With the Smithing perk Fists of Steel (only requires 30 skill) "Unarmed attacks with Heavy Armor gauntlets do their armor rating in extra damage."

From what I have seen in released gameplay vids that is comparable damage to 1h weapons. Steel gauntlets with like a 20 Heavy Armor skill have 14 armor rating. A similar, unimproved steel sword is also 14 damage at 20 1 hand skill. Assuming armor rating scales at the same rate as weapon damage, unarmed could be viable. Weapons will probably pull ahead do to additional on hit enchantments and perk investment, but for only 1 perk you gain a decent offensive weapon that can't be disarmed.

Only problem is that to do heavy damage as an unarmed fighter you need to wear heavy armor, and as far as we know hand to hand blows are not linked to any skill, so if you only punch people you can't level up.

Interesting. I noticed this too. Would workreally well with the Kajhit.

Yeah, I also wondered about this. In the world of Skyrim people who practice unarmed combat don't get better with time

yes! I wonder if this skill stacks with their claw racial ability? I sense a dragon fight with my bare hands! lol

Yeah it's really stupid.

Maybe if we [censored] enough, Unarmed will get some perks in an Expansion, because you KNOW they're going to add Perks Via the Expansions depending on fan reaction as was done in FO3 and FONV.

I've heard it does, but don't quote me on it. Nice avy btw, movie rules face. So much better than the crapilogy Mike Bay put out.

Thank you friend, I 100% agree with you, I remember watching it as a young lad and crying at the death of Optimus Prime, how nerdy is that!? lol If it does stack then I'm going to have to play with the Kahjit, my character is changing every day with all the new news!

maybe you can enchant gloves with an offensive abiilty? maybe using them raises heavy armor?

if not - mod that does this ftw.

Also, does having fists in both hand slots count as duel wielding? do they count as one-hand?

In a demo, someone looted the Fists of the Pugilist which did extra unarmed damage Via Enchantment, so more then likely,

Fists of Steel + Daedric/Dragon Gauntlets + Enchantment from breaking down FOTP + Khajiit =

On top of that, Fists should (But probably won't until a patch or expansion) Should be counted as Dual Weilding 1 Handed Weapons, and in a perfect world, would benefit from thee appropriate perks.

Hell, they should be considered Maces for the Blunt Damage they cause but, again, Will probably not.

I expect a mod pretty fast that makes nearly all of the one-hand perks apply to fist (except axe/sword)

And also possibly skills up one-hand.

Yeah, but as a Consoler I'ld rather have a patch or expansion add.

I was boggled they didn't do it from the get go. Attach its progression to one handed have one handed perks apply, consider it a blunt weapon, add maybe 1 or 2 HtH specific perks done. Seems easier and more intuitive than making a heavy armor perk apply and having the damage based on the armor rating of the gauntlets. I will freely admit I am a HtH junkie and so biased on this issue, but for the life of me I could not figure out why it went away.

So when the gauntlets and claws etc add unarmed damage, that is hp damage, not stamina damage right?

So if we get in a brawl with a khajiit, they could kill us or other NPCs in the brawl? Same for gauntlet clad NPCs?