Battle of the Builds allows you to instantly raise your PCs to level 30 and pit them in mortal combat against some of the finest power builds from the NWN2Wiki and the Epic Character Builders Part Deux. If you've ever wondered how your character build concept would fare against the likes of the Iron Sorcerer, Kaze no Kama, or Lord of the Mountain, Battle of the Builds will allow you to test your character's kung fu against theirs. You can even pit the NPCs against each other in one-on-one combat and watch the ensuing debacle in relative comfort and safety.
This is not an adventure module. There is only one NPC whom you may talk to, the Arena Master. At your command, he will arrange gladiatorial fights for you, give you experience points, and offer you the kind of gear that you may buy, loot, or craft in both the Original Campaign and Mask of the Betrayer. You may then pit your PC against any of the power builds to determine the PC's strengths and areas of improvement. The ultimate objective of this module is for you to test your character build concept against other epic builds or to test how these builds would fare against each other.
It is highly recommended that a good AI routine be installed for testing your character builds. This module works very well with Tony_K's AI.
Battle of the Builds may be of interest to the following types of people:
Powergamers who want to test their character build concepts
Builders seeking inspiration for deadly NPCs to put in their modules
Scripters who want to look at some examples of special combat AI
Wanna play as one of the power builds of the Arena? If you think you can control any of the characters in this module better than the AI, you're probably right, but you'll never really know until you try. Now you can download the Power Builds of the Arena and play them as PCs. Take your favorite gladiators for a test drive and see how you like them.
What's new in version 1.23.1
Fixed a problem regarding the Quest Journal not displaying the stats of the current set of gladiators.
Recompiled some scripts to address the issue of PC clones not disappearing when a fight is canceled.
Note: Edition 2.7.1 of "Meet the Power Builds" has corrections on the armor class and saving throws of several power builds as well as on the leveling guide of the Epic Arcane Trickster.
What else is new in version 1.23
Added the following new power builds: Left Fist of Gond, Pointy Stick, Right Fist of Gond, and Terracotta Soldier.
Updated the Divine Soul to JeminiZero's version 3.
Added an option to toggle the notorious weapon-grabbing tactic of gladiators that can disarm their opponents. Note that this won't necessarily prevent weapons from automatically landing in a gladiator's inventory through successful use of the Improved Disarm feat.
Added an option to limit fast buffing only to spells and feats with a duration of 24 hours or more.
Made several improvements to the AI.
Changes in version 1.22
Improved the AI of all NPCs, particularly the rangers, bards, non-caster gladiators, and the Blood Scholar.
Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing NPCs not to fight even when they can see their opponents.
Fixed a bug that was causing NPCs not to pick up their weapons when disarmed.
Changes in version 1.21
Added a new power build, the Claw of Malar.
Updated the Iron Sorcerer to version 2 created by JeminiZero.
Added journal entries listing the stats, feats, and skills of gladiators.
Added Zalantar spears among the weapons that are available from the Arena Master.
Added a new item to the Arena Master's list of available armor and clothing: the Swashbuckler's Tunic. This is an unenchanted piece of clothing that looks a lot better than monk pajamas.
Fixed the spellcasting animations and spell ranges of the Blood Scholar.
Made numerous improvements to the AI.
For details on the complete version history of the module, see the enclosed readme file.
Credits for the Power Builders None of the power builds in this module were created by me. All the character builds here are better than any PC that I've made in the past. To give credit where credit is due, I've listed the creative minds behind each build.
adzaroo: The Epic Arcane Trickster
Aekula: Ithil'kyw the Underdread
chipzahoy: An Inconvenient Ranger
Dark Eternal: Fallen Angel
Dark_hold_ / Darkhold: Black Dragon Soul
Dimeron: Eldritch Blade
DirtyFinger: Illusionary Blade, Kage Kaze no Kama, Kaze no Kama
Falconhurst: Drow Fury, Kaze no Kama Duelist
Felexitus: Holy Dragon Dervish
GT74: Claw of Malar
jeminizero / JeminiZero: Armored Fist of the Fallen, Blood Scholar, Divine Bard, Divine Ranger, Divine Soul, Divine Storm Soul, Divine Warlock, Eldritch Paladin of Candlekeep, Halfling Ninja, Iron Sorcerer, Obsidian Sorcerer
lokigr: Lord of the Mountain
Lorstaff: Sacred Spear
Mithdradates and TyrTemplar: Terracotta Soldier
rain4november: Restless Soul
SchnaKe: Veteran
steelsamurai: Pointy Stick, The Left Fist of Gond, The Right Fist of Gond
Zhonn-vei'ay: Black Dragon, Joe Average, Thuggernaut
Peek-a-BIC: New Tool for Power Builders Peek-a-BIC is a standalone program for viewing and documenting the stats and level progression of your player characters. This software reads your character BIC files and displays the data in any of several formats. Now you can view and upload your character's stats and level progression with just a few easy clicks. If you enjoy power building, give Peek-a-BIC a go.
