I spent the better part of a year and change working on Deadly Dragons, and after burning myself out on Skyrim I've decided I'd like to spend some time on a relatively simple, lightweight, lore friendly, and script-free mod that brings Deathclaws up to snuff a bit in FO4.

I have a broken hand at the moment, so I can't get into as much eloquent detail as I'd like (takes a long time to type anything), but I noticed that even though Chemeleon & Mythic Deathclaws are pretty tough enemies, by the time you can encounter them your character is so powerful it doesn't matter. And while top-tier Deathclaws can easily kill a character even with 430 armor & +600 health on Survival difficulty, they're food for the meat grinder when the PC is in powered armor and the instant-kill grab move isn't a factor.

So my back-of-the-napkin idea is to apply the following changes:

• Increased movement speed (+20%)


• Increased melee Damage (+15%) that ignores some portion (30-50%) of armor.


• Increase Rubble Throw damage (+50-100%)


• increased armor (+35%)


• increase baseline stats for low-tier variants (varies)


• Increase Perception to +12-15


• All variants level with the player, up to level 150


• Increase limb health by 60-200%


• Higher tier deathclaws appear much sooner


• De-level the Deathclaw leveled list to a degree.


• Glowing Deathclaws radiation field & melee radiation damage comparable to Bloated Glowing Ghouls

The ideal is to make Deathclaws more durable but at the same time avoid "bullet sponge" territory, but also have them do enough damage that the player knows that Deathclaws are a top-tier threat that they don't wan't to screw with - even in powered armor. The second part is that deathclaws are a bit slow in FO4, and increasing limb health and movement speed will maybe keep high-powered characters from crippling multiple limbs on a Mythic Deathclaw in the span of three seconds. It may actually get the chance to close the distance and enter melee with the player.

The last part is that high-tier deathclaws don't need to wait around in the leveled list until level 70-90. I was playing a sub-optimal character on Survival difficulty and was fully capable of taking down Legendary Mythic Deathclaws at level 50. Also some variety of Deathclaw at the higher levels would be nice.

All of that sounds fantastic mate. One big issue I've noticed is that deathclaws have these sometimes long and awkward pause/delay after attacks. Could that also be looked into, or do you think the increased movements speed will mitigate that?

Perhaps a longer reach?


I can easily go to a smaller space where the deathclaw can't reach me and fire away from there.


The last one, I ducked down a stairway to a basemant shop, and it just walked against the fence until I shot it dead.

I'm sure it's possible, it's just a matter of finding out how difficult it'll be, if I want to mess with it, and if it'll cause more headache than it's worth.. The movement speed increase (assuming that's doable in the first place) will let them run/sprint faster, it shouldn't affect there attacking speed or other animations.

I don't plan on making there reach any longer than it already is, just want to keep things relatively simple.

Yes it's a little too easy to hide in a small space, or jump on top of something to get away from them. They have long arms, long reach, and should be able to climb well, so evading them shouldn't be quite as easy.

They should be able to jump & climb like a fiend, but Bethesda didn't include any of that. I certainly don't have the skills or tools to do so. More importantly if Skyrim is anything to go by, editing AI beyond the most basic stuff is pretty much a pain in the ***, requires aggressive scripting, and is more trouble than it's ever worth.

Well, the PC can't really climb either.... so, alls fair in love and deathclaws.

And deathclaws are BIG, taking advantage of your environment to combat them is actually a good strategy. Encounter one out in the open, and you had best be able to run fast, or have a truly billy weapon, or lots of stims.

The 'rubble throw' attack works everywhere as well. Tweaking the AI so that if the DC decides it can't get to you physically, it SHOULD start tossing rocks and such at you. (I see this as the deathclaw pretty much saying "You are barely worth my time, here, let me kick some dirt on you, so you will know EXACTLY what I think of you.")

Loved Deadly Dragons. One thing I'd like to see though Deathclaws shouldn't level too much with the payer, I shouldn't see a lv 150 Deathclaw, but a lv 150 Legendary Deathclaw would be less unusual. If any regular Deathclaws appear at lv 150 it should only be Legendary ones. Witcher 3 had some fun creature fights, if I went somewhere tough I wasn't given buffed Drowners to fight but something truly dangerous for the area I was in. The same should be done with Fallout 4.

The Glowing Sea if possible should contain higher tiered Deathclaws at all times while outside of that more normal or common ones should be encountered in the regular areas with Legendary and Rare Deathclaws as an oddity. Everything else is a great idea. I love the idea HeyYou had for more Rock Throws as Deathclaws need a ranged attack for elusive Players who hop or glitch their way to safety.