Stamina is your character's physical energy, and is used to perform various strenuous activities, in particular power attacks, bashing with a shield, sprinting, rolling while sneaking, and zooming in with a bow. If your stamina is completely depleted, you will be unable to perform these strenuous activities. Unlike magicka, your character can perform any action that has a stamina cost as long as it has at least one point of stamina available. Stamina is comparable to "Fatigue" in earlier Elder Scrolls games.
| Action | Base Stamina Use | Modifiers |
|---|---|---|
| Sprint | 7/s | +2% per worn weight |
| Power attack, single | (40 + 2 * weapon weight) | Reduced by some perks |
| Power attack, dual | 3 * (40 + 2 * weapon weight) * 0.5 | Reduced by some perks |
| Shield bash | 35 | |
| Power bash | 55 | |
| Bow zoom | 10/s |
Some dragon shouts such as Whirlwind Sprint also use a small amount of stamina. However, this isn't a huge problem, since by the time you are able to shout again, your stamina will have fully restored.
Increasing Stamina
The amount of stamina you have depends on your character's level. Each time you level up, you can choose to add ten points to your stamina, or to another attribute. Adding to your base stamina when you level up increases your carry weight by 5. You can temporarily fortify your stamina using magical effects as detailed here. Temporary changes to your stamina (such as damage, drain, or fortify) do not affect your carry weight.
Restoring Stamina
The green bar in the bottom right of the screen shows you the current status of your stamina (although this bar will be invisible when stamina is full). Stamina can be restored in several ways:
- Stamina regenerates whenever you are not doing an action that uses stamina. You regenerate 5.00% of your maximum stamina per second outside of combat and 1.75% inside combat.
- Restore Stamina effects are available in various forms:
- From potions that can be found or purchased
- From custom potions
- Some types of food restore stamina
- From spells that restore health, which restore stamina with the Respite perk
- Whenever your character levels up, your stamina, health, and magicka are fully restored.
Negative Stamina
Unlike spells, which cannot be cast if you do not have sufficient magicka, Skyrim allows players to reach effective negative stamina levels when performing actions that consume it. This mechanic is hidden from the player; a level of 0 will be displayed on the GUI. Stamina will continue to regenerate at the usual rates while below 0. However, Skyrim has a maximum amount of time coded into the game before stamina immediately jumps back to 0 regardless of the deficit. This is governed by the fStaminaRegenDelayMax in the Construction Kit, which is set to 5 (seconds) by default. Items such as potions or food that restore stamina immediately raise stamina above 0 regardless of the current stamina deficit.
A few simple examples illustrate the above mechanics. Consider a player that regenerates 10 stamina per second and whose power attack consumes 80 stamina.
- Case 1: the player is at 80 stamina. He performs a power attack and his stamina reduces to 0. The stamina bar immediately begins to refill.
- Case 2: the player is at 50 stamina. He performs a power attack and his stamina reduces to -30. His stamina is shown to be 0 for 3 seconds. After 3 seconds, the stamina bar begins to fill.
- Case 3: the player is at 10 stamina. He performs a power attack and his stamina reduces to -70. After 5 seconds, his stamina level has increased to -20. Because fStaminaRegenDelayMax = 5, his stamina immediately jumps to 0 and begins to fill anew.
- Case 4: the player is at 10 stamina. He performs a power attack and his stamina reduces to -70. He immediately drinks a potion that increases his stamina by 15 per second for 5 seconds. His stamina bar immediately begins to refill the moment he drinks the potion.
NPC Stamina
All NPCs and creatures also have stamina, which is calculated differently than the player's stamina. Their stamina is summed from three separate contributions:
- The race provides a starting stamina.
- Individual NPCs and creatures can have a fixed stamina adjustment.
- For most NPCs and creatures the class provides an additional 0-10 stamina points per level.
The rate at which enemies regenerate stamina is determined by their race.
Notes
- Frost damage drains stamina.
- Unlike in previous Elder Scrolls games, jumping does not reduce your stamina, nor does walking or running affect the rate of regeneration.
- When your stamina reaches zero, the stamina bar will flash green. It will never take more than 5 seconds before it starts to refill again.