The characters in "Battle of the Builds" are so powerful, you'll doubt they're legal. This PDF document proves that they are. Inside are the complete stats, equipment, and spells of all the power builds featured in the module. The document even has a leveling guide so you can recreate your favorite builds as PCs. (Not that you'll need to. You can get the Power Builds of the Arena as BIC files. See the link in the main description above.)
This mod give me a problem: when i fight versus warlock, the game crash every time. Only with warlocks! I have all espansions, and kaedrin, and the latest patch.
Solution?
p.s. sorry for my bad english...
Posted by DDMenacy at 2011-07-29 09:37:40 Voted 9.75 on 07/29/11
I forgot to vote. I only give a 9.75, because I miss some additional powerbuilds like glorious fist. Apart from that, awesome mod.
Posted by DDMenacy at 2011-07-29 09:08:07 Voted 9.75 on 07/29/11
I've used a deep gnome F(12)M(11)SD(5)DU(2)and was able to beat all non-arcane builds in this module unbuffed and without lifting a finger. I only had to switch to Improved Weapon Expertise once against the Terracottasoldier, and that's it. Basically, High AC + Epic Dodge + reasonably high AB win every melee fight in this game. I think a human or air genasi F(8)M(12)SD(5)IB(5) would also kick ass.
The Bloodscholar and the Obsidiansorcerer were pretty hard tough. I was only able to win against them by using HIPS in a cheesy way.
However, I think a M/SF/SD/C combo could beat even arcane Spellcasters in a fair fight by using Spell Mantle, while still being able to win or at least draw against all the other builds, because of the high AC + Epic Dodge. The only drawback would be the low AB. But if your opponent somehow manages to hit you more often than you manage to hit him, you can still run away with monkspeed and start doing HIPS.
For some reason I can only level up to level 20 and do not have the option to click Level Up on the character sheet. I have tried many race/class combos. Uninstalled and reinstalled. Searched everywhere for similar problems. any help?
Posted by FlaminCows at 2010-03-26 17:38:00 Voted 10.00 on 03/26/10
And I'll vote a 10 to counter the Daxeral's 4, because I don't want this to be rated down because it has many builds. Of course some are weaker than others, but it is better that they be there to be tested rather than not there just so only the most powerful would be available. And MotB gear is ridiculous, so that doesn't count.
Posted by FlaminCows at 2010-03-26 16:59:15 Voted 10.00 on 03/26/10
I encountered a small bug; when I try to get the Ring of Freedom from the arena master he won't give me one, saying that I have two rings even though I do not. The "rings" aren't listed in the dialogue, because they don't exist, but he still asks to choose.
Posted by giuice at 2010-01-20 06:00:09 Voted 10.00 on 01/20/10
Thx man, This ideia is amazing, gratz for this Great work!
Posted by Daxeral at 2009-08-25 17:55:23 Voted 4.00 on 08/25/09
I got this and put my 20 paladin/10 Div champ (in motb gear only, none of that self edited stuff) against the first 10 builds on the list before I got so bored of watching the two just auto attack until my paladin won I nearly fell asleep in my chair :P
The disarm builds were amusing, I suppose but they died so fast to even bare handed combat it was almost comical. :P
Anyway, I would hardly consider Mirror Image and/or Displacement + a ton of AC a "power build". It was so overdone it eventually just felt too gimmicky and not really challenging.
I hate to rate this so low because I realize that these "power builds" aren't all the creator's designs, but it is what it is and that is to say not very impressive.
Sorry for the late reply. I don't check this page as much as I used to.
Ranged weapons are not available from the Arena Master. This was a deliberate design choice because at the time that I created this module, the MotB crafting rules did not favor ranged weapons. A character could do much more damage with a melee weapon. The SoZ crafting rules changed all that, but I haven't had time to revise this module as I am currently working on new ones. _________________________ Yay, I have a blog. Faithless: The Making of an NWN2 Module
it seems that i cannot get any ranged weapon from the arena master, or is this bug?
