Calm down now.
I'm not arguing that point. Sure wizards can take points in survival and its probably not that uncommon.
I just meant to say that most wizards are probably urban and would never learn wilderness lore. Then again if they planned to wander in the wilderness at level one they might just pick up a book on it.Im not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that wandering in the woods far from civilization alone is probably not a popular wizard past time. That's all.
I'm calm. :) Or I was until that last post about how hunting, killing, cleaning and cooking small game is apparently something like quantum mechanics and requires a life of hard training...
Geez...
This is actually a pretty good illustration of internet flame war escalation. It goes something like this:
"WTF, why does a WIZARD carry a bunch of crap around?"
"Hey, EVERYONE has to carry a load dude!"
"Um.. no, see, if you're a wizard here's how you can avoid carrying a load"
"That'll never work. That spell that creates a downpour that soaks the caster doesn't, you know, actually create water"
"Seriously? What?"
"Oh, and it's virtually impossible to gut, clean and cook a rabbit without poisoning yourself."
"Seriously? What?"
"And putting up a TENT!? Man, that's hard!"
"You have got to be kidding me. Have you people ever actually, you know, hunted, hiked or camped?"
So sorry. All I was trying to do is show how a wizard could avoid carrying a load, not get into a doctoral dissertation on the avoidance of bubonic plague in the preparation of rabbit stew.
I'm not "woodsy" but I'm relatively intelligent. If I had to I could figure out how to catch/skin something. Moreso if I had magic and planned such a trip. More than likely though I'd do that research and bring a more knowledgable friend.
The real irony of this discussion is that Gandalf as described in LotR is vastly more like a mortal man than a typical wizard in Pathfinder is.
Vastly more so.
LazarX, the whole point of Gandalf and the other "wizards" taking the form of flesh and becoming "wizards" was literally so that they would have the weaknesses and limitations of the flesh.
It is a direct analogy to Jesus taking the form of a man.
Gandalf, in wizard form, was meant to be weak and to forsake most of his spiritual powers. That's WHY the other wizards "fell" in one way or another. Gandalf wasn't "holding back" his powers, he had FORSAKEN his powers to become a "wizard."
But that's totally irrelevant to this thread. This thread is about whether a wizard needs to carry a bunch of stuff. Gandalf, in his mortal form in Middle Earth, needed "stuff" just like any other mortal being. He ate, drank, got cold, got wet.... and he had FAR less power than your average fifth level Pathfinder wizard to handle his worldly needs. If you read between the lines for Gandalf what you find is that Gandalf mostly relied on local people to provide him with food, drink and shelter. Mostly he did so based on favors he had earned or his reputation as a wizard. He didn't carry stuff because he knew what he needed would be provided. You could make a comparison to that aspect of Gandalf and Jesus's admonition to "consider the lilies of the field".
Most Wizards will need a bedroll, a winter blanket and some of the usual stuff, so most will be toting a backpack. That not every adventurer depicted in the iconic art is toting a backpack similar to the one the iconic Alchemist is using kinda is artistic license.
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Gandalf often travelled with a pony and cart, loaded up with illegal Mexican fireworks. A Pathfinder wizard with a mount doesn't have to carry blankets and so forth on his person. (Also: Ant Haul?)
Gandalf often travelled with a pony and cart, loaded up with illegal Mexican fireworks. A Pathfinder wizard with a mount doesn't have to carry blankets and so forth on his person. (Also: Ant Haul?)
LOL, love that.
The only time I recall Gandalf in a wagon was when he was hauling fireworks. That was shown, I think, exactly twice in all of Tolkien's writing. Otherwise Gandalf either walked around or rode a horse. The PARTY had ponies with supplies, but Gandalf usually carried nothing other than his staff and sword.
