Diamond City Blues is a side quest in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough[]
Side quest: Diamond City Blues | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Visit the Colonial Taphouse and watch Paul Pembroke get beaten by Henry Cooke. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wait until later and talk to Paul around town to get the quest. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(Optional) Demand payment with a speech check. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Take Paul to the Colonial Taphouse. | Go alone to the Colonial Taphouse. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Encourage Paul to kill Cooke. | Convince Paul to calm down. | Kill Cooke. | Spare Cooke. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pick up Cooke's note. | Talk with Cooke. | Pick up Cooke's note. | Talk with Cooke. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Go north to the quest marker with Paul. | Go north to the quest marker with Paul and Cooke. | Go north to the quest marker alone. | Go north to the quest marker with Cooke. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kill the drug dealers. | Kill the drug dealers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Interrogate Trish or pick up Trish's note from her corpse. | Interrogate Trish or pick up Trish's note from her corpse. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Split the goods with Paul or kill him. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reward: See Rewards | Reward: See Rewards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Head to Four Leaf fishpacking plant. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[Hacking 3] Climb to the top of the building and use the terminal. | Read Trish's note again and pass through the tripwires. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Access to the lab. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reward: 400+ XP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leads to: The Marowski Heist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
The quest starts in Diamond City, where the Sole Survivor must help Paul Pembroke deal with Henry Cooke, the barkeeper of the Colonial Taphouse, and then intercept a drug deal in order to gain access to a chem lab.
The quest is obtained by witnessing Pembroke get in a fight with Cooke over Pembroke's wife Darcy. The fight happens when the player character enters the Colonial Taphouse in Diamond City for the first time. Shortly after the scene, Paul Pembroke will seek out the player character in Diamond City, and the actual quest starts.
- Visit the Colonial Taphouse and watch Paul Pembroke get beaten by Henry Cooke.
- Wait until later and talk to Paul around town to get the quest.
- (Optional) Demand payment with a speech check; Paul will hand over 80 caps.
- (Optional) Make Paul stay behind and confront Cooke alone.
- Follow Paul (or go alone) to the Colonial Taphouse to confront Cooke.
- At this point the quest takes one of a few different turns, which will determine who is present when ambushing an upcoming chem deal. However the bar scene plays out, one can either end up going to the chem deal solo, with Cooke, with Pembroke or with both.
Note that if one refuses to help Paul when he asks for backup, Diamond City Blues will not immediately start. However, Paul will still head off to confront Cooke on his own. On the way to the Colonial Taphouse, he can still be talked to to start the quest.
- If he is followed all the way into the Taphouse, the confrontation still occurs in a variation of option 2 as seen below.
- If he is not followed into the Taphouse, Diamond City Blues will be skipped entirely, and Paul will disappear. This will trigger a special sequence after some time where Darcy asks the player to help find Paul; asking Cooke will reveal he killed Paul and disposed of the body. Reporting this to Darcy will cause her to mourn for the rest of the game.
Confronting Cooke[]
Option 1: Confront Cooke with Paul[]
Paul pulls a gun and things escalate quickly. Either calm him down with one of three easy Charisma checks or encourage him to attack Cooke. Taking the former ensures that both Pembroke and Cooke will be part of the upcoming chem deal ambush, as Cooke tells both Paul and the Sole Survivor directly about it. Taking the latter leads to Cooke's death. The Sole Survivor can get Cooke's note from his body in lieu of hearing about the chem deal directly from him. After reading the note, it is possible to either discuss the deal with Pembroke and enlist him as a backup, or to cut him out entirely by not mentioning it.
Option 2: Kill Paul in the bar[]
If the player claims they're not with Paul, he will say "thanks for nothing" and one will not be able to persuade him when he draws his weapon. He and Cooke will open fire on one another, but neither will be hostile, presenting an opportunity to side with one by firing on the other. If one decides to help Cooke (or let him kill Pembroke, very likely to happen as he has a stronger weapon and is a higher level), the quest proceeds with Cooke telling the Sole Survivor about the deal. If Cooke dies, the quest reverts to option 1.
Alternatively, if the player previously refused to help Paul (i.e. did not receive the quest in the Pip-Boy,) Paul will not be able to be persuaded to back down and will open fire on Cooke and be shortly killed. Talking to Cooke, in this case, will start Diamond City Blues.
Option 3: Confront Cooke alone[]
This requires passing a medium Charisma check during the initial conversation with Paul. There is a choice between a medium Charisma check and two easy Charisma checks to get Cooke to stop seeing Darcy. If successful, he will no longer allow her in the bar and will tell the Sole Survivor about the chem deal. If failed, or if the non-Charisma dialogue is chosen, he will turn hostile. Whether one kills Cooke and reads his note, or keeps him alive, it is still possible to include Pembroke in the ambush by telling him about it when reporting back to him.
