Strictly Profitable is an unmarked and repeatable quest in Fallout 3.
Quick walkthrough
| Unmarked Quest: Strictly Profitable | |||||
| Talk to Grouse and acquire the Mesmetron. | |||||
| Fire the Mesmetron at an NPC to stun them. | |||||
| Talk to them and put the slave collar on their neck. | |||||
| Tell them to go to Paradise Falls. | |||||
| Return to Grouse. | |||||
| Reward: 250 Caps | |||||
Detailed walkthrough
After receiving the Mesmetron from Grouse in Paradise Falls, one has the option of enslaving non-player characters other than the four VIPs required to complete the quest Strictly Business. For every slave that is captured and sent back to Paradise Falls, Grouse will pay out 250 caps, and will hand over a new slave collar to continue the "recruiting." He also sells Mesmetron power cells at the steep price of 200 caps per 10 rounds. It is possible to offset the high price if all 50 rounds he initially gives out are carefully utilized, since he also pays out caps for turning in the VIPs.
Rewards
250 caps are rewarded per slave.
Enslavable non-player characters
What follows is a list of known non-player characters that can be enslaved with the Mesmetron. This list may be incomplete.
Named characters
- A Wanderer
- Alejandra Torres
- Angela Staley
- Arkansas
- Ben Canning
- Bill Seward
- Brock
- Cherry
- Christie Young
- Diego
- Fantasia
- Flak
- Flash
- Grandma Sparkle
- Henry Young
- Initiate Pek
- Junders Plunkett
- Kimba
- Laszlo Radford
- Lug-Nut
- Madame
- Mei Wong
- Mel
- Mister Lopez
- Moira's mercenary
- Pappy
- Paulie Cantelli
- Red
- Rocksalt
- Sam Warrick
- Shorty
- Simone Cameron
- Snowflake
- Susan Lancaster
- Tammy Hargrave
- The Surgeon
- Torcher
- Trinnie
Generic characters
- Brotherhood of Steel soldiers (and variants thereof)
- Brotherhood Outcasts
- Caravan guards
- Enclave soldiers (and variants thereof)
- Escaped slaves (random encounters)
- Hitmen
- Hunters (random encounters)
- Megaton settlers (see notes)
- Raiders (and variants thereof)
- Regulators
- Scavengers (and variants thereof)
- Slaves
- Talon Company mercs (rank 1 only)
- Tenpenny residents
- Tenpenny Tower security guards (see notes)
- Underworld residents
- Wasteland doctors (random encounters)
- Wasteland junkies (random encounters)
- Wastelanders (human only)
Add-on characters
- Bingo
- Bone
- Friday
- Hammer
- Jackson
- Spook
- Trouble Man
- Armory master
- Enclave Hellfire troopers
- Water caravan drivers
- Jacob Humboldt
- Plik
- Rip Smithy
Notes
- With the exception of the four targets from the Strictly Business quest, any NPC enslaved will disappear from the game permanently after reaching Paradise Falls.
- Not every non-player character can be enslaved using the Mesmetron; only pre-determined NPCs selected by the G.E.C.K.
- Fast traveling to Paradise Falls after enslaving an NPC ensures instantaneous payment.
- While non-player characters are in a mesmerized state, they cannot be mesmerized again.
- While all other Megaton settlers can be successfully mesmerized, the ones that seem to permanently inhabit Moriarty's Saloon cannot.
- Enslaving a Tenpenny Tower security guard prevents the feral ghoul invasion in the Tenpenny Tower quest from ever ending, due to a bug in which the ghouls seek and never find the enslaved (removed from the game) guard.
- There are two characters who are flagged as mesmerizable, but cannot be under normal circumstances, due to the fact that they are dead: Dogmeat's owner and Wild Bill from The Pitt. If they are revived with console commands, then they can be mesmerized.
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