RuneScape/Skills/Magic

Magic in RuneScape involves attacking opponents with spells as well as using spells to make money. It is one of the three combat skills.

Magic is very similar to ranging as both skills involve attacking from a distance. It's best not to attack your opponents up close with magic, as magic armour is not good against melee. The only type of combat which causes most damage to magic is ranged.

If you only raise magic as your combat stat, then you are called a "mage".

Intro
When players mage something, they attack using a spell, usually from a distance.

When using magic, players need runes, which are magic's ammunition. For each spell, there is a certain amount of runes needed. When players cast that spell, those runes are used up. This causes mages to continually buy more runes, making magic a money-consuming skill.

Runes
Runes are what are needed to mage. Below is a table with info on the different kinds of runes.

JAGEX recently introduced a new rune called the Astral Rune, it is used to put a bit of magic into mundane actions. It has heal and cure spells, teleport spells and recoil spells in addition to the non-combat skill-related spells.

Unlike the Ancient Magik spells, all Lunar Spells require an Astral Rune, apon completion of the Lunar Diplomacy quest you receive the right to use it. The first person to complete the Lunar Diplomacy quest was a member of "The Chaos Alliance" which can be found more about under the "Runescape/Guides/Clan" section.

Spells
Below is a table of all the normal spells castable. Members only spells are in bold.

Ancient Magick
This is a reward from the Desert Treasure quest. The common slang used for it is "Ancients" and players using it are called "Ancienters". The four elements are ice, shadow, smoke, and blood, each with their own respective abilities. The Ancient Magicks are more powerful than normal magic and allow players to poison, freeze, drain, and lower their enemies' attack as well as hit multiple enemies at the same time. Players with Ancient Magick can also teleport to different locations, including several places in the Wilderness. If Ancients are activated the player using them cannot use any normal spells so even players who can use Ancients will often have normal magic activated for alchemy and teleport reasons. Players can switch between the two types by praying at an alter in a pyramid accessed during the quest (praying here reduces the player's prayer points to 0). Ancient Magicks consume more runes than normal spells and often use high level runes.

Please be aware that the Desert Treasure quest is EXTREMELY hard, unless you are a VERY skilled pure or hybrid you should not be under level 75 to do the quest. Getting up to a certain stage in Desert Treasure also gives you the ability to complete Curse of Zaros minigame, giving you "Ghost robes, hoods, gloves, boots and a cape." Ancient spells are very expensive and almost all of them require blood runes. The most effective PKing spell is the almighty Ice Barrage which can hit 30s on multiple people within a 3x3 square radius.