Recently, Ive heard lots of talk regarding issues with the balance of certain classes, whether they be hybrid classes which involve min/maxing, or pure classes which lead to what some call an "OP" endgame.

So I just wanted to know...who here simply shuns weapons altogether? Ive always found playing pugilistic characters to be one of the more challenging endeavors in a game like this...especially when you use no armor.

I will when I start my kijhiit(sp?) but I'm occupyed with 3 others at the moment

there are no classes just combat styles.

I would, but they pretty much ruined it. H2H is now a joke.

Uber-challenge mode, considering that there's no skill tree (and thus no fancy perks) for unarmed. I have done some unarmed fighting with my Khajiit, but for the most part it did good damage in the early game and pathetic damage later on. You are basically forced to take Enchanting and make +unarmed% to stay competitive.

I have still stored "Gloves of the Pugilist" I just need to go around and dig them out.

Well, there's at least one 'perk' for unarmed. Fists of Steel.

It's not much, but added damage is added damage.

To be honest, even without armor, I find myself fairly succesful in combat with khajit claws + pugilist gloves up to level 50-ish, although, at that point, it gets tedious. That's where you start to need enchantment.

Which is such a ridiculous perk. A lot of builds that rely on H2H are usually monks, or martial artists. Neither of which wear heavy armor.

We need H2H as a skill back. Would have made a lot more sense than splitting sneak into two skills for no real reason.

Looks like my Rawlith Khaj master has to take enchanting now. Lame.

What would you include in the Unarmed skill tree?

I'm thinking the first perk should be one that adds half your Unarmed skill level to your Unarmed attack damage, as long as you aren't wearing armored gloves (you sacrifice the +25% bonus to defense from all-light/all-heavy armor suits, and a little defense from the gloves themself, in exchange for much higher damage).

After that it would branch into "mystic" and "street fighter" unarmed styles. The mystic would basically combine unarmed attacks and magic use, casting spells with his hands: chance to paralzye on strike, stamina damage on strike, and an automatic low-level Reflect Damage type spell any time you have both hands empty. The street fighter would specialize in physical manipulation of his opponent: power attack has a chance to throw an enemy, chance to disarm, high chance to stagger, chance to "break limb" (combat penalties applied).

i play one an orc monk who occaisionally uses an orcish warhammer for the foes who refuse to go down. i dont care how badly they nerfed hand to hand MY ORC WILL FOLLOW HIS FATHERS FOOTSTEPS :toughninja: .....and kill breton and redguard devils.

and a counter attack perk to where if you unarmed block an opponents attack at just the right time you will push there weapon to the side and jab them in the nose for a stagger but to balance it out make that window only about half a second otherwise its just a normal block wait...cannot block okay disregard that the counter will depend on pressing both attack buttons during that half second window.

A [censored] ton of moves for one. Not just a bunch of % modifiers. Personally not a fan of the magic H2H stuff (at the most, enchanted elemental gloves that you can swing in). Id just want the fighting styles that the lore talks about represented. Namely the Khajiit martial arts, and Nord/Orc boxing and brawling, maybe even wrestling. Id also like a neck snap sneak move.

This guy does - with great gusto!
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1291070-the-tale-of-punchcat

I think Fists of Steel isn't working properly. I just ran a test to see how much I could rub unarmed power in people's faces. Using maxed out Smithing and Enchanting, with full perks and elixers, I had a set of smithing enhancement items up to 109% improved weapons and armor, plus 50% from elixer on a set of equipment that included Fortify Heavy Armor 112 total, fortify unarmed 28 total. After assembling enchantments and enhancing the daedric gauntlets, they hit a total of 267 armor rating with a 212 Heavy Armor, plus perks and matching set bonuses.

That means that with Fists of Steel, it should have done:

Base Damage + 267 gauntlet damage + 28 enchantment damage

This would have been more or less comparable to a heavily enhanced daedric greatsword, minus offensive enchantments if you factored a high (But not maxed out) two handed skill and some two handed damage enchantments in.

In practice, the unarmed took off three quarters of whiterun townspeople's health per punch. On the other hand, they died in a single blow to one handed weapons with 87 damage plus 75 total fire/health drain.

All the same, I was able to punch giants and guards to death in a relatively satisfactory manner. Did not fare as well against an ancient dragon. If the full damage applied from gauntlets with the fists of steel perk, you'd be shocked at how little could survive one swipe of your fist. If Bethesda fixes Fists of Steel to apply FULL gauntlet damage with all armor rating modifiers, you'll have absolutely nothing to complain about with unarmed damage potential. All you'll lose is the potential to enchant elemental or draining effects on your attacks.

I used to play a pugilist, but then I took an arrow in the knee...

>.>
<.<

I wonder if the Bethesda writer that thought that up facepalms everytime they see/here it...

That was my play style in Morrowind, if they wouldn't have gotten rid of the hand to hand skill, I would have given it a go in Skyrim. Right now it just seems like a wasted race perk for the Khajit's.

Maybe a modder could put it back in somehow... Khajiit get a bonus to unarmed combat though in Skyrim.

I've been thinking about a Pugilist perk tree for a while now... to make it a distinct combat skill of its own.

http://www.pictars.com/users/Exorior/Skyrim%20-%20hand%20to%20hand%20perk%20tree%20%28pugilist%29.png

Constructive criticism is always welcome. :celebration:

Seems like it could be fun.

Fists of Steel = broken. That's the problem. I don't see why it really needs a skill tree on top of that. What else would you get, the ability to decapitate enemies?

Honeslty it just could of been part of one handed with a perk or 3 to show dedication to unarmed combat.

Good ideas overall, but may make unarmed too strong. I'd make the top perk lower since it's less useful than some of the others in the tree and put up a different one.

Also I'd make the humanoid neck snap one be something like 6x sneak damage with the neck snap animation of its a one hit kill.

The tech forum listed the Fists of Steel perk as bugged or unworking? :laugh:

Doesn't seem like fortify HtH enchant works either.

Hmm, its food for thought. The daze effect from Hammer Rush is a perfect setup for followup power attacks or Uppercut/Exposed Palm, I think it could be very useful in that sense. I'll take a look at the neck to see what else might be workable with that... but I think it fits well since it will only be possible on humanoids (cant exactly snap a dragon's neck), and is a very specific action unique to martial arts.

At this point its just a draft so anything could change I suppose. The chances of this becoming a full-fledged mod are likely next to nothing.

Hammer Rush should probably receive a 30% dmg modifier instead of 20, and intense focus brought down to 5/8/12/16/25

EDIT: http://www.pictars.com/users/Exorior/Skyrim%20-%20hand%20to%20hand%20perk%20tree%20%28pugilist%29.png