Constitution



Constitution (also known as health, previously Hitpoints or HP) is a skill which controls how many life points (LP) a player or monster has. Life points represent the amount of damage a player or monster can withstand until it dies. This is known as death, and this happens when a player's or monster's life points reach zero. The maximum number of life points a player may have without boosting is 10 times his or her Constitution level.

Players begin with 100 life points and a constitution level of 10, with 1,154 experience. As of 3 March 2010, 81,024 players have level 99 in Constitution.

The number of life points a monster has varies between 10 and 20,000. The Corporeal beast, the highest level monster in RuneScape, tops this list, followed by Nomad, Turkey (2009 Thanksgiving event), Decaying Avatar, Living rock patriarch, Tormented Demon, Living rock striker, Kree'arra, Commander Zilyana, General Graardor, K'ril Tsutsaroth, and the Kalphite Queen (although the Kalphite Queen has two forms, each of which has 2550 life points, effectively giving her 5100 total life points). The title of monster with the least amount of life points is a tie among the Carnivorous chinchompa, the Chinchompa, evil creatures, and Miscellanian citizens and guards, all with 10 life points each. However, Xenia appears to have only 4 life points, but is never fought, only seen in a cut seen. Later, she reveals that she was pretending to be hurt worse than she actually was, so she may therefore have more than 4 life points.

The Steel Titan has the highest amount of life points for a summoning familiar with 7500 life points.

Fighting


Any player or creature who is hit in a fight will have a life bar shown above them. This bar represents their life points. There are two colours on the bar: green and red. The green part of the bar is on the left, and represents how many life points the player has remaining. The red part of the bar appears on the right, and represents how much damage has been taken away from their maximum life points. This allows easy estimation of how much health the player has left compared with how much they have lost.

Players can look over to the top-right of their RuneScape screen to check how many life points they currently have remaining. They will be alerted when their life points drop to 25% or lower as the Heart Icon will start to pulse. Due to a recent hidden update, players are now further warned that their life points are getting low (25% or less of total LP) through the addition of a beating heart sound effect which accompanies the pulsing animation until health is restored above 25%. (This is a very common device in video games and is almost always used to show that the player is near death or that another similarly dramatic event is occurring.)

Poison (Members only)
A player may become poisoned during a fight. This effect will continue to reduce life points periodically, even after the fight is over, though the body's natural defences will gradually neutralize the poison. However, players can cure the poison at any time with an antipoison potion made using the Herblore skill.

For instance, if a player is hit by another player wielding a poisoned dagger, they would be hit for 48 damage initially, then 46, then 44, and so on until the damage hits 12, by which time the player would have been naturally cured of the poison.

Please note that if you are poisoned in a Members server but then switch to a Free server, you will remain poisoned with no way to cure it until you switch back to a Members server.

Death


If a player is in Pest Control, in a player-owned house, duelling another player at the Duel Arena, or playing any other safe activity, he or she will not lose any items on death, and will respawn in a designated location with all items retained.

A ring of life can also teleport the player safely back to the chosen respawn point automatically upon reaching 10% or below their maximum LP. There are three exceptions: either the player was hit for more than 10% of his or her maximum LP, is beyond level 30 in the deep wilderness, or is in a safe minigame with no danger of losing his or her items. A ring of life may only be used once before disintegrating.

In addition, if a player has used the Abyss for runecrafting, he or she is given a skull that appears over his or her head. If a player dies of any circumstances while being "skulled," he or she loses ALL of his or her items carried at the time instead of the usual all but three. However, if a skulled player dies while the Protect Item Prayer is on, he or she keeps ONE item (one more than the usual, which is zero if the player is skulled). If a player does not enter the Abyss within twenty minutes of receiving the skull, the skull vanishes.

Respawning
When a player dies, he or she will respawn, meaning he or she will live again. Normally, the player will keep 3 of his or her items (see above for exceptions).
 * For free players, they will always respawn in Lumbridge, as it is set as their home town.
 * For members, they will initially respawn in Lumbridge, as it is the default home town.
 * Members who have completed the Recruitment Drive quest have the option of changing their respawn location to Falador instead.
 * Members who have completed the King's Ransom quest and the Knight Waves Training Grounds have the option of changing their respawn location to Camelot instead.
 * Members who have completed the Nomad's Requiem quest have the option of changing their respawn location to the Soul Wars lobby.
 * Both free players and members who are on a bounty world will respawn at Edgeville, because Lumbridge, Falador and Camelot do not exist on bounty worlds.

