Agility Courses and Arena

Agility is the movement skill. Your level sets how far you can sprint before your energy runs out, how much a fall hurts, and which of the map's 65 marked crossings you can use. You train it on 21 timed courses and in the Agility Arena. Course laps also pay tickets, the only currency the agility shop accepts.

Energy, falls and passive experience

Your run energy is a pool of steps: 600 at level 1, plus 30 more for every Agility level you gain. Sprinting spends one step per block, so a high level character covers several times the ground a beginner does before running dry. The pool refills whenever you are not sprinting, taking about a minute from empty to full, or about 45 seconds if you sneak. When it drops below a fifth, your food bar drops with it and your sprint goes with it.

Two things pay experience for simply moving. Sprinting on the flat or uphill pays a trickle every block, and sneaking while stood still and out of combat pays a steadier drip while your energy comes back. Agility also softens falls, but only if you are sneaking as you land: the higher your level, the less the drop hurts. Taking a hit in combat costs you energy unless you are wearing an Attack skill cape.

The desert is the exception to all of it. Without heat resistance it drains your energy and your prayer every second, refuses to let energy recover, and starts hurting you once the pool is empty. It also suppresses the passive sneaking experience for a couple of minutes after you leave. Heat resistance armour or a heat resistance potion turns the whole thing off.

How a lap works

Every course starts on a marked block with a floating START label. Step onto it and the clock starts, and any speed potion you are under is cleared. From there you follow the checkpoint markers in order, and each one you reach saves your position and confirms it on your hotbar. The last marker is the finish: it pays the course experience and tickets, prints your time, and tells you when the run was a new personal best.

Reach a checkpoint out of order and the run is void. You are told you missed one and have to start again from the beginning. Drinking a speed potion part way through does the same. If you fall or get stuck, /checkpoint (or /cp) returns you to your last checkpoint, and /res puts you back on the start line and restarts the clock. Neither works while something is fighting you, or if you have wandered too far from the point you are trying to reach.

Two bonuses sit on top of the normal payout. The first time you ever complete a course it pays five times its usual experience, so an early first lap on a high value course is worth the trip. After that, every tenth completion of that same course pays a large bonus on top and doubles the tickets. The count is kept per course, so hopping between courses constantly costs you those tenth lap payouts.

The 21 courses and where they are

Lumbridge has two, an easy loop paying 100 experience and one ticket and a hard one paying 550 and three. Varrock park is the shortest course in the game at 200 experience and one ticket, a single marker from the start. Varrock's rooftops pay 1,750 and ten tickets, Draynor rooftop 600 and three, Falador 1,500 and ten. Al-Kharid pays 2,000 experience, twelve tickets and coins, and on your first attempt it tells you to follow the torches.

Further out, Gnome stronghold pays 1,000 and three tickets, Barbarian stronghold 750 and three, Seer's rooftop 1,000 and four, Canifis rooftop 650 and three, and the Ice caves 1,050 and six. The Agility Pyramid pays 2,000, eight tickets and coins, but the desert around it strips your energy unless you have heat resistance. The Wilderness course pays 950 and four tickets in deep multi-combat territory, and the Wilderness volcano course is a 100 experience curiosity out there that pays no tickets at all.

The two training facilities are three linked courses each. Brimhaven's easy, medium and hard stages pay 250, 650 and 4,000 experience for two, five and fifteen tickets, and the hard stage is the biggest single lap payout in the game. Mort'ton's three stages pay 350, 550 and 2,400 experience for two, five and eleven tickets. Both sit behind an entrance that does check your level, unlike the courses themselves.

Suggested levels, real gates

Every course carries a level in the Agility tab of the skill guide, and that is all it is: a suggestion. Nothing checks your level when you step onto a start marker. If you can physically reach the start line you can run the course and bank the experience at any level, the hardest stage of either training facility included. Read the listed level as a hint about how punishing the jumps are, not as a lock on the content.

Two gates are real. The entrance to the Brimhaven Agility Training Facility needs Agility 40, and under that it simply will not carry you through, with a sign above it naming the requirement. The way into the Mort'ton Agility Training Facility is a crossing that needs Agility 25. Crossing levels are enforced everywhere with no exceptions: walk into one under the requirement and you are told the level you need and left standing where you were.

Shortcuts

There are 65 marked crossings on the map. Most are a block with a floating label naming the crossing and the Agility level it needs. Walk into it and you are moved to the far side, and every one works in both directions. Lumbridge river is the cheapest at 10, and the Jatizso and Neitiznot crossings at 85 are the most expensive. A handful, including the way into the Agility Arena, ask for nothing at all. Several are not conveniences but the practical route into a dungeon.

Markers along the way: Lumbridge east, north east Falador and the Edgeville dungeon at 15, Yanille at 16, the coal trucks and Draynor manor at 20, Port Sarim at 25, Mort Myre at 30, Barbarian Outpost and west Falador at 35, Taverley to Falador and Rellekka at 40, the Grand Exchange crossing and the top of the Slayer Tower at 45, Varrock sewers and the first Stronghold floor at 50, Karamja to Musa Point at 53, White Wolf Mountain at 55, Brimhaven dungeon at 60, the Zanaris cosmic altar at 66, Waterbirth at 70 and Trollheim at 80.

Four sets want a quest as well as the level. Three of the Corsair Cove crossings need Dragon Slayer I, the two Canifis crossings need Priest in Peril, the two Grand Tree crossings need The Grand Tree, and the Barbarian Outpost crossing needs Alfred Grimhand's Barcrawl. Walk into one of those without the quest and you are turned back with a message naming it, however high your Agility.

The Agility Arena and the ticket shop

The Agility Arena sits under Brimhaven, reached by a marked crossing on the surface that asks for no level. Inside is a five by five grid of beacons eighteen blocks apart, with an obstacle lane running between every neighbouring pair. Click the beacon by the entrance to begin and a target beacon lights up at least two squares away, its grid position printed in chat. Reach it, click it, and you are paid 30 experience for every grid square of the route before a fresh target appears.

Fourteen obstacle types fill the lanes: small walls, log, rope and plank balances, monkey bars, pillars, rope swings, ledges, swinging blades, hand holds, pressure pads, floor spikes, arrow traps and a large blade. Hand holds, pressure pads and floor spikes need Agility 20, arrow traps and the large blade need 40, and a red level label floats over any lane that asks for one. Under the level you fail every attempt. Failing throws you back to the nearest beacon, and blades, spikes, arrows and pads take a bite of health too. Higher Agility fails less often on every obstacle.

Tickets come from course laps only, never from the arena. Check your balance with /tickets and spend it with Ayzer, who stands on the surface above the arena. The agility orb costs 300 and simply runs /cp for you. Agility chaps and body cost 500 each and give heat resistance, which is what makes the desert and the Agility Pyramid workable. Agility boots cost 1,000 and remove fall damage completely, the most useful thing in the shop for anyone running rooftops.