Let's say I use a Khajiit, and I have the gloves of the pugilist, or whatever they are called, is there a way to get my damage high enough to use only my claws?

The one handed perks don't mean anything, do they?

If I use heavy armor to use the perk that lets me increase the damage with my gauntlets, is it worth it?

Can I enchant things to make the damage better?

One handed does not include unarmed. But doing what you are planning to do could do some damage against some bandits, but against maybe vampires, giants, or dragons, I am not sure if you will survive.

I've read that Khajiit claws, plus the gauntlets, does make you fairly formidable in unarmed combat.

A high smithing skill would help, since you could make gauntlets with extremely high armor ratings. And specialize in light or heavy armor so that you get all of the relevant perks.

FYI The Fist of Steel perk is affected by Necromage/Vampire. Meaning you can squeeze some extra damage out of those gauntlets. It also works with the fortify unarmed enchant...

IIRC the "new" unarmed high damage is 76 or 78. It's been a while since I figured it all out. Hope it helps.

Its a very fun build done correctly. My female Orc is an unarmed killer. uses heavy armor so she gets that perk for armor rating deoing damage like a weapon. I also have heavy armor gauntlets enchanted with unarmed combat. Its a very hard build if you are not going to use heavy armor. As your heavy armor level goes up, so does the value and damage you can do with your fists.

Thanks everyone.

Any final tips/advice before I roll this character?

keep a weapon handy, just in case

The gloves of pugilist do not work with the perk in HA tree because they are LA. My cat used archery and unarmed when enemies got to close and with a decent unarmed enchantment and the HA perk I was doing pretty decent damage on enemies with it. I just wouldn't use it as your primary source of combat.

Or a staff, which wouldn't require perks or levelling to achieve max effect. The one you get at Darklight Tower's pretty effective.

That's not true. Fist of steel does damage based on the base damage, not skill increased or smithed armor.

The highest bonus you get is +18 from Daedric gauntlets. Which is +22 with V/N bonus.

I have found unarmed build to be tedious. Perhaps it's great fun for an hour or two. Perhaps it's great for making a funny Youtube video. But it's a very one-dimensional, boring build. You grind smithing as quickly as possible, then after that all you do is walking around punching people.