LOTRO Forester: The Lumberjack Challenge

The Forester has two sides. One is gathering and treating wood used by the Woodworker Profession, the other is boiling hides to make leather. Hides drop off just about everything in Middle-Earth that goes on four legs. Wood is found at crafting nodes spread throughout the game in level appropriate fashion.

We’ve already covered how to find and harvest Crafting resource nodes. Now we get specific about what kinds of wood you can find based on your Crafting Tier Level (explained here) and what to do with them. We also mention the leather and hides used for that Tier.

Unlike the Prospector, who has to occasionally combine Ores or Ingots in different amounts to make different metals, wood and hide

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The Journeyman: Ash Wood and Medium Hide.

Expert: Yew Wood and Sturdy Hide.

Artisan: Lebethron Wood and Pristine Hide.

Master: Black Ash Wood and Exceptional Hide. This level has two extra recipes. When gathering wood, you will occasionally come across Spider Silk or Black Ash Heartwood, most often in “Heavy” nodes. The former is used to make Gossamer Thread, which Tailors can use to make into Reputation items for the Ranger Faction at Esteldin. The Heartwood can be used by Woodworkers to make Rep items for the Men of Bree Faction in, well, Bree.

Continuing the theme of finding the materials in level appropriate areas, Supreme nodes are only found in the higher level areas introduced with the MoM expansion. You will start finding Ilex Wood in the Southern parts of Eregion, at which point beasts will start dropping Magnificent Hide. As you enter and progress deeper into Moria, they will slowly give way to Mallorn Wood and Extraordinary Hide, respectively.

Mines of Moria also introduced Mithril Flakes to Crafting. You can use these to make Treated Mallorn and Boiled Extraordinary Leather into Mithril-inlaid and Mithril-reinforced versions, respectively. This requires the Mithril Flake, the wood or leather being improved and, in the case of the Mallorn, Rich Wax. You can get Rich Wax from the NPC Provisioner in the 21st Hall, outside the crafting bunker.

You now know everything you need to know to find and make all the Wood and Leather you need to supply Woodworkers, Tailors, Weaponsmiths, and Metalsmiths. Before I let you go though, I feel I have to point out something very important.

Processing Wood and Leather can be quite boring. Either strike up a conversation or wait till you have a stack or two to do and go do something else while your character gets the grunt work done. Make sure you repair the Crafting Tool you’ll be using, you don’t want to get back from having dinner and find that the Tool broke 20 Hides in.

Speaking of which, my Leather should be just about done – Happy Crafting!