Gladiator

Version 0.14: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Gladiator has been trained to fight in the ring, and so is versed in the arts of fighting, but is not so good at anything else. In fact, Gladiators have never learned anything except bashing monsters with heavy things. They start with a nasty weapon, light armour, headgear and some nets or darts.

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.

Preferred Races

Deep Dwarf, Hill Orc, Centaur, Merfolk, Minotaur, and Gargoyle are the recommended races if you pick a Gladiator Background.

Starting Equipment

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

• +0 weapon of choice (cutlass, flail, war axe, trident, longsword or quarterstaff)
• +0 leather armour
• +0 helmet
• 3 +0 throwing nets
• Bread ration
• 20 gold

Starting Skills and Stats

Adjusted for your species' aptitudes:

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

Choosing Gladiator adds 7 to your starting Strength and 5 to your starting Dexterity.

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.

Also bear in mind 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 0.14, most gladiator starting weapons were of a lower tier: short sword instead of cutlass, mace instead of flail, hand axe instead of war axe, and falchion instead of long sword. Also, small and little characters would receive stones in place of throwing nets.

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

Prior to 0.12, gladiators started with a buckler.