Playing on PS3

on my last character venture I had Butch as a follower, equipped him with a fully repaired set of combat armor and death claw gauntlet - He died. I was level 20 something at the time. This go around I thought about grabbing clover, and unlike dogmeat she can likely not take several gun shots to the face. Those of you who have used Clover, how do you keep her alive?

you gave butch a deathclaw gauntlet, no wonder he didn't last long, scrap the melee idea for your followers, its not gonna help em most of the time, most enemies have ranged weapons so butch and clover need good weapons, i use clover and butch all the time and they don't die on me, i give clover ranger armor, the xulong assault rifle with thousands of rounds of ammo, lucky shades lots of grenades and a plasma rifle for backup which she uses once in a while and she tears things up and butch is good too, i give him ranger armor, a fully repaired chinese assault rifle and grenades, he would prob do pretty good with the backwater rifle also and ammo is easy to get for that, so thats what i do and they don't die very often at all, charon dies the most actually, because he has high percpetion, which isn't good actually for a follower since he goes rushing into fights before everyone else does and he has died the most on me than any follower i have ever used, but if you leave butch with a 10 mm or clover with that dumb shotgun, yeah they're gonna die, chinese assaults rifles are excellent weapons for them, i also give butch the vengance gatling laser for certain missions and he does pretty good with that also.

I think the most notable thing you can do to keep Clover alive is to refrain from blasting her head off yourself after her incessant whining about her gun or her boredom. Then send her back to "Mister Eulogy" and seek out Jericho instead.

With all the followers you need to make sure of a few things.

1) Give them better armor. Butch and Clover need better armor right away; Combat Armor is always good, although I prefer Leather for Clover. By Level 20 you might want to give them PA, as the enemies are getting tougher. And repaired PA; not just looted and slapped on them PA.
2) Give them a few stimpaks. They use them when they are critically injured. It doesn't happen often but it can prevent them from dying in combat and save you from having to reload or losing them.
3) Followers do not have to stick to just ranged weapons. A Deathclaw Gauntlet isn't a terrible idea. Clover and Jericho are ferocious with Shishkebobs in combination with their ranged weapons and I never have them with me when I don't have them use both successfully. But any follower should be using both or only ranged weapons. Having a follower, that you cannot set to essential, only using a melee or unarmed weapon seems like a bad idea.
4) Related to (3): Followers need back up. They can't handle everything by themselves. They aren't smart enough. You absolutely need to keep an eye on them if you want to keep them alive.
5) Clover needs a weapon upgrade. I would recommend giving her a Shishkebob and a CAR as 5.56mm ammo is easy to get. It is fun to follow her trail of burning bodies around the Wasteland.

Butch is tagged in unarmed and the DCG ignores damage rating - it seemed like a no-brainer to me. I like some of your ideas, but I don't want a large spread of ammo blasting constantly, I may just give her the terrible shotgun fully repaired and do some equipment stacking to raise those stats.

Oh, ya, she's great with a combat shotgun too, if you don't mind getting the ammo. She's good with anything. I've got her toting Lincoln's Repeater right now. The companions can use anything. It's more a question of what weapon do you want to listen to, watch them use and ammo do you want to have to find/buy.

That's a good point. I don't use shotguns myself (mostly due to the fact I would have preferred a pump action) so ammo shouldn't be an issue at all. I couldn't imagine giving anyone else but myself the repeater ! More or less I am just playing around until NV.

I never shared LR with anyone when I played on the 360 (not even Charon - he got Blackhawk), but now on the PC I modded Clover so she has her own. So we both have one. It's a win-win.

I usually give my follower Blackhawk. Its a devastating weapon, but it degrades much to fast when I use it. So it just makes sense to let a follower use it. Give one of them that gun, and I doubt they will die again. It can lay waste to pretty much anything quite quickly

Armor-wise, a fully-repaired set of Tesla Power Armor will keep her in good shape and if you have Broken Steel, Hellfire Armor is even better albeit uglier. Make sure she has some stimpaks in her inventory too. If her health gets low during combat and she can find cover, she'll use them to heal herself.

I gave Clover my http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13993, she seems to use it to good effect. I also gave her some better armor. I didn't give her a melee weapon, but I may try that if I decide not to fire her for whining.

Don't forget to give all your followers some Buffout as well. Charon and Jericho, at least for me, rock right through that stuff, but Clover doesn't as much.

jericho is good, he cusses a lot and talks crap but he is good and he does have a good weapon and you never have to give him ammo, so he is a good option, i use him sometimes early in the game.

Get Fawkes instead. He can take many mini nukes to the face without dieing. Though you need good karma.

bliviongate:
yeah shiskebobs are good for clover but the problem is she seems to like that weapon over most other weapons, the enemies in fallout 3 as you level need to be taking damge before they are right on top of the companions, even though clover is very good with a shiskebob and she can kill most enemies with it, i don't let her have a melee weapon anymore, but for close range, like in the metro tunnels or buildings, its a good choice, but out in the open, she needs a good longer range weapon like a chinese assault rifle or the xulong, mainly those because ammo is easy to get for it.

She should be switching back and forth at the appropriate distance between a ranged weapon and her Shish. So she would then be doing damage to the target before she gets close enough to start using the Shish. When she closes the gap she will switch to the Shishkebob. Yes, if you don't want her to use the Shishkebob at all, then you need to take it away from her, because she won't make the decision that an Albino is probably better met with the Xuanlong at mid range, but would run up on it with the Shish.

But that's a management decision for the player to make. Because you and I have very different playstyles I make a different choice than you do. I'd rather have Clover play to her strengths and always carry a Shish and I back her up to keep her out of trouble. Just like Charon rarely, if ever, died on me when I played on the 360. I'm out running around with them so I'm likely to be killing whatever is threatening them before it can kill them.

yeah but small arms is a tag skill for her, so he rips it up with the setup i give her, xulong rifle and ranger armor, she does tons of damage, the xulong rifle is really good and she is an expert at small arms, she is also awesome iwth a melle weapon, but she is so good with the xulong rifle that thats really all she needs. but if you wanted to save ammo or whatever she does use melee weapons with great effectiveness, i use to give her a shiskebob and she kills all kinds of stuff with itm bit i prefer her with the assault rifle because she can start dealing out damage from farther away.

Yes, I understand all of that. She uses her rifle at range and then closes the gap and uses her Shish. She's skilled at both weapons. I don't think it's wrong that you prefer that she just use her ranged weapon, it's a one player game and you choose to have her play that way. That's the point I was trying to make. I just disagree with you that it's the best way or only way that she should be managed.

the setup i give her isn't the best or only way to use her, i know there's other playstyles and methods that work well, the shiskebob is a good weapon for her, its just a playstyle thing thats all, i'm not really a melee type player, so i don't usually give my followers melee weapons, but on occasion i have, i've given clover the shishkebob and jericho a super sledge or whatever just for certain missions, like the metro tunnels or some indoor location, depending on the enemies.