Key points
- A skill is something a character gets better at by doing it: fishing, cooking, fighting and so on.
- Doing it earns experience (XP); enough XP raises the level, from 1 to 99.
- Each level needs about 10% more XP than the last, so level 92 is halfway to 99.
- Higher levels unlock new things: better trees and ores, stronger gear, new spells.
Levels and experience
Every action in a skill earns experience, or XP. Chop a tree and Woodcutting XP goes up; with enough of it, the Woodcutting level rises. Levels run from 1 to 99. Hitpoints is the one exception at the start: it begins at 10. After 99, XP keeps counting up to 200 million, but the level stays at 99.
Each level needs about 10% more XP than the one before. Level 2 needs 83 XP; level 99 needs 13,034,431. Because the curve climbs so steeply, level 92 is almost exactly halfway to 99. The first levels come in minutes. The last ones take many hours.
All the levels added up make the total level. The highest is 2,376, which is 99 in all 24 skills.
What levels unlock
A level is a key. Mining 15 lets a character mine iron. Woodcutting 15 lets it cut oak trees. Attack 40 lets it wield rune weapons, and Defence 40 wear rune armour. Some doors, shortcuts and quests need a level too.
Tip. Click a skill in the skills tab to see everything it unlocks, level by level.
The 24 skills
Jagex sorts the skills into four groups. Fifteen are free; the other nine need membership.
| Skill | Group | Free | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Combat | Yes | Hitting more often with melee, and wielding better melee weapons. |
| Strength | Combat | Yes | Hitting harder with melee. |
| Defence | Combat | Yes | Wearing better armour, and being hit less often. |
| Hitpoints | Combat | Yes | How much damage a character can take. |
| Ranged | Combat | Yes | Bows, crossbows and thrown weapons, and the armour for them. |
| Magic | Combat | Yes | Combat spells, teleports and other useful spells. |
| Prayer | Combat | Yes | Short boosts in a fight, such as blocking melee. |
| Mining | Gathering | Yes | Getting ore and stone from rocks. |
| Fishing | Gathering | Yes | Catching fish. |
| Woodcutting | Gathering | Yes | Cutting trees for logs. |
| Farming | Gathering | No | Growing herbs, crops and trees. |
| Hunter | Gathering | No | Catching wild animals. |
| Cooking | Production | Yes | Cooking food, which heals. |
| Smithing | Production | Yes | Smelting ore into bars and making them into weapons and armour. |
| Crafting | Production | Yes | Jewellery, pottery, leather armour and more. |
| Runecraft | Production | Yes | Making the runes that spells use. |
| Fletching | Production | No | Making bows, arrows and bolts. |
| Herblore | Production | No | Making potions from herbs. |
| Firemaking | Utility | Yes | Lighting fires from logs, to cook on and more. |
| Agility | Utility | No | Shortcuts, and run energy that lasts longer. |
| Thieving | Utility | No | Pickpocketing and stealing from stalls and chests. |
| Slayer | Utility | No | Killing monsters a Slayer master assigns. |
| Construction | Utility | No | Building and furnishing a house. |
| Sailing | Utility | No | Sailing boats, salvaging wrecks and charting the seas. |
Skills feed each other
Many skills work together. Logs from Woodcutting burn for Firemaking, and members turn them into bows with Fletching. Fish from Fishing are cooked with Cooking and eaten to heal in a fight. Ore from Mining becomes bars, then armour, with Smithing.
Tip. No skill has to be trained now. Train what looks fun; the rest will wait.