Fallout 4 legendary armor effects

 

For legendary weapon effects in Fallout 4, see Legendary weapon effects.

Legendary armor effects are effects applied to basic armor that use special prefix modifiers that cannot be obtained elsewhere. They cannot be scrapped, but can be modified. They will appear on screen when picked up, and are marked with a star. Unlike unique armors, they are randomized and are never named. Legendary effects can provide the same effects as unique armor. Like unique armors, Legendary armors can be given a custom name and modified at an armor station.

Legendary armor pieces are only found on the bodies of "Legendary" variants of enemies and in the inventories of merchants. They can spawn at random locations throughout the Commonwealth, depending on the difficulty setting. They are much more difficult to defeat than regular enemies, as each one has a chance to "mutate" after their health is depleted, restoring it to full and boosting their stats. They will almost always have a legendary piece of equipment in their inventory.

Armor mods

Name	Stat	Form ID	Armor slot
Acrobat's	Reduces falling damage by 50%. (Equiping two items with this effect will prevent fall damage)	001F1DF9	non-power armor legs
Almost Unbreakable	Quadruples durability.	001F1E0C	unique power armor only
Assassin's	Reduces damage from humans by 15%.	001F1DF3
Atom's Bulwark	Damage resistance and energy resistance increase with Rads.	xx057054	unique chest only
Auto Stim	Automatically use a stimpak when hit while health is 25% or less, once every 60 seconds.	xx00F5BC
Bolstering	Grants increasing energy and damage resistance the lower your Health (up to +35).	001F8165
Cavalier's	Reduces damage while blocking or sprinting by 15%.	001F579D
Chameleon	Enemies have a harder time detecting you while you're sneaking and not moving.	001F4D18
Champion / Fortifying	+1 Strength and +1 Endurance	001CF57F
Cloaking	Being hit in melee generates a Stealth Field once per 60 seconds	xx0107B0
Cryogenic	10% chance to freeze melee attackers, once every 20 seconds.	xx0107AF
Cunning	+1 Agility and +1 Perception	001CF57C
DiMA	+1 Agility, +1 Endurance and +1 Intelligence.	xx043225	unique chest only
Diver Suit	Wearer gains ability to breathe under water and protection from radiation.	xx05D371	unique suit only
Duelist's	10% chance to disarm melee attacker on hit.	001F3A49
Exterminator's	Reduces damage from Mirelurks and bugs by 15%.	001F81ED
Freefall	Prevents falling damage.(Needs to be present on both equipped leg armors)	00093BBD	unique legs only
Ghoul slayer's	Reduces damage from ghouls by 15%.	001F1DEE
Grognak's Loin-cloth	Increases the wearer's strength and melee damage.	00225AEE	unique costume only
Hunter's	Reduces damage from animals by 15%.	001F1DEB
Incendiary	30% chance to ignite melee attackers, once every 20 seconds.	xx0107AE
Low Weight	Low carry weight.	001F1E0B	Power armor pieces
Lucky	+2 Luck.	001CF57E
Martyr's	Temporarily slows time down during combat when you are at 20% or less Health.	001F2D3D
Mutant Slayer's	Reduces damage from super mutants by 15%.	001F1DF4
Nuka	+3 Agility with all pieces equipped	xx01152A	unique power armor only
Nuka-Girl	Grants ability to breathe underwater and +1 Charisma.	xx04BDA7	unique suit only
Overboss Tesla Coils	Deals Energy damage to nearby enemies.	xx04703C	unique power armor only
Piezonucleic Lining	Radiation exposure increases Action Point refresh speed.	0022879C	unique power armor only
Poisoner's	+25 poison resistance.	001F3072
Powered	Increases Action Point refresh speed.	001F7A75
Punishing	Reflects 10% of melee damage back on attacker.	001F1E47
Quantum	Increases Action Point refresh speed with all pieces equipped	xx0417E8	unique power armor only
Rad Powered	Grants additional Strength the higher your rads.	xx010B86
Safecracker's	Increases size of sweet spot while picking locks.	001F3CA9
Sentinel's / Titan's	Reduces damage while standing and not moving by 15%.	001F57E4
Sharp	+1 Charisma and +1 Intelligence.	001CF57D
Sprinter's	Increases movement speed by 10%.	001F1C2F
Tesla	Increases Energy damage.	xx00C575(right) xx00C578(left) xx00C577(torso)	unique power armor only
Troubleshooter's	Reduces damage from robots by 15%.	001F81EE
Unyielding	+3 to all stats when you are at 25% or less health	xx010BB5
VATS Enhanced	10% reduction in Action Point cost in V.A.T.S.	001F1D62

Detailed explanation

Any legendary mod will add 2 Damage Resistance and 2 Energy Resistance to the armor it's added to. For example, an unmodded heavy combat armor chest piece will have 35 DR/35 ER. A legendary version with no other mods will have 37/37.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. armor effects

Fortifying, Cunning, Lucky and Sharp are stackable.

