OK, here's the thing. I'm replaying Fallout 1and in order not to miss anything this time around I'm following Per Jorner's ultimate fallout guide. Everything was peachy 'till I got to the Hub. Now i have charisma set on 2 and pathetic barter skill (following Per's advice) and those prices just kill me. Combat armour costs nearly 40 thousand caps! One skill book costs few thousand. I can't afford anything.
Please tell me does starting with higher charisma (say 4) and investing couple of points into barter changes things dramatically? Or prices still suck?

Its always expensive but I think it does get improved by barter. I seem to recall armour being 20-30k when I was there

20-30? Shit, it's still beyond my reach. What's with those prices? In Fallout 2 with 17 barter skill Dean's Electronics magazine costs about 450 $. That's reasonable, not couple of thousands for a damn book. I haven't touched small guns skill because i wanted to have more use from these magazines but now I'm starting to wonder if it's really worth it.

Well didn't buy any barter, I just had the default and a decent charisma so it may well be affected by barter alone. I never bought armour because it was way too expensive, by the time I could afford decent armour, I'd picked up better armour from quests.

Yes, starting barter skill is equal to 20% + (2% x Charisma), so you can see that Charisma is vital for bartering. I´m afraid that with Charisma 2 you only can play as the best thief in the world or a serial killer.
I recently made my way throught the wastelands with a diplomat character (Charisma 10 and Barter as a tag skill) and I finished the game extremely wealthy:)

Really, for a low CHA, low Barter character, you'll be looking to get your equipment from the bodies of your enemies, or as quest rewards.

OK now I get it. Thanks. My F2 char has 6 charisma, so I guess that's why things concerning bartering look different.
In F2 you need charisma for hiring NPC's. In Fallout charisma doesn't have any immidiate use, besides bartering. I just thought that making a low charisma character wouldn't gimp it so bad. Guess I was wrong.

I've played with both really high and really low intelligence/charisma characters and things always cost a lot. You just got to do a lot of exploring and kill a lot of guys to rack up the caps/coins. And generally, you find better stuff out in the world than in the shops. Usually all I buy from the stores is all their stimpacks. Everything else can generally be found in good quantity out in the world.

It depends on how you play. You can recruit Ian for free with a combination of Charisma + Speech instead of paying him, you can rescue Tandi from the Raiders without a shot with Charisma + Intelligence + Speech and so on... The problem with Fallout is that is not a very comunicative game and sometimes different ways of action other than violence aren´t self evident. That and the fact that managing your arsenal is bloody fun...

Surely that depends if you approach a game with a "kill everything" mentality, or a "talk to everyone" mentality?

Does barter work automatic or do I have to try offering less value than I ask for?
I've tried selling my knife to the girl at the shady sands gate, once with cha 6 and no points in barter, then with cha 10, barter tagged and good natured trait. No difference in the price.

Please don't necro 7 year old threads!

Barter is automatic.

Thank you very much for this extremely helpful reply. :-(
Okay if I have another question I'll post it right away without searching for similar topics...

There's a difference between searching for current topics and topics that have been closed/answered for years on end. Use your brain.