Magic



Magic is a skill that is used to cast various spells, utilising the power of runes. It is a highly versatile skill, offering valuable benefits to players with high Magic levels. In combat, Magic users (known as "mages") can damage their opponents from a safe distance, as well as freeze them in place, lower their combat stats, and even hit multiple targets at once.

Outside of combat, Magic allows players to perform various tasks such as teleporting themselves (or others) to distant locations, enchanting various items to give them magical properties, converting items directly into coins, and even curing or healing other players.

According to the combat triangle, mages are strong towards warriors, and weak against rangers.

Runes
The Magic skill relies heavily on runes, special stones imbued with elemental powers which are focused into spells. Magic users may therefore benefit from a high Runecrafting level, which is used to create runes. Each spell has a certain rune requirement to cast; these runes are consumed during the casting process. (Some Magic equipment, such as the staff of light, may negate the rune cost of a single spell.)

Runes can be divided into two ways: the Fist of Guthix classification; or the Daemonheim/Dungeoneering classification. The Fist of Guthix division is: Elemental runes (Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Combination runes) and all other runes; called Catalytic runes (Mind, Body, Cosmic, Chaos, Astral, Nature, Law, Death, Blood and Soul runes). The second way is according to the Daemonheim/Dungeoneering classification. Here runes are divided into three types: Elemental runes (Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Combination runes), Combat runes (Mind, Chaos, Death, and Blood runes) and every other rune belongs to the Other category (Body, Cosmic, Astral, Nature, Law, and Soul).

Part of the rune requirement for a spell can be taken care of by equipping an elemental staff (a staff of air, staff of water, staff of earth, staff of fire, or a Combination rune staff). When equipped, these staves provide unlimited numbers of the elemental rune they represent. A staff of fire will therefore count as unlimited fire runes; High Level Alchemy, which normally requires five fire runes and one nature rune per cast, will only require one nature rune with a staff of fire equipped. The Tome of Frost also provides unlimited water runes when wielded, however, unlike the staves, it is wielded in the shield slot.

In addition, members have access to combination runes created through the Runecrafting skill. Combination runes act as two different elemental runes at once; one dust rune counts as both an earth rune and an air rune for the purpose of spells that require both of these runes, such as Crumble Undead. There are three elemental staves based on combination runes: the mud battlestaff (which provides unlimited water and earth runes), the lava battlestaff (which provides unlimited earth and fire runes), and the steam battlestaff (which provides unlimited water and fire runes). There are also some omni-elemental staves which provide infinite runes of all four elements, but these are restricted to either minigames or dungeoneering. This is likely done to restrict free magic training outside of the aforementioned areas to the use of an air staff with the basic air spells.

Spells
The spells of RuneScape are divided into three separate spellbooks. In order to cast a spell, its spellbook must be active.

Standard spells
This is the only spellbook available for F2P; although some of the spells within the book are P2P only. The standard spellbook contains a well-rounded mix of combat and noncombat spells. Additionally, it is the only spellbook to contain enchantment spells, stat-lowering spells known as curses, and teleother spells. The standard spellbook is unlocked by default for all players and can be accessed from level 1 Magic. Some examples of combat attacks from this magic spellbook include air strike, fire strike, fire bolt, water blast ect. More on magic spells can be found on the List of Magic Spells page.

Ancient Magicks
The Ancient Magicks are unlocked after the completion of the quest Desert Treasure. The Ancient Magicks spellbook is heavily focused on combat spells, though it also includes a handful of teleports. All Ancient Magicks combat spells have side effects in addition to dealing damage: They can poison targets, lower targets' Attack levels, heal the caster, freeze the targets in place, or halve the target's melee and ranged attack speeds. Additionally, some Ancient Magicks spells can hit multiple targets at once with the use of Burst or Barrage spells, up to a maximum of 9 within a 3 x 3 box. The Ancient Magicks teleports lead to a limited variety of locations across Misthalin, Morytania and the Wilderness. At least 50 Magic is required to complete Desert Treasure and use the Ancient Magicks spellbook, but the experience reward is enough to go from 50 Magic to 51. The strongest combat spell in the spellbook is Miasmic Barrage, which requires 97 Magic and can hit up to 352 points of damage against multiple targets (for a theoretical maximum hit of 3,168 damage, if 9 people are hit).

