Game: Power Classes: Gladiator
Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 26th, October 2002
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 12
Average Score: 4.00
The Gladiator is the second in Mongoose‘s Power Classes series (and not the first as the introduction claims). The Power Classes are a series of mini-books or 16-paged booklets that come at the cost effective $2.95 each. I think the idea behind the series is about value for money. This mini-book is packet to the hilt with core gladiator class information. There are actually four different background concepts and then four different types of gladiator choices which effect the roleplaying and game mechanic options in the booklet and simple maths says that’s actually 16 possibilities in 16 pages.
The types of gladiators effect special abilities available as the character levels up. An “Equite” is a gladiator who fights from horseback (or I guess any suitable fantasy mount), the “Hoplomachus” is a heavily armoured foot solider, the “Retiarius” is a gladiator who fights with the movie-famous trident and net combination and the “Secutor” is the unfortunate gladiator who is thrown into battle with only a gladius and shield. These types are actually evilly pitted against one another; the Secutor are fast enough to chase down the Retiarius and the much slower Hoplomachus is more likely to find himself up against an Equite.
Tucked away at the back of the booklet and just before a token couple of gladiator weapons (the awkward but deadly Kopis sword and various weights of Hoplite armour) there is quite a long spiel on spectacular combat and death moves. The gladiator needs to win the crowd over and so he develops such fancy fighting styles and here they’re actually class abilities available at 3rd level and 6th level.
You don’t need to have or even have heard about Mongoose’s Gladiator: Sands of Death in order to use this Power Classes book but if you do have Sands of Death then you’ll be pleased to see that this Gladiator offering stacks nicely with it.
The gladiator class presented here is a fighting class but it works because it can either be used along side the fighter class or instead of it. The gladiator class also adapts to either high fantasy or low fantasy games, the early abilities tend to have the grittier qualities that suit the low fantasy games whereas as the levels increase (and you’re less likely to be playing low fantasy) the class abilities grow into more typical high fantasy roles. The gladiator class also serves well as an option for GMs who decide that there isn’t such a thing as the strange mix of profession and amateur that the core fighter class is.
The contents of Gladiator certainly work. It’s the size and physical style of the booklet that might cause doubt. If you’re a fan of big and solid hardback books then the mini-book style seems a little awkward, almost as if it would be wrong to apply something so temporary to your campaign. On the other hand, if you want value for money, if you can’t (or don’t want to) spend mega-bucks on a book you’ll rarely use or just use a tiny part of then the booklet approach should hold some appeal.
