Despite the fact that there is no "unarmed" skill, I really think that an unarmed khajiit is not only a valid build, but optimal in a few important ways.


WHAT IS THE BUILD?

An unarmed Khajiit build would go as follows: obviously, you'd be a khajiit. You would max out heavy armor, including getting the important Fists of Steel perk.

With this perk, your armor rating for your gauntlets is added to your damage. I am not sure whether the addition is 1 to 1 or whether it is a fraction thereof, but it does increase the damage when you have better gauntlets. As such, with this build, you obviously want to max out smithing early and get some Legendary quality Dragonplate or Daedric gauntlets in order to maximize your damage.

I think the big concern with unarmed specialization is whether it can compete in damage output at later parts in the game. The concern is that there are no enchantments on your hands and that there is no unarmed skill, so you don't have lots of ways to improve your damage. However, I believe it can compete in damage with other weapon types. Here's how:


WHY THE DAMAGE IS SIMILAR

Damage for normal weapons goes like this. The weapon you have has a base damage amount. This base damage is increased based on how many points you have in your relevant skill. It is also increased based on improving the weapon (ie. making it fine, exquisite, etc). You can also put damage enchantments on the weapon. Perks can increase your damage, and lastly, you can enchant other items to increase your damage (ie. fortify one handed damage enchantment).

The question, then, is whether an unarmed khajiit can compete with this damage. It can. When you have Fists of Steel, the equivalent to the base damage amount of a weapon is the base armor rating, and thus base damage increase, of your gauntlets. This base damage from your gauntlets is increased based on how many points you have in heavy armor. It is also increased based on improving the gauntlets. You cannot put damage enchantments on your fists. However, the khajiit gets 15 damage in unarmed attacks. This is, for all intents and purposes, a permanent enchantment bonus. It is unclear to me whether the khajiit bonus is +15 damage above and beyond the base damage (which may be like 8 or something) or whether it is just 15 instead of like 8. If it is above and beyond, then the total damage here can certainly compete with virtually any enchantment. You also have perks. The Juggernaut perk increases your damage just like the first perk of the weapon skills do. Furthermore, the Matching Set and Well Fitted perks increase your armor ratings by 25% each (and i believe this increases unarmed damage if you have Fists of Steel), which is surely fairly equivalent to the increases in damage from the various possible perks you can get with one-handed and two-handed weapons (ie. stuff like extra bleeding damage and better power attacks). Lastly, you can also enchant items to increase damage in unarmed attacks.

So it seems to me that for every method a one-handed or two-handed warrior has to increase his or her damage, an unarmed khajiit has a similar and seemingly equivalent method to increase his damage too. Thus, the damage output is likely fairly equivalent even at higher levels. The main difference is likely to be that unarmed attacks have a shorter range of attack, but a faster rate of attack. That is just a trade-off though.

ADVANTAGES TO UNARMED

With that said, I think going unarmed has a lot of interesting advantages:

1. EFFICIENT USE OF TRAINERS
When you create a warrior type character, you inevitably are going to want to have a high skill level in whatever type of armor type you are using AS WELL AS whatever type of weapon you are using. You want to deal damage AND not take much. This means that your optimal character will eventually require a high rating in two skills. An unarmed character merges his weapon and armor skill together. This means he must only get a high rating in one skill. Now, I do not believe this will result in higher skill level up from battles themselves (unarmed attacks do not increase heavy armor I don't think, so you're not actually increasing heavy armor faster than another warrior would). However, this does allow for one efficient tactic: that is, using a heavy armor trainer increases your damage and defense. That means you get more bang for your buck with trainers than another warrior possibly could.

2. EFFICIENT LEVELING UP
Along the same lines, you get more efficient leveling by only having one skill. You increase in level based on increases in skills. While the game is not quite like Oblivion in this regard, enemies do level up with you. An unarmed character can be just as powerful as a typical warrior while being a much lower level (and thus, facing weaker foes). This is easy to illustrate. Lets say an unarmed character starts with a 20 in heavy armor, while another character starts with 20 in one handed and 20 in heavy armor. They are equal in power now. In order to get up to 100 in both their defense and attack skills, the unarmed character will only level up 8 times, compared to 16 for the one handed character. This translates into being more powerful relative to your foes.

3. REQUIRES LESS USAGE OF PERKS
One last bonus related to combining attack and defense into one skill is related to perks. Most of the Heavy Armor perks will increase both armor rating AND damage for an unarmed character. This means that this character can have his optimal damage and armor while only getting one set of perks. A similar warrior using a weapon would require two sets of perks to get the same effect. This means the unarmed character can afford to invest in a whole bunch of other perks elsewhere that the weapon user would not be able to get. This is a big deal.

