I tried out my first Khajiit today and to my surprise his unarmed animations use claw attacks, they seem pretty cool to me but other than a nice novelty is there any advantage to going unarmed? Unlike the other TES games there is no hand to hand skill and I am guessing that the damage of the claws does not scale....any Khajiit user could give me some insight on this?

No advantage, just something to roleplay with.

It has it's advantages damage wise over low level weapons. Unfortunately enough however, unarmed combat doesn't increase any skills so when it comes time that actual weapons output for damage than your claws...you'll be disadvantaged.


However on at least default (Adept) difficulty unarmed combat isn't that bad if you know what to do. Fists of Steel perk, high level gauntlets upgraded heavily enchanted with the enchantment on the Gloves of the Pilagist (or whatever).

Plus you can totally own more crap out of people in brawls

Well they have 22 fist damage

I think that if you are a serious smith, you can use the Fists of Steel perk in combination with your claws to dole out some fairly horrendous damage. Don't know if it's better than a weapon, though, and enchantments on it are impossible.

Get the fortify unarmed, the heavy armor perk and you can cause MASSIVE damage.