I'm thinking about making a character, probably Kahjiit or Orc, that uses his fists as his only weapon. Any suggestions for other skills, equipment, or anything else?

Use Khajiit and plan on using heavy armor. The heavy armor skill tree has a perk that gives you an unarmed bonus based on the armor rating of your gauntlets, or if you choose light armor, there are magical gloves somewhere in Skyrim that also benefit your unarmed skill. Believe me, it's completely feasible to play the whole game just using your fists (maybe not so much against dragons and other bosses). Even as a level 30 Khajiit, I deal more damage with my naked hands than with the best sword.

I'm not sure about this, but does unarmed damage ignore armor ratings? It seems like it does.

And remember to visit Riften. In the Ratway there is an NPC who wears the Gloves of the Pugilist. They are fur gauntlets that give you 25% Unarmed Damage.

Pick Khajiit, they get an unarmed bonus, use heavy armor(or atleast until you can get the hand to hand perk). and finally go to the ratway in Riften to get the gloves of the pugilist(increased hand to hand damage) and disenchant them(they're light armor) and put the enchantment on heavy gauntlets.

Look into how unarmed registers its damage.

The above posters all have the right idea. I would DEFINETELY go khajiit. Just for that unarmed bonus (sorry argonians)

Just check what damage it deals and adjust based on what info you get.

Alright, sounds good. Thanks for the input, everyone.

One sneaky way to increase Unarmed damage, is to get the Gloves of the Pugilist, then Disenchant them, and put the enchant on some Heavy Armor Gloves. Then slightly exploit the "Fortify Restoration Glitch" with alchemy to bring hand to hand damage on par with a sword when wearing those gloves.

Khajiit + Fists of Steel + very high armor-rating = strong unarmed melee attacks.

Does the Kajiti racial ability transfer over when in beastform as a werewolf? If so, they would become the best werewolves.

Last time i saw them it was 10 pts of unarmed damage.