Welcome to my complete starter guide for OSRS, starting with the basics, some early game pathways and a range of useful info for every aspect of the game.
Table Of Contents
↓ Written Beginner's Guide ↓
Evolution of RuneScape
The gower brothers created runescape in 1999, where it started as devious mud, then evolved into runescape classic and eventually into rs 2 and 3.
Then in 2013, Jagex brought back a snapshot of the 2007 version of the game, now known as old school runescape or OSRS.
The game has received updates almost every week since 2013, with a very strong player base. In 2018, Jagex launched Oldschool RuneScape on mobile devices which makes the game available on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.
New Content in OSRS
With weekly updates, a range of new content has been added to the game.
The Grand Exchange wasn't released until after the Oldschool snapshot, so Jagex introduced the GE to Oldschool in 2015.
There’s also the Ironman gamemodes, released in 2014, where you can’t trade other players in any way. Jagex then introduced hardcore ironman in 2016, where dying revokes your status. Then in 2021, group ironman mode was added allowing you to team up with friends under ironman conditions.
Additionally, there are now raids in Oldschool, where the most recent raid was released in 2022. There are 3 of them, each with loot worth billions.
There has also been 2 new continents added to the game: namely Zeah and Varlamore. Along with five new grandmaster quests have been added since release, each rewarding game changing unlocks.
Making a Jagex Account
Before playing RuneScape, you need to make a Jagex account, and this is where you store your characters. This can be done on the official RuneScape website, by downloading the Jagex launcher, or just by downloading the old school RuneScape mobile app..
A Jagex account is far more secure than the old authentication methods, and allows you to hold multiple characters under 1 account. Jagex also improved recovery, 2 factor authentication, and attack protection.
If you're making a new account, you are required to use a Jagex account, although if you still know your login details from back in the day, you can use that login too, but you will have to start from level 3.
Once you have the Jagex launcher and a Jagex account, you need to download the client to play RuneScape. If you’re playing on mobile, that's just the mobile app, but on PC, you can either play on the official client, the Runelite client or HDOS. I would recommend Runelite for your first time playing, especially for plugins like quest helper.
Once you're ready to begin, your journey starts on tutorial island…
Tutorial island starts off going over the basic controls and actions, then you get a glimpse at skilling and combat training. Then it includes an introduction to the poll system, clan chat, friends list and ironman gamemodes.
Mechanics & Menus
Runescape is a Tile- based point and click game, where it runs on a tick-based system. In-game actions happen every 0.6 seconds.
It is a sandbox mmo, meaning you have the freedom to do whatever you want. There is no linear path in OSRS that you HAVE to follow.
To move around, you can either click or tap on your screen, or on the mini-map in the top right. The arrow keys are used to change the camera angle, or you can hold down the middle mouse button, and drag around the screen.
There are some other interfaces to be aware of:
When in a chat dialogue, you can either click to select what you want to say.
Or you can use your keyboard. Using the numbers, you can select which option you want, or you can use the space bar to continue.
In the game settings, there's an option to set escape to close your current window, which can be useful for training some skills.
Combat Explained
There are 3 main combat styles in Runescape: Melee, Ranged and Magic.
Combat is based on random number generation, also known as RNG. You hit a damage number based on your offensive bonuses and the enemies defensive stats.
With certain boss encounters you'll have to dodge attacks like area of effect attacks, or you may need to change your protection prayers, which negate all damage.
Certain enemies are weak to certain attack styles, so you'll have to use different switch gear depending on what you're fighting. This means you'll have to bring all 3 attack styles to places like raids.
Mini Combat Guide
Now I'm going to show a mini combat training guide.
Weapons & Armour
For both members and free to play, using your best scimitar is the best for melee combat training. These have a fast attack speed and decent damage. You can buy scimitars from the shop in Al Kharid, or you can buy one off the grand exchange.
In terms of armour, for melee you should be using your best metal armour set, and that ranges from bronze armour to rune armour between levels 1 and 40. You should also use the amulet of strength, as well as the combat bracelet if you're a member.
For ranged training, free to play players can use the best bow they can, but members have a range of extra ranged weapons like knives and darts. For ranged weapons at a low level, you can buy bows and arrows from the ranged shop in Varrock.
Ranged armour for low levels includes leather armour and dragonhide armour, and these give small attacking bonuses for ranged. You can view the ranged skill guide in game to view the highest level armour for you.