Powered effects

Almost Unbreakable, Nuka, Piezonucleic Lining, Quantum and Low Weight

Auto Stim armor effects

• The Auto Stim effect will not increase one's dehydration level in survival mode, unlike using a stimpak normally.

Camouflage armor effects

Cloaking and Chameleon effect has the same effect as the Stealth Boy mod for power armor - it turns the wearer invisible.

• Which part of the armor bears the mod is irrelevant; it will always work the same. All the underlying rules for effective sneaking still apply, so without good sneaking abilities (which means, enough points invested in the Sneak perk and enough U.S. Covert Operations Manuals collected) as well as careful use of the environment, even invisibility won't save the user from being detected by vigilant enemies. The mod also turns not only the wearer invisible but also their weapon including its sights (even the glowing portions of glow sights will fail to glow), making aiming quite difficult unless one of the electronic scope mods (night vision scope, recon scope) is installed. Furthermore, it works on companions as well, although the effect will simply stop working fairly often with no apparent reason and no reliable fix, somewhat limiting its usefulness (especially given most companions' unpredictable sneak behavior).
  • Unequipping and re-equipping a chameleon piece from a companion's equipped inventory fixes their chameleon armor's effect.

Martyr's armor effects

• The Martyr's effect does not stack with additional pieces. In fact, wearing multiple pieces can prevent the slowing of time that the effect is supposed to cause. In the game's files, this effect was intended to only spawn on chest armor, however due to a bug it instead spawns on any armor piece^{[citation needed]}. Also, if the player chracter has the superior Nerd Rage! perk, it will completely override the Martyr's effect.

Bolstering armor effects

• The Bolstering effect does not add extra resistance to the armor itself, but rather the player character. This can be apparent by looking at the resistance totals under the "STAT" tab of the Pip-Boy, or in the apparel section of the "INV" tab while having full HP, then again after taking damage. (The resistance of the armor does not change, but the totals do).

Damage Reduction armor and weapon effects

All Damage Reduction (i.e. Hunter's, Ghoul Slayer's, Assassin's, Exterminator's, Troubleshooter's, Mutant Slayer's, Cavalier's and Sentinel's) effect stacks with the armor and weapon effect of the same name.

• Equipping 7 pieces (weapon, helmet, left arm, left leg, right arm, right leg, chest) will negate all damage; except fire or poison damage. This causes enemies to panic and run away, due to how 'the AI of Fallout 4 is programmed.

Console command

Legendary effects can be added to items by dropping them on the ground and using the console command attachmod while having them selected, followed by the mod ID. You can't stack several mods on a single item, but you can stack over multiple pieces (armor). You can also replace a mod with another one via console.

If the item is for some reason unclickable (a semi-common glitch), legendary effects can be added to items using this alternative process:

1. Drop the item on the ground.
2. Pick up the item in the air by holding E_(PC) (how you would normally drag ragdoll and other objects around).
3. Open console and enter GetPlayerGrabbedRef. This returns the RefID of the item you're holding in the air.
4. Take note of the returned RefID.
5. Look up the ModID below for the desired legendary armor effect, note it as well.
6. Enter the following in the console (substitute the appropriate RefID and ModID): [RefID].amod [ModID]
7. For example, you would enter in something like this: f00726b.amod 001cc2ac.
8. The item will drop to the ground, and when you go to pick it up, you will get an overview similar to the one you get when you pick up any given legendary item for the first time.

By utilizing the steps described above, it is possible to apply legendary effects to power armor pieces. Keep in mind, though, that contrary to regular armor and weapons, power armor can't be renamed, so keeping enhanced power armor pieces apart from others of the same name under these circumstances can quickly turn into a chore.

Bugs

• PC When using armor with the Chameleon modifier, the Pip-Boy's display will be warped and the text colors over bright and blurry, making it difficult to read. If crouching and invisible, attempting to access the Pip-Boy will sometimes result in the UI being rendered partially or completely white and unusable. If standing and invisible, attempting to access the PipBoy can result in the PipBoy being transparent so the user is left looking through the character's arm. ^[verified]
  • Can be solved by saving and then loading that save or going into 3rd person and back into 1st person. Another way to solve this is to be using the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy companion app on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet.
  • The over-bright, blurry Pip-boy effect seems to be the game adding the HUD and Pip-boy lighting/color together, so if you change one or the other in the Settings so that these colors contrast (i.e. red Pip-boy and green HUD), the Pip-boy becomes more readable, though still not as clear as when not "invisible".
• PC There is a relatively uncommon bug whereas the player character will retain the effects of chameleon permanently, even after removing all buffed items. Suicide seems to fix this bug.^[verified]
• PC The Martyr mod may not work at certain times unless you go into V.A.T.S. This seems to be related to having multiple items equipped at once with the Martyr effect. ^{[verification overdue]}
• PC The Fortifying mod will add 10 carrying weight but no HP bonus. It does show you had +1 Endurance on S.P.E.C.I.A.L. chart. This might be an intended design, in case player buff too much HP with all armor pieces equipped in higher level. ^[verified]
• PC The Unyielding mode does not provide a +3 bonus to endurance. ^[verified]