Forestry: The Way of the Forester - Overview (2024)

Axes at the ready – it’s time to talk Forestry!

At the Winter Summit we showcased Forestry: Way of the Forester, a Woodcutting expansion that will have you interacting with Gielinor’s flora and fauna in ways we’ve never seen before!

With a whopping 90% pass rate, you’ll be getting back to nature real soon, deepening your connection with the forests you frequent and tending to the world’s woodland – while still reaping all the rewards Woodcutting has to offer.

Today we’re going to look at all the top-level ideas we have so far, as well as where we reckon they sit compared to other Woodcutting activities. We’re not sharing XP rates, or polling the features yet – as we want to hear what you think first!

So have a read, and when you’ve formed some opinions, be sure to let us know using the survey at the bottom of the post.

You’ll start your Forestry journey with a brand-new quest, available to players who’ve already sharpened their Woodcutting skills enough to bring down a mighty oak tree. During your next chopping session, you’ll likely find a Leafy Note which will start the quest.

After deciphering the message and tracking down the mysterious note-writer, you’ll be whisked away to the Freaky Forest. Much like Sleeping Giants and Temple of the Eye, this quest will serve as a Forestry tutorial, where you’ll learn all you need to start exploring this new content. You’ll also earn yourself a Forestry Kit, an essential item for all aspiring foresters. More on that later!

With this update, we wanted to make Woodcutting a more social activity. Currently, trees that give more than one log have a 1 in 8 chance to deplete, and each tree has its own regrowth timer. These mechanics mean that it’s better for players to chop trees on their own, which makes competition for resources fierce, and the skill as a whole a solitary endeavour.

To help support group play and reduce competition, we’d like to offer the following changes:

• Trees will despawn on a timer that activates after the first cut and regenerates if the player stops cutting the tree before it’s fully chopped.
• Timer length would be based on the average time each different type of tree currently lasts.
• Players chopping the same tree get an invisible Woodcutting bonus that scales with the number of players, up to a maximum of 10.

Chop chop! Your axe is far from the only trusty tool you’ll need in your Forestry journey. To really succeed, you’ll need a Forestry Kit full of useful bits and bobs for any budding forester.

This wearable item will let you store a plethora of new tools and materials so you can interact with Gielinor’s forests in whole new ways. It’s going to be absolutely essential for most of the content we plan to introduce in this expansion – and luckily, you’ll get a basic one in the introductory quest.

However, any good workman knows he must upgrade his tools, and the Forestry Kit is no exception. You can craft new additions to the kit from existing items like Metal Bars or Leather, combined with new items from the Freaky Forester’s store. To get your hands on his wares, you’ll need to trade a brand new untradeable currency only found in Forestry: Anima Infused Bark.

You’ll find a little Anima Infused Bark while cutting down trees, but the main way you’ll earn it is by participating in events. More on those in a moment…

All the kit upgrades are tradeable – they can be bought and sold on the Grand Exchange or traded between players. This isn’t something we usually do, but we hope to create a smaller, self-sufficient economy within Forestry that gives you benefits for the skill, allows you to spend newly-earned currency, and becomes a sink for every type of log – an overall benefit for the rest of the in-game economy!

By the by, you’ll be glad to hear that your nifty Forestry Kit also holds all the consumable items you need for Forestry events, freeing up plenty of space for whatever else you want to lug around in your Inventory.

So let's take a look at the kind of gear that you could get your hands on! Please note that the costs listed here are only estimates.

Clothes Pouch

Allows players to store Lumberjack outfit pieces to get the bonus while being able to wear whatever Fashionscape they fancy. Takes priority over other outfit bonuses – bonuses are not stackable.

The effect can be toggled off to stop the override.

Forester's Ration

Restores some run energy after chopping down a tree. Scaled by tree difficulty

Secateurs Attachment

Gather more Leaves from farming trees.

Forester's Lucky Charm

Chance to spawn the 'Leprechaun' event and increases the variety of rewards.

Petal Circlet

Chance to spawn the 'Dryad' event and increases the chance of getting better rewards.

Wind Chimes

Chance to spawn the 'Fairy Magic' event and increases enchanted tree yield.

Bee Smoker

Chance to spawn the Bee Hive event and increases the chance of receiving Sturdy Bee Box parts.

Sturdy Harness

Combine with the Log Basket and the Forestry Kit to make one combined, equippable item.

Slingshot Ammo

Ammo for the Slingshot, to be used in the 'Pheasants' event.

