Working as intended.
You get only 40% dmg when your total armor -Fatugue is 15 or less. Anything beyond that reduce damage reduction.
Also you get 40% dmg which mean your damage reduction is 60%.
With armor that you get 42% dmg your damage reduction is 58% so its lesser.
Build them Nimble.
Maybe as Nimble Duelist.
I think that you can get some new barbarians – not from the cities. Some guys were talking that it happen to them on discord.
Do you use GoG Galaxy?
You should probably uninstall it clear the cahce and then install the fresh one.
Or just download BB and DLC manually and then install it.
What a sec, did they officially support the game for modding?
No.
Some autistic coder break encryption of files and produced a tool that allow decoding them into usable format and now they are all open for modifications.
But that is all.
Well I rarely use Bags and Belts perk but having bags as items alternative is nice – you still sacrifice accessory slot although current accessories could use some boost.
I did purge in your mod and leave only bags. It works and so its fine.