Ped Damage Overhaul Reloaded V1.38.2

PDO Reloaded is a continuation of the original Ped Damage Overhaul mod by HJ and fitfondue, developed with HJ’s permission. PDOR preserves everything that made the original great while delivering meaningful bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and substantial new features.

Before You Install – Read This!

Remove the original PDO mod entirely before installing PDOR. The original .ini and all associated files/folders (including the PDO v2.0 Extended Features folder) are incompatible and will break things.
Press F10 in-game to open the mod menu. Hotkeys from the original mod have been removed. Almost every INI setting is in the mod menu, and any changes you make will be auto-saved to the INI and applied live. You can also save custom presets via PRESETS in the main mod menu, and load them back instantly when you update the mod.
Headshots no longer count toward achievements or medals. This is a necessary tradeoff for the enhanced headshot system. The only exception is Sharpshooter Challenge 7, which I’ve fixed. See the FAQ for a workaround if this is a dealbreaker.
All Euphoria mods are compatible, but some may accentuate or alter physics behavior. For example, the writhing motion during dying states is a lot more exaggerated with W.E.R.O, since that mod completely overhauls the physics-based writhing animation.
If you get a black screen when you load into Story Mode, see the FAQ : “I get a black screen when loading Story Mode with ScriptHook V2.”
I only post PDOR here on Nexus Mods. Don’t download or use this specific version of PDO from other sites or users, as they may contain malicious code. Please report any such posts to me.

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Features – Legacy (by HJ & fitfondue)
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This mod enhances gunfights, making them more varied, dynamic, and engaging throughout the game. NPCs react realistically: stumbling when running with injured legs, gasping for breath when shot, writhing in pain when fatally wounded, groaning in pools of their own blood until death, and clutching wounds while staggering after being hit.

All features are configurable through the .ini file. The mod only affects human NPCs; animals and other elements are untouched.

Combat & Damage

NPCs react to shot location. Leg shots cause stumbling, hand shots disarm, torso shots stagger
NPC health and player damage rebalanced to eliminate bullet-sponge enemies
NPC accuracy degrades as they take damage. A wounded enemy is a less precise one
Arm and leg shots deal less damage than torso or headshots
Weapons feel distinct based on their condition and ammo type

Dying & Bleeding

Below a critical health threshold, NPCs collapse and cycle through randomized dying stages until death
A bleeding mechanic drains health over time after fatal wounds, with randomized bleed-out durations
NPCs shot down may stay downed for a random period, temporarily “winded” rather than instantly dead

Fire

NPCs set on fire burn for an extended period, with a small chance of surviving in a severely weakened state

Disarms & Hogtying

All NPCs, including lawmen, can be disarmed by shooting their gun hand
Hogtying an NPC disarms them, though escaped NPCs may produce a hidden knife

Optional: Core Drain (Extra Difficulty)
Enable CoreDepletion, CoreDepletionAfterDeath, and MoneyLossAfterDeath in the .ini for:

Moderately increased core drain (health, stamina, Dead Eye), making food and hunting genuinely necessary
Full core depletion on death
25% money loss on death

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Features – New in PDO Reloaded
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Enhanced Death Sounds
NPCs no longer loop the same two or three vanilla pain sounds. PDOR adds hundreds of imported audio cues (screams, moans, gurgles, and death rattles) making every encounter feel more visceral and distinct.

Improved Death Mechanics
NPCs in dying states now react to being shot rather than lying motionless. They’ll flinch on impact; those in the final stage may twitch, spasm, and cough up blood as their movements slow, mimicking the gradual failure of the nervous system.

Visceral Wounds
RDR2 has a large catalog of blood decals that the engine normally only applies in certain conditions, but not gunshot wounds. PDOR extends them to gunshots and ties them to the body region that was struck. A groin shot bleeds on the groin, a left arm shot bleeds on the left arm, and so on, with NPCs growing progressively bloodier as the fight continues.

More Player Survival Options
PDOR has a suite of player survival mechanics, including a wounded movement system where shots to various body parts will change player movement and inflict negative penalties. Leg shots can cause the player to trip over, while grazing shots to the head can obscure and blur vision. Included in these options are dying states for the player, and the ability for NPC’s to execute the player when downed.

Melee Dismemberment
In vanilla, melee weapons can’t dismember NPCs. PDOR fixes that. Machetes, hatchets, and broken swords can now decapitate outright or take an arm, hand, leg, or foot off with a clean swing. Chances are configurable independently for heads and limbs.

