Pugilism doesn't do a lot of damage, it takes the gauntlet's base armor rating so no quantity of smithing or fortify heavy armor enchants/potions can help you.
The pugilist enchant is... Pretty weak. At max enchantment, it deals 18 damage, which is less than the dawnguard item 'ring of the beast' so you'll actually be using this instead of a custom ring, and the enchant can only be on rings and gauntlets.
The max damage with fists is :
- Physical damage (they are going to be multiplied by power attacks and stealth) : 18 for the daedric gauntlets + 25 base damage for a Khajiit
- Extra damage (won't be multiplied by power attacks and stealth) : 20 for a Vampire Lord perk + 20 for the ring of the beast + 18 damage from the fortify unarmed damage enchant on your gauntlets.
That's a total of 230 damage, with zero armor penetration. Some of it is poison so you'll deal less on Argonians.
I read that the base unarmed damage depends on your level but I couldn't find any formula or proof so let's assume your damage stays at 25 for your whole punching career.
You could eventually get more damage from the pugilist enchant with the enchanting/alchemy exploit. IDK how much.
There's also a glitch which allows you to wear several gauntlets (as in... more than a pair lmao), it's called the stacked armor glitch. How to perform it : get captured, escape, equip armor from a follower's inventory, repeat. Then serve your time and you'll have every single gauntlet that previously was in your follower's inventory. I don't believe it's been patched ? Could be wrong.
So yeah, without exploits :
-Normal attack is 101 damage
-Power attack or stealth attack is 144 damage
-Stealthy power attack is 230 damage
Zero armor penetration on those attacks.
Actually now that I think about it, you could go orc+racial power. Your physical damage would be 18+4, but it'd be multiplied by an extra power of 2.
This would deal 234 damage so that's not a huge gain, but it's still better than a khajiit.
And yes, I did use the alchemy/enchanting "exploit" if you want to call it that.
What would your damage output be without it ? Like, by limiting yourself to one set of fortify alchemy armor ?