Update:Dev Blog: Skillcape Perks

This official news post is copied verbatim from the Old School RuneScape website. It is copyrighted by Jagex.
It was added on 18 September 2015.

We plan on improving skill capes to make them more desirable and we need your help! Come and see what we have planned so far and let us know what you think.

Head over to the forums and have a read of the developer blog to see what we currently have in mind. Your feedback is very important so be sure to let us know what you think.

Mods Alfred, Archie, Ash, Ghost, Ian, John C, Kieren, Mat K, Maz, Ronan, Weath
The Old School Team

Dev Blog: Skillcape Improvements Project

A very popular idea over the past year and more has been to add little improvements to each of the skillcapes - to give them more of a reason to be worn when training the related skill!

Well we agree and have been working on collecting ideas for the skillcapes but we feel some of these ideas could be improved and want your help! Either post your ideas and feedback here or tweet me or Mod John C.

The feature we add to each cape should fit certain criteria:

Should only a small perk.
Should not have anything more than a tiny impact on the XP rate for that skill.
Should be a circumstance where the perk would actually be useful.
There should only be 1 perk for each. Your suggestion would replace the idea we have.
The stats of the capes should not be changed.

Current Perks

Attack

Free access to Cyclops.

Rather than having to gather Warriors Guild tokens, if
you wear your attack skillcape, you will gain free access
to the defender dropping Cyclops.

Strength

Unlimited teleports to the Warrior's Guild

It is hard to come up with ideas for the melee combat
skills, but this does seem appropriate. We thought about
having it perm boost to 100, but it wouldn't really be
useful at all versus any cape with an offensive bonus.

Defence

Act as a Ring of Life.

Would act as a permanent Ring of Life! It would not
degrade upon using like the ring does. Thanks for
submitting this suggestion! We like it :).

Ranged

Act as an accumulator.

This seems logical - while not having the stats of the Ava
device, it does give you an alternative, something you
can use to show off with but still have your ammo picked up.

Prayer

Will provide the effects of the Holy Wrench.

This will not stack with the Holy wrench but will allow
you to save that inventory space rather than having to
bring one with you. Seems appropriate for obvious
reasons. We thought about making it count as a
Saradomin item in GWD but this feels better.

Magic

Cast Spellbook swap once a day on the cape.

This would allow you to use spellbook swap regardless
of which spellbook you are using once a day. It would
also not require access to the lunar spells.

Hitpoints

Acts as if you have rapid heal prayer activated, i.e. 2x HP restore rate.

This will not stack with the prayer. (It could do though,
get your feedback in). Would provide a nice effect, the
prayer after all is low level and doesn't use many prayer
points to use.

Runecrafting

Acts as all tiaras or decreased chance of degrading pouches

This would allow access to any and all Runecrafting
altars including any future altars if we choose to add
them. Most RCers would use abyss, acting as all tiaras
could be not too useful, decreasing the chance of the
pouches degrading when being filled might be better.

Construction

5 daily teleports to the portal room of your PoH.

Similar to the Magic cape idea, allows you to have quick
access to teleport portals, and hence should have a limit.
This would also mix it up a little from the standard PoH
teleport to your portal.

Agility

Acts as Graceful cape including the weight reduction.

Allows you to show off your Agility cape rather than
having to wear Graceful. Seems fitting that when you
want to conserve run energy around Gielinor that you
wear your Agility cape!

Herblore

Can search the cape and find a Pestle and Mortar.

You would not be able to do this while you already have
one in your inventory. Another one that we would
definitely appreciate suggestions on. Feels a bit weak as
a perk but could provide help in a few situations.

Thieving

Provides Ardougne cape thieving benefits; that is a 10% better chance of pickpocketing anywhere in Runescape.

This is unlocked via the hard Ardougne achievement
diary. We believe this isn't devaluing the diary reward, a
99 in one stat just for one of the benefits of that diary is fair.

Crafting

Unlimited teleports to the Crafting guild.

Certainly seems appropriate, would be a nice little perk
for anyone who is wanting to use any of the content
there (guilds themselves could be more useful too though).

Fletching

Can search the cape and find a knife.

You would not be able to do this while you already have one in your inventory.
Another one that we would definitely appreciate suggestions on. Feels a bit weak as
a perk but could provide help in a few situations.

Slayer

Can persuade your slayer master to reassign you the same task you just had once a day.

Duradel et al. would recognize you are a very
experienced slayer yourself and would be happy to let
you repeat your last task - This would only be doable
once. Once you have used the repeat on a task, the next
day you would have to get a completely new task.

Hunter

5 Teleports per day to Black Chins or Red Chins.

You would be able to teleport with the cape to either the
red chin spot or black chin spot. You would be able to
teleport a maximum of 5 times per day with both
teleports counting towards that same 5.

Mining

Has the Varrock Armour 3 effect.

The effect of the hard Varrock Armour is to have a 10%
chance of receiving a double ore from the rock you mine
including the xp for that extra ore all the way up to adamantite.

Smithing

Would provide the Goldsmithing gauntlets XP boost.

That XP boost increasing the XP received for smelting a
Gold bar by about 2.5x. This was another skill we
struggled for ideas with, feel free to suggest something else.

Fishing

Permanent level boost to 100.

This would hence provide a small boost to your catch rate
when fishing - hence this would be a very slight XP
boost per hour. Feels a tad artificial so if there are any
better suggestions, we'll definitely take them into account.

Cooking

Would prevent you from burning anything.

Currently many items can still be burnt at 99 cooking,
Cooking gauntlets prevent you burning shark but not Dark crabs, Sea Turtles and Manta Rays. We propose that
the Cooking cape would stop you burning everything
currently in game.

Firemaking

Acts as a light source.

This would be a light source that couldn't go out when
failing an agility shortcut or the like. Would allow you to
free up an inventory space.

Woodcutting

Increases chance of finding a bird's nest.

Similar to what people thought the Rabbit's foot
necklace did, but doesn't. When chopping a tree there is
a small % increase chance of having a bird's nest drop.

Farming

Give a 5% increased yield from herb patches.

This would stack with any other boosts you can get for
increasing yield, i.e. the Magic secateurs etc. This
number can also be changed with ease if anyone thinks
it is too high or too low.

Sailing (if it had passed - just left in as an easter egg :P)

Increased chance of generating a rare event.

When sailing you have a chance of generating a rare
event based on the upgrades you have added to your
ship. If you wear this cape while sailing, this chance
would be increased slightly - and there is plenty of
reason to sail past 99!

The Max Cape

Firstly, the Max cape is currently being developed by Mod Maz and will be another few weeks away yet. It is far bigger than the other content in the QoL poll given the graphics requirements for an epic emote etc! This cape would be released before this project, and hence we must consider it.

We have two options:

Allow it to have all the perks simultaneously.
Allow it to only have one, which you must operate the cape and choose.

Given the perks are not really related to one another, we don't have a problem with it giving all the perks simultaneously - they are small and only provide a little help. Your feedback would be appreciated here.