Early Game Progression (Levels 1-40)

Short version: get a weapon and armour in one style, fight the Woods monsters until your weapon tier changes at 10, cook your own food from day one, join a clan in your first session, and push Carpentry to 30 and Smithing to 20 so you can buy the Cardboard Box once you have 100,000 gold.

How the first 40 levels feel

The XP curve is gentle at the start. Level 10 is 988 total XP and level 25 is 6,606. The cost of a level doubles every seven levels, so by level 40 you are looking at 30,729 XP, and the next doubling is never far away. In practice that means the early game is fast and a little scattered: you will pick up levels in skills you barely touched, and that is fine. Every skill uses the same table, so a level 30 in Cooking takes exactly as much XP as a level 30 in Attack (11,441).

What actually slows you down early is gold, not XP. Most of the things you want in the first week cost gold or materials: housing, tools, the first round of personal upgrades. So the order below leans on skills that also feed your bank.

Pick one combat style and stick with it for now

There are three styles. Melee splits into Attack (hit chance) and Strength (max hit). Archery and Magic each use one skill for both, according to the wiki's combat page. Defence and Health level alongside whichever style you use. Spreading yourself across all three styles this early halves your progress in each, so choose one and come back for the others when a monster's weakness gives you a reason.

Weapon tiers unlock on the same schedule in every style. Normal weapons are level 1, Refined at 10, Great at 25 and Elite at 40. That is your early-game map. The table below is the strongest weapon of each early tier from the game data; the best in slot by stage guide carries it on to level 100.

Accuracy / strength bonus from the official game data. Level requirements from the official wiki's Weapons page. Ranked by strength, the same way the gear pages rank them.

The magic staff at level 1 is worth knowing about: the game data lists the Normal staff as coming from the Bear and from the "Buy Bronze Armour" quest, so a magic start costs very little.

Where to fight

The Woods are the first zone. Turkey (4 health), Fox (6), Wolf (8), Boar (10) and Bear (14) have no weakness listed in the game data, so any weapon works. Once those die in a hit or two, move to the Cave: Scorpion, Snake, Crocodile, Goblin, Cave dweller and Orange dragon, from 16 up to 30 health. Cave monsters are where weakness starts to matter. Scorpion is weak to pound, Snake to crush, Crocodile to stab, Goblin to magic, Cave dweller to slash and Orange dragon to archery. Each monster page lists its weakness and drop table.

Combat XP is paid per point of damage, not per kill. The wiki gives 5 XP per damage: 4 to your style and 1 to Health. A monster with more health is not worth more XP for its own sake; what matters is how much damage you deal per hour, including the 2.55 second respawn between kills. The combat calculator does that maths for your own max hit and hit chance.

Cook your own food

Food keeps you in the fight, and losing all your Health throws away unclaimed loot. Cooking is cheap to start and scales with you. From the game data: Cooked Piranha heals 2 at level 1, Cooked Meat 4 at level 10, Potato Soup 5 at 15, Cooked Cod 6 at 20, Cooked Trout 7 at 25 and Cooked Giant Meat 8 at 30. Cod Soup heals 10 at level 40. The best food page has the full ladder and the ingredients. Fishing and Cooking together are also a solid early gold source, because players who would rather fight than fish keep buying food.

Join a clan in your first session

The name of the game is not decoration. A normal clan holds up to 20 members, and the wiki lists a 48-hour cooldown after joining before you can contribute clan XP, so the sooner you join, the sooner that clock runs out. Clan events (four gathering events and three crafting events per member per day) pay clan credits and add a 2% XP boost for every member taking part. Daily clan quests pay credits too. Clan credits buy the clan upgrades that later cut boss respawn timers, speed up gathering and more; the skilling order guide lists the level each one asks for. If you want to start your own clan, it costs 10,000 gold. The clan list shows the active ones.

The first big purchase: the Cardboard Box

Player housing is the first upgrade in the game data. The Cardboard Box costs 100,000 gold and needs Carpentry 30 and Smithing 20. The next tier, the Tent, is 500,000 gold with Carpentry 50 and Smithing 40. Neither number is huge, but both skills are easy to neglect when you are focused on combat. Woodcutting feeds Carpentry and Mining feeds Smithing, so a gathering session now pays off twice. The housing page lists all five tiers, and the upgrades page has every other personal upgrade with its cost.

Quests are free direction

Quests in the game data cover 16 skill groups and pay XP and reward rolls on top of what the task itself gives. Early on they are a decent answer to "what should I do next?" because they point you at a specific monster or task. The quests page lists every quest with its level range. Combat quests in particular send you to the monster you should already be fighting.

A sensible order for levels 1 to 40

1. Pick a style, fight the Woods, and cook what you catch.
2. Join a clan the same day.
3. Hit 10 in your style for Refined weapons and move to the Cave.
4. Train Woodcutting and Mining between fights, then Carpentry to 30 and Smithing to 20.
5. Buy the Cardboard Box at 100,000 gold.
6. Reach 25 for Great weapons, then push to 40 for Elite.

From 40 the game opens up: the Wilderness, Exterminating and your first boss key. That is where the mid game guide picks up.

Frequently asked questions