Combat
Pick Melee, Ranged or Magic and a monster from the bestiary. Every key press or click is one attack. Here is what happens behind it.
An attack
- One input is one attack, whatever the weapon: there is no attack speed. If you're out of arrows, runes or tar, the attack does nothing, but the monster still swings.
- The monster swings back once every few of your inputs (its "attacks every" number), counting your attacks whether they hit or not.
- A landed hit gives XP for its damage: 8 XP per damage to Attack, Strength, Defence or Ranged (shared by your stance), 11 to Magic, and 2.67 to Hitpoints on every hit whatever your stance. A miss, or a hit for 0, gives nothing. XP boosts from accessories, food and potions apply as usual.
- After a kill the next monster appears 2.5 seconds later (the Agility perk Hot Pursuit shortens it).
Accuracy
Both sides roll: you roll from 0 to your effective attack + 7, the monster from 0 to its Defence + 7. You hit if your roll is higher. Your effective attack is your style's level (Attack for Melee, Ranged for Ranged, Magic for Magic) plus your gear's attack bonus (for Melee every piece counts; for Ranged and Magic the weapon, plus the Ranged accuracy of leather and hide armour or the Magic accuracy of robes) and any potion, then multiplied by your prayer and the armour triangle below. Armour accuracy never raises your max hit. The monster rolls against you the same way, using your Defence plus your armour.
you hit if random(0 … attack + 7) > random(0 … defence + 7)Max hit
A hit that lands does anything from 0 to your max hit.
Melee floor(Strength × 0.5 + 1) + weapon strengthRanged floor(Ranged × 0.5 + 1) + weapon strength + ammo strengthMagic the spell's max hit + staff strengthMonster floor(its Strength × 0.5 + 1)Prayers, the Empower spell, a salamander's tar and some Slayer items multiply these. Some monsters hit harder when enraged or when you lack their counter (see the monster's page).
Armour types
Every monster wears one of three kinds of armour, and it changes your accuracy:
| You attack with | vs Metal | vs Hide | vs Robe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melee (slash) | ×0.75 | ×1.0 | ×1.25 |
| Melee (crush, a maul) | ×1.15 | ×1.0 | ×1.25 |
| Ranged | ×0.75 | ×1.0 | ×1.25 |
| Magic | ×1.25 | ×0.75 | ×1.0 |
- Metal. Heavily armoured: Magic cuts straight through; Melee and Ranged glance off. A crush weapon (a maul) lands where a blade glances.
- Hide. Thick hide: shrugs off Magic; Melee and Ranged hit normally.
- Robe. Soft or unarmoured: Melee and Ranged tear in; Magic only lands normally.
A few monsters are also weak to crush: a maul gets a further bonus against them (see each monster's page). Your own armour type doesn't change this triangle; what it can do is make some attacks less accurate against you (see armour that turns attacksbelow).
Prayers
Prayers boost your accuracy, damage or defence, or block one style of attack completely: Bladeguard for melee, Arrowguard for ranged, Spellguard for magic. They drain prayer points every combat input; every kill refills some. The full list is on the Prayer page.
Health, food and death
- Your max health is 10 + your Hitpoints level.
- Food in your food slot is eaten automatically below the auto-eat threshold (Settings, 25% to start), as many bites as it takes. It can't save you from a killing blow. See Food.
- Dying costs nothing but time: a 15-second wait before you can fight again (the Agility perk Second Wind shortens it), then you're back at full health with full prayer points, and the monster you were fighting is back at full health too. Poison and stat drain are cleared. You keep every bit of XP, every item and all your gold. Skilling keeps working while you wait.
- Out of combat you heal 1 HP every half second once you've stopped fighting for 3 seconds, and 1 HP every 10 inputs of other work.
Dragonfire
Dragons breathe fire on some of their attacks instead of biting: it skips the accuracy roll and protection prayers don't stop it. An anti-dragon shield (or a dragonfire shield) or an antifire potion cuts it to a fifth; a shield and an antifire together, or a super antifire, stop it completely. Breathers: Green Dragon (up to 20), Blue Dragon (up to 30), Red Dragon (up to 40), Black Dragon (up to 50), King Black Dragon (up to 60).
Armour that turns attacks
Some armour makes one style of attack less accurate against you, for every piece you wear (helmet, body, legs, off-hand):
- Granite: ranged attacks ×0.93 accuracy per piece
- Dragonhide: magic attacks ×0.95 accuracy per piece
- Veldhide: melee and ranged attacks ×0.98 accuracy per piece
- Prowlerhide: melee and ranged attacks ×0.98 accuracy per piece
- Sabrehide: melee and ranged attacks ×0.98 accuracy per piece
- Blue dragonhide: magic attacks ×0.94 accuracy per piece
- Red dragonhide: magic attacks ×0.93 accuracy per piece
- Black dragonhide: magic attacks ×0.92 accuracy per piece
Poison
Putrid monsters can poison you: each hit of theirs that lands has a 30% chance to add a stack (up to 10). Every 5 combat inputs, poison deals damage equal to its stacks. Plague-touched food and antipoison potions cure it and keep it off for a while. Out of combat the stacks fade, one every 2 seconds.
Arrows, bolts, runes and tar
- One arrow or bolt per shot, hit or miss. When the monster dies, 80%(rounded down) of the ammo you fired at it comes back (switch targets and you lose the tally).
- Spells use their runes per cast, hit or miss, but 30% of casts are free. Passive spells pay every input.
- Salamanders burn one tar per attack in any style.
Combat level
Your combat level (shown in your stats, up to 113) is a quarter of your Defence + Hitpoints, plus 0.325 × your best of Attack + Strength, 1.5 × Ranged, or 1.5 × Magic. A monster's level in the game's guide is simply (its Attack + Strength + Defence + HP) ÷ 4, rounded.
Every number on this wiki is read from RuneClick 3.3.0's own game files, so it matches what the game does. It updates itself when a new version ships. Spot something off? Tell us on the Discord.