Why doesn't the brawler guild have...

[Marauder]

...some kind of fist weapon that doesn't count as armor? It doesn't even have to be something lethal like brass knuckles or katars or bear paws. Weighted-knuckle gloves exist and could very easily exist in the current setting, even if they might be more noticeable than modern ones. They're essentially like brass knuckles, but as as cloth and sometimes leather gloves that have thin pouches of powdered metal across the knuckles and sometimes the backs of the fingers. Getting hit by one would hurt like hell, but wouldn't create as much tissue damage or focus force nearly as well, meaning you wouldn't punch someone in the head once and have them die due to internal bleeding because you hit them in the wrong spot.

It doesn't even have to be like bear paws, it could just add small amounts of extra damage to your "punch" attacks in brawling combos and have an iron variant to fight against nethrim properly. The issue being with even getting knuckledusters is that I only know one guild that gets them and they're an immediately lethal weapon, even if they're not often meant to be, due to the amount of force they can project into small areas, kind of like one of the historic cestus types that's leather with metal balls woven in. Not every Brother or Sister of the Fist is gonna want to outright kill their target at all times. Rough them up? Yeah, certainly, but not necessarily murder.

Lore-wise, I don't know WHY they don't get a non-armor brawling enhancement item because it makes sense for THE brawlers to have some kind of method to fight against spectral nethrim without hurting themselves that doesn't involve picking up an iron shank or mace. Sure they could hire bouncer-esque folks to guard the Retreat against any threat of incorporeal opponents, but why not train their own members to do the deed? All of the other guilds have lore appropriate methods to deal with shades, whether it's Elemancers throwing fire or Rooks controlling them, or even a Dwaedn Wyr, Mercenary, or a number of other guilds pulling out their iron weapon because they don't like nethrim at all.

If it's armor, it immediately destroys their survival rate because then they have to put on more armor to counter the fact that Improved Dodge no longer works fully, and then their brawling stops being as effective if I recall right. Brawling in medium or heavy armor isn't really effective last I checked. I'm not entirely sure if it's just one armor item that removes the latter two benefits from Improved Dodge or if it has to be more than one, it's something I can't check easily myself.

Hell, why not make it a two item set? Iron-filled weighted-knuckle gloves and iron-toed boots that can be dyed different colors? Neither have to be classified as armor because the amount of "protection" would be focused into specific striking locations, and equipping both would let you have a reasonable chance at beating up a specter without a weapon.

[Hakon]

If I recall correctly from people asking in the past, the reason they don't get that kind of brawling enhancement is because their raison d'etre isn't to "punch all the things/evil/stuff," it's to be more like professional boxers, or people who spar with each other. Not a political force.

[Noctere]

I am not the guru of this guild but it might be legal to wear just iron gauntlets simply for the purposes of hurting nethrim. I don't think your fellow men and women of fisticuffs would think less of you for it. Now if you are hiding behind your gauntlets like some sort of armored pansy and using them for everything, then you might get some comments.

Of course double check with Jirato. He is in charge of this guild.

[Jirato]

I think it's less about what's "legal" with the guild and more about the fact that improved dodge only applies when your armor rating is less than a specific number (I think leather boots are OK). Arlen isn't like Bjorn. He's not going to toss you off a mountain for wearing gauntlets. (Though, that should disable any "kill this dangerous critter" task completions).

There are plenty of non-nethrim alternatives to fight. You can also fight corporeal nethrim. I'm sorry you don't like it, but I'm not adding armor-less hand protectors purely for the purpose of allowing open punching of shades and wraiths. The only thing I could maybe see is like padded gloves for sparring, but they'd have a severe damage penalty and probably disable your brawling combos. It would be more of a for fun thing than a practical go out and fight monsters with it thing.

[Hakon]

Sparring gloves that don't disable combos and do extra fatigue damage to unarmored combatants would be cool. Then Bro's could fight each other to knockout 'safely.' A full round of brawling aimed at the chest can be lethal!

[Marauder]

I actually really, really like the idea of sparring gloves, but I think that Jirato's right in that they should disable combos, otherwise you'd have people kicking, elbowing and kneeing each other to death by accident. What could be a good compromise is to make them kind of like bear paws in the sense that they replace your normal brawling attacks but disguise them as solely punches and limit the amount to 3-4 at max. Obviously if you put them on, you really aren't intending to kill your target.