Earning experience


To earn experience in Constitution, a player has to fight or do a quest that rewards Constitution experience. Alternatively, one could use an item that gives a specific amount of experience. (Ex: genie lamp)

When fighting, whether it be melee, ranging, or magic, whenever a player deals damage, he or she will always earn Constitution experience. The amount of experience earned is found using the formula $$damage / 7.5$$. The sole exception to this is when a player uses a Dwarf Multicannon as it gives half the range experience normally received and no Constitution experience. Constitution experience is earned at one third the rate of Attack, Ranged, Strength and Defence, making this one of the slowest skills to train.

The quickest way to earn Constitution experience is the Soul Wars activity. Amazingly, some players, by using soul wars, achieved 99 Constitution at a low combat of 25, thus being the lowest level possible with a Constitution cape.

Recovering life points


A player can heal to restore their life points back to its maximum. There are a number of ways to do this:


 * Let it recharge on its own. A player will naturally heal one life point about every six seconds. However, this is very slow, although the prayer 'Rapid Heal' doubles life point recovery rate to one every three seconds. This is not recommended unless you have no food, are next to an altar, or don't want to get killed by whatever monster, PKer, or NPC happens to be there. Also, a lunar spell, Dream, will make life points recover five times as fast as normal. Additionally, a Regen bracelet will double recovery.
 * Eat lots of food. Players can eat food to heal their life points, the best foods are more expensive but providing more healing per item. This is the most common way players heal themselves. Members have a much wider variety of foods to eat which can heal many more life points at one time.

The recovery rate for life points is given by the formula $$10 * (1 + bonus)$$ where bonus is indicated in the chart below.

* Note: resting, listening to a musician, and the dream spell cannot be combined.


 * Players can sit down, giving 2x the normal rate of recharging, or players can listen to a Musician, which gives 3x the rate. (The game mechanics treat this as a separate heal clock: i.e. the player heals one point every 6 seconds normally plus one additional point for every 6 seconds seated - or twenty per minute while seated if listening to a musician. Note that when sitting down and using 'Rapid Heal,' the prayer will affect only the normal-heal clock, not the seated-heal clock: thus the player will recover 1 point every 3 seconds while under 'Rapid Heal' plus one additional point for every 6 seconds seated, resulting in a 30 points per minute recovery rate.)
 * The monks at the Monastery and Entrana will heal players if they ask them. They heal 20% of the player's life points level.
 * The nurses Sabreen and A'abla and Surgeon Tafani at the infirmary north of Al-Kharid Duel Arena will heal players if asked.
 * Two lunar spells can be cast to heal a player or a group of players: Heal Other, level 92 magic needed, and Heal Group, level 95 magic needed.
 * Die. When a player dies, they respawn at full health and full energy. This is not recommended unless the player has banked all items and wants to go to an area near their respawn point.
 * A player can use a bracelet of regeneration which doubles life points recovery rate. When used in conjunction with the prayer rapid heal, it quadruples to twenty life points every thirty seconds.
 * The two Summoning familiars, the Void spinner and the Bunyip, will heal a player over time, for 10 life point per 15 seconds and 20 life points per 15 seconds, respectively. The Unicorn stallion will heal 15% of the player's life points by using its special move, Healing Aura.
 * Some weapons have special attacks that recover life points, such as Enhanced excalibur and the Saradomin Godsword. Additionally, the Guthan's set effect will occasionally heal a player by the amount they hit.

