Completed Goals

Big news today.

First of all, I completed half of the goal I mentioned in my last post:



Dragon Full Helm: 15,600,000 gp

This fulfills a long standing dream I've had since I started: Full Dragon Armor. As usual, it was up 1 million from when I last checked the price. Typical. But I still like it, and that's all that matters.

Next, I've finally acquired something I had been hunting for a while:



Full Lumberjack!

The Woodcutting bonus is small, but every little bit helps. I found some advice on the forums to stay to the easy path and avoid encounters (fewer combats means faster trips, faster trips means more trips, more trips means more chances to get it).

I am still working on the Firemaking cape, and I'm still doing Shades of Mort'ton in order to get it. My current plan is to use the money to train up Construction, and to do Summoning when I have the charms for it. I currently have a bunch right now, so I'll be doing some soon. As of this moment, I have 500 Sacred Oil (4), and I'm cutting the logs for them now.

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Other News: They opened up a new cavern in the Dwarven Mines under Ice Mountain called the Living Rock Caverns. New monsters with ok drops from what I've seen so far. In my Full Dragon, they don't hit me often, but they are quite easy to hit. Doing this I managed to get an Attack level, a Strength level and a Combat level.

I'm now 110 Combat level.

With this new cavern, they introduced new fish which require a high Fishing level. The lowest of these are Cavefish, which require an 85 Fishing. I spent the night before I went fishing Monkfish in order to get the level for it.

I don't know how they are as food yet, as I'm not currently working on combat and haven't even cooked any of the one's I've acquired so far.

The new Dwarf quest (Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf) is also done, keeping me eligiable to wear my Quest cape...even though I'm still wearing my cooking cape. This opened up a new area with monsters that drop a new handheld cannon and the long awaited Dragon Pickaxe. I haven't been to the cavern yet (I'm assuming it's going to be busy for a while), nor have I price checked handheld cannons or pickaxes. I'm assuming they're going to be expensive, so it'll be a bit before I got one of either.

Chapter 4-Episode 2: Protection From Melee

43 Prayer. This is a must have skill level. In many places it literally means the difference between victory and spending a load of cash to replace a majority of your gear.

While I only need 1 level to be qualify for Legends (that was my goal before my break, and I see no reason to change that goal), I need 2 for Protection from Melee. According to Sal's skill calculators, I need to ecto either 73 baby dragon bones or 31 dragon bones to get 43.

I had already started collecting bones before I had taken my break, and since I've used all XP granting rewards on Prayer since I've come back, I only need to collect about 33 more baby dragon bones or 16 dragon bones. My secret green dragon stash (in the chaos rifts) are out now, so for no other reason than to save time, I head to Falador to collect baby dragon bones. It only takes a few trips to Taverly Dungeon, and I not only get the bones I need, I end up with enough food to take on my first adult blue dragon. While I did win, I used a lot of food...and almost chickened out twice.

I head to the GE because I want another Amulet of Glory to make the ectoing a little easier. This will give me 8 return trips to Edgeville, as opposed to 4. It works out pretty good because by the time the amulets ran out of charges, I had enough left over inventory to carry both Glorys and a Games Necklace. This let me recharge without totally going out of my way. All in all, it's a rather quick operation, and in about an hour I have 43 Prayer!

Chapter 2-Episode 10: Slayer Training

There's nothing really exciting about training slayer, so this will just be a short hint and an assignment log (which I'll probably replace on a separate site).

First thing about slayer is that you'll undoubtedly need food. So, if you don't have a good fishing and/or cooking skill, Slayer will be a very expensive hobby. I can catch and cook rainbow fish, and have plenty of stripy feathers to catch them, hopefully enough to get me to lobsters. My plan is to fish and cook rainbow fish until I can catch and cook lobsters, then after I have about 200 or so I'll to slayer assignments until I run out of food.

Fairy Rings are also very helpful on slayer assignments, as many of the locations of these monsters are out of the way. And being close to a fairy ring means you're close to a bank if you have a Dramen staff. This is why I always carry one.

