Bridge building

[Molach]

Background:
Had a character, level 16, was getting ready to clear out TotHK, to get the ring and to look for and destroy a berserker king. Ohkay. I looked through my inventory, found no wands of ice or spellbooks of frost bolt. But I did have the manual of bridge building and an hatchet. I do not scum for items anymore if it can at all be helped, but wasting game-time is of less concern.
So heres how it went:
1. Noticed I had 8 BB skill.
2. Chopped down trees in Lawin and tried building bridges in the water there (this takes a LOT of game-time). No bridges were built in about 10-12 tries. Well, that is understandable and I did it to train.
3. Went to Tery and talked repeatedly to carpenter. Think this helped training too.
4. Read the manual a few times too. Don't know if that helps, probably not.
5. Leveled up, remembering to keep the manual in inventory. BB could be trained up to 100, and it had good dice as well, so BB skill now 55.
6. Fought through the TotHK dungeon, spent a little time looking for berserker king, and to my astonishment found one. Levelled up once more shortly after. BB skill now 70.
7. Cleared a way through the dungeon (located all stairs). Went up to level 1, dropped much equipment, went out to find a forest, went back and picked up the climbing set, went back out, went back and got the hatchet, finally went out again. Cut down 3 logs and carried them to the dungeon.
8. Down through dungeon. Start making bridges. FAIL 3 times.
9. cencored
10. Repeat 7-8 (apart from forgetting climbing set and hachet). Manage to make 2 sections now.
11. Final run, manage two sections again.
12. Die horribly to the skeletal king.

Hardly optimal play, would probably be better to just hunt for a wand or a ogre magi to freeze the water.
Just illustrates how player-unfriendly that skill is. The skill never notched during gameplay, always had to advance it on levelup. So if the manual is lost, forget it. Normal players have other important skills to advance as well. Logs are too heavy. Fail is too high. It is used once in the game.

Next time I drive past gelsenkirchen I'm gonna chop down a tree and make a bridge over a creek there just to show that even a guy with 0 skill can to it.

P.S the char didn't die, just thought it would look better on the story. Still alive and kicking. Drakeling healer level 20 now.

[JellySlayer]

In my experience it is less time consuming and more interesting to search for an ogre magus or ice vortex in the ToTHK and use those to make your bridge.

[gut]

so, what was the ring for again?

granted, it is good, but -fire, shortcut access, and a couple
DV/PV just isn't worth it.

[nathrakh]

^it's awesome ratling fodder and okay for ToEF if you haven't got better stuff..

[JellySlayer]

so, what was the ring for again?

granted, it is good, but -fire, shortcut access, and a couple
DV/PV just isn't worth it.

Well, getting passed the Eternal guardian is a PITA for PCs who are slow, don't have on-demand teleportation or aren't strong enough to kill him in melee. If you have the right resources, the ring only takes maybe 5-10 mins to get anyway. Not that big of a deal.

[Soirana]

Well, getting passed the Eternal guardian is a PITA for PCs who are slow, don't have on-demand teleportation or aren't strong enough to kill him in melee. If you have the right resources, the ring only takes maybe 5-10 mins to get anyway. Not that big of a deal.

Why you need kill him? Guy does not follow you down anyway....

[gut]

ah, i had forgotten the troubles a slow PC has.
yeah, if you can't get your speed > 100, the ring is needed.

[Silfir]

I always get the ring because I don't want to piss off the immortal dwarven god-hero who will likely haunt me in my sleep until the end of my days. And then stick a rusty fork up my butt once he finds me in the afterlife.