For magic, using fire strike is a decent start. Its cheap and hits fairly high. You can camp fire strike for a while, but with magic there is a large variety of training methods, like alching, teleporting, enchanting and more.
To get runes for spells, there's a magic shop in both port sarim and Varrock, so you can buy from either one.
For magic, you should wear wizards robes to start out, then you can eventually get mystic if you're a member. There aren't many free to play wizard sets, but you can get Zamorak robes.
F2P Training Spots
Now ill show you a range of training spots for free to play, then members.
In free-to-play, if you're just off Tutorial Island, a decent training spot is on cows. They have higher health than chickens and goblins, and they drop more valuable loot.
You can pickup the cowhides, meat and bones if you're looking to make a bit of starter cash.
Once you reach around level 20 in the combat skills, you can move onto something harder than cows.
There are now frogs in the Lumbridge swamp, which have varying combat levels. You can fight the level 13 frogs, and since they have 23 hitpoints, they are decent to train on.
Once you reach around level 30s in the combat skills, you can then move onto the flesh crawlers in the stronghold of security, on floor 2. These are a low effort training spot since they're aggressive, and they also drop a bit of loot.
Once you reach level 50 in the combat stats, you can move down one floor in the stronghold to the spiders and you can AFK there. Here though, its recommended to bring full rune armour plus food, and you can afk for 10 minutes at a time.
If you're looking for a bit of money in free to play, you can fight ogress warriors after the corsair curse quest. These drop some valuable runes and armour pieces, which you can sell on the Grand Exchange for decent money.
Members Training Spots
Straight off tutorial island, the most efficient way to level your combat stats is to complete quests.
Most importantly, the Waterfall Quest is one you should get out of the way first, and this gets you from level 1 attack and strength to level 30 in both, with zero requirements. There are some quests you can do for magic and ranged, but some have higher requirements.
Alternatively, without questing, you can instantly start training on crabs for decent relaxed experience. I would recommend rock crabs or sand crabs, and rock crabs are found in the northern section of Relekka, and sand crabs are found south on Zeah.
For these, you just stand next to the rocks on the ground and they spawn and attack you, then after 10 minutes, you need to run out of view and run back to reset the aggression, since they stop attacking after 10 minutes.
Crabs are your best low effort training option until around level 70 in the combat stats, although I would recommend getting into Slayer for your combat training once you reach 50 or 60 in the combat stats since Slayer is the best way to level up.
Quests Explained
Questing is vital in progressing your Runescape account. There are quest lines that unlock a multitude of things, but technically its not required to do quests.
Although not required, quests are essential for setting up your account with important items, money makers, bosses, and more.
If you'd like to complete quests efficiently, there's a broad range of guides out there to help you with quests. Slayermusiq is excellent for video guides, the Wiki is great for written guides, and using the Quest Helper - Runelite plugin will show you exactly what to do for each quest.
With quests, some amazing players have created optimal questing orders, that show you which quests to do first, and the order to do them in. This can save you hours and hours in the long run, so if you're interested in reading the optimal quest order, you can google optimal quest order OSRS or I've linked Slayermusiq's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@slayermusiq1
There are also achievement diaries, which are a list of tasks you need to complete and the rewards are highly beneficial for your account, especially the high tier ones.
The Skills in OSRS
Hitpoints
First up, is the hitpoints skill, and this is the same thing as your health. Levelling the hitpoints skill increases your maximum health. This skill is trained sort of passively while you train the other combat skills.
Attack
There’s your attack level, which improves your melee accuracy, and also allows you to wield higher tier weapons. Essentially, it makes you hit more often. It doesn't make you hit any harder, just more accurately, however unlocking better weapons can improve your damage.
Strength
The strength skill increases your melee max hits, and is also required to wear some higher tier weaponry. It makes you hit harder, but has no improvement to your accuracy.
Defence
Increasing your defence level lowers the chance of an enemy hitting you, although it has no reduction on the amount of damage they can do per hit. Although, certain defensive armours are locked behind your defence level, even armours that give a strength bonus, so training your defence is important.
Ranged
Ranged is archery, where levelling up unlocks better ranged weapons and ammunition. Having a higher ranged level makes you deal more damage with ranged, but it doesn't make you shoot faster or anything like that.
