Well H2H was in both Morrowind and Oblivion, but was kind of lacklustre in both....I personally tried to play a character who would fight H2H until he could disarm and steal a weapon, but that was made more difficult in vanilla OB by the power attack perks being a hideously low chance to activate.

So- what would you like to see done to H2H? There are many threads about fist weapons but what specifics would you like?

Martial arts? Integration of magicks (like fire) into your attacks? Special moves or combos that are hard to pull off but can disarm or wound your opponent's attributes?

Personally I'm holding out for a decent disarm, and a decent block (no full damage thanks).

Oh, and a dragon shout that morphs my arm into that of a dragons. Just saying what we're all thinking

I'll post what I said in another topic related to h2h:

There's two way I see hand-to-hand could go in Skyrim. One is like you said, to make it stronger and really different than the h2h we had in oblivion, by giving us things like disarm (maybe it could be a perk) and maybe fist weapons (or give beast races a noticeable bonus to h2h damage) That would be my favorite option since I like monk characters
The other way is to get rid of h2h as a skill but make it a way do deal with ennemies in a non lethal way. So if there's an npc that bothers you, you could fight him with your fist and knock him unconscious (and you get a fine, maybe 100g)

This is kinda funny that I just started a topic about this almost the same time you did. Great minds think alike I guess.

I vote for two, I like to get into tavern fights without having to kill people.

How about grapples and throws? Like picking up people and throwing them? Of course you would need sufficient skill in strength and H2H and it would only be usable on humanoid opponents ( not usable on animals such as deer and wolves). If they added that I might consider using H2H

Yeah and with the new stealth finishing moves it could ba a way for sneaky characters to incapacitate ennemies during a thieves guild quest (providing you still can't kill people in those quests)

Disarms and possibly grab throws to incapacitate your opponent.

But I don't think this will happen.

As much as I like the concept of a H2H skill, this sounds a lot better.

Why would option two necessitate the removal of the skill?

Yeah, I like your idea of using it for brawls etc. Maybe they could introduce a toggle button, which for whatever reason flips H2H from bludgeon to death mode to disarms and knockouts for stealthies. Such as the stealth toggle button ^^

Give unarmed knockouts, staggers, knock downs, disarmings, grapples.

Strong Orcs and Nords characters should be able to throw crates and barrel across the room. I like the idea that unarmed is for beating the crap out of an enemy but not killing him. Unless of course you use a power attack or special move, its meant to intimidate, disarm, and subduing.....mst of the time.

Alo all gauntlets and armoured gloves should give a damage boost. Also plenty of other unarmed weapons. Well just any please.
Also many neck snaps and choking for stealth kills.

Like the guy above I also think we should have toggle option for most weapons, like they have for FONV with the quick select bullets only instead on bullets it switches the style of how you use a weapon. Say you got a Halbred you toggle to witch from spike to slash mode and with unarmed you aswitch from nonlethal to lethal.

That they've added more than the usual fist fighting.
That this may be a way to knock someone unconscious for a while, rather than dead.
Use in pub brawls and competition fights for reward (as in an arena) as well.

I plan to play a Nord, a shirtless Nord. I'll begin by killing sewer rats with my bare fists (no brass knuckles), and move on to stags, the wolves, bears, wooly mammoths and finally dragons. Shirtless, unarmed, no magic. Just the cold, the dragon and me.

Real Nords don't wear pants either. Just them and their loin cloth....and beards. They keep a gallon of mead soaked into their large beards for long treks and quests to slay dragons so their never thirsty.

You're going to play a tramp.

Don't let the first rat you find to kill you. It would be too anticlimatic .

Why couldn't this have gone in the other thread?

less boxing, more types of strikes.

all you had in OB was a jab, cross and palm hit.

have dozens of punching animations and some kicks, elbows, spitting in your opponents eye, using inanimate objects as weapons ie glass bottles, stones, chairs etc..

I'd personally like hand weapons style like FO3, but DW.

new vegas had some nice fist attacks and weapons as well.

I want them to keep the Hitler salute when you when attack while sneaking

I'd like to see hand to hand as more functional.

Making it more brutal, disarming or grappling. More emphasis on putting the enemy off balance and incapacitating them. After weakening your opponent, perhaps having to use some kind of suffocate the opponent. Perhaps speed clicking mechanic to emphasize the struggle to overpower your opponent.