Dynamic NPC Fire
The original fire mechanic has been rebuilt from scratch. Burning NPCs won’t always simply drop to the floor. Some will panic and flee, spreading flames to other NPC’s if they get too close to them. Outcomes are varied. Some collapse and rise again, staggering and still on fire. Bodies near a flame source can continue to burn after death. New high-intensity screaming audio cues are included throughout.

Enhanced Headshots
Headshots don’t always kill instantly. In real life, a victim may continue to twitch and make sounds after being hit. This mod recreates that behavior. Some NPCs can survive the initial shot, staggering or dropping before playing out an extended death sequence with twitches and gurgles. Dead Eye rewards for enhanced headshot kills and all other settings are fully configurable in the .ini file.

Dynamic Disarm & Surrender System
Disarming an NPC now leads to different outcomes depending on their personality. Brave ones may fight back, while cowards are more likely to flee. All reactions are voiced with in-game dialogue from NPC’s and the PC. Arthur has ambient comments for peds who surrender, along with lines that play if you decide to execute them. They also react if you turn your back on them. Some will rush you, some will pull a second gun, while others might flee.

Improved Dying State Progression
DyingStateProgression replaces PDO’s default bleed-out and kill timer with a natural stage system: NPCs move through Badly Wounded -> Critically Wounded -> Near Death, each with randomized durations, ending in death. NPCs reach the final stage far more often, going limp with spasms and twitches before the end. There’s also a small random chance they’ll simply die before hitting the next stage.

Timing and chances are all configurable separately for free-roam and missions, so bleed-outs can be longer and more dramatic in the open world while staying brisk during mission combat.

Bug Fixes
Numerous fixes are included: the “standing around bleeding” issue from original PDO, the invisible gun bug after disarming a ped, and the health glitch that broke missions if you died and reloaded a checkpoint mid-mission. Every major and minor bug from the original mod has been resolved.

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File Structure
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PedDamageOverhaul.asi – The main script. Identical across all versions.
PedDamageOverhaul.ini – All mod settings live here. The default config is “Standard.”
\lml\PDO Reloaded\ – Contains meta files for the enhanced headshot system and all custom sound banks. This folder must be installed. Without it, dying NPCs will produce animal sounds and unrelated audio, and the headshot system will not function correctly.

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Installation Steps
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Install Steps

Remove any existing PDO installation completely, including the old .ini and all associated folders.
Download ScriptHook V2, specifically the ScriptHookRDR2 V2 file, not Mod Loader. Inside the archive is ScriptHookRDR2.dll. Put it in the same base folder as RDR2.exe.
Download dinput8.dll from Ultimate ASI Loader’s github. Put it in the same root folder as RDR2.exe. Ensure you’re not using any other .asi loader alongside it.
Download Lenny’s Mod Loader. Extract the contents of ModLoader directly to RDR2’s root folder. Then extract the ModManager folder to wherever you want to run it from, and use the ModManager to set load orders.
Make sure “Red Dead Redemption 2\lml\PDO Reloaded” exists.

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Recommended Mods
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A.R.E.P – Much better sense of weight, with realistic shot reaction physics.
Head Bleed V2 – Compliment’s and improves headshot death particle effects. NOTE: You must enable PDOR Compatibility in HeadBleed’s mod menu!
Improvements in Blood – High quality ground-based blood pools, streams and spatter decals.
Enhanced Brawling – PDOR doesn’t alter unarmed combat beyond exposing damage values for custom settings, so I recommend EB if you want a mod that drastically alters and improves unarmed and melee combat.

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Incompatible Mods & Known Issues
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AMJM Transport – Bounty targets added by AMJM may be automatically incapacitated, among other issues.

Auto Looting – Causes crashes when combined with PDOR.

Hunting Grounds – Can cause a “zombie ped” issue where NPCs won’t die under certain conditions. This is a Hunting Grounds bug. Fix: open Hunting Grounds’ Settings.ini and set BleedingCausesDamage=0 (leaving AnimalsBleeding=1 is fine). Credit to Avici1312 for the tip.

Any mod altering peddamageinfo.meta or default_damage_modifiers.meta – Will conflict. If the other mod takes priority and includes these files, the Enhanced Headshot system will break and explosive ammo dismemberment will stop working. Check the Optional Files section for an existing compatibility patch, or request one in the comments.

Any mod which modifies the weapon tags or adds new weapons – Will likely conflict. Most of PDOR’s core functions rely on identifying the weapon being used. All vanilla and MP weapons are covered (and the weapons from the Munitions mod), but any other weapons won’t be recognized and will break the script.

