I have always enjoyed smashing in my enemies faces with a power fist from time to time, so I thought it might be a good idea to make an unarmed character. I have read in the past that unarmed can be very powerful if the character is built right. I would like to know how you go about building a character "right" for unarmed combat.

My hope is to have a character that runs around in power armor with fisto! and clobbers his enemies. He would also use explosives as well to help weaken mobs and provide a kind of ranged attack.

My initial thought was to make a character with a special like this

S. 8
P. 6
E. 9
C. 1
I. 9
A. 1
L. 6

This way I could get the ant might and the bobblehead for max strength for more carrying capacity (And yes I know strength doesn't help increase unarmed damage)
I would also get 10 endurance with the bobblehead for maximum health since I will be charging enemies who are shooting at me. And of course I always max out intelligence.

I am not sure if I should reduce a stat to get better agility for more AP when using paralyzing palm, and since some perks that help AP have agility requirements. The first thing I would probably cut would be strength as I will have more caps to play with already since I don't need to buy ammo.

I just want to know what all the tricks are to making this build. Also, if all you have to say is use paralyzing palm don't bother posting. I know that part, but I need other info.

You don't have to max out your endurance. I have an Unarmed/Big Guns character.

Strength is at 7
Endurance at 6
I used Plunkett's Valid Points, as it gives me more crit hits, as well as numerous VATS possibilities. The Power Fist and all uniques are cool, but I get more whacks in with these or the normal spiked knuckles. The Deathclaw Gauntlet looks stupid in my opinion, so I don't use that. I choose all 3 ranks of the Iron Fist Perk and the Paralyzing Palm usually , except this playthrough, as that perk is almost god-like.

Unarmed combined with a big gun and my double barreled, and I kick serious butt. My END will go up to 7 when I get the bobblehead, but I'm level 30, and haven't gotten around to doing that.

edit: oh yeah, my AGI is 9

I tend to run Unarmed with EW for my ranged attack backup.

I don't ever run with a STR above 4.

For Unarmed I go with an EN of 7. I rarely go above that. But, I do take Toughness.

I take all three levels of Iron Fist as soon as I can and, like mpls Big Daddy my favored Unarmed weapon is Spiked Knuckles, although I don't go for Plunkett's Valid Points. If I want to go for the crits I will use a Deathclaw Gauntlet, which although it does look pretty silly, is much more effective than any other Unarmed weapon, and I figure if I'm gonna use a proper weapon I might as well go big. Plus, I have a soft spot for crafted weapons.

I usually put my AG at about 4 for Unarmed.

I'd listen to the Llama, she really knows her [censored] when it comes to unarmed.

I ran a pure unarmed character. No use of guns at all. It was the easiest playthrough, at least in the earlier part of the game, that I've done, and a very different game from normal: suddenly you find you're carrying almost nothing around with you and have little to no use for money. The Broken Steel enemies are something of a challenge, but Paralysing Palm levels the playing field a bit with them. I put Endurance at 10 as my guy didn't wear armour, and took all the DR-enhancing perks available as he had to take a lot of punishment. He was also a big user of chems.

The only real problem I had with that character was Mothership Zeta. Now that was hard work!

I made a character with these stats

S. 5
P. 5
E. 9
C. 1
I. 9
A. 5
L. 6

Tagged unarmed, repair, and speech.

The plan is to eventually get into a good suit of power armor and with the addition of perks get an DR of 85. I know that it isn't the number one unarmed weapon, but I love power fists so I will use Fisto! with this build. I am using powered power armor so I can get increased unarmed damage from my power armor, be able to run faster, jump higher, and have a choice of 3 blast waves I can unleash when I get surrounded. I kind of have a picture in my head of my theme here.

For the big, tough targets I will use explosives to take out, and maybe try beating them with Fisto! to see if I can do it.

Now it would be wonderful if I could find a way to make Fisto! able to send enemies flying on a critical hit. That would be fun.

I'm playing a goodie two-shoes unarmed (later combining big guns & explosives) character now. I don't remember all the special exactly but inteligence and charisma were both 1. I had high endurance, luck and agility with average strength and perception. Worked fine so far and has been fun, the build was also designed to limit the skill points which has worked a treat (level 27 and only repair is maxed out, big guns and unarmed & explosives in high 90's).

A nice alternative to plunkets points are the steel knuckles, I found them pretty much the same but couldn't repair plunkets points with other kunckles? which is why I started using the steel knuckles. I took all perks that affected DR as well and the 3 iron fist but avoided any perk that awarded extra skill points to stay in line with the character creation. I put some intense training into strength half way through becasue I decided to ditch companions but needed some extra carry weight capacity, and I think I may have put a point into luck as well to help with the crit hit chance.

I'm probably going to take the nuclear anomaly perk this time round which I haven't tried before, then rush everything at Tokahoma getting close as a I can before the big boom (I've not used this perk before but think it might work well with unarmed in tight situations.... it might go all wrong though!).

I did point lookout early but used the stealth armor to help avoid nasties there, and for the whole playthrough I've avoided combat where possible to keep in line with the characters good side (although I allowed her a day of madness after escorting Li and scientists to safety). My plan is to use the CSA again for mothership zeta, should make it less of a high level grind and more of a creepy crawly exploding pants type situation.

Yes, you can't repair Plunkett's points with any other knuckle duster, which seems strange to me too. I usually have Wolfgang repair them for me. Sometimes Hailey.

I'd ask around about the nuclear anomaly perk. I've heard that it doesn't work. I made a save, got it, and tested it. It never showed up for me in about 8 deaths.... so I dunno.

Thanks for heads up with the nuclear anomaly perk

I would say max out strength. Put some on endurance.

Put whatever you like on the rest, you have to have enough intelligence and charisma for hacking, lockpicking and speech etc.

Get the unarmed perk, as well as any other that help or go with it.

Get the explosives perks.

Melee maybe.

Getting Animal Friend and Mysterious Stranger will help.

I think Animal Friend 2 is negated by Mysterious Stranger.

Just curious, how did you handle turrets and some of those snipers that are on a rooftop you can't reach and such? I ran into those problems when trying to go all unarmed with no guns. I was often able to handle them with grenades though...

Grenades, a mod that makes all explosions twice the usual AOE (including vehicle explosions) which i find more realistic, and reloading if I fail horribly. I honestly haven't been around much in the city so no unreachable snipers yet, and turrets can be reached by AOE if low enough, or higher ones you get the right distance and arc for them to explode on impact. I may have to go ahead and use the grenade launching musket thingy. It is like a single shot flip open gun that takes canister grenades. It has good range, and although it is classed as small guns explosives will add to its damage, and maybe demolitions expert.