I'm planning a playthrough doing exactly this. Does anyone have any good ideas for stuff I could do?

Obviously the character will level a bit, because you'll still level speech by selling/buying stuff, get skill points as quest rewards, but this can be kept to a minimum.

There are lots of 'skills' in Skyrim that don't level your character. This includes:

-Unarmed

-Unarmored (mage armor doesn't really count)

-Shouts

-Cooking

-Lycantrophy

-Vampirism

-Use of staffs and scrolls

-Misc. crafting stations like the atronach forge or imbuing chamber

-Powers like the all-maker stones or black book powers

So my character would be a clothes-wearing dragonborn werewolf khajiit master chef (not a fan of vampirism) carrying around lots of staffs and scrolls, and using lots of powers. I'll probably use gloves of the pugilist as the only armor piece, which shouldn't level light armor too much.

Does anyone have any additions? Any advice?

I think you've got it covered. I have such a character (Lola the Low-Life Khajiit), and she basically gets by with her claws, staff, vegetable soup, and found potions. She doesn't trap souls, so she sells the empty soul gems she finds, and buys filled ones to keep her staff charged.

She's Level 2 (because she rarely uses any advancing skills), and presently on the Diplomatic Immunity part of the Main Quest. She recently managed to survive and win a fight with two dragons, with just her claws and a couple of shouts (her staff ran out of charges midway through the fight.) It's possible (on Adept) to kill dragons with just your claws, if you can get them on the ground (and you're very careful!)

You ARE using gloves of the puglist though, right?

uh oh! Speechcraft goes up!

Mark, you've chosen a nigh impossible task with a system that is "skill usage raises the skill." You've chosen the 2 combat skills that do NOT have actual abilities in Skyrim, so you may be able to have some fun. As Glargg said, I think you have it covered pretty well

No. I'm using just khajiit claws. No armor. Lola wears just the rags we get in the opening scene. But, as I said, this is at Adept difficulty. She has a handful of shouts, and she has a Staff of Paralysis (found in a certain cave) and a Staff of Sparks.

Bear in mind that because she doesn't (much) use skills that contribute to leveling, all of her enemies remain at low level. Your dragons, critters, bandits, and most other enemies are all low level, except for bosses. The Khajiit Claws adds 12 points of damage to ordinary unarmed combat, so it's about the equivalent of a low-level one-handed weapon in each hand.

Yes, it does. If you don't buy and sell much, it's manageable, but it's kind of a balancing act.

She also occasionally sneaks, when absolutely necessary, which also goes up. But the skill rising has been slow enough that she's still only level 2, at a point where you'd usually be at least in the high teens.

A Dragonborn cat woman that killled two dragons with her claws and wearing nothing but rags . . . now I have heard it all

From a game design standpoint, what Bethesda achieved here, is astonishing. The game is both "sandbox" and "highly scripted." Difficult and "as easy as you want to make it."

It irritates me that Marcus Persson got $2.75 billion bucks out of Microsoft for Minecraft and poor Todd is still just a multi-millionaire.

Yeah, this is why I keep coming back to these games. You can "color outside the lines" and somehow redefine the lines themselves. Tell your own stories, make your own rules. TES games are brilliant.

*puts bottlecap glasses on*

Actually, fist base damage is 4. Both beast races (argonian and khajit) gain an extra 6 damage. The claws passive adds another 12 for khajit. All of these stack, so:

Non-beast races: 4

Argonian: 10

Khajit: 22

I'd use gloves of the pugilist and not more, so light armor barely levels. For now my character is wearing hooded monk robes and monk boots (acquired from the talos shrine massacre for that m'aiq look. Robes of destruction would probably be useful aswell to extend a staff's lifetime. I'm not the kind of person to run around in rags.

I'm getting the tower stone too, to avoid leveling lockpicking. Selling ores is a good source of money that doesn't level speech.

Thanks, I wasn't sure of the exact numbers, but it's enough damage to get by with an unarmed khajiit at low levels, at default difficulty. The biggest challenge I've had is avoiding getting killed, because unarmored, homeless, and basically possessionless is central to my character. She was inspired by Kwai Chang Caine, the character in the old "Kung Fu" TV series.

My Lola solved the problem of lockpicking by not doing it. There never anything behind those locks that you actually need. She doesn't loot the dead, either, except for whatever gold they are carrying. Or soul gems or other light valuables.