Skilling

Nearly everything you do on the isles trains a skill. Every action gives experience (XP); enough XP raises a skill's level, all the way to 999. The climb steepens up to level 99, then settles into a long, steady road to the cap. Higher levels let you use better tools, gather rarer resources, craft stronger gear, and take on tougher content.

Your total level is the sum of all twenty skills — the number the hiscores rank you by. There's no wrong order: train what you enjoy, and the rest of the isles opens up as you go.

The twenty skills fall into three families — combat, gathering, and production.

Combat skills

• 
  Attack — Your melee accuracy and which weapons you can wield. Higher Attack lands more hits with stronger weapons.
• 
  Strength — How hard you hit in melee — the main driver of melee damage.
• 
  Defense — Your resilience and which armour you can wear. Higher Defense means fewer blows land on you.
• 
  Constitution — Your health and staying power. It rises as you fight; if it hits zero you're sent back to respawn.
• 
  Archery — Combat with bows and arrows, striking from a safe distance.
• 
  Faith — Blessings and protections drawn from the isles' shrines — grown by burying bones and honouring the fallen.
• 
  Arcana — Spellcraft from the isles' spellbooks: damage, curses, enchantments, and travel, powered by runes.

Gathering skills

• 
  Botany — Gather wild herbs and cleanse them for use in brews and wards.
• 
  Farming — Plant seeds, tend your crops, and harvest the yield.
• 
  Firemaking — Light logs for fires to cook over, and keep furnaces fuelled.
• 
  Fishing — Catch fish at fishing spots with the right rod and bait; higher levels land better catches. Feeds Cooking.
• 
  Hunting — Set traps and snares for the isles' game, and check them for the catch.
• 
  Mining — Swing a pickaxe at rocks for ore; better pickaxes and higher levels reach richer veins. Feeds Blacksmithing.
• 
  Woodcutting — Chop trees for logs; higher levels fell tougher trees. Feeds Firemaking and Woodworking.

Production skills

• 
  Blacksmithing — Smelt ore into bars at a furnace, then hammer bars into tools and gear at an anvil.
• 
  Construction — Raise buildings and furnishings at build sites across the isles.
• 
  Cooking — Turn raw food into meals on a fire or range; meals restore your Constitution in combat. Burnt food happens less as you level.
• 
  Tailoring — Cut and sew cloth and hide into garments and gear.
• 
  Warding — Craft runes and lay enchantments — the maker's side of the arcane arts.
• 
  Woodworking — Plane logs into planks, fittings, and furniture.

Gathering feeds production

The isles' skills pair up: what you gather is the raw material for what you craft. Train a pair together and you'll rarely run short of materials.

Mining → Blacksmithing
Mine ore, smelt it into bars, forge gear.

Fishing → Cooking
Catch fish, cook them into healing meals.

Woodcutting → Firemaking
Chop logs, burn them for fires to cook over.

Woodcutting → Woodworking
Chop logs, plane them into planks and furniture.

Ready to see where you stack up? Check the hiscores, or read the New Player's Guide to get started.