Gladiator

Version 0.12: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Gladiators are combatants who fight monsters and other gladiators in the arena to entertain bloodthirsty spectators. Their fighting style is more mobile (read: flashier) than more straightforward warriors, and they especially enjoy using their throwing nets to trap hapless opponents. They are thus adept in killing anything - and anyone - that gets in their way, but have little background in anything else.

Gladiators differ from the very similar Fighter in that they favor mobility (light armour and Dodging skill) over heavy armor, and are trained in Throwing. By contrast, Fighters favor heavy armor (and the Armour skill to use it), but lack any background (or equipment) for ranged combat.

Starting Equipment

Some species may receive different items based on their unique restrictions.

• +0 weapon of choice (short sword, mace, hand axe, trident, falchion or quarterstaff)
• +0 leather armour
• +0 helmet
• 3 +0 throwing nets
• Bread ration
• 20 gold

Starting Skills

These are adjusted by your species' aptitudes.

• Fighting: 2
• Chosen Weapon's Skill: 3
• Throwing: 2
• Dodging: 3

Strategy

Those throwing nets are handy for making your enemies helpless, but they degrade as victims struggle to break free - throw them when your enemy is only two tiles away to give them less time to damage your net before you kill them.

Remember also that oozes can slide right through nets, jellies can eat them, and small monsters (like those kobolds and goblins near the surface) can slip out from under them.

History

Prior to 0.10, gladiators could not select a quarterstaff as their starting weapon.

Prior to 0.12, gladiators started with a buckler.