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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - RuneScape Monster Data, Combat Guide and Drop Logs       >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - Understanding the Beastopedia            >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - General Information

A Wealth of Information - What the Beastopedia Can Tell You Adapting Beastopedia Numbers Based on Skill Levels

Hopefully the previous topic has you excited about the Beastopedia and ready to dive in. I think you’ll find it an essential resource, and it’s pretty easy to understand and use. However, I do have to temper your enthusiasm just a bit with a few caveats about using the guide, and a description of some of its limitations as well. Reviewing these points briefly will help you understand better the assumptions I made in writing the Beastopedia, and how it works.

Accuracy

As with any sort of guide or database, I do the very best I can to ensure that the information contained in the Beastopedia is accurate. However, being human and all that, I cannot guarantee that there are no errors in what I have written. While I believe the information to be mostly correct, don’t be surprised if you find the occasional “gotcha”.

The potential for errors increases in areas where I have had to make assumptions or guesses due to lack of solid information. For example, there are monsters that have alternate locations I’ve never visited (such as the red dragons in the Wilderness) and so I am not really sure exactly how many of them live there. Another example would be the maximum ranged and magic hits of certain monsters, which can be difficult to determine. I also have to make approximations on certain drop rates where there isn’t enough information to be certain.

In these and all other cases, if you find a mistake or omission, please tell me so I can correct it! Thanks.

Currency

The information in the Beastopedia was current when it was initially published, but RuneScape constantly changes, and this can lead to information becoming stale. For example, Jagex sometimes changes drop lists, or makes monsters easier or harder to kill than they were before. New items brought into the game can also lead to changes in what I would recommend for certain types of combat, and can influence how many monsters can be killed in an hour.

I will make every effort to keep the Beastopedia up to date, changing entries and testing monsters again where appropriate. In fact, I have spent many hours revising entries from their initial incarnations, including verifying drop lists. Still, I know from past experience that sometimes I fall behind on these efforts, so you’ll have to be patient with me.

Combat Level Assumptions

I am a very high-level player, currently with a combat level of 137, all melee skills at 99, Ranged at 96 and Magic at 97. I also have 96 Summoning and 95 Prayer. Since most of the combat I do is melee-based, I can be effectively considered “maxed out”, and so my tests represent the maximum speed generally possible in fighting various monsters.

If your combat skills are significantly lower than mine, you will need to take this into account when evaluating equipment and supplies lists, kill counts and drop logs in the Beastopedia. I do provide information on how to adapt the information here to your combat level and playing style.

Note that I also have a high Herblore level and can make the new “extreme” potions. However, since I know most players can’t make these, I have endeavored to avoid using them in drop logs unless I also have at least one drop log without them.

Randomness and Luck

There’s a random element to much about combat in RuneScape, and this means that you’ll almost always get different results than I do, even if you have the same skill levels and use identical equipment and supplies. There will always be some natural variation in how many kills you get per hour, for starters, and drops will also differ from one trip to the next—sometimes greatly.

I’ve tried to reduce the impact of randomness on drop logs and kill counts by fighting most monsters for at least one full hour. This does help to smoothe out some of the luck factors, but in certain cases it’s really not enough to get a good handle on probabilities, especially of getting rare drops. For example, I can recall one time fighting cave horrors and getting four black masks in the span of a single Slayer assignment lasting about an hour. But I’ve also, in the past, gone 10+ hours without getting a single one. There are other drops that are so rare you might only get one after 20 or even 100 hours of fighting, and there’s just no way I can really quantify these.

This randomness can also affect more mundane drops, meaning that lists of good item sources are by their nature only approximations and averages. While in theory you should get about 800 noted pure essence per hour from killing banshees at high levels, you could get 500 or 1,000 just as easily.

Combat Testing and Measurement Methods

Much of the value of the Beastopedia is tied to my idea of conducting actual combat tests with all of the monsters. In order to do this, I had to make a number of key decisions with respect to how I fight, such as what combat style to use, what equipment to wear, how long to test, how often to bank, where to fight, and so forth. Naturally, each of these choices has an impact on measurements such as kill rates and drops. I’ve also had to use various techniques for measuring kills and keeping track of drops.

To help you understand better the basis for my combat tests, I’ve included a separate topic describing my methodology, where I explain in detail the choices I have made and why.

A Wealth of Information - What the Beastopedia Can Tell You Adapting Beastopedia Numbers Based on Skill Levels