Lunar spells
In contrast to Ancient Magicks, the Lunar spellbook focuses on non-combat spells, many of which provide unique benefits not otherwise available, and all of which use astral runes. The Lunar spellbook is unlocked after completing the quest Lunar Diplomacy; an additional seven spells are unlocked after subsequently completing Dream Mentor; and eleven more spells are available as rewards from the Livid Farm activity. The Lunar spellbook is notable for containing spells that allow players to aid other players in different ways, including curing poison, sharing stat-enhancing potions, group teleportation, restoring life points, and even assisting yourself or other players in combat. The Lunar spellbook also contains Spellbook Swap, which enables the caster to cast a single spell from either the standard or Ancient Magicks spellbooks, allowing for even greater versatility. The highest requirement of a Lunar spell is 99 Magic for Borrowed Power, which is also the highest magic requirement for a spell in the game.

Combat spells
Combat spells are used to deal damage to, or hinder, opponents in combat. The maximum hit of combat spells are determined by two factors: The spell being cast and whether any damage-boosting modifiers are in effect. Magic damage can be boosted by equipping certain items or by temporarily boosting the Magic skill. Each point by which Magic is boosted increases the maximum hit of spells by 3%. Therefore, a magic potion, which temporarily increases the Magic skill by 5 levels, would initially give a +15% bonus to damage, although this decreases as the boost wears off. However this magic is also used to deal more damage based on the weakness of monsters.

The accuracy of a combat spell is determined by a number of factors, including: Magic resistance differs from magic defence. Having high magic defence could refer to having high magic defence armour (i.e Ganodermic armour), with a high magic absorption. Magic resistance refers to the resistance to magic to a high degree without armour. For example, a Sagittare has a naturally high resistance to magic. A player's magical resistance can get deterimined by the player's magic level and defence level.
 * The caster's Magic level;
 * The caster's bonus to Magic attack;
 * The target's Magic and Defence levels;
 * The target's bonus to Magic defence;
 * Any Magic- or Defence-enhancing Prayers the caster and target might have active.
 * Whether the opponent is highly or extremely magic resistant (i.e Sagittare).

The Defence skill plays a role in Magic combat: Defence against spells is measured as 30% of the target's Defence level and 70% of their Magic level.

If a spell completely misses its target, it will "splash" and have no effect. Its runes are still consumed, however. Note that it is also possible for a combat spell to hit its target but deal 0 damage; this is technically different from a splash, but has the same effect.

When casting a combat spell that deals damage, experience is awarded for casting the spell itself. Additional experience is based on damage dealt, at a rate of 0.2 Magic experience and 0.133 Constitution experience per point of damage. If defensive casting is enabled in the Magic interface, the experience rate is 0.1333 Magic experience, 0.1 Defence experience, and 0.1333 Constitution experience per point of damage.

Curse spells
Some spells from the standard and the Ancient Magicks spellbooks are classified as curses, and have the ability to drain the target's Attack, Strength or Defence by a certain amount. The drain is not cumulative; Vulnerability, for example, which reduces the target's Defence by 10%, can only be successfully cast once on a certain target. All curse spells require the use of either body runes, in the case of low-level curses, or soul runes for higher-levelled spells.

Teleportation spells
Teleportation spells are used to instantly transport players to a certain area. For example, when cast, Falador Teleport immediately transports the caster to the centre of Falador, next to the Saradomin statue. Nearly all teleportation spells require at least one law rune, among other runes.