Prayer
The prayer skill is used to activate prayers, and you're only able to pray for as long as your prayer level. So your prayer level and prayer points are the same, so when you're using prayers, it drains your prayer points. Its a very expensive skill to train, however with a low prayer level, you’ll have a tough time with PvM.
Magic
Increasing your magic level allows you to cast more spells, like combat spells, teleportation and utilities. Having a higher magic level does improve your accuracy, but it only affects your max hit in some cases. The type of spell you use is what determines the max hit more than anything. To cast spells, you need runes, which can be expensive to use in comparison to the other combat styles.
Mining
Levelling the mining skill, allows you to mine higher tier rocks found around RuneScape. Despite being profitable, the profit rates aren't overly good, and its a relatively slow skill to train compared to some of the others.
Smithing
The smithing skill is used to smelt ores into bars, then turn the bars into weapons and items. In contrast, smithing is quite a fast skill to train, although it does require a bit of money to do it quickly.
Fishing
The fishing skill allows you to catch various fish and sea life throughout the game. Having a higher fishing level allows you to catch more types of fish, and also increases your fishing speed. It’s usually an AFK skill to train, although is quite slow if you train afk. Its a semi profitable skill, but for most of the good fishing spots, you drop the fish.
Cooking
Cooking is a skill used to make a range of different foods, where a higher cooking level lowers your burn rate, and also allows you to create new recipes. This is the most common skilling 99 in the game, mostly because its a fast skill and its very cheap to train, and even profitable in some cases.
Firemaking
The Firemaking skill is one used to light different logs to make fires. The higher your Firemaking level, the higher tier of logs you can burn, which only gives more CP, and not much else. The skill is pretty much useless, except for the fact that you can make a bit of money while training your Firemaking at the Wintertodt and for ironmen this is also good for early game supplies.
Woodcuting
Woodcutting is used to cut down trees within the game, where having a higher woodcutting level increases your chances of receiving logs, as well as gives access to more trees. Its one of the slower skills to train overall, but can be sped up with tick manipulation methods.
Crafting
The crafting skill is used to create various armour, weapons and jewellery. Having a higher level lets you create more things, with some higher level unlocks being gamechangers. On an ironman account, crafting is a very slow skill since you have to gather the resources yourself. In the main game you can train it fairly quickly and inexpensively.
Runecraft
The final free to play skill, is Runecrafting, which I would strongly recommend NOT training in free to play. Its much faster in members, and essentially this skill allows you to turn essence into magical runes, where having a higher level gives access to more runes. Runecrafting is often regarded as one of the slowest, most tedious skills in the game, with very slow XP rates although it does give a lot of profit.
So those were all the free to play skills, now lets talk about members skills.
Construction
The construction skill is used to build and upgrade your player owned house. Having a house provides a range of useful teleports, regeneration pools and other utilities which improve your gameplay. The main drawback of a house is that its very expensive to level your construction and upgrade your house. You can also use world 330 to access other players houses and use their utilities.
Agility
Another members skill is agility, which is used to access certain shortcuts throughout the game. It also affects how quickly your run energy drains and regenerates. Agility is one of the slowest skills to train in the game, but its a very useful one.
Herblore
The herblore skill is used to make a range of potions. You need to complete the druidic ritual quest to be able to do herblore, and having a higher level lets you create a larger variety of potions. Its a pretty expensive skill to train, but not as expensive as some, and is essential for ironmen to create potions.
Thieving
The thieving skill is trained by stealing things, which can be an excellent way to get some cash early on. Having a higher thieving level reduces your chances of getting caught, and also lets you steal from better locations.
Fletching
The fletching skill involves creating ranged weapons and ammunition. Getting a higher fletching level unlocks higher level bows, crossbows, arrows, and more. It is a skill where you have to spend a lot of money to train it quickly, and the slow methods bring minimal profit.
Slayer
Increasing your slayer level lets you fight monsters that you normally couldn't, with some high level slayer monsters bringing in millions of coins per hour. You get assigned a slayer task, and you kill those assigned monsters to receive slayer experience. Slayer is one of the best ways to train your combat skills efficiently, while making a profit in some cases.
Hunter
The hunter skill is used to catch a range of creatures around RuneScape. A higher hunter level unlocks more creatures and more potential money makers. Hunter can be a fairly click intensive skill if you want to train it quickly.
