The Early Quests Worth Doing First in Old School RuneScape

Grinding levels is the slow path through the early game. Quests are the fast one. A handful of them hand out enough experience, access and equipment to skip hours of repetitive training, and most new players do them far too late.

Why quests beat grinding early

Quest rewards come in four shapes, and each solves a problem a low-level account has. Experience rewards move a skill several levels at once. Access rewards open areas and shortcuts you would otherwise walk around. Skill unlocks let you use content that is simply closed off until the quest is complete. Item rewards give you gear the shops do not sell.

Early skill levels are cheap in experience terms, which is exactly why a single quest reward can carry a skill from nothing to a usable level in one hit.

Waterfall Quest

The one every experienced player recommends first. It has no combat level or skill requirements, and its reward is a large amount of Attack and Strength experience delivered in one go. A brand new account can complete it and come out with combat stats that would otherwise take a long session to reach.

Do this before you settle into any combat training routine, not after.

Cook’s Assistant

Short, free-to-play, and the standard first quest for a reason. It requires no combat, teaches you how quest dialogue and item gathering work, and gives Cooking experience plus permanent access to the Lumbridge Castle kitchen range.

The Restless Ghost and Rune Mysteries

Both are free-to-play, both are short, and both give something structural rather than just numbers. The Restless Ghost gives Prayer experience, which is one of the slower skills to train conventionally. Rune Mysteries opens Runecrafting and the rune essence mine, which matters if you intend to use magic seriously.

Doric’s Quest and Vampyre Slayer

Doric’s Quest is almost trivial and hands over Mining experience that is worth several early levels. Vampyre Slayer gives Attack experience and is one of the first quests that asks you to actually fight something, which makes it a reasonable test of whether your combat stats are where they should be.

How to sequence them

• Start with the no-requirement quests that give experience in skills you have not touched yet.
• Do Waterfall Quest as early as you can tolerate the travel.
• Leave anything with a combat requirement until the experience quests have raised your stats.
• Read the requirements before you start. Walking across the map to be turned away is the most common early time sink.

After the early block

Once these are done you will have broad low levels, several areas unlocked and a much better sense of the map. That is the point at which choosing a training path or a money maker actually makes sense.