Good afternoon guys,

I've been thinking of making an unarmed build for some time now and was hoping i could get some advice on which perks and skills to take etc.

She's going to be a khajiit (for the bonus and because they're awesome) and wanted this character to not really follow the tried and tested zen monk stuff. I want her to be a rough traveler down on her luck punching her way across skyrim and ultimately joining the less reputable guilds.

First off, unarmed is not tied to any weapon skill that i have noticed? so no perks in the 2H or 1H tree will actually do anything for me? Second, i see myself needing the fists of steel pek in heavy armor but i didn't really see this character wearing heavy armor. I see her in light or just enchanted cloth (the second doesn't seem viable so i'll stick with light) With that in mind do you recomend taking heavy armor to 30 to get the fists of steel, then monving onto light?

I'll need blacksmithing to improve the gauntlets so i should be able to negate the light armor with smithing (but not to super powered levels) i can tie this into when she joins the companions when first entering whiterun, Learning blacksmithing from the redguard or who ever runs the sky forge.

enchanting is a tough one, i could disenchant the fortify unarmed gloves and then put it onto neck and rings (is it?) but i can't really see this character doing it. Will it hider me too much not doing it?

So the skills i think i'll need are:
sneak
Blacksmithing
heavy armor (30)
light armor
pickpocket
enchanting (?)

I'm really just trying to get a idea on where to go here, so any input would be great.

many thanks

You're gonna want enchanting. Without it, you'll only be able to inflict 40 damage per punch (I think) and that's with Daedric Gauntlets equipped, which you won't get for a long time.

It's going to be tough. I tried brawling a frost troll while leveling up heavy armour, and it would've taken over 1000 hits to kill it IMO.

No offense but it's a lame build. You won't kill anything except drunks. I once beat that goon, Dirge in the Thieves Guild to death with the Gloves of the Pugilist but he wasn't fighting back. Anyway, even playing on Novice you won't get very far. I can see the reason for a skill tree that covers unarmored, but unarmed? No way.

Even the guidebook admits the Khajit claw thing is pretty useless.

I was under the impression that with fists of steel and some decently smithed gloves, along with a few fortify unarmed enchants that unarmed actually did decent damage. Not fantastic but decent enough?

Fists of Steel only applies if you're wearing heavy gauntlets. Furthermore, the bonus is not affected by smithing or any heavy armor skill/perks. So your 100+ AR Daedric Gauntlets still only give +18 damage.

My suggestion to you is to use the Gloves of the Pugilist as they are. The slight increase in power you will get by self-enchanting is nowhere near enough to make up for the levels you will gain (which gives enemies more health) and perks you will spend.

You should probably not play this on Master either. I can't see that being fun for very long. You will start powerful, and just get weaker.

the maximum damage you can possibly achieve within the confines of the base game is 68, thats with fists of steel, daedric gauntlets, khajiit claws and two +14 fortify unarmed enchantments, this means you'll want to take smithing, enchanting and heavy armour, the maximum damage you can achieve with other races is 50 (56 for argonians) so you'll want to take khajiit.

no perks affect unarmed except for fists of steel, so don't bother with them. If you find the damage output lacking and the inability to block frustrating you might want to try off-setting this by running with a shield +unarmed, because you can essentially knock over your enemies and wail on them while they struggle to get up. I also hear that alchemy can be very beneficial for the potions, again, to offset your pretty average damage output. I would invest in sneak, so you can get closer to your enemies without them noticing, because if they have any sort of range on you it can make life hard, I wouldn't invest in any magic other than restoration (restoration can be very useful for avoid death and healing in between fights) because you don't want to be investing too many points into magicka, you want a decent stock of health and stamina (if your also running with a shield than stamina becomes very important, because shield can be a massive stam drain when you rely on it for utility/offense in combat, rather than just to block).you may also want to run with archery, because sometimes you need that distance bro.

something I discovered is that this isn't a very perk heavy build (because there are only a couple of perks you need to get to max damage) but youll also level up a lot slower (because your not leveling up any combat skills), so make sure to do a lot of smithing/enchanting.

gloves of the pugalist are light armour, so they don't benefit from fists of steel, last I checked 18 + 14 is more than 0 + 10...

although you raise a good point, until you can craft some heavy gloves with an armour rating of 10+ don't bother dis-enchanting the gloves of the pugalist, because until you get really high enchanting you won't be able to get a very strong enchantment (and yes, you need to take enchanting, because that is the source of most of your damage).

would a necromage vampire get any extra damage output from the unarmed enchants?

no idea, quite possibly, although I can't imagine it being much.

Heavy Armor 30 + Alchemy 100 + Enchanting 100 + Smithing 90 = level 31, with max damage = 10+12+18+(14*2)=68

OR you could be doing 10+12+10=32 damage at level 1. Enemies will be disproportionately stronger compared to your damage as you level up.

For comparison, a Daedric sword crafted with the same setup would be doing base ~60 damage, which becomes 173 after enchantments, and that's with 0 skill.

Yes, but barely.

It's a shame that it isn't viable. But I can see it being viable with future DLC. It just seems like they've put too much time into the unarmed kill cams for it not to be.

I’m having a lot of fun with an unarmed Khajiit, now level 7 and playing on Adept. The kill cams are a riot. Perks in heavy armor, smithing, and restoration, with archery for the dragons. I wonder how long I’ll be able to play this way. As Zoridium JackL pointed out, there should be perks to spare at higher levels. I guess he can pick up a couple of axes when unarmed becomes unviable.

yes, but when you get heavy gauntlets with a base armour rating of ten + the gloves of the pugalist become detrimental to your damage.

10+12+10=46, this is also acheivabe with fist of steel and a pair of gloves with 10 base armour rating and no enchantment, so no, staying with the gloves of the pugalist even when you have a half decent pair of heavy gloves is sillty, and I completely fail to see what relevance the power of sword has to this discussion?

if your questioning how viable the build is than my level 81 khajiit unarmed would like to have a word with you.

I say give it a go, what have you got to lose? I like your original build idea. The question about enchanting, you will for sure want to pursue this as you're probably going to need to exploit the alchemy/enchanting route to get gauntlets to a level you can fight with at higher levels. I'll not google this for you, but I have seen several youtube videos with peeps killing dragons, trolls etc brawling style. It's absolutely a viable option and will yield you loads of fun researching this option and playing this option. Also while you're playing this build you'll come up with several hybrid builds with your experience to share with the community. It sounds awesome and a lot of fun. Keep us posted!