Stuck at Ohio River Adventures

[msy]

No matter how hard I hit Blackeye and Bruiser, they refuse to die. They drop to their knees with almost no health and a few seconds later they come back fully restored. I have shot them with several types of guns and stabbed them, nothing finishes them. What's the secret?

[Mooman]

The secret is they are Raiders, you need to make friends. And when you do, go back.

[msy]

Update: I think I got my answer. I watched a Youtube video by someone well over level 400 (I am only 42) and he farms that place because it has lots of stuff there. It has Raiders but if you don't bother them, they will not bother you, unless you are low level then they attack. I will come back after I have leveled a bunch.

[BizarreMan]

You’ve kind of figured it out already, but there is no reason to go level up lots, just go to the Overseers house and an entire quest line will open up. A quest line that can be done starting at level 20.

As a side note, there are very few “named” NPCs that you can kill. Most of them are flagged as essential, like Blackeye and Bruiser. If you run into any who drop down but get back up again you can know you will be back talking to them later.

[PotatoBasket]

NPC's you can KO are either quest related or scripted to help you. Ohio River Adventures used to spawn occasional waves of mirelurks that would would attack the raiders, and a miniquest from the River Adventures boss to help defend their machine. Not sure if this is still present in the game, but it's one of the ways to increase your reputation a miniscule amount with the raiders. It's probably my favorite area in the western map.

Once you two can have a convo without shooting each other, try bringing Blackeye some Queen Mirelurk meat.