Skills

Skills are a player's attributes that can be advanced throughout the game. Skills are trained by repeating actions that give experience in the skill until enough experience is earned to advance to the next level. Skills range from cooking food, to chopping trees and to casting magic. Some skills are "interlaced", meaning that they can be used together. For example, logs obtained from Woodcutting can be lit for Firemaking, which can then be used to cook food for Cooking.

There are 24 different skills in Old School RuneScape.

All skills start out at level 1 except for Hitpoints, which starts with level 10. Players can advance a skill to level 99. After that, they can increase their experience up to 200,000,000 but get no more levels for doing so. See Hiscores for the relative rankings of the different skills.

Skills can be temporarily boosted through special equipment, items, Prayer, or potions.

When viewing the skills interface, each skill has a numerator and a denominator. While their roles vary by skill, the numerator generally represents the acting level, while the denominator represents the base/actual level. The numerator can be increased or decreased by external factors, depending on the skill.

• For Hitpoints, the numerator represents the player's current health, and the denominator represents the player's maximum health. The numerator can be raised by consuming food.
• For Prayer, the numerator represents the player's current prayer points, and the denominator represents the player's maximum prayer points and prayer level. The numerator can be restored by praying at an altar.
• For all other skills, the numerator can be increased by using boosts or decreased when a drain is applied.

For all skills except Prayer, the numerator will always move back to the denominator on its own (i.e. regenerate if it has been decreased, or fall back down if it has been increased) given enough time.

There are 15 free-to-play skills:

There are 9 members-only skills:

As defined by Jagex, there are four types of skills: Combat, Gathering, Production and Utility.^[1] These categories are not absolute, with especially Magic and Sailing having capabilities that fall into most of the types.

Combat skills - A skill that directly integrates with the existing combat system and can improve your power in combat.

Attack, Defence, Hitpoints, Magic, Prayer, Ranged, and Strength.

Gathering skills - A skill that focuses on collecting resources generally to train Production skills.

Farming, Fishing, Hunter, Mining, and Woodcutting.

Production skills - A skill used to take raw resources and use them to make something useful. In Old School RuneScape, these tend to resemble real-life trades.

Cooking, Crafting, Fletching, Herblore, Runecraft, and Smithing.

Utility skills - A skill that enhances gameplay mechanics in a unique way. These tend to expand a player's tool-kit in a way that is difficult to describe.

Agility, Construction, Firemaking, Sailing, Slayer, and Thieving.

The amount of experience needed for every level-up increases by approximately 10% per level. For example, 83 experience is required between levels 1 and 2, but 91 experience between levels 2 and 3 (10% of 83 is roughly 8, therefore the next level-up would require 91 experience). The required experience for each level-up grows exponentially; the growth of experience gaps between levels gets larger and larger at higher levels. The experience table indicates this clearly. Effectively, the required level-up experience doubles approximately every seven levels. For example, the experience needed for level 92 in a skill is almost exactly half of that needed to reach level 99.

The experience required to go from level to the next is

where rounds down. By ignoring the inner rounding, we get the close and sometimes convenient approximation

Several new skills have been proposed since the release of Old School RuneScape, but so far only Sailing successfully passed a poll and was added to the game.

Artisan was developed in 2014 and was polled twice on 17 July and 21 August. Artisan would have been similar to Slayer, but for skills, rather than combat. The skill would have involved getting tasks from Artisan masters, then gathering and crafting specific items to gain experience. Some content originally designed for Artisan was repurposed and released separately, such as Redwood Trees and wieldable fishing rods from Aerial fishing.

Warding was first announced at RuneFest 2018 and was developed over the course of 2019. The skill would have involved creation of magical robes and armour using fabrics and vis. Warding was polled on 19 July.

Shamanism was proposed in March 2023, alongside Taming and a redesigned Sailing, as a concept for a potential new skill to be developed. Shamanism would have focused on gathering materials and using them to craft items imbued with shamanistic magic, such as relics or totems. The Spirit Realm would have also been added, to be accessed through Shamanism. It was polled against Sailing and Taming on 4 April, receiving the second most votes and losing to Sailing. Despite losing the poll, it was considered popular enough for the concept to be retained for potential development in the future.

Taming was proposed in March 2023, alongside Shamanism and a redesigned Sailing, as a concept for a potential new skill to be developed. Taming would have focused on taming creatures, which could be trained. Trained creatures would have been able to assist a player in a variety of ways, such as unlocking new areas, or assisting with other skills. It was polled against Sailing and Shamanism on 4 April, where it received the least votes, resulting in the concept being scrapped.

v t e Skills
Combat	Attack Strength Defence Ranged Prayer Magic Hitpoints
Gathering	Farming Fishing Hunter Mining Woodcutting
Production	Cooking Crafting Fletching Herblore Runecraft Smithing
Utility	Agility Construction Firemaking Sailing Slayer Thieving
Proposed skills	Artisan Warding Taming Sailing (2015 proposal) Shamanism
Related	Experience Skill mastery 200 million experience Summoning

v t e Interface
Control Panel	Top Combat Options Sailing Options Skills Character Summary Quest List Achievement Diaries Kourend Favour (removed) Adventure Paths Inventory Worn Equipment Equipment Stats Items Kept on Death Guide Prices Call follower Prayer Spellbook Bottom Friends List Ignore List Account Management Account Community Links Chat-channel Clans Grouping Logout World switching Settings Emotes Music player
Minimap	Compass Hitpoints Quick prayers Run energy Special attack Activity Adviser Store orb World map Wiki lookup
Other	Chat Interface Choose Option Walk here Examine Debug Console Font Game controls Main Menu Trading interface Welcome Screen