Posted by BeLiaL at 2009-01-05 00:05:36 Voted 10.00 on 01/05/09
An interesting example of game mechanics is explained in a recent build on wiki (Chosen of Velsharoon). I'm not really sure how this works and if it is implementary in the AI, but sounds relatively easy to implement and completely destroys divine casters mantle spam strategies (Although those only worked vs AI anyway). Here's the quick copy:
Example:
starting time - 0
----
you cast quickened Breach - effect will trigger at 1.5
----
your enemy casts spell mantle(usually he'll have to cancel his action before casting mantle and it will
take some time so usually Breach / Offensive spell is enough. But lets look at the worst scenario - he starts to
cast it immediately) - effect will trigger at 3
----
now you cancell your quickened offensive spell and replace it with a second quickened Breach - effect will
trigger at 4.5
----
your enemy casts his second mantle - effect will trigger at 9(!)
----
now you cast your quickened offensive spell - effect will trigger at 7.5
----
in this way your opponent can defend himself only with quickened mantles
Posted by BeLiaL at 2008-12-18 07:33:37 Voted 10.00 on 01/05/09
I'm sure there's a lot of people willing to help you with this mod somehow including myself, though I'm not really good at anything like programming or writing backstories (only at ranting about somethings not right, like the rest, hehe).
You're right about Blacklock. My documentation is outdated since my description of this character is from an earlier version of my module. With so many NPCs here, it's kind of hard to keep track of how each one fairs compared to the rest.
Posted by BeLiaL at 2008-12-12 15:16:58 Voted 10.00 on 01/05/09
Arena master and Meet the builds file says Blacklock is among the "better" powerbuilds, but I couldnt make him win against even weaker ones like Joe Average or Dragonmaster negotiator. Divine warlock fares much, much better. I think Blacklock is the weakest build in the mod (and wtf is with WF: Longsword instead of divshield?). Also I think warlocks in mod should switch word of changing to binding blast.
That's understandable, I mainly was just trying to figure out if I missed those at some point. It's definitely a requirement to have a common baseline. I see so many different calculations people do for describing the AC of their builds, it's crazy. You've done a good job leveling the field.
Actually, the enchanting of items mostly follows the crafting rules of MotB. As for items that are not crafted, such as the Bracers of Armor +10, I couldn't really recall whether they were in MotB, but since they were in the toolset, I put them in my module. I could restrict the items to those that could be found in the OC or MotB if only I had a reference to what items are available in these campaigns. _________________________ Yay, I have a blog. Faithless: The Making of an NWN2 Module
I was looking through the gear of each of the builds in the pdf and noticed many use the "Bracers of Armor +10". These bracers aren't found anywhere in the campaigns. There's an item ID form them in the toolset, but they aren't in the campaigns. I thought equipment was restricted to what could be found in the main storyline. Or am I mistaken?
If anyone is willing to do what you suggest, they are free to rip my AI scripts and adapt them for their own module. The usual protocol is to credit the person whose work you're using in your own module, of course. As for me, I'll beg off from incorporating PrC packs into Battle of the Builds. Doing that will be a ton of work.
@smallredbird364,
Hi, I read your email to me, but I thought you were referring to my Peek-a-BIC program. I didn't realize that you were actually referring to my Battle of the Builds module.
Since I don't know how much you know about running community-created modules in NWN2, I hope you don't mind if I give detailed instructions below. It's better to err on the side of giving too much info rather than giving too little.
Anyhow, to run the module, you have to put the module file in the folder "My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\modules". When you've done that, run NWN2. At the opening screen, click "New Game". At the next set of menus, click "New Module" then click "Battle of the Builds" from the list of modules that will appear. Click the "Start Module" button that is at the lower right corner of the screen. From there you can either create a new character or select one of the existing ones that you already have in your computer.
i am having some trouble with getting the program to work. "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem." i installed the program into my localvault folder, i tried redownloading it, even moving it. now is it something wrong im doing?
Just a thought, but I wonder if anyone would be willing to incorporate Kaedrin's PrC pack into this mod? I mean, make some AI builds using Kaedrin's work. I can just imagine the sheer amount of backside-kicking builds that can be added for so much fun...
"To paraphrase, 'I think, therefore I scram'"
Posted by Wyrin at 2008-08-09 15:25:45 Voted 9.25 on 08/09/08
just realised i never voted on this! _________________________ Wyrin
Congratulations, Elysius! Most well deserved! :) _________________________ From someone who is starting to feel like an Ent among saplings when playing computer-based D&D games...
Posted by BeLiaL at 2008-07-17 10:16:55 Voted 10.00 on 01/05/09
Hm, sorry for triple posting. Greater Shadow conjured web eats up 7 levels of mantle protection each round, that said two webs on one spot eats up 14 levels. I believe it should be a great help against mantle spam stuff.
Posted by BeLiaL at 2008-07-17 09:24:29 Voted 10.00 on 01/05/09
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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