How exactly do I raise Health and Strength?

[e11]

Can it only be done through training via another merc? There are a handful of Strength checks in-game, but just that: A handful. And I don't think a single one of my mercs has raised their Health since I started.

[Root]

recovering from wounds gives health sometimes, and melee combat gives strength

[FatalException]

Get mauled and get better.

[The Great Cornholio]

you're limited to a small number of stat increases per level, and its going to go toward what you do the most - marksmanship, agility (moving), maybe medical

starting your IMP with teaching and 85 in physical stats and leadership lets you quickly correct issues like Livewire's health and strength

[lx]

loosing health, like getting shot. it does not work with friendly fire, i think.

[lumrod]

Get wounded while scouting or fighting, recovery often comes with an increase in health, both just by resting or getting healed by someone.
Strength comes mostly from melee fighting.
On my many melee solo IMP starts it's rare i don't finish Ernie Island with 2 or 3 extra points in each.

[kiloromeo]

Opening doors with crowbar for strength I think.

[lx]

magazines 📖

[lx]

there is another way - combat tasks.

[mobucks]

I started my IMP with 45 strength. trained barry leadership to 70ish and he trained my str ten points in one session. now it's in the 80s and I'm half way through the game.

AFAIK you can skill up as much as you want between levels, the main factor is train points.
train points are JA3's way of not letting you just sit in a sector and train skills.

EDIT: The only time I needed a really strong merc for a skill check I used Wolf.

[e11]

Originally posted by lx:

there is another way - combat tasks.

What do you mean?

[Kurtboard]

Whenever I did the training operation it only ever increased health. Is there a toggle to select strength? I would love to train strength just to get more inventory space.

[Lonesome Wolf]

@Kurtboard:
There's a little grey box at the lower right of the window to select which stat you want to improve via training.
It's easy to overlook.

[lx]

at the start of every combat, there is a chance(?), you will be given a combat task. like "make x kills with a knife". if you complete it, there is a chance for one(?) merc to gain +1 health, or strength. its rng, unreliable thing.

[Lonesome Wolf]

For the patient reader there´s a great guide who covers the field experience mechanics:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006910846


TL:DR

For Health it would be:
- take +80 dmg (over time)
- Heal a wound

For Strength:
- kill with a melee crit
- deal 50 melee dmg (over time)
- kill 2 enemies with melee in the same combat

So forcing stuff open via crowbars and the like won´t make you stronger (I expected the same at first)

The important thing to note (as someone already mentioned) is that there is a hidden treshold involved of how much field exp you can gather, that is tied to your total XP. (so level up and chances are you can gain a stat up via field exp again)

And you can level the same stat only once every ~2 days. (there´s a cooldown)

There´s a mod out there that let´s you see when you can use field exp again that´s kinda handy.