Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand: Full Guide

If you’ve ever wanted to defeat enemies in Oblivion Remastered using nothing but your fists, you’re not alone. Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand combat can seem daunting at first, but it’s absolutely viable — and more fun than you might expect — once you know how to build and optimise your character.

This guide walks you through everything: early-game strategies, mid-game optimisation, and surviving late-game Oblivion Gates with nothing but your bare knuckles.

Understanding How Hand to Hand Damage Works

In Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand combat, only two stats govern your unarmed damage:

• Strength
• Hand to Hand skill

Once you max both stats to 100, fortifying them further with enchantments, spells or gear provides no additional benefit. Unlike the original Oblivion, where fatigue heavily influenced melee damage, the remaster no longer allows boosted fatigue to increase your damage output.

Important points:

• Capping Strength and Hand to Hand at 100 is your end goal.
• Supplemental boosts above 100 are wasted.
• Sneak attacks can still increase hand to hand damage through multipliers.

Race, Birthsign, and Major Skills Choices

Race:
The Orc is ideal for Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand builds. Their Berserk power grants:

• +200 fatigue
• +20 health
• +50 strength

This makes Orcs incredibly strong right from the start — perfect for arena battles and early dungeons.

Birthsign:
Initially, the Warrior might seem obvious. However, better choices are:

• The Lady: +20 Willpower and Endurance (extra magic regen and health)
• The Lord: +15 armour rating and +15% magic resistance. (Stacks beautifully with Orc’s natural resistance.)

Major Skills:
Recommended selections include:

• Hand to Hand (mandatory)
• Heavy Armour (for survivability)
• Restoration (healing and fortify spells)
• Armourer (keep your gear intact)
• Acrobatics (mobility boost)
• Sneak (massive late-game damage potential)
• Mysticism or Alchemy (personal preference)

Early Game Strategy: Arena Champion with Bare Fists

After escaping the sewers and setting up your character, your first major stop should be the Arena. Here’s the early path:

1. Train: Watch the NPCs fist-fighting outside to quickly boost Hand to Hand.
2. Steal Gloves: Wait until night, save your game, and pickpocket the unique gloves boosting Hand to Hand by 20 points.
3. Conquer the Arena:
   • Use Berserk for every match.
   • Wait 24 hours between fights to refresh Berserk.
   • Reach level 50 Hand to Hand as soon as possible (disarm opponents at 50 skill).
   • Focus enemies one-by-one, particularly against groups like the Argonian prisoners.
   • Beat the Grand Champion easily — even without weapons or armour.

This nets you a mountain of gold and a strong start for whatever path you want to take.

Mid-Game Progression: Namira’s Ring and Sigil Stones

After the Arena, go directly to Namira’s Shrine (east of Bruma):

• Lower your Personality below 20 (cheap wine does the trick).
• Complete Namira’s quick quest.
• Earn Namira’s Ring:
  • 12% reflect physical damage
  • 10% reflect spell damage

This ring makes you exceptionally tanky very early in the game — perfect for close-quarters Hand to Hand battles.

Sigil Stones Farming:
Next, begin farming Oblivion Gates for Sigil Stones:

• Save before grabbing the stone.
• Check its attributes.
• Reload if it’s not what you want (commonly done).
• Look for Fortify Strength, Fatigue, or Magicka bonuses.

Keep in mind: stronger stones drop at higher character levels.

How to Enchant Gear for Hand to Hand

Enhancing your gear is critical for Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand success:

1. Buy Frostcrag Spire (just north of Bruma).
2. Upgrade it at the Mystic Emporium (Imperial City).
3. Learn a Fortify Skill Spell:
   • Visit Nagastani.
   • Activate the Hell Rider Doomstone at night.

Now you can enchant your boots (and eventually other gear) with Fortify Hand to Hand!

As your game progresses, replace basic enchantments with higher level bonuses like:

• Fortify Fatigue
• Strength
• Willpower
• Even Chameleon effects for fun stealth builds

Late Game Strategy: Damage Reflection Builds

In late-game (level 20–25), you’ll want to further enhance your tankiness and passive damage:

• Mayrunes Razor DLC:
  • Obtain the Blade-Turn Hood.
  • At level 20, grants 15% Reflect Damage and 17% Shield.
• Separated at Birth Questline (Coral):
  • Earn the Escutcheon of Chorrol shield.
  • Grants 30–35% Reflect Damage based on your level.

Note: Equipping a shield provides enchantment bonuses even though you fight unarmed.

Reflect Damage stacking = incredible survivability.
You will be hurting enemies simply by being punched, on top of your natural Hand to Hand attacks.

A Few Final Notes

• Difficulty Setting: Stay on Adept.
  • Expert or Master difficulties make Hand to Hand a brutal slog without sneak attacks or heavy potion use.
• Sneak Attacks: Sneak at level 100 allows:
  • Massive first-hit damage multipliers.
  • Complete armour bypass.

My first playthrough was fully viable without sneak attacks, but my second is focused on building a Sneak/Hand to Hand hybrid for an even deadlier experience.

• Potential Future Updates:
  Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand could benefit from patches. Historically, Hand to Hand included enemy knockdowns — missing from the current remaster. Fingers crossed for buffs in future updates!

Conclusion

While Oblivion Remastered Hand to Hand builds have some challenges compared to sword or spell-based characters, they’re absolutely powerful — and extremely satisfying — when built properly.

Focus on early-game momentum with the Arena, mid-game enhancements with sigil stones and enchantments, and late-game dominance with reflect damage. With these strategies, you’ll punch your way through Cyrodiil — no weapons required.

Want more? Click here for How to Become a Vampire in Oblivion Remastered – Tech Drive Play

Zachary Skinner

Zachary Skinner is the editor of TechDrivePlay.com, where tech, cars and adventure share the fast lane.
A former snowboarding pro and programmer, he brings both creative flair and technical know-how to his reviews. From high-performance cars to clever gadgets, he explores how innovation shapes the way we move, connect and live.