Well I just got Boone again with my melee character second run and I have to say he makes up for my lack of guns he picks them off whille i deal with things that come close

Here is my balanced sniper-unarmed build. I know it's not exactly what you're looking for, but i've found building strictly unarmed is not as fun as having some gunning capability.

Str - 5 (6 after IT)
Per - 6
End - 6
Chr - 4
Int - 6
Agi - 6
Luk - 7

Traits:
Trigger Dicipline
Kamikaze

Tagged:
Speech
Unarmed
Repair

I'd map out my perks, but really the unarmed ones you need to think about are...

Piercing Strike - I'd argue its essential
Slayer - good speed bonus
Paralyzing Palm - i didn't take it, feels sort of cheap
Stonewall - might be a good idea if you're stirctly unarmed

I played on hardcoe so i would snipe big groups and take on the survivors with unarmed. Unarmed was useful, i think i had it on 60 or so when i was approaching the end of the game...only on level 11.

WIth only a pair of spiked knuckes you can pretty much beast through any enemy that is armed with a gun. Melee and unarmed opponents are pretty tricky - but overall i will likely put less emphasis on unarmed (keeping it around 50) because it just isn't that satisfying (or useful on hardcoe.)

Why's it less useful on hardcoe?

because your health depleats rapidly in combat. If you have ever tried to fight multiple enemies with only unarmed you'll see - especially nightkin. I had boone so he already knocked their health down to less than half by the time i started punching.

I am planning on making a Space Marine or Brotherhood of Steel type character. She will have poor social skills, poor thief skills, and a disdain for ordinary guns or shady tactics. She will be all about Power Armor, Power Gauntlets, Science, and when needed, Energy Weapons.

This character would be the absolute inverse of my main (first) character, who is all about Guns, Speech, Lockpick, Stealth, and Sniping.

I think my starting scores will be:
STR 8
PER 5
END 9
CHA 1
INT 10
AGI 6
LUC 1

My goal would be to get the caps for the END implant and get over to the doc for the implant before I hit level 2. I am not sure if that will be possible at level 1 with luck 1, but maybe some save/load on a few games of Caravan. Basically, I want my Hit Points *AND* my Skill Points max, but if I screw up and level once or twice before I can get them to 10, I'd rather miss out on a few hit points than any skill points. I'm a skill monkey.

Anyway, I would probably take:

[Talent] Heavy Handed
[02] Intense Strength
[04] Educated
[06] Toughness
[08] Super Slam
[10] Stonewall
[12] Piercing Strike
[14] Unstoppable Force
[16] Purifier
[18] Paralyzing Palm
[20] UNDECIDED
[22] UNDECIDED
[24] Slayer
[26] UNDECIDED
[28] UNDECIDED
[30] UNDECIDED

For my 5 UNDECIDED options, I'm looking at Toughness (second rank), Action Girl, Nerves of Steel, Light Step, and Adamantium Skeleton.

I'm not too sure about Light Step and Adamantium Skeleton, but I'm thinking it would be nice to not get my limbs crippled often.

My only uncertainty on perks otherwise is that I'm not sure (from the description on the wiki) on what exactly Unstoppable Force does. It seems like if someone tried to block me, I jack them up even more.

But yeah, that will be the gist of my Space Marine or Brotherhood of Steel Unarmed/Melee/Energy character.

I have a melee/unarmed character, any specific questions?

I don't have the time to write an overview.

I will say that decapitating someone with your fist is [censored] AWESOME!

i'd never been interested in a melee only character ... until one poster mentioned playing with spiked knuckles and with "bloody mess" on! i don't know why but this sounds hilarious, and for some reason makes me think of DOOM ...

My current character uses unarmed and it is a lot of fun. It started out pretty weak, even groups of geckos turned into epic challenging fights. Once I got the ballistic fist I was owning everything so hard.

I am on easy difficulty but I would recommend something higher because everything gets killed too easily. I was able to kill the alpha and mother deathclaw with 3 hits each (with heavy handed and psycho) even without some of the nice unarmed perks like super slam and piercing strike.

Ballistic Fist is rare, and AFAIK has only one source. Power Fist, Bladed Gauntlet, and even Spiked Knuckles can do excellent damage, and are reasonably easy to attain. If you're hitting both Melee and Unarmed, Lead Pipe can also be surprisingly good early.

Also, once more, I'd really strongly advocate for Rad Child in a Toughness build. Even if you've got sky high DT (Toughnessx2/Stonewall/Nemean/reasonably good armor equipped), a little damage is going to accumulate. If you're healing 2 - 4 hit points / second, at the cost of -1 End or -2 End -1 Agi from radiation poisoning, you can heal faster than most enemies can harm you. That's nice when you have to close distance between yourself and your enemies.