Strength

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Strength (or STR) is one of a character's three main attributes, along with dexterity and intelligence.

Strength affects the following:

• Increases damage of many physical attacks. Every point of STR past 10 gives +2.5% damage, while every STR below gives -2.5%:
  • Many weapons: Axes, Maces & Flails, Polearms, Staves
  • Throwing
  • Unarmed Combat
  • Constriction
• Reduces the impact of encumbrance rating (from both body armour and shields) on evasion, spellcasting success, and attack speed.

A high strength score can go a long way toward allowing you to cast spells or dodge attacks while wearing heavy armour/shields, and significant boosts to strength (e.g. an artefact with +10 strength) will boost melee damage considerably. However, the defensive boosts from dexterity are helpful for any character.

If your strength is ever reduced to 0 or lower, you will suffer stat zero.

History

• Prior to 0.30, strength had no impact on shield encumbrance.
• Prior to 0.29, Short Blades, Long Blades, and Ranged Weapons scaled with STR instead of DEX.
• Prior to 0.28, Strength increased the SH of kite shields and tower shields. It also increased the chance of using auxiliary attacks.
• Prior to 0.27, the Strength modifier was more complex. For STR > 10, you had a 100 + (random2(STR - 9) * 2)% multiplier, while for STR < 10, your damage was 100 - (random2(11 - STR) * 3). (10 STR still equaled 100% damage)
• Prior to 0.20, many forms (like Statue Form) had extra scaling with strength.
• Prior to 0.18, each weapon type had a strength weight that determined how much strength contributed to damage and accuracy. Now strength increases damage equally for all weapons, and does not affect accuracy.
• Prior to 0.15, characters could only carry a certain weight of gear at any given time, measured in aums. Strength increased your carrying capacity by 25 aum per point. Also, ranged combat was significantly more complicated, and strength played a role in determining your attack delay with ranged weapons (see weapon damage and ranged combat for details).
• Prior to 0.13, the weapon damage bonus from strength was half as large. Strength also played a role in the now-obsolete Armour EV-Penalty system, which was replaced with encumbrance ratings.