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Creating Gladiators
===================
Here is what you do if you want to play the game and need to create a new
Gladiator.
Well, actually there's no fixed rules for this, as the ARENA program only
checks if the attributes are within the allowed ranges.
But what follows is the recommended procedure for character creation. If your
GameMaster decides to use something different - he may.
You have 55 points to distribute among your attributes. There are 8 of them
in total, though they work differently:
Weaponskill How well you can fight, actually. Important one.
Endurance How tough you are.
Strength How strong you are. Stronger Gladiators inflict more damage
and some weapons require a certain Strength.
Tactics Agility, tactical fighting, dodging etc. Does NOT help you to
hit your enemy, but may help to avoid getting hit yourself.
Also very important for team-fights, especially tag-team.
Willpower How fast you fold. Sometimes, it may be the better choice to
surrender, so high Willpower isn't always in your best
interest. That's why it costs no points.
Wounds How much real, bleeding wounds you can handle
Fatigue How much pain, blows and extertion you can handle
Gold Needed to buy equipment
Weaponskill is NOT a simple number in this game, therefore you will not get
one for it. Instead, all Gladiators start with the same abilities, but you
may increase your Weaponskill outright for two points (sic!) per increase.
Endurance, Strength and Tactics range between 5 and 18 and cost one point
each. i.e. Endurance-12, Strength-10 and Tactics-7 will cost 29 points. A
value of 10 should be considered "average" in this attributes, but keep in
mind that Gladiators should be above-average, as Wrestlers or other pro-
fessional fighters usually are.
Willpower ranges from 5 to 15, too. Actually, up to 18 as well, but you
cannot choose values above 15 for a starting character. Willpower is free,
just choose a value. Remember that high values may cause your Gladiator to
take risks too high for him, while low values may cause him to give up too
early. On the other hand, with a high value he may win a fight in spite of
heavy wounds, or with a low value he may be smart enough to surrender early
in a match that might have turned into a slaughter otherwise. Choose with
respect to the "style" you want your Gladiator to be.
Now, Wounds is a little complicated. You have 15 Wounds automatically. You
can increase that with points. The first additional wound costs 1 point, the
second two MORE, then three more and so on. Therefore, a total of 18 Wounds
will cost you 1+2+3 = 6 points. Maximum is 20 Wounds which would costs some
1+2+3+4+5 = 15 points.
Fatigue slightly depends on your Endurance. You will have a Fatigue of 25
plus half your Endurance (rounded up), plus two per point spend. Therefore,
if you have 10 Endurance and spend 4 points on Fatigue, you will have a total
of 25 + 10/2 + 4*2 = 25+5+8 = 38 Fatigue.
Finally Gold. You start with 250 gold on hand. Each point spend on gold
during character creation earns you an additional 50 gold.
It's actually quite simple once you got into it, but in case you are a little
confused, there is a JavaScript page on the Mystic ARENA homepage (see bottom
of this file) that handles Gladiator creation.
For equipment, please refer to the extra EQUIPMENT.DOC file. All weapons and
armour are listed therein, together with the few rules that restrict their
usage.
Finishing Touches
=================
That's not all there is. This is the mechanics part, but there's another, a
roleplaying and communications part. Once you've got the attributes, think of
a name for your Gladiator, then write down some more words about him. How he
looks, what his fighting style is like, his colours, music, anything that
adds to the atmosphere. View some wrestling-shows for ideas. :)
To introduce some personal touch into the fights, every Gladiator has one
offensive and one defensive "special move". Much like the "finishing moves"
of wrestlers, this is the personal mark.
Special moves will not happen very often, but most of the times, they will
have visible influence on the fight.
After finishing your Gladiator, you should think of a name for your two
special moves and send them in to the GameMaster. These can NOT be changed
later on, as they are your "personal symbol". Both names can be up to 25
characters long. Choose something that fits your Gladiator.
You also have to choose your Fighting Style. There are three available and
you may change your Style for no cost, however I recommend that you don't do
so very often (hey, it's your STYLE after all!) and as Commissioner I would
never let you go from one extreme to the other, i.e. if you're Aggressive,
you may opt to switch to Normal, but not to Defensive, at least not at once
and most probably only after a couple of fights.
Now I've already mentioned the three Styles, here's an overview:
Normal This is what most of you should try first. This is also what
everyone was fighting like before I invented Style (in v1.6
actually, together with Drugs).
Defensive "Let's be careful"
You fight more carefully but don't attack that good as a
result. Technically speaking, you get +1 on parries and -1
on attacks, so there's no overall gain or loss, but you might
get away less injured. You might also win just by having the
opponent exhaust himself in wild attacks on your defense.
Aggressive "Smash 'em! Only wimps parry!"
Well, that says it. Technically, it's +1 on attacks and -1
on parries, so same thing, no overall gain. But you might
just blast your enemy away with your ferocious attacks. It's
just that you have to get your attacks in, first of all and
that you need a good parry to get a chance to strike if the
other one is attacking.
Again, technically, there's no overall gain with either Style. But different
from your Fan-Factor, this DOES have some noticable influence on your fights.
Choose your Style to fit to the kind of Gladiator you want to have and then
change it for special fights as a strategical means, like being a little more
careful against that guy with the Battle Axe may be a good idea.
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