Constitution



Constitution (also known as health and previously hitpoints or HP) is a skill representing the amount of damage a player or monster can withstand until he/she dies. This is known as death, which happens when their life points reach zero. The maximum number of life points a person may have without boosting is 10 times his/her Constitution level.

Players begin with a constitution level of 10 and 100 life points, with 1,154 experience. As of the 3rd of 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 highest amount of life points for a familiar is the Steel Titan with 7500 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.

Fighting


While fighting, both the opponent and the player will have a bar on top of 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.

If a player has only 50 LP left, assuming that they have 300+ maximum LP, then the bar on top of them would be mostly red, meaning they are near death. However, due to an update (most likely a hidden update of an unknown date), the health bar above your head will no longer change shades. This may be due to complaints on the forums.

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

Poison (Members only)
Main article: Poison

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 then the poison would be gone.

Players can cure the poison early with an anti-poison potion that members can make with the Herblore skill.

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

Damage caused by poison gives no experience to any skill.

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, they 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%, they are beyond level 30 in the deep wilderness or they are in a safe mini-game with no danger of losing one's items. A ring of life can only be used one time before disintegrating.

In addition, if a player has used the Abyss for runecrafting, they are given a skull that appears over their head. If a player dies of any circumstances while being "skulled" they lose ALL of their items carried at the time, rather than the usual keeping three. However, if a skulled player dies while the "Protect Item" Prayer is on, they keep 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, they will respawn, meaning they will live again. The player will keep 3 of his/her items (if not skulled).
 * 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 by melee, ranging, or magic, as long as they deal damage, a player will always earn Constitution experience. There is a formula which is used to determine how much Constitution xp a player will receive. The sole exception is by using a Dwarf Multicannon, which gives half the range experience and no Constitution experience.

When a player deals damage to an opponent, they receive some Constitution experience. If a player hits the opponent, whatever damage they deal is multiplied by 0.133 and given to the player's Constitution experience total. This is one of the slowest skills to gain levels on, with experience being earned at one third the rate of Attack, Ranged, Strength or Defence.

The quickest way to earn Constitution experience is the Soul Wars Minigame. 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 ten life points about every minute. However, this is very slow, although the prayer 'Rapid Heal' doubles life point recovery rate to ten every 30 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.


 * 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 60 seconds normally plus one additional point for every 60 seconds seated - or two 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 30 seconds while under 'Rapid Heal' plus one additional point for every 60 seconds seated, resulting in a 3 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.

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 max 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.
 * Skill Cape of Constitution - Owners of a Constitution Cape can boost their life points by 10 every minute, by operating the cape or re-equipping it. The cape is one of the Capes of Achievement, and can be bought and equipped by players with 99 Constitution only.
 * 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 - 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
So far nothing boosts or drains Constitution, but it was mentioned as a possibility in the Hitpoints to Constitution - What Constitutes the Change? blog.

Trivia

 * After a hidden update from Jagex on December 2008, falling to 1/4 of maximum LP or lower will result in a heart-beat-like sound.
 * When RuneScape 2 (as it was then known) was released, the experience required for level 10 in any skill was slightly raised. This meant that characters with no extra life points experience in RuneScape Classic were brought to RuneScape 2 with only 9 Hitpoints. The minimum combat level is still 3 for those players.
 * 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 1 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 the 27th of 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, plus NPCs with many life points, such as Nomad with 10,000 life points, will have a much longer bar to show how many life points have been lost to much more accuracy.
 * A Player named Life Hated is the only player known to have 1 constitution and is therefore level 1 it is thought that back in the early days of stat wipes that he had been reported so many times that his Hitpoints level went down to 1.
 * If you are poisoned on a members' world, you will stay poisoned if you log onto a free-to-play world. The same applies if you are diseased.
 * As of the 20th of October 2009, the life points bar will no longer become completely red unless the monster or player has zero life points.
 * On 3 March 2010 the life points skill was revamped. Its name was changed to Constitution, hitpoints was renamed to life points, damage and healing were multiplied by 10.
 * Because of the 3 March 2010 update it was possible to hit higher because if a player had a maximum hit of 22.5 in melee and 22 in ranged. Previously he/she would only hit 22 in both combat styles because the damage was rounded down. Now that player can achieve 225 in melee but ranged he/she can only achieve 220 because damage was multiplied by 10.
 * The name change for this skill was probably the most significant. The only other skill name changes were Herblaw to Herblore and Runecraft to Runecrafting.
 * On the day of release, there were over 5000 active users on the forums ranting(over 2000 in Recent Updates) about the replacement of Hitpoints to Constitution.
 * On the day of the update, almost every thread in the Recent Updates had to do with the Hitpoints updates, and most if not all other older threads were pushed off the top 50 pages. Many players started coining new terms such as "WoWscape", "World of Runecraft", and "World of Warscape", and "Ruinedscape" in their rants due to the highly multiplied damage amounts.
 * A level 3 new player has the same number of Life Points as somebody with level 99 Hitpoints would have had previously if they operated their Hitpoints skillcape.
 * On the day when the Skill was named Constitution, there was a riot in Falador, world 66.