Assignment: 88 Shades/13 Slayer, 39 Attack, 37 Hit Points, 47 Combat Level
Assignment: 68 Hill Giants/22 Slayer, 40 Attack, 45 Defence, 38 Hit Points, 24 Prayer, 48 Combat Level
Assignment: 11 Vampires/36 Strength, 39 Hit Points, 49 Combat Level
Assignment: 110 Rock Slugs/26 Slayer, 47 Defence

After the shades, I mined 144 iron and sold them to buy a rune battleaxe. I didn't need it yet, but I was 1 level away from 40 Attack.

Before taking on the rock slugs, I trained my Herblore up to the point to where I could make Anti-Poison potions. Lumbridge Swamp Caves have numerous poisonous creatures. I also did Lost Tribe quest to make it easier to get into the caves (Quest Complete: 3,000 Mining [46 Mining]).

I saw my first double digit hit today as well.

Tips for Slayer:

Use a slayer gem occasionally. Pay attention to which slayer master is talking to you. They will provide the assignments that are more appropriate for a person of your level. Even if you don't use it while on assignments, you should still use it to see who's talking to you.

Use good food, and optimize their effects. The better the food, the longer you can stay out there fighting. Know how much your food heals, and never eat before your hit points drop that many.

Know the monsters you're fighting. Know what their max hit is, how many hit points they have, and if they're more vulnerable to a certain type of attack. Knowing this, you'll be able to judge how long an assignment will take, the best type of food to use, and how best to fight them. You should also make sure you don't need special equipment to fight them.

Know your Slayer areas. Know the lay out, and know what monsters are where and what they can do to you. Lumbridge caves in particular can be quite treacherous if you're not prepared. Some areas also have agility shortcuts that take you past dangerous slayer monsters. It's not a totally bad idea to take any special equipment for mosters you may have to pass, in case you accidentally attack one or they turn out to be hostile. Keep in mind that, while most slayer monsters won't attack you, there are some really nasty ones that will (abhorant specters and dark beasts in particular).

Know the outlying area. Sometimes there are spots for you to restock your food supplies (i.e. fishing spots or food animals like cows). While these spots may not provide top notch food, if you plan it right, you could save yourself a trip to the bank. To make better use of these areas, make sure to bring any tools you may need (fishing equipment, axe & tinderbox, ect).

Chapter 1-Episode 9: Save the cows...kill a human!

While cows are profitable and easy, I decided I wanted something with a bit more payoff in experinece and money both. So I gear up and head off to Edgeville, and make my way to the Edgeville Dungeon. This dungeon can be very dangerous to a person of my level, so I load up on pike, which is my best food right now. The monsters on my mind are Hill Giants. They have decent drops, but are somewhat close to my level. This means the fights will probably be epic, and my food won't last very long.

The giants are overpopulated (as expected), so I backtrack a bit and start on the zombies. They get a bit boring, so I continue on to the hobgoblins. Those are crowded. Suddenly, I remember exactly why I always pay for membership way early on....

I head back to the Grand Exchange to sell my cowhides. I'm suprised that I have well over 100, which gives me more than enough cash for my next set of armor and next weapon both. I get the axe right away, but there's no adamant armor sets for sale. I leave my bid up and start walking towards Al Kharid to fight the beefy scorpions in the mines north of there. I get as far as the bank and have to go back to get my armor (which goes through about now) and take it out of the set package (this can only be done at the Grand Exchange. Confident that I can spend the time I need to get 30 Attack and 40 Defence, I return to my journey to the desert.

Having my future somewhat secure for the moment, I can enjoy the senseless slaughter in the Al Kharid mines. On an odd and somewhat humorous note, I had a level 3 character following me just outside the mines. I gave him a friendly warning, telling him that "this area isn't healthy for people of your level." Not more than 60 seconds later, I watched a level 19 character make the one way trip to Lumby. Luckily, he only had a 2 handed sword.

The scorpions do manage to hit me a little, so this gives me a great excuse to use up those sardines I have in the bank. The adamant axe kicks my max damage up to 5 (not to mention that I hit more often), and this will undoubtedly make my training faster and easier. Also, while I'm killing the beasties in the mine, I'm grabbing the fire and water rune respawns. This should give me a bit of a stock for when I finally do start training magic.