Ambushing the deal[]
Head north to the quest marker, just outside of Back Street Apparel. If Henry Cooke is alive, he will instead lead the player to the deal location, followed by Paul Pembroke if he was also recruited.
Nelson Latimer and Trish are at the deal, accompanied by three unnamed Triggermen. If one has a companion that is not Strong, X6-88, Cait, or Dogmeat, they must converse with Nelson before attacking them in any way. They are not considered hostile until combat begins, so any harmful action against any of them will be seen as "murdering a non-hostile" by other companions (and counted as murder in the Pip-Boy's crime statistics.) This is risky on higher difficulties as the five hostiles immediately open fire from five directions, with little chance to get behind cover.
There are different outcomes for Nelson and Trish depending on how the combat plays out; no matter what, Trish is essential and will only be downed at this point. If Trish and her goons are all defeated first, Nelson will attempt to run away, though he can still be killed. Meanwhile, if Nelson and the goons are killed first, Trish will surrender upon being the last one standing.
Once combat has ended, the Sole Survivor can interrogate Trish, who offers to tell them about Marowski's hidden chem lab in exchange for being spared. If the player agrees, she will tell them where it is (the Four Leaf fishpacking plant) and how it is guarded. A persuasion check at the start has the same outcome as the other choices if successful and causes Trish to become hostile if failed. Three persuasion checks at the end of the conversation will cause Trish to hand over the Four Leaf Fishpacking security password, used to unlock the terminal hiding the secret lab's door, if successful. Alternatively, after choosing to attack her via dialogue, she will have Trish's note on her body, which outlines the laser tripwire puzzle that, when triggered in the correct order, will unlock the lab terminal. (Note that if the lab had already been discovered and looted prior to this quest, the Sole Survivor can tell Trish about this, and she will not give any of the relevant notes and will simply beg to be spared.)
The outcome of the ambush changes depending on who is still alive after the attack:
- If Cooke is present and still alive, he will attack Trish regardless of whether the Sole Survivor spared her or not; if she was spared, she will be non-hostile to the player. If Cooke wins the fight, he will talk with Paul before leaving. If Trish wins and is non-hostile, she will run away.
- If Paul is present at the ambush, the player character will need to decide how to split the goods. There are three options: a 50-50 split, a 70-30 split, and a 100-0 split where the player character takes everything. The 70-30 split requires an easy persuasion check to succeed, and the 100-0 split requires a hard persuasion check to succeed. See the rewards section below for specifics on the split options.
- If a 50-50 split was used, Paul will become the new bartender of the Colonial Taphouse after returning to Diamond City, selling alcohol and chems. He will wear a different set of clothing and also start living in the Cooke residence.
- If the rewards were split 70-30 or 100-0, thus screwing over Paul, he will treat the Sole Survivor with disdain for the rest of the game. He will stay in his old house along with his wife, and the Colonial Taphouse will be empty. He will tell Colette that the Sole Survivor murdered her father, even if Henry Cooke is still alive.
- If Paul was not told about the deal, he will still treat the Sole Survivor as if they took everything, including telling on them to Colette.
Paul can also be killed to receive all the goods, but Cooke will become hostile if he is alive and hasn't moved far enough away. Afterwards, Cooke will either be dead or leave Diamond City for good, and thus will no longer be available as a merchant. Assuming it has not already been looted, the final phase of the quest involves looting Marowski's chem lab.
Chem lab[]
Head to the feral ghoul-infested Four Leaf fishpacking plant in South Boston. The entrance to the lab is hidden on a catwalk above the plant's main door, with a terminal nearby. There are three ways to access the lab:
- Hack the terminal (Master-locked, requiring Hacker rank 3.)
- Use the Four Leaf Fishpacking security password obtained by interrogating Trish to unlock the terminal.
- Activate the five laser tripwires around the plant in the order laid out by Trish's note, obtained by killing Trish.
Once the Sole Survivor gains access to the lab, the quest is considered complete.
Rewards[]
The chems at the heist consist of 60 each of Buffout, Jet, Psycho and Mentats, split between six crates with each holding ten of each chem. However, the player character's final heist rewards depend on whether Nelson Latimer was killed and whether Paul was brought along to the heist. If Paul is present, he will request a 50-50 split in the rewards. He can be threatened into accepting 70-30 or 100-0 splits instead (or killed,) though this will have other consequences down the line. Meanwhile, Nelson carries a variable number of about 800-1000 caps which are used in the reward split if he is killed.
