Skyrim Character Builds

[Aroddo]

Thought about having a thread specifically for character builds which are either fun or viable in Master difficulty.

Skyrim is pretty awesome in letting you succeed in a multitude of ways, and I did my fair share of testing around a bit.
And my latest creation:

The Khajiit Claw-Tank
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Khajiit get a +15 damage bonus on unarmed attacks and the Heavy Armor perk "Fists of Steel" adds the Armor value of heavy gaunlets to damage. Thus the whole focus of this build is to increase armor by heavily utilizing smithing and enchantment.

I'm not quite sure how the armor value is correctly calculated, but in a previous 2h-warrior build, I forged me a pair of legendary Dragonbone gauntlets with 90 armor, meaning that this Khajiit would deal at least 105 damage per punch at a speed reserved for daggers.
And there's room for improvement, too, since enchanting allows you to spam Fortify Heavy Armor on your gear for extra skill (although I have no idea how much of an impact that will make). However, there are also enchantments that directly improve unarmed damage ...

Skilling
Heavy Armor 12 - beeline Fists of Steel, then improve upon leisure
Block 13 - beeline Quick reflexes, then Power Bash, then aim for Shield Charge through the left skill-tree path.
Smithing 7/100 - max Heavy Armor route as soon as possible.
Enchanting 8/100 - only Armor enchantments

That's 40 perks with 9 to spare.

Leveling smithing and enchanting should be fairly easy (make iron daggers and hide bracers, then enchant the stuff). Blocking can be power leveled by picking up Power Bash and good stamina enhancing vegetable soup (not kidding), and then find some reasonably strong monster to stun lock by bashing it's head in.
Heavy Armor is more difficult to level, although after completing the Companion quest line you get a free trainer for that skill.

The end-result would let you shield-charge into the midst of a group sending them flying, then unequip your shield for dual claw massacre. Re-equip shield when needed.

Fun!

Update:
Against dragons you equip your shield and close in when they land. Power Bash them when they breathe fire or try to take off, then get one or two whacks in before you power bash again. The +1 stamina per second from the vegetable soup makes this possible. You really should learn to cook in skyrim!

I'm playing this build on master difficulty and just hit level 10 (without power-leveling, mostly just playing) and it's perfectly possible to kill a dragon that way. It's hard but possible ... and honestly, at normal difficulty dragons were way too easy to kill.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

do unarmed attacks benefit from one handed skill level and perks?

 

[Kozmos]

Unarmed damage is capped at 61. Have fun at later levels.

 

[Aroddo]

a cap would suck. looks like only the base damage is factored in, which would make smithing less valuable than enchanting.

and no, unarmed doesn't benefit from one-handed perks or any other perk other than fists of steel.

however, this khajiit could be turned into a decent battle claw mage ... ditch smithing pump destruction, then either kill with spells or claws while the shield skills provide protection and an awesome shove.