While beating away, a friendly guy suggested that I should train on the jail guards over by Draynor Village. They're higher level than the scorpions and it's closer to the bank. I lose out on the fire and water runes, but my mage training is a while away yet so I thank him and head out.

The jail guards prove to be very useful for many reasons. Lots of Hit Points means lots of experience, and this makes each dead guard worth 128 experience to the combat stat of my choice (which right now is Defence). Since it's a multi-combat area, I get hit twice as much, which quickly eats up my noob food. I guess all those sardines and herrings won't make it to the party room chest after all...sorry.

30 Defence comes (not so) quickly, and I rush to the bank and suit up in my new adamant armor. While I'm glad to see my Defence hit 30, my combat level reaches 32, giving me some minor concerns about what it will be at 40. I do some calculations and determine by the time I reach 40 Defence, I'll have 31 Hit Points and I use a combat calculator to determine about what my combat level will be at that point. I sigh in relief as the calculator shows me that I'll be about 36 level...well below my goal. I could even raise strength a little bit, but it would be extremely impressive to add "Dragon Slayer" to your resume at combat level 36. Prayer is of no consequence, as the calculator shows that it would take 6 more levels for it to affect my combat level. I also do some post-quest calculations and determine that after the quest, I should have 38 Attack and 44 Defence, with a combat level of exactly: 40! It's decided: I stop training combat at Defence level 40.

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All that is left to do now is get my membership and do the quest.

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Small side note and tip: Hit Point experience is 1.3 per point damage inflicted, not 1 like I was origionally told. This caused a bit of a miscalculation in my proposed Hit Point level. The correct calculations would be 32 Hit Points with no change in either combat level.

Chapter 1-Episode 4: The Great Cowslayer

New goals firmly in hand, I set out to get started. The first order of business is Quest Points: I need 32 and I have 12. 20 Quest Points is not as long a haul as it sounds. While I have got a few of the better yielding quests out of the way already, I still have a couple of good ones to choose from. I decide to balance good Quest Point rewards and good experience rewards. The quests on the list now are:

Black Knights Fortress (3 QP)
Doric's Quest (1 QP)

Earnest the Chicken (4 QP)

Prince Ali's Rescue (3 QP)

Romeo & Juliet (5 QP)

Rune Mysteries ([which I was planning on doing anyways] 1 QP)

Vampire Slayer (3 QP)

But before I get started, I want to beef up my Attack, Strength, and Defence at least 5 points each (which would bring me up to Mithril armor and Black weapons). Before I go and beef up my combat stats though, I need food. So I decided to head over to Port Sarim to buy a fishing pole and train fishing up at least 4 more levels (to about 10), which will also help my cooking skill.

While fishing I helped someone out by telling him where to find a fishing rod. He was really appreciative, and said that people in Runescape were nicer than they are in other online games. While I know that this isn't always the case, people do tend to have "niceness spurts". It doesn't seem like much, but it kinda felt like a rare moment. Speaking of rare moments, I just realized that I haven't had any randoms since I started this character. Not one.

I fill my inventory at Fishing level 12, and after cooking everything, I end up with a nice 31 sardines and 6 herring. I set off to the cows by the flour mill to start leveling combat. I like this place a great deal due to the close deposit boxes up by the gnomecopter thing (I still don't know what it is). I can clear my inventory of cowhides without making the trek to the castle, and if I bring a tinderbox and woodcutting axe, I can cook the meat. Doing this, I can stay here all but indefinately.

The need for food was aparently greatly overestimated, as I ended up depositing most of it to increase the time between drops. My hope is that by the time I reach 10 Attack, 10 Strength, and 20 Defence I'll have enough cowhides to buy Mithril armor and a black battle axe. The battles rage on for hours. Trust me when I say that cowslaying isn't at all as glamorous as it sounds. When all is said and done, I also have 17 Hit Points, 13 Prayer and a combat level of 17. My max hit with a steel battle axe is now 3. I run the cowhides over to the Grand Exchange to see if I have enough for either new armor or a weapon. It turns out that I killed a few more cows than I thought, and it's more than enough, leaving me a bit over 4k.