- Nelson killed:
- 50-50: Sole Survivor gets Nelson's caps; Paul gets all 240 chems
- 70-30: Sole Survivor gets all 240 chems; Paul gets 500 caps
- 100-0: Sole Survivor gets all 240 chems and Nelson's caps
- Nelson escaped:
- 50-50: Sole Survivor and Paul both get 3 crates of chems (30 each of Buffout, Jet, Psycho, and Mentats)
- 70-30: Sole Survivor gets 4 crates of chems (40 of each chem;) Paul gets 2 crates
- 100-0: Sole Survivor gets all 240 chems
Post-quest interactions[]
A number of characters have additional interactions that occur depending on who survived and did not survive this quest.
Colette[]
Colette, Cooke's daughter, will show up in Diamond City after the quest looking for her father. If Cooke survived, the only thing that she can be told is that he is gone, or alternatively she can be persuaded that the player character did not know Cooke. If Cooke is dead, the Sole Survivor can persuade her that they did not know him or what happened to him, or admit to the killing; she will then try to fight the player character unless persuaded to stand down or given the whole truth. If the player character persuaded Colette that they did not kill or know Cooke, she will leave. If the Sole Survivor incurs Colette's suspicion by refusing to give her the answers she wants, or by failing to persuade her, or walking away, she will come back a week later to interrogate the player again, this time initiating combat if she does not like what she hears.
- If Paul Pembroke was screwed over by being given an unfair split of the goods, he will blame it on the player character offscreen, causing Colette to come back later, even if Cooke had actually survived. Colette will hold the Sole Survivor at gunpoint and will attack unless persuaded that Paul was lying; if this happens, she will later kill Paul offscreen, which Darcy and other Diamond City residents will comment on.
- If Paul and/or the Sole Survivor killed Cooke in the Colonial Taphouse, and the Sole Survivor ended the first encounter with Colette by making her suspicious, talking to Paul will cause him to express his fear about Colette finding out. Paul can be calmed down, or talked into either killing Colette himself or letting the Sole Survivor do it instead.
- If the Sole Survivor really did kill Cooke, but managed to persuade Colette otherwise in both encounters, she may later show up at a random settlement and attack, saying that she has found out what the player character did.
Marowski[]
- If Paul Pembroke dies at any point during this quest, the quest The Marowski Heist can later be started. This happens by way of Darcy Pembroke, who will approach the Sole Survivor in Diamond City to ask about Paul's fate.
- If either Nelson or Trish survived, Marowski will confront the Sole Survivor for stealing from him next time he is spoken to. He will demand 2,000 caps (which can be haggled down to 1,000) in payment within a week, or else he will send Triggermen to attack them in Diamond City. They will stop showing up if he is paid. Alternatively, showing him the Marowski Heist photo via The Marowski Heist will also satisfy him.
Malcolm Latimer[]
If Nelson Latimer was killed, his father Malcolm Latimer will confront the Sole Survivor about it when spoken to. If Trish also died, he will simply hire the Sole Survivor to find Nelson. If Trish survived, he will accuse them of murdering Nelson, and will send Triggermen to kill them if they do not admit it and apologize, convince him they were uninvolved, or blame someone else, via persuasion checks. The Triggermen will stop appearing if Malcolm is killed or paid 2,000 caps.
- Malcolm will hire the Sole Survivor to assassinate Paul or Marowski if they were named as Nelson's killer.
Quest stages[]
Companion reactions[]
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- If MacCready is present while Trish is killed, it will cause him to leave or turn hostile unless his relationship with the Sole Survivor is already maxed. Note that this only applies if she is non-hostile (i.e. when she is waiting during the deal or after she is spared,) and not when the Sole Survivor chooses to kill her in dialogue.
- If the Sole Survivor starts shooting at the drug deal without talking first or kills Cooke afterward, Curie will hate it and leave.
- Strong's dialogue contradicts his reaction if taking all the chems for oneself, as he says the Sole Survivor should share their spoils in a disappointing tone, even though he likes taking it all.
Notes[]
- For the three heist outcomes where Paul receives a share of the chems from the crates, the crates will become marked as owned by Paul after making the decision, so taking those chems will count as theft and cause Paul to turn hostile. Pickpocketing the chems from his inventory after he takes them is also impossible, as the success chance is set at 0%. However, if one is somehow undetected by Paul before he loots the crates (like under the effects of a Stealth Boy and properly hidden from him,) they will be able to take as many chems as they can from the crates without turning Paul hostile.
- Despite Trish's claims to the contrary, the number of chems one can find in Marowski's lab is not spectacularly large and is actually far less than the 240 that can be looted from the crates she brought for Nelson Latimer.
- It is possible for Paul Pembroke and Cooke to die before reaching the meeting point. In this case, Colette will not fight the player character in any of the speech choices upon completion of the quest. If Codsworth is a companion, he will disapprove if the player character denies knowing details of Cooke's death.
- After getting the mission from Paul Pembroke, if the Sole Survivor gets into the Colonial Taphouse before Nelson Latimer, Henry Cooke will shoot at them.
