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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering            >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Raid Mechanics

Assembling or Joining a Party Leadership and Party Management

Once everyone has joined the team, it’s time to start the dungeon. The team leader clicks the dungeon entrance, specifies relevant parameters such as floor number, difficulty and map size, and all the team members appear in the floor’s starting room.

While it is possible to just immediately hit the doors, begin exploring the floor and commence bashing things over the head, that’s usually not the smartest approach. It is better to take a couple of minutes and get ready first, especially for medium-sized or larger dungeons with higher difficulty levels.

Every dungeon begins with a certain amount of random starting gear on the tables in the home room. Most players begin the floor by grabbing these “freebies” off of the tables to help them get a head start on doing the dungeon.

Solo players will find a few fish, generally one armor piece and some random weapons. Teams will find a broader selection, often including runes, rune essence, weapons and armor pieces.

What usually happens in teams is that everyone makes a mad dash for the tables and tries to grab everything of value. Not exactly in the spirit of teamwork. While this can be fine in some cases, the team leader should ideally encourage people to share, and to give items to players for whom it is appropriate. Players in turn should remember that this is a team activity, and try not to be selfish.

For example, if you already have a high-level platebody bound, don’t bother taking one from the table; maybe another player could make good use of it. Don’t grab arrows if you already have a bunch, or blood runes if you start out with 125. And definitely don’t try to take all of the good healing fish.

Don’t forget to equip your ring of kinship to save an inventory space.

If you’re playing solo, you have to do everything yourself; you need to collect keys, open doors, solve puzzles, kill all the monsters, etc. Part of the advantage of a team, however, is that you can take advantage of the division of labor. Someone on the team needs to do all of those things I mentioned, but not everyone has to do them. By dividing up roles among the team, the party can save a lot of time and avoid a great deal of hassle.

Some important roles that should be assigned include:

• Keymaster: Watches for colored shape keys on the ground and picks them up; also keeps track of the locations of locked doors.
  
  
• Toolkeeper: Carries the tools that are often required to get through skill doors and do challenge rooms: pickaxe, hammer, hatchet, knife, tinderbox and empty vial.
  
  
• Healer: Brings with runes to allow him or her to cure teammates’ poison using the Lunar Magicks cure spells. (This is not necessary on Frozen theme floors, which have no poisonous monsters.)
  
  
• Mage: Makes combat runes for dealing with nasty high-level forgotten warriors (which take forever to melee).

It is possible to have one player do more than one of these roles, or in some cases to have more than one player serve a particular role. For example, two people with tools provides flexibility in case the team ends up with some members in different parts of the dungeon. On the other hand, it is best to have only one player keeping track of keys and doors.

Players will sometimes volunteer for these roles; if not, the team leader should ask for volunteers, and if that fails, do the jobs him/herself. Bear in mind that some players may be better suited to particular roles. If there’s a player with lower combat levels but high non-combat skills, for example, that person should consider carrying tools, since he or she will probably be doing most of the doors and challenge rooms that require tools. The person who keeps track of keys should have good organizational skills, and high combat skills because of the need to grab keys from monster-filled dead end rooms.

In a “rush” dungeon, the goal is to just get it done as fast as possible. But when the goal is to fully explore a floor—especially a medium-sized or large one—it is a wise idea to take a couple of minutes to prepare first. While these activities may make cause some of the less patient team members to chafe, they can easily save time in the long run.

Some important preparation work to consider doing before leaving the starting room:

• Assign/allocate roles as mentioned above.
  
  
• Ask if any players do not have good armor, so accommodation can be made for them later on if necessary when resources are found.
  
  
• Buy tools for the player(s) carrying them.
  
  
• Make combat runes.
  
  
• Make utility runes for healing poison and casting Gatestone Teleport. It is almost a given that gatestones will be needed on large dungeons.

In some cases, the team may need to wait until a couple of rooms are cleared in order to get money or other necessary items.

Assembling or Joining a Party Leadership and Party Management