Chapter 1-Episode 1: A noob is born...

April 26, 2008/1:55 pm

Tutorial Island: Finished.
Starting equipment:
25 gp
bronze axe
tinderbox
small net
1 shrimp (cooked)
1 empty bucket
1 empty pot
1 loaf of bread

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Fresh off tutorial island, our hero Wrthlss has yet to meet or even interact with anyone. Spam floods the air above my head as I make my way to the top floor of Lumbridge Castle. I head to the bank to unload my basic survival kit, and plan my next move.

I glance at my current quest goals, and decide to knock a couple of easy quests off that list. I decide to do Cook's Assistant and Restless Ghost back to back.

Cook's Assistant/Sheep Shearer: A simple gather-some-items-and-bring-them-back quest. I need to find a pot of flour, a bucket of milk, and an egg so the Duke's cook can make a cake. While running up by the mill north of Lumby, I decide to stop in and talk to Farmer Fred and start the Sheep Shearer quest.

I get the egg, milk and flour, and start shearing sheep, when confusion about these sheep's gender spurs an epic battle between a ram and myself. While I defeat the ram with my bare hands (forgot to bring a weapon), I lose all but one of my HP. I manage to get 24 pieces of wool and head back to the cook. Quest Complete: 300 Cooking Exp (Cooking level: 4), but I lost my bucket and pot.

I head upstairs for a bit to spin the wool into balls, and head back to Fred. Quest Complete: 150 Crafting Exp (Crafting level: 3), 60 Gp.

I head back to the bank and drop off my cash, and grab my bronze sword and wooden shield. I make my way to the temple to start Restless Ghost. I've decided to try and fight the skeleton, so I stop to fish some shrimp on the way. I go back to cook them at the castle, since that stove has less chance of burning food (Fishing level: 4, Cooking level: 8, 11 out of 27 shrimp burnt). While I officially fought the skeleton, it left before either of us could die. I return the skull and Quest Complete: 1125 Prayer Exp (Prayer Level: 9), Amulet of Ghostspeak.

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Delrith (Demon Slayer Quest) is my primary goal, and before I tangle with him, I need some better protection. I decide to mine and smith a bit to get some bronze pieces (since I can't afford better). I decide on level 11 for bronze chain (which will give me a better weapon and a shield as well), so I need to smith 71 bars of bronze. Despite being crowded, the people are somewhat civil...if not indifferent.

Mining was really slow, so I decided to sell the emerald I just got and buy a steel pickaxe. I figure since I'm in Varrock, I'll smith the 27 bars I've acquired so far. I buy a hammer, I go though the Grand Exchange Tutorial, and after selling the gem and the items I smithed, I have a grand total of 1,056 gp. A rumor sends me back to Lumby to buy a new pick, after i come up empty handed at the Grand Exchange. The rumor about Bob turns out false, so I make the long trip to the dwarven mines to buy my pick.

Of course...I need a 5 Attack to wield it, so I decide to head to the cows in Lumby to get my combat stats up. I decide on the cows because they drop cowhides, and I'll need some for Crafting.

Gear: bronze scimitar, wooden shield, bronze medium helm, woodcutting axe, tinderbox.

The cows are crowded, so I head to the flour mill. This is better, since I can use the deposit boxes by the gnomecopters. Attack level 5 comes quickly, with consequential Firemaking 3, Cooking 9 and Prayer 10. I then return to finish my mining/smithing task and end up smithing 56 more bronze bars (Mining level: 16, Smithing Level: 11 and 288 gp). This puts the Knight's Sword quest well within reach.

I decide to upgrade to a steel weapon, and decide to deviate from the norm and buy a steel battle axe (instead of the commonplace scimitar) from Bob in Lumby before heading over to the cows to even my melee stats out. The axe turns out to be a worthy investment, as I do more damage now (a whole 2 points). I get my Strength and Defence both to 5, with incidental levels in Firemaking and Cooking.

And thus, a noob is born...