All spellbooks contain teleportation spells. However, the standard spellbook contains Teleother spells, beginning with Teleother Lumbridge at 74 Magic. Teleother spells allow the caster to teleport another player to another area, assuming that player consents and has Accept Aid on. The Lunar spellbook has Tele Group spells, starting with Tele Group Moonclan at 70 Magic, which will teleport the caster and any other players within a 3x3 square area of the caster to another area.

The Home Teleport spell is a unique teleport that does not require any runes and does not have a level requirement. It takes around 10 seconds to cast, so it is interruptible by combat. Due to a hidden update on 28 March 2011, the waiting time of 30 minutes between casts has been eliminated. Each spellbook has a Home Teleport spell, with different destinations according to the spellbook. Lumbridge Home Teleport from the standard spellbook leads to Lumbridge, Edgeville Home Teleport from the Ancient Magicks spellbook leads to Edgeville, Lunar Home Teleport from the Lunar spellbook leads to Lunar Isle. After the Troll Warzone update, members can use the Home Teleport to teleport to Burthorpe. A similar spell exists in the Dungeoneering spellbook which teleports the caster to the smuggler in the start room. The addition of the Lodestone network means that players can now use the home teleportation spell to teleport to a number of different areas within Gielinor, such as Draynor Village, Catherby and Al Kharid, which removes the immediate need for many teleportation spells since the home teleport spell to these areas is free.

Note that teleportation can be blocked by use of the Teleport Block spell, or being past level 20 in the Wilderness, except with Dragonstone jewellery, which is able to teleport in up to level 30 in the Wilderness.

Enchantment spells
Unique to the standard spellbook, enchantment spells are used to imbue certain items, such as jewellery and crossbow bolts, with magical properties. For example, Enchant Level 3 Jewellery is used to turn a ruby amulet into an amulet of strength. Enchantment spells make use of cosmic runes along with other runes.

Alchemy spells
Through alchemy spells, items are converted into coins. Two of the game's few alchemy spells are Low Level Alchemy and the much more popular High Level Alchemy. (Superheat Item could also be described as an alchemy spell, although it is used to smelt ores into bars without a furnace.) Alchemy spells use nature runes.

Miscellaneous spells
Many spells, particularly from the Lunar spellbook, have unique effects that do not fit into any other category. Some of these effects are otherwise unavailable. A few examples:
 * NPC Contact allows the caster to telepathically communicate with a variety of NPCs
 * Humidify instantly fills all water-carrying containers (such as buckets and vials) in the caster's inventory with water, as well as turning clay into soft clay
 * Stat Spy and Monster Examine allow the caster to view another player's skill levels or information about a monster, respectively.

Weapons
Magic users often use staves and wands in order to augment their spellcasting. Some staves, such as the basic staff, simply give small bonuses to Magic accuracy. Some, however, provide powerful or unique bonus effects. Some examples:
 * Elemental staves provide unlimited amounts of certain elemental runes
 * The slayer staff, which requires 50 Magic and 55 Slayer, allows the casting of Magic Dart
 * God staves (including the Saradomin staff, Guthix staff and Zamorak staff)
 * Ahrim's staff  and Ahrim's wand is part of Ahrim the Blighted's set of Barrows equipment, and when used with the rest of the set, may lower the target's Strength by 5 points on a successful hit
 * The staff of light, has a 1/8 chance of negating the rune cost of a spell, and can be used to cast Magic Dart.
 * The Chaotic staff is the most accurate staff in the game so far with a whopping 3043 accuracy rating.
 * The Polypore staff  allows for Polypore Strike.
 * The Armadyl Battlestaff is the only staff that slightly boost the damage of Storm of Armadyl. Also supplies unlimited air runes.

Armour
Generally, various magical robes are the Magic user's armour of choice. Contrary to the combat triangle, Magic robes do not usually give defensive bonuses against melee attacks; Ahrim's and Zuriel's robes along with Ganodermic armour are the biggest exceptions to this. Rather, Magic robes give bonuses to both Magic attack and defence.

Some mages may instead choose to use Void Knight equipment, particularly with the Void mage helm, as the set bonus grants a +30% boost to overall Magic accuracy. At high Magic levels this can result in a significant bonus to accuracy.