Geezus, are you guys serious? Have you actually gone for long hikes in the woods? I LIVE in the woods. I've got squirrels and rabbits frolicking in my front friggin' yard all day. I've hit squirrels with ROCKS. And I'm not Randy Johnson. Rabbits are a friggin yard-destroying nuisance. And that's not counting the jays, starlings, pigeons, and whatnot that roost in my trees.
You're talking about a world that is mostly wilderness, where animals have not yet learned to fear humans with GUNS.
Seriously, I'm done with this. People will argue anything, especially things they apparently know very little about.
Yes but you have to remember that you live in a modern society where many of the predators have been killed off (despite coyotes' best efforts) and there have dozens if not hundreds of generations of squirrels and rabbits that have been conditioned to no fear humans because we are not a threat to them.
In a (quasi-)medieval setting there are still significant predators, not the least of which are humans, and so these animals will be much more skittish around humans than the modern equivalent. Where I live (suburban denver) we have rabbits that live in just about every landscaping around the metro. They have almost no fear of humans and will only react to you if you are moving directly toward them and are within 5 ft or so. However if we started to hunt them for food, I guarantee that it would take no more than 2 or 3 generations and you would almost never see a rabbit within 100 ft that you didn't carefully track and then succeed in the equivalent of several stealth checks.We have large elk that will roam and even live in semi-urban settings, but I bet we could change that real quick if we started shooting all of them for food.
jb, I grew up living in the woods of rural Louisiana. Some of the places I hunted and fished had not seen a human being other than me and my friends in decades. Our typical means of hunting was to walk through the woods as quietly as possible picking off squirrels or rabbits upwind as we walked.
When we weren't squirrel or rabbit hunting we were frequently dove hunting. The rules require you to shoot them in the air, but believe me many of my friends had no problem picking them off of trees, where they were sitting ducks and frequently would sit there while you walked under them. Quail would just sit still until you walked up on them and then would jump up and try to fly away. And if that wasn't enough you could always head to the local pond and kill bullfrogs by the sack full.
If I had access to an unlimited ray of frost that I could simply point my finger and say "pew" I could have killed so many critters that it would have been silly.
I grew up hunting and fishing and have hunted and fished in several states and in places ranging from virtually untouched by humans to overhunted. Hunting small game is a trivial exercise. I do it with a pellet gun.
I've got to agree with Adamantine Dragon on this one JB -- I am not a sportsman, I don't hunt, I don't do the woods if I don't have to, and I'm generally content to leave the country to those that enjoy it, but even I was able to go out in Kentucky in a semi-rural area where they hunt all the time and hit some small game when invited. Now I'm glad the fellows that were with me were with me as dressing it is something I didn't (and still don't really) know how to do, but it was a good time to be had by all.
I think you're over-reading the Jesus analogy. *All* the Ainur that come into the world were tied to it, Gandalf didn't lose any of his power when clothed in mortal form, nor did Sauron......but I love the image of Ezren hunting for game with a Widened Fireball.
We'll have to disagree Funky. Tolkien talked extensively about this and other things. His views on Gandalf and other "spiritual" things in the book evolved over the years, but he eventually very explicitly stated that his intention was more or less what I wrote above.
But what about the gear that Gabdalf would carry?
Did we ever decide how create him as a character?
We'll have to disagree Funky. Tolkien talked extensively about this and other things. His views on Gandalf and other "spiritual" things in the book evolved over the years, but he eventually very explicitly stated that his intention was more or less what I wrote above.
I think you're over-reading the Jesus analogy. *All* the Ainur that come into the world were tied to it, Gandalf didn't lose any of his power when clothed in mortal form, nor did Sauron......but I love the image of Ezren hunting for game with a Widened Fireball.
Just the text. Doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what he wrote, in the text.
Ahem, but enough literary criticism. :-)
It was reflected in the text Funky. Tolkien took years to write these books, and did extensive revisions of them as his religious views became more and more important to him as the story grew. Also, much of this sort of thing is actually more revealed in The Silmarillion than in LotR, which was published even many years later than LotR.