Farming
The 23rd skill in Oldschool, is many people’s favourite, and that is farming. This is exactly what it sounds like. You grow and harvest various crops across the game. There are farming patches in a range of areas, and here you can plant stuff. Most of the farming methods involve planting, then waiting until they're grown, which can take hours, then harvesting and repeating.
Early Game Guide
Now that you know about all of the skills, you might be wondering, with so many skills, where should you start? Well now ill take you through some early game pathways and goals.
Much of the early game involves questing and skilling towards quest requirements. For members, working towards the recipe for disaster quest is a major step in progressing your account. If you're not really sure how to start or progress with questing, you can follow the optimal quest order spreadsheet provided by Slayermusiq.
For free to play players, you can aim for the dragon slayer quest.
To get a boost in combat from an early level, you should aim to complete the waterfall quest, which boosts you from level 1 attack and strength to level 30.
You can also do a range of other fairly easy quests for more combat experience.
An important early game goal is to unlock all of the essential skills. This includes druidic ritual for herblore and rune mysteries for runecraft. There’s also the quests for blackjacking, pyramid plunder, guardians of the rift, and a few others, and those can be completed as you unlock those methods.
If you're a new player, having a bit of cash is going to go a long way, letting you purchase teleports, gear, food and other useful stuff.
Completing herb runs is considered to be the best money maker without super high requirements.
Thieving is another way to get some starter cash, where going for 99 will get you 15 million GP at Ardy knights.
Crafting is profitable in some cases, where making jewellery can sometimes make a million per hour.
There’s a lot of resources online about money making, so if you're looking for a method that suits you, do a bit of research and you’ll find something.
You should get comfortable looking at guides and also get comfortable using the client, whether that's Runelite, standard or mobile. There’s tons of free guides and resources out there for you to use, so if you're stuck, look things up with the keyword “OSRS” at the end.
The number 1 early game goal for new players, is to establish your account goals and pathway. There is no set path in RuneScape, you can do whatever you want, so its nice to set a goal, like 99 in a skill or defeating certain bosses. This gives you something to work towards.
Mid Game Content
Once you reach a decent total level, and hopefully have obtained the barrows gloves, you’ll be able to explore the OSRS mid-game.
This involves grinding minigame rewards such as the dragon defender, void, barbarian assault and more.
The aim is to unlock all of the essential untradeables, while building your bank, so it also includes a lot of mid-game money making and working towards the harder quests.
Once you reach the mid-game, bossing also becomes an option and there's a broad range of bosses available.
Perilous moons is a great one, where it sets you up with the knowledge you need for higher level PvM challenges.
You can also partake in the Wilderness bosses, defeating Zulrah, or doing the Barrows activity.
End Game Content
With 90s in most of your skills, you can consider yourself entering the end game of osrs. End game content includes Raids, elite achievement diaries, high tiers of combat achievements, high level training methods, and completing high tier clue scrolls.
Jagex has continued to add a range of end game content to the game, with the recent addition of the colosseum, which provides the best money in the game if you're good at it.
End game bossing includes mechanically intensive bosses that will test all of your skills that you've learned, including prayer switches, gear switches, avoiding damage, and more.
Achievements
Journeying from level 1 in a skill, all the way to level 99 takes hundreds of hours for most skills. It’s a big achievement that should be celebrated, and the game celebrates this achievement with a skillcape.
Skillcapes provide small perks for the skill, with some being extremely useful.
So getting to 99 takes a long time, but some players have achieved the maximum experience, which is 200 million.
Level 99 is 13 million experience, so 200 million is like getting 99, fifteen times.
Lynx titan was the first player to get 200 million experience in all 23 skills, 5 years after the release of Oldschool.
But achievements go further than skills. Some players have pushed the limits of Runescape to achieve some unimaginable feats.
For example: Muts is one of the most respected hardcore ironman accounts, where he has the grandmaster combat achievements without dying.
There’s also the level 3 fire cape, achieved by both rendi and xzact, which took hours and hours of theorycrafting.
Pets are another significant achievement in most cases, unless they're spooned, but essentially you have a very tiny chance of getting a pet from a range of bosses and skilling activities.
The rarest pet in the game, excluding new pets, is the penance queen pet, where less than 5 thousand players have it.
The most common pet in the game is rocky, the thieving skill pet, which is dropped while training thieving.
So that was my complete beginners guide to OSRS.
Links to every section of this guide:
If you would prefer to watch a video version of this guide you can watch that below.
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