One Handed Fisticuffs

For Legendary Edition. Requires SKSE.

This mod provides the player with bare fists that need to be equipped like a weapon in order to use them. They work just like your normal fists, except that you get one handed experience for using them. The experience gains work similarly to armed combat damage. One handed experience is based on damage delt. Various factors are not included for the damage calculation of experience gains, including power attacks, player scale, and one handed skill fortifications. Likewise, they are not included in this mod either. (Not to mention that unarmed power attacks do not change unarmed damage in any way. Not in this mod, or in the vanilla game.)

The experience you get is calculated as follows:

Base unarmed damage * delt damage multiplier

The delt damage multiplier is based on difficulty. Novice is 2 times. Apprentice is 1.5 times. Adept is 1 (unchanged). Expert is 0.75 times. Master is 0.5 times. Legendary is 0.25 times. If your damage multipliers are modded, then that is okay. This mod reads the damage multipliers.

The fists are in the secret escape cave/tunnel near Helgen. They are next to the fire brazier/pit at the end. One set will respond to fortify one handed effects, and the other will not. There is 9000 of each. As of version 1.3 there is also 2 spell books that change the button used for switching fists as a vampire lord.

Conveniently, this mod is compatible with dawnguard, and a handful of race mods, without requiring any of them.

If needed, adding compatibility into this mod's magic effect script for your own custom race should be pretty easy. All you need is the editor ID name for your race, and your race's base unarmed damage. (Note that the editor ID name always has a space after it.)

In the vanilla game, practicing on invincible targets such as Children and Brynjolf will not level your skill, but because this is an enchantment type magic effect script that predicts what your damage should be, instead of reading it, your skill is affected anyways. This only affects the "Bare Fists" weapon.

Version 1.3 has the final damage fixes. (The functionality of vampire lords is confusing.) It also has 2 config spells.

In version 1.2, unarmed damage is read from directly now. Also, Vampire Lord equipping was fixed.

As a vamp lord, hold zero (by P) to switch fists.

- If you don't have at least 2 of either "Bare Fists" weapon, it will be skipped.

- There is 3 types. Bare Fists with one handed fortifications and experience, Bare Fists (experience only), and the default fists.

In 1.1 and previous, it was impossible and broken.

Note: There is a lot of hand- to-hand mods that go in depth, but this is really just two fist weapons with scripted enchantments, and a quest script with 2 scripted config spells to help you equip them as a vampire lord. Nothing else.