- If Cooke dies before he is convinced to stop seeing Darcy, she will continue to go to the Colonial Taphouse, whether or not there is anyone there to serve her. If he is successfully persuaded, she will get her drinks at the Dugout Inn from that point on, even if Cooke dies later on and Paul takes over the Taphouse.
- Unlike everyone else involved in the quest, Henry Cooke's true motive for ambushing the drug deal remains unclear. Once all witnesses are dead he simply walks off, leaving the Colonial Taphouse behind without laying claim to any of the heist spoils. His only explanation is that he needs to disappear due to his involvement in the ambush, which would not have been necessary if he had not partaken in it in the first place. Even his statement that he had planned to disappear for some time already fails to clear things up since he never reveals why he did not choose a less risky approach, aside from possibly wanting to get back at Nelson Latimer for perceived slights in the past.
- Despite his criminal activities, Cooke remains flagged as an innocent civilian if he survives the quest. Killing him as he walks away thus counts as murder and garners significant approval losses from well-intentioned companions like Piper and Curie.
- If the player refuses the quest by telling Paul to "solve his own problems" when he approaches them in the market, MacCready will say "That's just as well. Last time I got in the middle of something like this, I think three people died," alluding to one of the outcomes of the quest.
- Even if this quest is done after In Sheep's Clothing, Cooke will still mention McDonough taking a cut (ostensibly via taxes) as a reason for smuggling chems rather than selling the in a legitimate way.
Bugs[]
- Automatron add-on will result in Paul pulling a gun out after the scripted animation. A gunfight will ensue, where Cooke is almost always the victor, preventing activation of the quest. A simple solution is to just tell the robot companion to wait outside the bar.[verified] Bringing any of your robot companions from the
- Wearing power armor with the targeting HUD mod will result in Paul pulling the gun out and starting a gunfight until one of the contenders is dead. Exiting the suit before the fist fight starts allows the scripted fight to end and the quest to continue.[verified]
- If you stand at the entrance to the counter of the bar before Cooke leaves to fight Paul and proceed to block his path, the fight will continue to loop until Paul is dead, keeping the quest from proceeding to the next stage.[verified]
- Staying close to Cooke after the drug deal, protecting him until he arrives at Bunker Hill may fix this, as this will give Paul enough time to return to Diamond City. Apparently Paul Pembroke moves only when you stay next to Cooke, this is also valid and can be seen when you exit Diamond City with them before the drug deal. However, dialogue interaction with his wife will not change, nor her normal day behavior. Furthermore, all Colonial Taphouse clients will now sit outside of the bar and the only person inside will be Paul.
- After the quest is completed, travel to Diamond City and wait for 24 hours. After you wait if it is not morning yet, then wait more until it is 9 a.m. Enter the Colonial Taphouse and check if Paul Pembroke is present here.
- If he is not, then typing "2f16".moveto player will fix the issue.
If Paul Pembroke is present during the drug deal, he will remain stuck there when taking the drugs if you choose the 50/50 speech choice. If the player character returns to the drug deal after a fast travel, Paul will have new clothes but will still be standing there. Eventually, he will get shot by raiders or vanish. Speaking to Colette will show a dialogue option as the quest was never completed.[verified]
- 2f16.additem 6a67f to give Paul the Cooke residence key. It is possible to avoid lockpicking the door by simply using
Paul could be stuck inside Cooke's house after 50/50 ending. You can "free" it by unlocking Cooke's house door (Advanced Lockpick Skill). Be careful and do it hidden or the whole Diamond City will become hostile. After having unlocked the door, you will find Paul at Colonial Taphouse.[verified]
- If you decided to go without Paul Pembroke, and didn't speak to him before the drug deal, after the deal he will head towards the site and will remain stuck there with no speech choice. The objective "Report back to Paul Pembroke" will remain in your Pip-Boy quest log.[verified]
- Cooke's note will remain in your inventory.[verified]
- You can use the console command player.removeitem 00044279 1 to remove the note.
After the quest is completed, there is a possibility that - Trish's note will remain in your inventory.[verified] After the quest is completed, there is a possibility that
- You can use the console command player.additem 00044279 1 to add the note and SetStage 00022a04 500 to update the quest log.
If you left the Colonial Taphouse without searching Cooke's body, there is a possibility that his body goes missing but the quest marker will still appear behind the bar.[verified]
- In some instances, it is possible for Cooke to punch Paul to death in the bar fight, leaving Paul's body sprawled on the floor and the quest unable to start. This can be avoided by reverting to an earlier save, entering the bar, see the beginning of the argument, and then simply exiting the bar and waiting for Paul to exit. He can then be spoken to, with the quest starting as intended.
The dead bodies of Nelson Latimer and the Triggermen have their inventory repopulate over time, creating an endless loop of caps, clothing, and weapons.[verified]