4. LESS WEIGHT USAGE
One of the most important things, to me, about going unarmed is the fact that you do not have to carry around a ton of weapons. Weapons weigh a lot. I know you can store stuff in a house or something and not have to worry about weight much, but the reality is that a large portion of players will struggle with the weight limit for much of the game. Using weapons, especially two handed ones, will squeeze you in this regard, especially if you carry around more than one weapon. Unarmed characters do not have to worry about this. They do not have any need for weapons, so they can carry more of other stuff. This is very convenient.

5. CHEAPER
Another consequence of not having to have weapons is that you inevitably end up with more gold due to this. Weapon users must either buy or find their weapons. Unarmed characters never use gold buying weapons and they can always sell the valuable weapons they find, instead of keeping them around in case they want to use them. The result is more gold, which cane be used on other stuff.

6. LESS USE OF VALUABLE MATERIALS
This is a relatively small issue, but you also end up being able to use various important objects on other things. For instance, let's take soul gems. A player might have one filled soul gem. If they have a weapon, they must choose whether to use it on a weapon enchantment, to refill a weapon enchant, or to enchant armor. The unarmed player can do similar damage as the player with an enchanted weapon but use the soul gem on the armor. This isn't a huge deal eventually because you will likely get a soul trap spell and Azura's Star, making soul gems relatively worthless, but it does matter early on. Similarly, you might have a limited amount of a crafting item. The unarmed player never has to choose whether to use an ingot to create/improve his armor or his damage; they are one in the same. A weapon user simply requires more crafting items to be optimally outfitted. Again, this won't matter too much when you're rich, but it will matter in the early game when your finances aren't quite as stable. Lastly, a weapon user will likely need to disenchant items with damage enchantments early on to get those enchantments. An unarmed player can arguably do without those enchantments and can simply sell the relatively valuable items. Again, this is a boon to your early game economic situation.


CONCLUSION

Thus, in my mind the khajiit unarmed is a great option. You will do similar damage as a weapon user (in fact, you'll do more early on when the +15 bonus is particularly massive). At the same time, you will level up more efficiently (due to efficient use of trainers and leveling up less while being as powerful), have to use fewer perks, have less issues with weight, and have more gold.

I'm sorry but no.

interesting
not going to do this myself
but interesting none the less

Khajiit claws do 15 points of damage
citation: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Khajiit

you don't do an additional 15 points of damage. You do 15 damage. 15 damage is a lot early game, but it PALES into comparison when weapons and spells simply do much more as the game progresses (perks, gear type, enchantments, upgrades)

If you look up the min maxer threads, unarmed can never even compare and takes just as much, if not more work to deal "massive" damage.

Actually there is an unarmed enchant.

Go to Riften.
Head towards the Ragged Flagon (Thieves Guild).
Kill that one dude with the gloves of the pugilist (+unarmed damage gloves)
Disenchant the gloves of the pugilist
Put unarmed enchant on legendary daedric gloves
Punch stuff

Yeah, this sounds like a really effective build. Or effective enough. I would probably go with light armor too. Basically, I would want that top light armor perk where you have a 10% chance to avoid melee attacks.

I just wish there were daedric wristbands.

Btw, does the x6 sneak attack perk affect unarmed? I am not at home or else I could simply test it.

Heavy armor, light armor, sneak, smithing, enchant.

Good times!

That would make you effectively the most BAMF-ing assassin there is, anywhere. In the history of everything.

unarmed does not benefit from sneak, you also need a lot of skill points in heavy armor to even get steel fists. This build is ineffective because it does not scale through all stages of the game. You will be forced to supplement heavy armor leveling or your eventual lack of damage with something else. which is something that role players just won't do.

This is definitely my next project. It will be so good.

I'm curious, what does the secondary/off-hand button do while unarmed? I've heard you can't block.
It'd be cool as hell if you could at least still bash though.

you punch as if it is your right hand but you are using your left hand. If you pull both triggers, you will go into a haymaker fury with both hands draining a lot of stamina.

It's like dual wielding weapons; left and right handed punches (I beliiieeeeve).

But yeah I played an unarmed Khajiit for an hour or 2, just for fun, and I was one-shotting everything at a lower level. I'd be really suprised if it's still insanely overpowered at a higher level though.

Are you sure unarmed does not benefit from sneak? I have no invested in the sneak perks in my game, but unarmed attacks while sneaking and undetected do do 2x damage. Does it not get the extra damage multiplier from the sneak perks?

Also, you repeat that it does not scale through all stages of the game, but I explained why I think it does. What do you think doesn't scale? How can weapon users increase their damage output in a way unarmed characters can't? It seems to me that there is a direct equivalent to everything a weapon user can do to increase his or her damage.

Lastly, you claim you need a lot of skill points in heavy armor to get Fists of Steel. That's not true. You only need 30. You start with 15. It really takes very little time to get to 30 if you wear heavy armor from the beginning. And if you're really worried about that small period in between, you can always go to Riften and kill the guy in the Ratways who has the gloves that add 10 points to unarmed. Use those until you get to 30 in heavy armor and you'll be set during that period in terms of damage.

