Advanced Skills

After your gladiator has had several fights, you may want to train some advanced skills, located on the lower half of your Gladiator Personality Sheet. If you are still learning to play Gladiators, don't read this section yet, just skip it.

Advanced Skills Descriptions

If this is your first gladiator, you can skip reading this section entirely. You won’t be spending any of your 40 development points on advanced skills. Jump a few pages forward to the section on “Weapons” and keep reading from there.

There is no rule against training in advanced skills when your gladiator is a rookie, but the basic fighting skills are the most important at this stage of a gladiator’s career.

INITIATIVE Skill

A high INITIATIVE skill helps your gladiator to get the first attack at the beginning of a new battle. At the start of a battle, each gladiator rolls a number of dice equal to their INITIATIVE rank, totaling all dice. Whichever gladiator rolls the highest total will attack first. Thereafter, the gladiators take turns attacking. Re-roll on a tie.

To be clear, you only roll for initiative once and only once, at the very beginning of a battle, before either gladiator has done anything.

Two Ranks of INITIATIVE for Free

Take a look at the INITIATIVE skill on your Gladiator Personality sheet. The costs of ranks of INITIATIVE skill are: 0 0 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6. Notice how the first two ranks cost 0. Your gladiator already has 2 ranks of INITIATIVE paid for (note the filled in boxes). The third and fourth ranks of INITIATIVE that you purchase for your gladiator will cost 3 development points each.

A gladiator with 2 ranks of INITIATIVE will roll 2 dice to see if he gets the first turn, at the beginning of a battle.

Luck with Initiative

If both gladiators have luck dice, and the possibility exists one of them may use luck dice, or declares that he may be using luck dice, an interesting situation occurs. Now, both players select the number of luck dice they will add to their Initiative roll in private, for example under the table. The players both reveal how much luck they are adding, and then the players roll for initiative.

FOCUS Skill

Focus is the ability to recover from a stun. When your gladiator is stunned he may not take any action on his turn unless he is able to focus. To use the FOCUS skill, roll a number of dice equal to your gladiator's FOCUS rank. If you roll least one 6, your gladiator instantly recovers from the stun, and it is your turn. You may attack (or choose another action) immediately.

HEAL Skill

Any time it is your gladiator’s turn to attack, he may forgo (skip) his attack to use his HEAL skill instead. Roll a number of dice equal to your gladiator's HEAL rank. Each 5 that you roll will heal 1 points of damage (to HEALTH) and each 6 rolled will heal 5 points of damage. The number of points healed is subtracted from the amount of damage the gladiator has sustained. Healing can never bring a gladiator's health above what it was at the start of the fight.

Loss of Heal Dice

Each 1 rolled when healing results in a loss of 1 HEAL dice (rank) for the remainder of the battle. This simulates wounds that are too severe to heal within the frenzy of battle.

For example, if a gladiator had 6 HEAL ranks and attempts to heal himself, he will roll 6 dice. If the roll was 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6, the gladiator would successfully heal 6 points of damage (1 points for the 5 and 5 points for the 6), but would loose 1 heal dice for the remainder of the battle (for the 1 he rolled). The next time that the gladiator used his HEAL skill, he would only roll 5 dice.

If your gladiator tries to heal again later in the battle, you’ll roll the 5 dice. If your roll is 1 – 1 – 3 – 4 – 4. You do not heal any points of damage (no 5s or 6s), and you lose 2 Heal Dice (you rolled two 1s). If your gladiator uses his HEAL skill again, he would only roll 3 Heal Dice.

Using Luck with HEAL

If you elect to use luck dice to increase the number of dice you roll for healing, keep track of these dice separately. Ones (Twos and Threes) rolled on luck dice result in a loss of Luck Dice but not a loss of Heal Dice.

STRENGTH Skill

A gladiator without any STRENGTH ranks can carry up to 15 lb. of equipment into battle (and fight effectively). Each rank of STRENGTH allows your gladiator to carry an additional 3 lb. Each weapon has a weight listed on the Weapons Table.

A shield weighs 5 lb. So if you have SHIELD skill, you only get 10 pounds for your weapon, unless you invest Development Points into STRENGTH training.

Armor is considered weightless, because the expensive cost of training to wear armor, essentially teaches the ability to fight effectively while wearing it.

RETRIEVE WEAPON Skill

If a player wishes, on his turn, his gladiator can forgo his attack in an attempt to retrieve one or more weapons from the arena floor. To RETRIEVE WEAPON(s), roll a number of dice equal to your gladiator’s RETRIEVE WEAPON ranks. Each 6 rolled retrieves one weapon.

If your opponent “whiffed”, add one die to your RETRIEVE WEAPON roll.

If your opponent is “stunned”, add 3 dice to your RETRIEVE WEAPON roll.

Catching a Boomerang

If you throw a boomerang or a combat boomerang, and your Attack Roll “whiffs” (completely misses), you will immediately get a chance to catch the boomerang, thus saving the ammo for another throw. Figure out how many dice you would normally be able to roll with RETRIEVE WEAPON skill:

  • Everyone gets 2 ranks of RETRIEVE WEAPON for free.

  • Add 1 more die for each rank of RETRIEVE WEAPON you purchased.

  • + 1 die if your opponent “whiffed” his last attack.

  • + 3 if your opponent is “stunned” from you hitting him last turn.

Subtract 2 dice from this total (Catching a boomerang is not easy), and if you have any dice left, roll them. If you roll one or more 6s, you caught the boomerang.

Retrieving a Harpoon

If you threw one or more of your harpoons, and now you want to retrieve them from the arena floor, so you can throw them again. You will get all the dice you normally would to RETRIEVE WEAPON, plus 2 extra dice (because your harpoons have rope attached)

You do not get this bonus to retrieve your opponent’s harpoons, only your own.

SIGNATURE MOVE Skill

SIGNATURE MOVE is an attempt to kill a stunned opponent with your personalized crowd pleasing attack. This skill may only be used when your opponent is stunned. Roll a number of dice equal to SIGNATURE MOVE ranks. If you roll two or more sixes, the signature move is successful and your opponent takes 25 or more points of damage!

If the signature move attempt fails, it is considered a missed attack (“whiff”).

Luck dice can not be used to gain more dice when rolling for SIGNATURE MOVE.

Signature Move Damage

If you roll two 6s for signature move, your opponent takes 25 damage. He does not get a chance to block the attack.

If you rolled more than two 6s, your opponent takes an additional 25 points of damage for each additional 6 (more than two 6s).

Have Fun

Tenzing Kernan