Bee on a Stick

Chance to spawn the Flowering Tree event and increases tree seed yield.

Nature Offering

Chance to get extra resources when cutting trees. Chance increases based on the number of other Foresters cutting the same tree.

Squirrel Treats

Chance to get tree seeds from events.

Usually, we need entire new areas to add new bits of content to Skills. Not so with Forestry – our aim is to upgrade familiar parts of the world with new and exciting activities. Wherever there are trees, there’s Forestry – with the exception of the Woodcutting Guild and the odd few dungeons.

Along these lines, we’ve added a variety of special events where you’ll meet all sorts of forest-y friends. It’s like the good old days, when you’d be happily chopping away and an Evil Tree Spirit would pop out and smack you, except nobody’s evil and the only thing you’re getting smacked with is a ton of loot.

Anytime you have the right gear equipped while collecting logs, you’ll have the chance to spawn world events that everyone can interact with. A new event won’t spawn in a given area until the previous one is finished, so chop chop!

The more players there are (up to a limit), the higher the chance that an event will spawn – so gather your friends and get back to nature!

While you’re rounding up the squad, let’s take a look at what kinds of events we’d like to offer:

'During Chopping' Events

'When Chopped' Events

All the events will scale in experience and difficulty, depending on the number of players present. This ensures that you’ll be well-rewarded for your efforts, even while playing in a large group!

As you can see, each event adds a little something different – feel free to gun for your favourites using the stuff in your Forestry Kit!

Tree Leaves already exist for some trees and can be obtained by planting your own Trees and chopping them down. We want to expand the number of trees they can be obtained from and give them some cool new benefits to boot and allow obtaining them while chopping trees, not just from farming.

In Forestry, each leaf type will have its own set of useful effects that can be used all over the game! The aim is to increase the utility of Woodcutting without replacing Potions. We haven’t fully committed to the details, but we want to give you an overview of the effects we’ve been exploring so far:

• Combat: Boosts combat skill level.
• Production: Boosts production skill level.
• Gathering: Boosts gathering skill level.
• Power: Boosts the power of other leaf effects. Adds no power to empty categories.
• Duration: Increases duration of the boost effect.

We’re open to other ideas about what leaves could do, from the obvious (restoring Run Energy, anyone?) to the niche. For now, here’s what we think each leaf type should bring to the table:

Forester's Campfires

So, how do you use these Leaves?

Like we said before, Forestry is intended to make Woodcutting more social – and where better to socialise than around a nice, toasty campfire?

You’ll no doubt be familiar with the mechanics here: whack out some freshly-chopped logs, light ‘em up, and you’ve got yourself a fire! To upgrade it to a cosy Forester’s Campfire, just add up to 15 leaves. Depending on which leaves you added, you (and anyone joining you) will receive a buff.

If you’d like a slightly bigger bonus, you can choose to consume a Forester’s Ration while in range of the campfire. This will also restore a bit of Run Energy – there’s nothing like a hearty meal to keep you going!

Tea Brewing

The second way to receive the benefits of Leaves lets you fully customise your bonuses! Use your knowledge of Herblore to brew up a lovely cuppa, and you’ll receive benefits based on your chosen ingredients. Unlike Potions, which have set recipes, this process is a bit more… ‘creative’.

Let’s go back to the table above for an example. Say you want to brew up an Oak tea for a nice combat boost – but you plan to be out for a while, so you want the bonus to last longer, and you add some Arctic Pine leaves. Not only do they increase the duration of the buff, they also add more power, making the brew more effective overall!

You’ll be able to add a maximum of 10 Leaves (depending on your Herblore level) to a tea, in any combination you like. Effects stack, so a brew made of 10 Oak Leaves will have different effects to one that only includes two or three.

This is a system which encourages you to experiment – who knows, you may even discover some secret combinations…

Be aware that teas only affect one player at a time – after all, you wouldn’t want someone else sipping your brew!

Iron Players

Now, some of you prefer to go it alone – we’re talking about you, Iron Players! We want to honour your pledge to stand on your own two Iron feet by making sure that other players’ campfires don’t affect you. Group Iron Players, of course, are the exception – members in the same group can benefit from one another’s campfires, and obviously, all Iron Players can receive buffs from campfires they’ve made themselves.

However, your solitary lifestyle won’t lock you out of the Forestry fun – Iron Players will be able to fully participate in Forestry events, even if they personally don’t have the right consumable in their Forestry Kit.

