Attack range

The attack range of a weapon or spell is the maximum number of squares away from a target, both diagonally and orthogonally, from which the player wielding the weapon or casting the spell may attack the target and deal damage or other effects.

Players may use a weapon's attack range to their advantage to avoid possible damage from monsters by hiding behind obstacles. Such areas are known as safe spots. A player can stand in a safespot and use weapons that allow them to attack from afar to retain life points in combat. This tactic is known as "safespotting".

If dual-wield weapons of different attack ranges are equipped, the player's attack range will be that of the weapon with the shortest attack range. For example, if the player equips a wand and an off-hand melee weapon, the player can only attack within 1 square of their target, despite most magic weapons having an attack range of 8.

A player attacking their target from afar.

Attack range is defined such that melee distance (adjacent to target) is 1 square.

Melee weapons

All melee weapons have an attack range of 1, except for halberd-type weapons. These weapons, which also include the Ivandis flail, Thalassia's Revenge, Masuta's warspear, Dragon Rider lance, Laniakea's spear, and noxious scythe, instead have an attack range of 2.

Halberds

Halberds function in the same way as magic, ranged, and necromancy; they can hit across various small obstacles (such as chairs, rocks, cages, etc.) allowing a player to safely kill a monster from one square away using melee damage. Note that not all in-game objects can allow this effect to happen, so players must be aware when fighting powerful monsters as the game moves the player towards the monster to attack if the object is impassable.

Halberds also increase the range of area-of-effect abilities such as Cleave, Quake, Hurricane, and Meteor Strike.

Magic spells

All combat Magic spells have an attack range of 8 regardless of the level required to cast the spell or the magic weapon used.

Players using the ice elemental spells from the Ancient Magicks spellbook or Binding type spells from the normal spellbook can prevent monsters or players from moving, then run a few "squares" away and continue to attack. This is particularly useful in areas where there are no safespots or when a player needs to quickly take cover from damage. This tactic is known as "farcasting" and saves a great deal of life points as many players or monsters have an attack range of 1. This only works on monsters that are not immune to stuns and binds, however.

• All Ancient Magicks spells that have a multi-targeted attack have an effect range that is a 3x3 centred around the targeted square.
• Tele-group teleport spells from the Lunar Spellbook allow for teleportation of players in a 3x3 range centred on the caster.
• Some spells will continue to follow their target even after they are out of range (e.g. if someone casts teleport block on a player, but they teleport before being blocked, the block will follow the player to their destination).

Necromancy

Necromancy weapons (siphons and conduits) have an attack range of 6.

Incantations are self-target Necromancy spells that do not have an attack range.

Ranged weapons

Ranged weapons have the greatest variety of weapon attack ranges. Weapons with shorter attack ranges usually have a faster attack speed, while those with longer attack ranges usually fire at a slower speed.

The Escape ability will move the user backwards to the maximum range of their weapon.

Weapons	Range
Darts Thrownaxes	4
Knives Javelins Blisterwood stake	5
Bone blowpipe Death lotus dart Upgraded bone blowpipe	6
Crossbows Shortbows Shadow glaive Morrigan's javelin Seercull Crystal bow Zaryte bow Hexhunter bow Salamanders	7
Shieldbows Sacred clay bow Vanquish (ranged) Masterwork bow	8
Bow of the Last Guardian Composite bows Decimation Noxious longbow Royal crossbow Sagaie Sighted shieldbows Dark bow Strykebow Mechanised chinchompa Wyvern crossbow Hand cannon Hellfire bow Seren godbow Eldritch crossbow	9

Familiars

Combat Summoning familiars have their own attack ranges dependent on what combat style the familiar uses. See Summoning familiars for more details.

Other equipment

• The Ring of recoil and Vengeance spell are effective at any range.
• The Dwarf multicannon and its variants attack in an area of approximately 40x40 tiles.
• The Oldak coil attacks targets in a 9x9 area, while the Kinetic cyclone attacks targets in a 5x5 area.
• Herblore bombs may be thrown a maximum of 10 tiles away.

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!

• ninja 3 June 2019 (Update):
  • The maximum target distance can now be set to equal the distance of the currently equipped weapon.