General question is: Does each weapon requirement accept the character's base Strength or after-effects Strength? This is nowhere to be found on the wikia.

Here's the long story: I have a character who wants to use a minigun (Strength requirement at 10). He's also running with Rad Child at Deadly Radiation Poisoning (-2 Strength, +8 health/sec).

When I started the character, I had my starting base Strength at 9. I ran over to the Clinic immediately to bump it to 10 (which become 8 post-Rad Child) so I can use any Melee Weapon without worrying about Rad poisoning. But I also planned to take Weapon Handling Perk at level 16 to reduce all weapon Strength requirement by 2 because I thought that it would reduce the minigun's strength requirement to 8 so my Rad-poisoned character can use it.

But when I got to level 16, I suddenly realized that I could not take Weapon Handling Perk, because my base Strength is already at 10 . So now my Strength is stuck at 8 no matter what I do . Putting on most power armor makes it out to be 9 post-Rad Child, with the T45 giving 10... but at the cost of -2 Agility. My character had 5 base Agility, Rad Child bumped it down to 3, and if I put on the T45 (-2 Agility!) it will be bumped down to a brutal 1 Agility! - So I don't want to use the T45 unless I absolutely have to.

I was also wondering if the OWB perks Reinforced Spine and Spineless add to base Strength or post-Rad Child Strength? http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Reinforced_Spine, it says "The bonus is not added to your base Strength, so when leveling it will not count toward qualifying for perks." - I don't understand the annotation, so does it mean that this perk will bump my post-Rad Child Strength to 9?

Thanks for reading the convoluted post, I tried my best to explain it.

Base attributes will only count for perk requirements and implants. Stuff like skill checks and weapon requirements will be affected by what your level in that stat is at the time.

Edit: don't forget you can use alcohol to boost strength as well. If you have 10 strength lowered to 8 and take the +2 strengh perk in OWB that should bump you up to 10, but I don't know for sure.