make fans harder to detect while sneaking.
The stealth meter allows players to gain a physical representation of enemies' awareness, much like in previous Bethesda games like Skyrim. With each level in Stealth, players will be more and more difficult to detect while sneaking.
5 Concealment
- Rank 1: Mines are no longer set off; ranged sneak attacks deal 2.5x normal damage; melee sneak attacks deal 4x normal damage.
- Rank 2: Running while sneaking doesn't affect stealth; ranges sneak attacks deal 3x more damage; melee sneak attacks deal 5x more damage.
- Rank 3: Grants players a Chameleon-like ability when still or sneaking; ranged sneak attacks deal 3.5x more damage; melee sneak attacks deal 8x normal damage.
- Rank 4: Engaging in stealth forces distant enemies to lose players; ranged sneak attacks deal 4x more damage; melee sneak attacks deal 10x more damage.
Luckily for those gamers who prefer to take on opponents with stealth (as well as those who like to sneak around enemies to get to their objectives), there is more than one stealth-related skill to dump skill points into. The Concealment skill is one of these, which offers fans a way to upgrade their sneaking ability once more.
The most notable benefit of the Concealment skill is the fact that players gain access to the "Chameleon-like" ability whenever they're sneaking or standing still. This basically renders players invisible, which helps a ton when looking to evade a fight.
4 Diplomacy
- Rank 1: Players can force an NPC at or below their level to stop fighting for a while.
- Rank 2: Players can force an NPC up to 10 levels higher than them to stop fighting for a while.
- Rank 3: Players can force an NPC up to 20 levels higher than them to stop fighting for a while.
- Rank 4: Players can force NPCs to permanently stop fighting until they're attacked again.
Arguably, the best skill for fans looking to dodge or end a fight is the Diplomacy skill. The Diplomacy skill grants players the option to force NPCs to stop fighting.
Although the Diplomacy skill only works for a short time and only on lower-level NPCs at first, by the end of the skill's challenges, players will be able to force any NPC to quit fighting entirely. This ability will even work on multiple NPCs, meaning players can stop a small confrontation before it gets out of hand.
3 Intimidation
- Rank 1: Players can intimidate an NPC at or below their level to flee for a short time.
- Rank 2: Players can intimidate an NPC up to 10 levels higher than them to flee for a short time.
- Rank 3: Players can intimidate an NPC up to 20 levels higher than them to flee for a short time.
- Rank 4: Intimidated NPCs flee for a much longer time.
Intimidation is a very thorough skill throughout many RPGs, even in older Bethesda games like Fallout. In Starfield, the skill works the same with a bit more advantages. When players first get the Intimidation skill, they will be able to force a single NPC to flee (if they are a lower level than the player).
With enough skill points, though, Intimidation becomes a lot stronger and allows fans to intimidate multiple targets into fleeing for "a substantial amount of time." This is one of the best ways for players to get themselves out of a combat situation.
2 Persuasion
- Rank 1: 10% increased chance to persuade someone.
- Rank 2: 20% increased chance to persuade someone.
- Rank 3: 30% increased chance to persuade someone.
- Rank 4: 50% increased chance to persuade someone.
The Persuasion skill is one of the very first Social skills that gamers will unlock, assuming they don't already have the skill instantly unlocked from their background selection. With the Persuasion skill, players will be able to persuade NPCs a lot easier.
Essentially, this means squirming their way out of confrontation when necessary, which comes in handy in a few of the beginning story missions. When maxed out, the Persuasion skill gives players a 50% higher chance of persuading someone, which is incredibly useful throughout all of Starfield.
1 Xenosociology
- Rank 1: Players can force an alien creature up to 10 levels higher than them to stop fighting for a short time.
- Rank 2: Players can force an alien creature up to 10 levels higher than them to flee for a short time.
- Rank 3: Players can force an alien creature up to 10 levels higher than them to attack their allies for a short time.
- Rank 4: Players can force an alien creature up to 10 levels higher than them to obey their commands for a short time.
Many of the social skills deal primarily with human NPCs, but not aliens or likewise. However, there is the Xenosociology skill that players can invest in to stop combat with alien creatures. The Xenosociology skill initially allows players to force an alien creature up to 10 levels higher than them to stop fighting for a short time.
While already charitable as it allows the ability to work on aliens that are at a higher level, maxing out the Xenosociology skill allows for player to just about completely control an alien creature. At level 4, Xenosociology grants players the ability to give commands to an alien creature, essentially befriending them and having them fight on your side.
Starfield is now available on Xbox Series X/S and PC.