I have a theory on why Hand-to-Hand was not included as an improvable Skill in Skyrim.

Barroom brawls and brawls in general.

In Skyrim, when in a Tavern or an Inn, or even out in the village thoroughfare's, it seems that the highest form of dispute negotiation amongst Nords is to beat the dog [censored] out of each other in the form of non-lethal brawls. While I do agree that this is a much more simple, direct form of dispute debate, I can't help but think that this part of Nord culture is what kept Hand-to-Hand out of the game as an improvable Skill.

Think about it.

Let's say you get into one of those brawls (an NPC tells you that they are the best fighter in town, and then asks if you got a problem with that, then since I'm now challenged, I am obliged by my foolish hubris to make his face stop my fist...), with Hand-to-Hand as a Skill set, it would completely break this part of the game. A Master of Hand-to-Hand could easily one-shot these brawlers, and there would be no challenge to the... challenge.

Now, on the flip side of the argument, you could argue that in the above reference that the Brawler would also have a decent Hand-to-Hand Skill, therefore it would even out the odds. However, when comparing the stats to performance, the PC's Skills even if on the same Skill Level as an NPC, will always be slightly better than an NPC opponent. This preserves the one-shot TKO scenario, thus Hand-to-Hand was removed as a Skill.

I might be proven easily wrong in my theory, and I'm fine with that. That is, after all, the nature of scientific debate. You take the risk of being proven wrong, but in that proving you will find where you made the mistake in the first place.

So my question/discussion topic for the rest of you is this; Why do you think Hand-to-Hand has been left out of this game?

I understand that it wasn't implemented perfectly in the past two games, but with the advances in Skyrim I would have thought that it would be more viable here than in the last two installments of this beloved franchise.

So what do you think? Why was it left out? Why was it not improved upon and then implemented into this chapter of the Elder Scrolls?

I think it was left out for much more boring reasons. The game was rushed to completion and things got cut. Look at all the things in the game that aren't fleshed out, e.g. marriage, then look at thee things that are broken, e.g. houses, some quests, do you think they had time to add H2H skill or another favorite that's missing, spell creation, or do you think they just cut some things to make a deadline?

I can answer this:

Because they wanted an evenly divisible by 3 set of skills in the game. Each section of the skills (combat, stealth, magic) even has its own crafting skill -- look at how tidy and neat everything is lined up!

Also, what kind of perks would be in the Hand-to-hand tree? More of the same as in the other combat trees? Meh... "let's just lose hand to hand" was probably spoken out loud by several developers at a meeting.
-Loth

This. They stated 11-11-11 as a firm date. This was a mistake. Lots of things were cut in order to make that date, to the detriment of the game. You could've brawled with a h2h skill. In Morrowind, there were a couple instances in which you fought someone with h2h. One instance at Raven Rock jumps out.

OP : No that's not it. And personally, I've never ever ever lost a brawl. There's not even tactics behind it because you can't block. Furthermore, they cut it because shareholders obviously wanted the product released before 2012.

You don't even see brawls being practiced outside your invovlement in Skyrim, so no. its not anywhere near anything to do with Nordic Culture, they just dropped the ball. hard.

I made this thread because I'm of the opinion that with the redesigned *coughfalloutcough* engine, that they could have done a good bit of playing around with Hand-to-Hand that would fix the playability issues that we discovered in Oblivion. I was kind of excited to try a "Bruce Lee/Jet Li" type of character, only to find out that H2H isn't in the game. You can go H2H, but you will be doing a base 8 damage or so (15 with Khajiit claws) for the whole game... doesn't really speak well for your chances of survival.

I like the discussion here. I especially like the argument where Lothario brought up that it wouldn't fit into the 'divisible by 3' Skill divisions. It was an angle I hadn't thought about.

I have never found the Brawls to be a challenge. I sincerely doubt they would remove an entire skill just to make a minigame for those who are bad at Speech balanced.

Honestly I was really hoping for H2H to be a nonlethal way of fighting. Like if you get into a fistfight with someone and do enough damage that they should die, it would be awesome to see them get knocked unconscious for a few hours instead of dying. You could then of course Feed as a Vampire, rob them blind, or finish the job and kill them. It just seems like a good alternative for thieves, rather than being sneaky until you are found and then choosing to run or become a godless killing machine.

I think the reason is that they decided to balance a whole lot of stuff around the three Guardian constellations, and for that they wanted 18 skills for symmetry, and they didn't want to raise it up to 21.

Unarmored probably got taken out because they changed the leveling mechanic. My unarmored mage would've been forced to level up in Unarmored skill though she wouldn't want to, if it was in there. Same thing with Athletics. So they couldn't have used those skills to raise it up to 21.

Everyone used hand to hand and spears.

unarmored was removed because of mages? um so what wouldn't that have made sense? armor skill gain STILL occurs when you're being hit it hasn't been changed since its implementaion. if they revamped how skills where increased or better yet, SLOW the impact of them or change the levelscaling, we'd still have skills like unarmored, Acro,Athle,H2H and the numerous other things they removed to address the "leveling problem" and "superflous skill gain"