Boosts to life points

 * Saradomin brew - Made using the Herblore skill. Drinking this brew raises defence by 20% and life points by 15%+200 even above maximum, though all other combat skills decrease by 10% excluding defence and prayer.
 * Titan's Constitution - The respective scroll of the Fire titan, Moss titan and Ice titan which will raise a player's maximum life points by 80 and defence by 13% temporarily.
 * Elidinis Statuette - this altar in Nardah will heal you and raise your total LP by 80, and will also refill your prayer. Players need to have completed Spirits of the Elid.
 * Guthix rest - Guthix rest, if drunk when at full life points, will boost your maximum life points by 50.
 * Oo'glog - by resting in the Thermal bath your LP will be raised dramatically, by 20% over your maximum life points.
 * Temple Trekking / Burgh de Rott Ramble - One particular event in the treks Abidor Crank, temporarily increases your max LP according to its max level / current stance, as well as increasing defence in the same way, and turning all rotten food in your inventory into curry or stew.
 * Rocktail - Can heal up to 100 over the player's maximum life points when eaten.

Boosts to Constitution

 * Constitution Cape of Achievement - Owners of a Constitution Cape can boost their Constitution skill by 1 every minute, by operating the cape or re-equipping it. The Constitution Cape is one of the Capes of Achievement, which can be bought and equipped by players with 99 Constitution only. The cape is sold by Surgeon General Tafani at the Duel Arena in Al Kharid for 99,000 coins.

Trivia

 * If you levelled Constitution before the 3 March 2010 update, it would show Hitpoints in your Adventurer's Log. It was changed to Constitution the following day.
 * After a hidden update from Jagex on December 2008, falling below 25% of maximum life points will result in a heartbeat sound.
 * Sometimes when you have a connection lost, your life points may go to 0, and the heart beating sound occurs, but you do not die; you stay right in the place you were in when the connection lost happened.
 * When RuneScape 2 was released, the experience required for level 10 in any skill was increased slightly. This meant that characters that had not gained Hitpoints experience in RuneScape Classic were brought to RuneScape 2 with only level 9 Hitpoints. Despite this, the players were still level 3 combat.
 * In RuneScape Classic the skill was called "Hits". It was renamed Hitpoints upon the introduction of RuneScape 2 and subsequently renamed Constitution with the Hitpoints skill update.
 * On 3 March 2010 the Hitpoints skill was once again renamed, this time to Constitution. However, this update also changed the way the skill worked - multiplying all damage, healing, and health by 10 - and separating player's health from the skill. Before the update, upon losing health, a player's Hitpoints level would decrease, much like Prayer or Summoning.
 * The name change for this skill was probably the most significant. The only other skill name changes were Tailoring to Crafting, PrayGood/PrayEvil to Necromancy then Prayer, Herblaw to Herblore, Runecraft to Runecrafting, and Defense to Defence.
 * The easiest way to train Constitution is to do melee combat, because melee is rather cheap and will hit faster, more accurately, and deal more damage than range or magic.
 * A player concentrating on just one melee skill (Attack, Strength or Defence), will have to inflict 32,586,080 life points of damage to get from level 1 to 99. For level 99 in all melee skills, a player needs to inflict 97,758,230 life points of damage.
 * On 27 May 2009, the life points bar and damage splats were graphically updated. Before this update, the life points bar was simply a bar that had only green and red colour. After this update, an outline was added and the colours had more detail. Additionally, NPCs with many life points, such as the Corporeal Beast with 20,000 life points, received a much longer bar in order to more accurately display the amount of life points lost.
 * A Player named Life Hated is the only player known to have level 1 Constitution, and therefore is level 1 combat. This is due to the fact that for some time in RuneScape Classic, stat wipes were a form of punishment for violating RuneScape rules.
 * If you are poisoned on a members' world, you will remain poisoned if you switch to a free-to-play world. The same applies if you are diseased.
 * As of the 20 October 2009, the life points bar will no longer become completely red unless the monster or player has zero life points.
 * As of 28 March 2010 5 players have 200m total Constitution XP.
 * In the Mobilising Armies activity, neither damage nor health was increased during the Hitpoints skill update.
 * Previously, if a player had only 50 LP left, assuming that they have 300+ maximum LP, then the bar on top of them would change shade to be mostly red, meaning they are near death. However, due to a hidden update in June 2009, the health bar above your head will no longer change shades.
 * Fairy Nuff in Zanaris still speaks of hitpoints even after the update.
 * During the 2010 Easter event, there existed a bug wherein Fluffy the squirrel could be attacked upon being summoned. Fluffy would die after taking 1 damage, giving him the least amount of life points in the game. However, this bug has since been fixed.