Strength

“ Strength measures your character's muscle power. It affects melee damage and carry capacity. It's also important for characters who intend to use heavier weapons (such as sniper and assault rifles and sledgehammers). ”

— In-game description

Details

Strength determines how much damage you can deal in unarmed combat and with melee weapons. Strength also increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by increasing your melee skill, unless your dexterity is higher. Carry capacity starts at 100, with each point of Strength increasing it by 10. Some other actions (e.g. opening vents with a crowbar) also require a set score of strength. Strength is also a requirement to use heavier types of weapons and armor. You can use heavy equipment without meeting its strength requirements, but too heavy weapons will suffer reduced precision and wearing too heavy armor reduces your action points.

High strength score is important for characters who use the heaviest of armors and heavy weaponry.

Directly affected skills	Other effects
Melee	Carry capacity Melee bonus damage Requirement for heavy armor Requirement for heavy weapons

Melee damage bonus

Weapon subtype	Strength bonus damage (%) [1]																Other weapons in the same class
	1-5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Combat Knife Serrated Knife	-	2	4	6	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22	24	26	28	30	Kohlmeier's Lucky Knife, Jackknife, Kukri, Butcher's Cleaver, Bone Handle Knife
Dagger	-	3	6	9	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	33	36	39	42	45	Shiv, Dehumanizer
Unarmed [2] Leather Gloves	-	5	10	15	20	25	30	35	40	45	50	55	60	65	70	75	Brass Knuckles, Boxing Gloves, The Claw, Ripper's Glove, Spiked Chrome Brass Knuckles
Steel Crowbar	-	-	3	6	9	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	33	36	39	42	Rolling Pin
Curved Machete E Machete E	-	-	7	14	21	28	35	42	49	56	63	70	77	84	91	98	Sørmirbæren Sabre, Sørmirbæren Skærder Sword, Black Blade, Captain's Cutlass, Red Dragon
Spear E	-	-	-	8	16	24	32	40	48	56	64	72	80	88	96	104	Lemurian Spear, Sørmirbæren Spear, Sørmirbæren Skærder Spear, Sørmirbæren Staff-spear, Sørmirbæren Spirit Staff, Høddurform
Metal Gloves	-	-	-	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	Power Fist
Sledgehammer	-	-	-	-	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	Balor's Hammer, Quake, Mind Cracker

^[1] For weapons, these percentages are additive with the bonus from effective melee skill.

^[2] Unarmed's base damage is directly increased by strength, making this bonus multiplicative with the bonus from melee skill.

Related feats

See Category:Strength feats.

• Increased Strength veteran feat increases it by 2.

Related items

Heavy armor

• Riot Gear with riot shield (requires 4-6 Strength)
• Metal Armor (requires 8-9 Strength)
• Praetorian Chestguard (requires 5 Strength)
• Praetorian Peacekeeper (requires 8 Strength)
• Praetorian Caped Peacekeeper (requires 8 Strength)

Heavy weapons

• Sniper Rifles (requires 5-6 Strength, typically 5)
• Assault Rifles (requires 5-7 Strength, typically 6-7)
• Shotguns (requires 5-6 Strength, typically 5)
• Swords (requires 4-6 Strength, typically 5-6)
• Spears (requires 5-7 Strength, typically 6-7)
• Sledgehammers (requires 8-20 Strength, typically 8-9)

Other equipment

• Steel Crowbar (can be used to force vents open, requires some strength)
• Rathound Regalia (+1 Strength on equip)
• Power Fist (+1 Strength when active in a weapon slot)

Food

• Junkyard Surprise (temporary random base ability effect)
• Rathound Barbeque (temporary +1 Strength)
• Mushroom Brew (temporary +1 Strength along with other effects)
• Bison Milk ^E (temporary +1 Strength along with other effects)

Drugs

• Adrenaline Shot (temporary +2 Strength)
• Supersoldier Drug (temporary +2 Strength)
• Vitality Powder ^E (temporary +4 Strength)
• Hercules (temporary +5 strength, leads to fatal withdrawal)

Strength checks

Impossible/passable strength check

Underrail: Expedition expansion unified the style of in-world base ability checks. This new type of base ability check was also backported to new base game content.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Location	Check	Requirement	Details
Water Treatment Facility (dun_wasteWater.png)	Force open	9 Strength	Shortcut to boss room
West Storage Depot (xpbl_md.png)	Raise gate	7 Strength	Shortcut between north storage room and office hallways
West Storage Depot (xpbl_md.png)	Raise gate	7 Strength	Shortcut between south storage room and office hallways

Using crowbar to force ventilation shafts open also requires strength. See Force Ventilation Shaft.

In addition to crowbar use, few older type strength checks exist in the base game.

• Arke Power Station (dc-pp_ama.png), push a crate to enter storage room (9 Strength)
• Talos Outpost (dc-flo.png), push outer wall block aside (7 Strength)