Supposition: Gauntlets were originally supposed to add to your unarmed damage

[Rithm Fluffderg]

I don't have a lot of evidence supporting this, but let me point you towards a specific enemy:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Vampire_Monk#Vampire_Monk

Leveled Light Armor Cuirass (25% chance)
Leveled Heavy Armor Gauntlets (Guaranteed)

Naturally, the monk class itself contains neither armor skill.

So here's my thought - at one point in development, when they were designing the enemies, they specifically chose a mish-mash of armor, weighted on the fists. This would only make sense if unarmed combat would have gotten an advantage from wearing heavy armor gauntlets.

Naturally, no such thing actually exists in the game proper. The concept either got veto'd, or there wasn't enough time to program it in, or it just got lost, but there was also no need to change the enemy design.

I'm leaning in favor of "not enough time to program it in", because just like gradual magicka regen was initially intended for Morrowind before it got pushed to Oblivion, Skyrim has a perk that makes gauntlets (the higher the base armor, the better) increase the power of unarmed damage - and done properly can pretty much break the game.

I'd actually be happy if I wasn't the first one to hypothesize about this, considering how old this game is

Any counter-arguments against this?

[The Rock God]

Originally posted by HeroicSkaldZach:

...Skyrim has a perk that makes gauntlets (the higher the base armor, the better) increase the power of unarmed damage - and done properly can pretty much break the game.

Only at very low levels. The maximum unarmed damage in Skyrim pales in comparison to weapons with a high skill level.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Originally posted by The Rock God:

Originally posted by HeroicSkaldZach:

...Skyrim has a perk that makes gauntlets (the higher the base armor, the better) increase the power of unarmed damage - and done properly can pretty much break the game.

Only at very low levels. The maximum unarmed damage in Skyrim pales in comparison to weapons with a high skill level.

I mean, 68 damage isn't anything to sneeze at (especially compared to this game), and if you're relying on unarmed damage exclusively, you're likely not gonna hit that high level where enemies outscale your damage.

Though if you're doing this, you're likely doing a meme run and don't care that much about challenge anyways.

That being said, khajiit's unarmed attacks start out stronger than a steel greatsword.

And of course, with exploits you can attain infinite damage with both fists and weapons