To compensate for increased risk, Cruor32 adjusted the weapon level lists so decent weapons show up sooner. Health point maximum is limited, because real creatures don’t ignore bullet wounds, and we want to ensure taking damage hurts!
The Heavy Gunner damage bonus is halved, and that seems fair for handling a heavy weapon. The critical shot covers improved aim on vital body parts. A skilled shooter has an increased chance to hit the target and will do no more damage, ignoring critical shots, than a novice using the same gun on successful hit. The reasons for removing ballistic perk damage bonus is that it’s unrealistic and unfair to NPCs potentially making combat one-sided.
The mod includes several modular plugins, and I recommend all four unless you plan on replacing one. The mod is good enough as is, but you may want to open the plugins up in FO4Edit and take a look. I’ve spent the last several months building off of this including tweaking and balancing which I’ll go over in Part 3. As of December 2017 for v1.4, the description (dated 18 December 2016) mentions the author has been fixing missed changes and balancing armor. “ Difficulty and Realism Overhaul” is a work in progress by Cruor32.
In Part 3, I’ll cover my changes including adjustments to several weapon and armor mods to complete the overhaul. In the first part I went over my goals in overhauling combat, and here I review the mods that build the foundation.