Here’s the deal. Sure, the description says it’s only -1 to mental skills, but the game tricks you with this.
Reading that, you’re probably thinking as I did that that’s a pretty minor penalty for the tradeoff of getting an extra perk. But the minute you agree to the flaw and look at your stats again, you’ll notice that it actually penalizes you more like -2 to -7 on each of the mental stats. I think it scales by level.
At one point about an hour after taking the flaw, I had -5 to long guns and -3 or -4 to most of the other affected skills.
At first I was thinking, “Hey, I can out-level the penalty and by late game I probably won’t care anymore.”
But once I realized the penalty seems to scale with level and get progressively worse, I realized how unideal it was for my engineer character. It would probably lock me out of certain dialogue scenarios, and possibly stop me from reaching high tier skill levels.
I was reluctant to do it, but I reverted to an earlier save that was about an hour and 45 mins earlier, just before I’d taken that flaw. I had to redo some quests, but I felt it was worth it for a character relying on mental skills.
Conclusion
The game is not clear how the penalty on this perk actually works, and it ends up a lot worse than it’s described. Unless you’re playing a largely physical state character and don’t care, my guess is that this flaw will trip you up more than you’d like.
Brian Watkins has worked as a copywriter, SEO strategist, and photographer since 2007. He’s helped numerous businesses level up their revenue through stronger copy, and is also a YouTuber. Blending creative and technical disciplines has been a passion since he was a teenager, growing up in a home with two IT tech parents while he practiced creative writing and camera work.