Training Magic

 * Main articles: Magic training for free players and for members

Fighting as a mage
Magic-users are strong against melee users, but are weak against rangers due to the fact that most Ranged armour provides good Magic defence bonuses and binding spells such as Snare don't help if fighting someone who can attack at a distance. When fighting as a mage it is suggested to make use of stat-lowering curse spells and binding spells in order to maximise effectiveness. A player or monster using melee is at a significant disadvantage when faced with a foe who can keep out of their attack range, lower their stats, and deal damage. Additionally, when fighting monsters, use of safe spots may be helpful.

When using binding spells, another tip is to keep track of how long the opponent will be frozen and cast combat spells accordingly. For example, Entangle freezes the opponent for 15 seconds, and takes 3 seconds to cast, leaving 12 seconds with which to cast other spells. Since each spell takes 3 seconds to cast, it is possible to cast 4 spells before the target can move again.

If a monster has a particular elemental weakness it is recommended to take advantage of it. For example, iron dragons are vulnerable to water spells.

Also see: this page for a comparison in combat spells between Standard spells and Ancient Magicks.

Temporary Magic boosting items
Some items grant temporary boosts to the Magic skill. A boosted Magic skill does allow for casting of higher-level spells than normal. For example, a player with 90 Magic who drinks a dose of magic potion will be able to cast Vengeance Other, which requires 93 Magic. For every boosted level, the magic damage is boosted by 3%. 1 Activating a Vecna skull can only be done once every 7 minutes, and it cannot be used in the Wilderness.

2 To create this, you must have found the scrolls needed in your Player-owned port before. See Rocktail soup for more details.

Development History
Magic in RuneScape Classic was significantly different than its modern incarnation. Very early on, the Magic skill was made up of two separate skills, GoodMagic and EvilMagic. The Evil Magic spells were Confuse, Thick Skin, Shock Bolt, Elemental Bolt and Fear, and the Good Magic spells were Chill Bolt, Burst of Strength, Camouflage, Rock Skin and Wind Bolt. The two skills were eventually merged into a single Magic skill. It was possible to fail an attempt to cast a spell; when this happened, the spell used no runes, but the caster could not use another Magic spell for 20 seconds. A higher Magic level made failing a spell attempt less likely. Additionally, because runes were less common on RuneScape Classic, spells gave far more experience. Each spell gave the fixed experience using the formula 2 * spell level + 20. Jagex explained that the reduction of Magic experience in RuneScape 2 was due to the fact that runes were easier to obtain on the new version. Spells were graphically represented as a two-dimensional blue flying star, which proved difficult to distinguish from arrows (green stars). Furthermore, metal armour did not impose the significant restrictions on Magic accuracy that it does today, allowing mages to cast powerful spells and yet wear full rune armour.

On 22 September 2003, the Mage Arena was introduced, together with the three god spells Saradomin Strike, Claws of Guthix, and Flames of Zamorak. On the 24th of November, the Bind, Snare and Entangle spells were released in an attempt to balance out the combat triangle. Additionally, the system for failing spells was changed to the modern system, whereas a spell will "splash" and use runes, but will not disable spellcasting for 20 seconds.

On 18 April 2005, the Desert Treasure quest was released, together with the Ancient Magicks, almost doubling the number of combat spells in the game.

On the 4 January, 2006, the Mage Training Arena was released. On the 24th of July of the same year the Lunar Diplomacy quest was released, with the introduction of the Lunar spellbook. The Lunar spellbook was expanded on 15 May 2007 with 7 new spells which are accessible after completing Dream Mentor.

On 18 September 2007, the spell Ourania Teleport was released, along with the Ourania Runecrafting Altar.

On 9 September 2009, Jagex updated the system for auto-casting spells. Previously, spells could only be auto-cast while wielding a staff, and even then not every spell could be autocast. Now it is possible to auto-cast most spells even without a staff equipped, and some spells such as Iban Blast and Saradomin Strike that were not previously auto-castable may now be auto-cast, provided the proper staff is equipped. Additionally, Ancient Magicks spells were changed to allow for auto-casting without an ancient staff equipped, which was required to auto-cast them until the update.

