Gladiatorial Armor

Gladiators are meant for show, and so is there armour. National Armours are what a nation’s military would use, or common gear that a soldier would be familiar with from that nation.

Why does the Gladiator get armor he can not use? It is not a National Armor for any of the Former Gladiator might be from.

Uh, sabotage by anti arena Milandesians? You know the Milandesians are a pushy lot, eager to tell you how to live a moral life?

Or it could be an over site that needs errata…

Under Archetypes for Arcane, Expert, and Martial you (such&such) Armor Proficency in your REGIONAL armor as seen in table 2-27. MOST backgrounds give you some type of armor to start out with in it’s items list. In the “Former Gladiator” background that armor happens to be Gladiatorial Armor.

However the Background also has the requirement to be from Almeric, Coryani Empire, or Hinterlands. None of those Nations have Gladiatorial Armor as choice on table 2-27.

What that means for the player is that your character has been training and fighting in their armor for a good long time. Long enough to retire/win their freedom. They get to walk away with some silver, three gladiatorial weapons, travelers kit, and the Gladiatorial Armor on their back (they don’t even get common garb). Because, the armor is not listed on table 2-7 they can’t even use the armor they trained in.

I can think of three errata fixes.
1. Add Gladiatorial Armor to those three Nations. (This is an easy rules fix but does not fit the flavor text or I think the intent of Gladiatorial armor)
2. Add the Talent – Armor Proficiency: Gladiatorial Armor to the Background Former Gladiator. (This one makes the most sense but some might see it unfair because it gives the Gladiator an ungodly amount of talents as they have separate Weapon Training Talents in all the Gladiator weapons.)
3. Change the rules for the item itself by adding some sort of statement. That Gladiator Armor is considered to be any type of light Armor but one must specify the type of base armor. (I think this one fits well with the flavor text of the armor but I think this one would definitely make Pedro cringe )

1. Gladiator armour would not be national armour because it is specialized. For the same reason why a War fan or a net wouldn’t be standard weapons. They are specialist tools, so it would be inappropriate for that classification.

2. I can get behind this fix, but for balance you’d have to choose one of the weapon talents to drop which could be an issue. After all, unless you want to add a Flaw or something, you don’t want to have too many talents in a specific background.

3. Gladiator armour (pg 248) which is functionally the same as Studded Leather. You either have to take Armour Proficiency, Light (ta) and choose Gladiator armour as one of your choices, or simply sell your Gladiator armour for 2 Sc.

1. I agree
2. I agree with this but that seems to be complicated fix to drop one of the them. You would have to change the wording from

Talents: Blood and Sand, Weapon Training (Cestus), Weapon Training (Dagger), Weapon Training (Gladius), Weapon Training (Light Spear), Weapon Training (Net), and Weapon Training (Great Trident)

to something like

Talents: Blood and Sand,
Choose six of the following: Weapon Training (Cestus), Weapon Training (Dagger), Weapon Training (Gladius), Weapon Training (Light Spear), Weapon Training (Net), Weapon Training (Great Trident), and Armor Proficiency (Gladiatorial Armor)

In reality I think having all that weapon training is too much and would love to see it narrowed down to a choice of 4 or 5 of the above choices I just wrote.

3. I am not following you here. Are you saying that if you are trained in Studded Leather you automatically are trained in Gladiatorial armor? That does not necessarily fix the problem. The problem is that as a Former Gladiator you have armor that by all intents and purposes you should be trained to use but for some reason you are not. Coryani Gladiators would not get the training in Studded Leather.
The other way I am reading what you said is that you are Forced to waste a talent that you should not have to take because by all intents and purposes you should already be trained for it. You are a Gladiator you so have been using Gladiatorial armor your entire majority. Because of a slip in the rules you suddenly lose the ability the moment you walk out of the arena. That makes absolutely NO sense.

I have a forth fix.
4. Change the item list under Former Gladiator from “Gladiatorial Armor” to “Any Light Armor from your starting nation” This fix may loose some flavor but does not cheat the player mechanics wise.

I like Henry’s interpretation

Henry,

I cannot be more appreciative of that ruling but does that mean a “Archetype: Martial” Former Gladiator looses access to the “All Armors and Sheilds from your starting Nation?” It does not effect my character concept in the slightest but it would be good info to know.

Henry I respect your position, but I think I disagree with it here, based on the description of gladatorial armor, its not suppsed to be something people are proficient in (ARPG 248), its just for show.

the penalty for wearing armor that your non proficient in is 2x the bunk as a negative to most everythng roll related, so I think that too is in keeping with making a show of things.

just my opinion on the matter