Sadly better than magic!

Read the text of all the sneak perks, unarmed is never mentioned.

If you play to role play a monk or a brawler that doesn't wear heavy armor, unarmed will never scale well, even with the pugilist gloves enchants.

You are FORCED to pigeon hole yourself into the heavy armor tree to get damage. while a pugilist may wear heavy gauntlets to deal his punching, it will take an unreal amount of time to get yoru heavy armor up there in a timely manner without using trainers or cheating by wearing heavy armor everywhere.

There are simply logistical problems in building yourself around unarmed, because it scale up any of the skill trees itself. when you use a single handed sword, you gain skill in single handed. but when you falcon punch someone in the face, you don't gain anything character advancement wise other than loot.

Your first post shows many examples in which one may go unarmed, but none of them are conventional, none of them are available to a player at level 2.
You shouldn't need to cheat the system or spend 10 hours into the game to "start your character's actual career choice. It should be available to you from the beginning with clear path ways to make those specific skills stronger and better as you level up.

all your combat skills gain benefits from perks right away. But for unarmed you have to wait. this is inherently WRONG.

Being a khajiit is a nice option if you are min maxing or if you like playing as an anthropomorphic feline.

But it isn't an option for people that don't like anthromorphs or want to role play as something else.

What's wrong with playing as an unarmed character who wears heavy armor? Your entire response seems premised on an idea that there is something inherently wrong with that, or that no one would want to do it. I understand that many people associate unarmed combat with a monk type character who wouldn't wear heavy armor. If you want to play as a monk character, then yeah, unarmed doesn't really work in this game unless you are willing to invest a lot of time upping your heavy armor skill before you start actually role playing your monk. And yes, if you don't want to play as a khajiit for role play reasons then unarmed loses a lot of its appeal. But saying unarmed is bad because it does not fit everyone's role play desires is silly. Plenty of people would be willing to role play a khajiit in heavy armor who punches things. For those people, it will be effective in combat and that is my point.

Your other complaint seems to be that you do not get better at unarmed the more you punch things. This is true, but it is not like your unarmed damage doesn't go up the more you fight. It just goes up when you get hit instead of when you hit things. This may be counter-intuitive from a logical standpoint, but the actual effect on damage is likely to be the same as if punching did increase your unarmed damage. Thus, this is not really a logistical problem. The more you fight, the better you get at unarmed, just like any other weapon skill.

Your last complaint is that other builds do not need to wait to get a perk to increase its damage. Again, you only need to wait until heavy armor is at 30. That happens really quickly if you wear all heavy armor. And in the meantime, you will be uber powerful anyways due to the 15 khajiit damage being really big early on (not to mention the option of using the pugilist gloves during that period, which will make you VERY powerful early on). So yeah, you can't use your first perk point to increase your damage, but is this really a big problem when you will be super powerful at the very early levels anyways? I don't think so.

Hmmm You only seem to understand things from a mechanics view point rather than a true character building perspective. People that play this game are not only action RPG gamers, they are legitimate RPG Gamers whether their experiences stem from pen and paper games or from old and classic computer games. They have that desire to experience the world in the shoes of the character they create right down to the thought process they believe their characters would have. Would an aspiring Monk wear heavy armor if it is against the tenants of his or her order? No. Would an honorable Pugilist kill someone in cold blood just so he can have the person's magical gloves of fist smashing? No. The state Unarmed combat is in right now just doesn't make sense. You are making compromises with yourself that shouldn't be there in the first place especially when other combat avenues have been treated much better in comparison.

Not a fan of how the only way to raise H2H damage perk wise, is by wearing heavy armor. My Rawlith Khaj Master doesn't wear armor, dammit.

You seem to think that monks and honorable pugilists are the only ones that might want to get in a fist fight

I hear there are these things called examples

Ultimate unarmed action is werewolf.

There is nothing quite like Launching an enemy over a cliff with one powerful claw swipe. Unfortunately, doing this sacrifices a lot in return, health regen, spell casting, inventory control, looting, talking, walking into towns.... the list continues.

Heavy Armor trainer = Sensei

Yeah, they pretty much ruined H2H IMO. It needs to be its own skill with its own perks.

Confused. You make your point about pen and paper RPG'ers, yet you are the one who seems to be contradicting yourself, by telling people that they are wrong in how they do things, because it doesn't agree with your ideals. The luxury of pen and paper RPG'ers is that you could go as far as your imagination carried you. Would my monk wear heavy armor? Yes. Does that make it wrong? No. Just because a monk typically wouldn't wear heavy armor, it doesn't mean everyone should have to stick to that stereotype, even if it is because they just want to be able to bash someone with their fists. I realize monk was your example, but other archetypes apply.