Melee damage

Melee damage is a derived statistic in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout Tactics.

Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics
This skill modifies the amount of bonus damage your character does in hand-to-hand combat.
 * $$\text{Initial level}=\text{Strength}-5\geqslant1$$


 * Minimum value can be no less than 1.
 * Average characters will have a melee damage of 1.
 * The Heavy Handed trait increases melee damage by 4 points.
 * The Finesse trait has the negative side effect of making all your attacks (including melee) do -30% damage.
 * The Bonus HtH Damage perk increases melee damage by 2 per rank.
 * The Better Criticals perk increases the damage of all Critical Hits, including melee.
 * The Slayer perk upgrades every melee hit into critical hits, radically increasing melee damage.
 * Similarly, Silent Death has the effect of doubling melee damage, though only when Sneaking. This makes it arguably less useful than the Slayer perk.

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas
In Fallout 3, Melee Damage (only) affects damage done with Melee Weapons. There is a separate statistic for hand-to-hand combat called Unarmed Damage.
 * $$\text{Initial level}=\lfloor\text{Strength}\times0.5\rfloor$$

Example: A starting Strength of 5.
 * $$\lfloor5\times0.5\rfloor=\lfloor2.5\rfloor=2$$