On 17 November 2009, the surge spells were added to the game.

On 21 June 2010 the animations for the combat spells in the standard spellbook were updated from the previous generic blast with different colours to actually individual animations that are unique for each element. The animation for making a teleport tablet was also changed.

On 14 September 2011 a new rune called the Armadyl rune was released along with a new spell, Storm of Armadyl.

The Canon of Magic
The gods of Gielinor are among the most powerful users of magic. Guthix is said to have shaped the world from an empty plane left behind by the Elder Gods with the magic from the Stone of Jas. Runestones, the basics of magic, are created by harnessing the energy in the stone. Guthix gave Humans, who he brought from other realms through the World Gate, these runes, and the land was dubbed RuneScape due to its abundance of runes. Guthix fell into a deep sleep, ending the First Age.

Jack (Meeting History) was said to have created the first magic spell, Fire Strike by combining an air and fire rune in attempt to light a fire. Jack became a powerful mage eventually, and taught many Humans the ability to fight with magic.

Concluding the God Wars, the Fourth Age or "Age of Mortals" began. There was a limited number of Runes in existence, so magic was not widely practiced. High level mages such as Ahrim the Blighted may have had another source for his magical powers, or had a secret supply of these runes.

At the end of the Fourth Age, rune essence was discovered by Fremennik barbarians. These stones were imbued with different elemental energies, and the basics of Runecrafting were discovered. However, this led to a schism in the tribe. One half believed that magic was useful, and part of human progression. However, the other half argued that use of the magic was defying the gods, as it was the gods' power. The first group separated, and became known as the Moon Clan.

During this time, the seers of the would-be Moon Clan had searched the land to find concentrations of magical energy. They created altars to these energies, and were able to bind them into the stones. The art of Runecrafting was spread all over Gielinor, and it led to human domination over the other races of the land.

From the years 42 to 70 of the 5th and current age, Fremennik tribesmen who feared magic crusaded against those who used it. The altars used to create the runes were destroyed, and the tribe was able to fight until the outskirts of Varrock, where they settled into the Gunnarsgrunn.

In year 70 of this age, Zamorakian wizards who wished to learn the art were denied entry to the Wizards' Tower, the centre of all magical learning. In rage, they destroyed the current tower by means of a fire, and destroyed the work that the wizards had been working on. The art of Runecrafting was lost until year 169, when an adventurer helped uncover the mysteries of Runecrafting, bringing a large amount of runes into existence once more. With these large amounts of runes, Magic became widely practised once more, and powerful spells such as Fire Surge have been developed through intense study of this skill.

Trivia

 * Because Magic is composed of both combat and non-combat spells, it is possible to train Magic without gaining Constitution experience. At early Magic levels it is necessary to use experience lamps, quest rewards or other sources of experience to raise Magic to level 3, at which point Confuse may be cast. Additionally, combat spells cast on dummies and failing to successfully cast (splashing) combat spells do not give Constitution experience.
 * Ever since RuneScape HD's release, failed spells will sometimes fly straight up instead of splashing and disappearing as usual.
 * Spells will change directions to hit targets that move or teleport.
 * The higher a player's Magic level is, the more they become resistant to being hit by magical attacks, regardless of the combat style the player is using to attack. This applies to both combat with NPC's and in PvP areas.
 * A player's defence against magical attacks is based on 70% of their magic level and 30% of their defence level.
 * Whilst fighting in the Duel Arena, if your opponent dies before a spell reaches them, the spell will sometimes appear in the lobby. Normally it will then hit for 0, however there are occasions when the spell will simply follow you, like a familiar. However, it can also pass through or over obstacles which would normally stop familiars. The spell will eventually disappear. If the player who is being followed teleports away, the spell will remain behind, but will point in the direction of the player.