curmudgeony

In terms of smithing for cash, steel bars beat cannonballs. While a lot of guides say that cannonballs are a good moneymaker (along with iron throwing knives). The markets themselves are pretty dry. It is easier to find smelters buying the bars (even iron bars) then a buyer of finished products. Most smelters pay less then market rates or a token amount of cash and raw materials (70-100 gp per bar plus 2 coal, 1 iron ore). This can be a plus if you are more hungry for exp then cash. My suggestion would be to hang around nonmembers buying iron for 90 each and invest in some forging rings, then roll that ore into iron bars for 200 each or possibly sell to a smelter for 2 iron ore. Is it a rocket-ride to cash? Nope. But the combo of money and exp can't be beat. Plus, iron smelts faster then steel.

I would suggest Nat crafting. Split the 400k into 100k for pure ess and 300 on glories. Just make sure to do the quests so you can recharge them.

I know you need a Bronze Med, Iron Chain Mail, Leather Boots, Leather Gloves, Bronze short, and Iron Square Shield for a guard outfit; but what is the skin hue, hair/beard color and arms and legs color on varrock guards? Also are they all male?

You also might want to mention using salamander tars for exp from low level "junk" herbs like guam. The amount is higher then the pots, and tars are a monster drop .

Have fun with the diary, we can't wait for you to get back. I rate this 9/10 (9, b/c the flesh crawlers stats)

So to do this, you need to haved started the legend quest--which means at least 107 quest points. Plus completion of the Hero's, Family Crest, Shilo Village, Underground Pass, and Waterfall Quests. Yup, that sure sounds like a low-levels update right there.

So we've seen what the easy reward is, any luck on the medium and hard ones? Also, is there a list of what all of the tasks are?

Not if mom and dad pay for members. A few of my own "kids" on Runescape (I run a group at my library), have been members for years, and still haven't done all the non member quests. But...If you can get 20 idiots to pay for play vs 5 gamers paying, corporate survival demands you chase the idiots. "Enhancing shareholder value" is often penny wise and pound foolish.

All of this talk about"rich kids" and "earning" your skills is missing the point. The bulk of this game is little more then repetitive clicking. Mind you, there are some enjoyable bits, but--as I've said--this game is designed to get you playing and keep you playing as long as possible. The skill cape, the whip, and high scores are prime examples of that. Take the skill cape, it is a status symbol that doesn't really *do* anything except look cool. The bulk of skills provide no additional benefits if you raise them to 99. The whip requres 85 slayer to get, but only 70 attack to weild. If it was such a elite, rare weapon, it should require 85 slayer to wield, but it doesn't. It is designed to make people chase that 85 slayer level to unlock its wealth of those whips. And then there's the high scores. With the exception of combat, what J. Random Scaper's skill are doesn't affect me in the slightest. It just makes people chase levels. Remember, the longer you play, the more money the company makes. My hats are off to Zezima and the other fine folks that reach the top, but I am a busy person. I have a job, and a family, and a life outside of the game. I can't spend the hours "needed" by the game to click some pixels nineteen thousand times to get the skill I need to do XYZ. If there was a legal way to pay a ten spot here or there to get some skills up, I would take it. I suspect many other people might take the same option. Frankly this game could use some older players, and buyable content would be the thing to bring them.

People also keep mentioning Flesh crawlers in terms of good herb monsters. Could you also discuss them in the guide?

Well one thing to consider is that high alch acts as a price brake of sorts, items and the cost of nats are very closely tied to the profit and break even points of the resultant cast. This does leave certain economic backwaters in the game. For example the literally thousand of willow longs (u) cluttering up the shops, or the practically worthless nature of gold bars.

Some other options would be to run laws on 66 and try to trade laws for nats. Gold bracelets alch for 320.

Now I know crystal key drops are random, but is there a monster that is "a bit *more* random then others?"

I once saw a coyote ring in to the lost city

I just got assigned 19 bronze dragons. My stats are as follows Combat 83 Attack 68 Defence 67 Strength 67 Hitpoints 68 Ranged 60 Prayer 50 Magic 59 Should I keep or get rid of this assignment?

Anti-poison pots are somewhat hard to come by since, unicorn horns are a slow drop. However, with the unicow in the tower of life, this is changing. The jungle potion sells for 400+, IIRC.

I've been looking at other methods to abyss run, other then glories. I've been looking at the house teletablet or the lyre, but I have one question; will runepkers leave you alone if you're not wearing a glory?

I hear what you are saying on the iron arrows, and you're probably right. The biggest hair pulling part on leveling range was its speed. I just did 55-60 on black knights (I wanted to level white knight ranks) and the worst part was--even with iron throwing knives-- how s l o w it was. (on the other hand, I'd probably spend the same amount of time making cannonballs, so it all averages out)

The best way is to get a row of 4 three-dose pots. Use the 1st pot in the row on the second, third, and fourth. This will leave you with 3 4-dose pots and one empty vial.

I popped back through the goldrock after a session of mining in "between a rock" and ran into a high-level f2p who just became a newly-minted member and was powerleveling all of the member quests.

I was checking around for info on cannons for ranging and had one big question. Is there a rough count or guideline of how many cannonballs it would take to kill a certain number of monsters? I want to go from 60 to 70 range, and according to tip it, its about 4.6k rockcrabs. So, roughly speaking, how many cannonballs would be needed for it? Should I assume double, or even triple the kill count in terms of cannonballs?

I used a combination of things to get my level up. 1. Tears of Guthix pushed me up to about level 12. Then I used some garden pies to level up to plant a bunch of oak trees, then did drunken dwarf, followed by garden.

I chop in and around the gnome stronghold bank

For the reward vs damage vs respawn time, I'm surprised you didn't mention the rogue's den safes. With the bank nearby and gems as a reward, I find it to be one of the best ways to level.

All in all a good guide. My one complaint, would be a need for commas. Can you add commas to separate the larger numbers to make the easier to read? For example You might also want to add into the "leveling costs" section, the rough number of air runs the person would need to do themselves to earn the cash to craft that amount. e.g., Lvl 44-55-- This costs 374,910 gp or 188 air runs.