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Frequently Asked Questions
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Every time I headshot a ped, the ped falls to the ground but gets back up to run off bleeding.
This can be caused by using an older script hook, a broken .asi loader, replacing PDOR’s .meta files with unpatched versions, or using HeadBleed V2 without turning on its PDOR Compatibility switch. By default, headshot peds either die instantly or fall to the ground gurgling for a few seconds before they die.

I’m hearing animal sounds and strange dialogue instead of screams and death rattles.0
The custom sound banks aren’t being loaded. Either you don’t have LML, it isn’t installed correctly, or you didn’t extract PDO Reloaded to the \lml\ subfolder. Follow the Installation Steps.

I get a black screen when loading Story Mode with PDOR / ScriptHook V2.
This is a ScriptHook V2 bug. Open (or create) ScriptHookConfig.ini in your RDR2 root directory and paste in the following:

Load on startup = true
[Interface]
Enable = false
[Overlay]
Enable = false
[General]
Enable Reload Hotkey = false
Show errors = false
Show notifications = true
[Open Key]
Hold Key = 16
Press Key = 45

Is this compatible with Euphoria mods?
All Euphoria mods are compatible, but some may accentuate or alter the intended physics behavior triggered by PDOR. For example, the writhing motion during dying states appears much more exaggerated with W.E.R.O, since that mod completely overhauls the physics-based writhing animation I use.

Is this compatible with [mod name]?
It will conflict with any mod that includes its own peddamageinfo.meta or default_damage_modifiers.meta, unless a compatibility patch exists. Mods which alter the names of weapons (changing their internal tags) or mods which add new weapons will also conflict. When it comes to weapons mods, at present, only Munitions has been made compatible. Mods that alter combat mechanics, weapon damage, or NPC health values may also conflict, and will require testing on your end.

Why is player weapon damage set to only 30% of the base game? Should I set it higher?
In the vanilla game, NPCs have 75 health and only die at 0. In PDOR, NPCs collapse into the dying state at 50 health, effectively rendering them “dead” much earlier. To keep this narrower health window balanced, weapon damage is reduced to 30% of vanilla. In general, you should keep the modifiers set to 30%, but if you feel like specific weapons are either too powerful or not powerful enough, try increasing/decreasing them in increments of 10%, testing each time. You can do this live from the mod menu.

Does dismemberment still work at 30% damage?
Yes. Dismemberment now works correctly at lower base damage values. You no longer need to inflate damage just to restore it as you did in legacy PDO. For shotguns and the Rolling Block Rifle, PDOR scripting mimics vanilla dismemberment calculations (adjustable in the .ini). Explosive weapon stopping power has been tuned to clear the one-shot dismemberment threshold. In practice, it should feel close to if not identical to vanilla.

Headshots aren’t counting toward achievements or medals.
This is a limitation of the enhanced headshot implementation. There’s no workaround while the feature is active. I’ve added a fix for Sharpshooter Challenge 7, but replaying missions with medals that require headshots won’t function correctly.

If you want to replay missions for medals, do this:

1) Set EHS_HeadshotVanillaChance = 100
2) Delete peddamageinfo.meta in \lml\PDO Reloaded\common\data\ai
3) Don’t use any of my compatches which patch other mods peddamageinfo.meta files

This will fully disable Enhanced Headshots.

Sometimes bullet holes won’t appear on peds or corpses.
This is a vanilla bug that occurs even without any mods installed. It can happen when a ped has blood decals applied to their body, or when they take a critical hit that triggers an arterial bleedout. There is no known fix.

How do I adjust arterial bleedout chances for body shots?
Download the “Arterial Bleedout Modifier Tool” from Optional Files. If you’re using PDOR without any compatibility patches, edit \lml\PDO Reloaded\common\data\ai\peddamageinfo.meta directly. If you’re using a compatibility patch, edit the peddamageinfo.meta from that patch instead.

Enemies deal too much damage / combat is too hard.
Open the .ini and find NPCWeaponModifier. Setting it to 100 restores vanilla NPC damage output.

NPC’s are too hard or too easy to kill.
There’s two options: if only certain weapons feel underpowered or overpowered, search “INDIVIDUAL WEAPON DAMAGE” in the .ini and raise those specific modifiers from 30% in 5-10% increments. If you want a universal increase\decrease, raise or lower TorsoDamageModifier incrementally, but note that this affects all firearm damage against NPC’s.

Shots to arms or legs do too much or too little damage.
Search “BODY PART DAMAGE MODIFIERS” in the .ini and adjust the arm and leg values.

Hand-to-hand combat takes too long to put NPCs down.
Search “PlayerUnarmedDamageModifier” in the .ini and increase the damage rate to taste.

Most balance issues can be solved through the .ini file. When in doubt, start there.

Credits:

HJ and fitfondue and MikeStarkweather