Gladiator vs. fighter

[monty]

Which do you prefer for a melee start? Personally, I find Gl to be stronger in most cases, as throwing is far more useful to me than a few points of shields. Fighter may have stronger very early game though (like, the first jackal pack) because of the armor.

[Sandman25]

I start as Fi if I want to use Shield, as Gl otherwise.

[duvessa]

Gladiator is better for every species except troll, and is probably still better even then. This likely includes "against the first jackal pack" since gladiator has more weapon skill and nets.

[Psiweapon]

fighter

[daggaz]

I always strongly preferred gladiators for various skill reasons, and as Duvessa points out, nets are the bomb. They are a powerful early game survival tool when you need such tools more than anything else.

Picking fighter because of the shield is pretty meh.. shields litter the dungeon, you will find one sooner than later.

[Klown]

Fighter, easily for me. It walks through most melee battles, and shield of reflection later takes care of the tedious amount of centaur warriors and yaktaurs.

[Hirsch I]

Gladiator. scale mail is not that great, really, and nets are awesome until very late in the game.

[BountyHunterSAx]

When starting a non-berserker melee start, I typically just automatically go fighter.

SO congrats for pointing out the obvious and making a good case for gladiator for me. I inevitably want a few points in throwing on characters capable of training it easily just to boost my capabilities. Gladiator nets make perfect sense for this.

-AHMAD

[HenryFlower]

Also, quarterstaff.