RuneScape 3 Beginner's Guide: Onboarding, Combat & Your First 10 Hours

RS3 vs OSRS — Which Are You Playing?

RuneScape today comes in two live versions, both by Jagex:

• RuneScape 3 (RS3) — Modern RuneScape. Has ability-based combat, Legacy Mode (like classic), 3D animations, ~29 skills, MTX (microtransactions), and years of newer content.
• Old School RuneScape (OSRS) — 2007-era RuneScape restored and separately developed. Point-and-click combat, ~23 skills, no MTX, community-voted updates.

This guide is for RuneScape 3. If you're not sure which one you want, try both — separate save files, both included with membership.

Key RS3 advantages: Better graphics, faster to level, more skills, revolutionary combat abilities.

Key RS3 downsides: MTX-heavy in the endgame, smaller community, steeper interface.

The New Player Experience (Ashdale)

New RS3 accounts start on Ashdale, a small island tutorial. It walks you through:

• Camera controls (right-click drag or middle-click).
• Basic combat against tutorial rats and crabs.
• Basic skilling — mining, fishing, cooking, woodcutting.
• Inventory management (28 slots, upgradable via the Tool Belt).
• Interface layout — the modern NIS (New Interface System) is highly customizable.

Ashdale is fast — ~30 minutes. When you finish, you're teleported to Lumbridge.

Lumbridge Onboarding & Path to Burthorpe

RS3's Lumbridge has a task system guiding you. Follow the yellow markers.

The main "chase this next" quest chain for beginners is the Path System — an in-game to-do list of beginner content. It highlights:

1. The Blood Pact (Level 5 combat) — Tutorial-length quest at the Combat Academy in Burthorpe. Teaches you EoC ability rotations. Required reading — do this early.

2. A Shadow Over Ashdale — Continues your Ashdale story. Small XP rewards but nice narrative.

3. What's Mine Is Yours — Beginner Mining/Smithing quest.

4. Cook's Assistant — Same as OSRS, still the fastest Cooking XP boost.

5. Gunnar's Ground / Sheep Shearer / Restless Ghost — Novice quests worth doing for the QP total.

Travel to Burthorpe via the Lodestone Network (see next section) as soon as it's unlocked.

The Lodestone Network

RS3's most beginner-friendly system. Lodestones are permanent teleport points scattered across the map.

• Open the Home Teleport interface (default: key binding customizable, or top-left teleport button).
• Click any lodestone you've activated to teleport there for free — no runes, no requirements.
• Lodestones you haven't visited yet appear locked. To activate one, walk to it once.

Priority lodestones to unlock early:

• Lumbridge (default)
• Burthorpe (Combat Academy, main quest hub)
• Varrock (Grand Exchange)
• Falador (Party Room, White Knights)
• Al-Kharid (Duel Arena history / early questing)
• Draynor (bank + willows)

Also unlock the Max Guild teleport network at level 99 in any skill — but that's a much later concern.

EoC Combat Basics

EoC (Evolution of Combat) is RS3's modern combat system. Key concepts:

Abilities

Weapons unlock abilities — active skills you slot onto action bars (up to 5 bars, 14 slots each). Abilities have:

• Cost: Consume adrenaline (0–100%).
• Cooldown: ~4 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Type: Basic (build adrenaline), Threshold (uses 50%), Ultimate (uses 100%).

Set up a bar with auto-attack + rotation of basics + one threshold + one ultimate.

Adrenaline

• Basic abilities build ~8% adrenaline.
• Threshold abilities (unlock at Attack 8+) cost 50% adrenaline.
• Ultimate abilities cost 100%.
• Sunshine (Magic), Death's Swiftness (Ranged), Berserk (Melee) are the endgame ultimates that scale to your damage.

Revolution Mode

Under Combat Settings → Combat Mode, enable Revolution. The game auto-fires abilities from your action bar in order. Perfect for beginners — you just click a target, walk into melee range, and abilities fire automatically. Manual full input comes later.

Combat Skills to Prioritize (RS3)

RS3 has the same seven combat stats as OSRS plus one:

1. Attack / Strength / Defence — Melee (as OSRS).

2. Ranged — Bow / crossbow / thrown.

3. Magic — Spells.

4. Constitution — Renamed HP, effectively the same. Passive gain from combat.

5. Prayer — Same as OSRS, bury bones.

6. Summoning — RS3-exclusive skill. Summon familiars for combat/skilling boosts. Level 8 Summoning for the first pet — do the intro quest Wolf Whistle early.

Priority order: Do The Blood Pact first (5 combat XP for free), then push all combat to level 40+ before doing hard quests. RS3's early combat XP rates are 2–3x OSRS thanks to abilities.

Combat mode toggles: Attack style (F1) sets which stat gets XP:

• Aggressive → Strength / Ranged / Magic
• Accurate → Attack / Ranged / Magic (accuracy boost)
• Defensive → Defence
• Balanced → All melee stats evenly

The Tool Belt

Life-changer for RS3 beginners. Every gathering tool you pick up is stored on your Tool Belt — not your inventory. Pickaxes, hatchets, hammers, tinderboxes, chisels, fishing rods, etc. all live on the belt and are used automatically.

How to use:

• Pick up any tool once — right-click → "Add to Tool Belt".
• Upgrade in tiers: bronze → iron → steel → mithril → adamant → rune → dragon → etc.
• The belt uses your highest-tier tool automatically.

Priority pickups:

• Bronze pickaxe → Rune pickaxe (buy at GE for ~5k gp when you can wield it).
• Bronze hatchet → Rune hatchet.
• Tinderbox (from any general store, ~5 gp).
• Chisel (Varrock general store).
• Fishing rod / small net / harpoon / lobster pot.

RS3 has no OSRS-style "must carry your tools" — it's all belt.

Membership & MTX

RS3 membership is $13.99/month (same as OSRS, and includes both games).

MTX (Microtransactions) is the elephant in the room. RS3 sells:

• Treasure Hunter keys — Loot-box style. Ignore.
• Bonds — Same as OSRS. 14 days of Members from GP.
• Cosmetic overrides — Purely visual, no gameplay effect.

As a beginner, ignore all MTX. Play the game, earn GP, buy bonds when you're ready to convert. RS3 is fully playable without spending a cent on MTX — the community line is "F2P → bonds → done."

Where to Go After Burthorpe

Once you've finished Blood Pact and hit around level 20 combat, work through this path:

1. Dragon Slayer (rewrite of the OSRS classic) — Unlocks rune platebody equivalent gear.

2. The Path of Glouphrie / Ernest the Chicken / Priest in Peril — Quest point boosters, gate access to F2P + P2P areas.

3. The Tale of the Muspah — Unlocks Ancient Cavern and a huge questline.

4. Missing, Presumed Death — A modern RS3 quest that upends the god plotline. Truly required reading for the RS3 story.

Bookmark the RuneScape Wiki (runescape.wiki, distinct from oldschool.runescape.wiki). Same community, separate wiki. Every quest, every drop, every skill guide is there.

Consider the Ironman Mode if you want a self-sufficiency challenge — no trades with other players, no Grand Exchange. Not recommended for your first account but a huge community favourite for a second character.