I am thinking about making a character that uses the chinese stealth suit and either melee or unarmed weapons. They will also use explosives.

My big decision is deciding between the Deathclaw Gauntlet or the Shiskebab. The shishkebab when combined with pyromaniac has higher DPS than the deathclaw gauntlet even after taking criticals into account on a crit optimized character.

The deathclaw gauntlet however ignores any armor an enemy has so that may help against albino radscropions and Enclave. It also does more damage per hit. It is slower than the shishkebab though.

This character will be doing a lot of stealth melee kills, but will also be in some open combat situations. With a larger group you might be able to get a stealth kill on one, but then you have to fight the others off in open combat. Also, this character does not constantly sneak when traversing the wasteland and deals with pests without attempting to sneak up to them. They sneak when they notice an enemy before being noticed themselves if the enemy warrants such an approach. It gets rather irritating to travel long distances through the wastes in a crouched stance lol.

euhm... Ill take the sniper rifle any time for sneaky characters. Secondairy a pistol. But I played the game so many times that hardly anything is vanilla, most is modded by now.

Current Sniper Rifle: Vanilla Sniper rifle (modded by myself to do a little more dmg and scope a little further)
Current Pistol: Walther P99C (Silenced mode) http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/11781

This character is not using ANY guns at all. Strictly melee or unarmed weapons with some grenades for thinning groups and mines+sneaking=fun.

Sneaking and sniping gets boring rather quick for me. Sneaking in for a melee kill or evading enemies in a complex while mining the passages takes strategy.

Well no sneaky means you should have the strongest melee weapon you can find without loosing attack speed. Also get light armor so you won't loose running speed. Agility should be maxed aswell along with strength. just do NOT sneak with melee weapons! It's pointless and gets you killed easily.

Deathclaw Gauntlet
+ pretty quick attack speed
+ high mobility rate
+ pretty good damage dealing

- you need a deathclaw hand, which could easily get you killed

Shishkebab

+ pretty good damage dealing + your target could end up burned

+ fairly easily to obtain

+ nearly all enemies hate to run into one

- mobility is lower then the Deathclaw Gauntlet

- view obstruction by the blade part

- backpack part looks ugly and makes any armor look bad

Sneaking with melee weapons is perfectly viable, especially once you get the chinese stealth suit. Just because you personally can't do it doesn't make it something no one should ever do. I have made this character a few years ago and used the shishkebab, but now I am seeing if I can improve on that. The previous character was lost to a computer that died. I also didn't put a massive number of hours into it thankfully. Also back then I didn't know as much about the game's mechanics.

As for your assessment of each weapon's abilities you are off on a few points.

First off the deathclaw gauntlet is somewhat slow, and slower than the shishkebab.

I don't know what you mean about either weapon affecting mobility as they both are one handed weapons. Also the enemy AI does not make them afraid of your flaming sword so that part is your imagination.

Here is the solid data on both weapon's stats as taken from the G.E.C.K.

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Deathclaw_gauntlet_(Fallout_3)

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Shishkebab_(Fallout_3)

Make note that while the shishkebab has more potential listed DPS on that site, they fail to factor in the effect of critical hits. The Deathclaw gauntlet can be made to always crit and has higher base crit damage than normal base damage, while the shishkebab has lower base crit damage than normal base damage. Also the deathclaw gauntlet ignores armor.

Edit: On another note, it is possible to take on a deathclaw in melee. Using drugs helps as well as many stimpacks. Also this character would be more likely to lead them through a few bottlecap mines (good for clearing the "Sanctuary")

Mobility as in running speed while holding the weapon, the death claw hand is lighter and slows you down less, where the shishkebab makes it a fraction less mobile in running speed.