There’s a section in the survey below that deals specifically with how you’d like Forestry to interact with Iron game modes, so be sure to fill that out!

Time for our favourite part – the rewards!

The Freaky Forester has opened up a fancy Forestry shop where you can buy replacement Forestry Kits and a bushel of other useful objects for you to spend your hard-earned Logs and Anima Infused Bark on. Let’s take a gander:

Log Basket

This equippable item can store up to 28 extra logs for you to lug around.

It can even be combined with the Forestry Kit and a Sturdy Harness to create a Forestry Basket – the perfect all-in-one storage for any fancy forester.

Forestry Outfit & Recolours

Get medieval with the Forester's Outfit, which comes in a range of colours to suit your mood!

POH: Bee Box

Take care of your buzzing brethren with your very own Bee Box!

2H Axes

Why use one hand when you can use two?

These 2-handed Axes will come in various metal types (Bronze, Iron, etc) that gives more experience but increases your cut time!

Lumberjack Outfit

Why does the Lumberjack Outfit come from Temple-Trekking again?

Now, we're giving you a more thematic way to earn this Woodcutting Bonus outfit!

Arborist's Gloves

These hand items will augment your tree Farming patches and allow you to get a variety of benefits:

• Reduced protection cost
• Higher yield
• Bonus XP
• Slightly boosted growth time

Seed Packs

Packs of assorted seeds for farming! 'Nuff said.

Sawmill Voucher

Get more planks for your pennies with these handy vouchers that give bonus planks when converting logs at a Sawmill.

Funky-Shaped Log

Did you know that beavers have the power to colour-shift? Well if you use the Funky-Shaped log on a Beaver Pet you'll unlock the option to change it's colour by giving it different log types.

Hopefully you now have a good idea of what Forestry is and what it will bring to the game. Now, we want to discuss where this content will sit compared to other skilling experiences.

We’ll start with the basics: how does Forestry compare to your standard Woodcutting adventure? We’re aiming to give you more XP per hour than you’d get from cutting regular, boring trees. With the tradeable rewards from events and the buffs from campfires, we expect you to be in a better spot for both XP per hour and GP per hour.

Let’s scale things up and take a look at Redwoods. This is one of the most chilled-out Woodcutting activities. They don’t need tons of attention, and make grinding out those last few levels a breeze. Since Forestry is more interactive, we think it should also give more XP per hour than Redwoods. Fair?

One thing we don’t want Forestry to outshine are the high-skill, high-intensity Woodcutting methods like 2-tick Teak chopping. You lot put major effort into figuring these methods out, and we don’t want to devalue the time you’ve spent.

We’re also still discussing where Forestry should sit against Sulliuscep Mushrooms, which gain you Numulite and Unidentified Fossils alongside Logs, making it one of the more profitable options. However, this activity is a bit riskier than Forestry, as you might encounter tar monsters every time you try it. Let us know what you think in the survey!

In terms of intensity, Forestry requires a lot more attention than other Woodcutting methods. To get the most out of this content, you’ll be taking part in different events, creating new items for your Forestry Kit, making campfires, and brewing teas – that’s a lot of effort, so we want to make sure you’re rewarded appropriately.

Consequently, we’re still discussing what the GP per hour is going to look like. Although you’re getting a fun experience and loads of extra XP, we don’t expect Forestry to be a huge moneymaker, especially compared to bossing or, say, crafting Blood Runes. We mentioned before that Forestry will introduce its own mini-economy, so there will be an element of trading there, but where that’s going to fit with the wider economy is still up for debate.

You’ll also have noticed that Forestry isn’t limited to Woodcutting – you’ll get XP rewards for multiple different skills including Firemaking, Herblore, Cooking, Crafting, Fletching, Mining and Smithing. And that list doesn’t even cover the buffs you’ll get from campfires and teas!

Do you think these rewards are adequate? How could we entice you to give Forestry a try? Let us know in the survey below!

We promise, we’re nearly at the survey! But before we invite you to share your thoughts, we just want to give you some idea of when you can expect to see Forestry in the game.

Obviously, our schedule is dependent on how the Community Consultation phase goes, but currently, Forestry will be a two-part release.

We hope to deliver the first part sometime in May, with the second part following shortly after.

Now, this brings us to a big question: having seen everything Forestry has to offer, what do you want us to prioritise? Tree spawning mechanics? Tea recipes? Events? The choice is yours.

I reckon we’re overdue for a nice cup of tea… leaves, anyone?

You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

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