Quick answer
How many skills are in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, and what is the level cap?
Twelve skills are trainable now, grouped by the wiki into Combat (Attack, Magic, Ranged), Gathering (Mining, Woodcutting, Farming, Fishing), Artisan (Runecrafting, Construction, Artisan, Cooking) and Support (Agility). Prayer is listed as a future update rather than a live track. The cap is level 99 in every skill: most skills stopped at 50 before Dowdun Reach, Farming was the lone exception at 65, and Jagex revealed the move to 99 across all skills on 29 January 2026.
- Levels give small passive bonuses — lower stamina costs, a higher critical chance, slower equipment wear — and each track also drops spells, abilities and recipes at fixed levels.
- Skill Spells are the crossover: Runecrafting L8 Windstep, Construction L11 Eye of Oculus and L40 Personal Chest, Mining L11 Rocksplosion and Woodcutting L11 Axtral Projection are all paid for in runes even though Magic does not unlock any of them.
- The published level tables were written against a 50-level track, and the most recent video we cross-checked already disagrees with some of their numbers, so confirm any level on your own skill screen.
The twelve skills, grouped the way the game groups them
The wiki sorts skills into four families, and the family tells you most of what you need to know about how a skill levels.
Dragonwilds borrows its skill list from RuneScape rather than inventing one, and the wiki keeps that structure: Combat skills level by fighting, Gathering skills level by collecting, Artisan skills level by making things, and the single Support skill levels by moving through the world.
| Family | Skills | What raises the level |
|---|---|---|
| Combat | Attack, Magic, Ranged, Prayer (not in the game yet) | Melee weapons raise Attack, magic weapons and spell casts raise Magic, and ranged weapons raise Ranged. Prayer is listed as a future update instead of a track you can train today. |
| Gathering | Mining, Woodcutting, Farming, Fishing | Mining takes ore, clay and stone, including stones lifted off the floor. Woodcutting covers chopping trees down, tearing up saplings and picking logs up. Farming grows crops and Fishing catches fish; both are unlockable rather than available from the start, and the wiki credits Farming to the Growing Pains quest. |
| Artisan | Runecrafting, Construction, Artisan, Cooking | Runecrafting gathers rune essence and crafts runes at a rune altar, Construction builds structures, Artisan crafts weapons, armour and tools, and Cooking prepares food. |
| Support | Agility | Running and traversal, including the agility courses placed around the map. |
Early Access launched with nine of those twelve skills, which is why guides written during that period quote a nine-skill roster. Farming, Fishing and Agility arrived later, and the wiki still marks Prayer as future content rather than counting it in.
Why a widely copied list still says nine skills
The IGN skills page that this guide leans on for its per-level tables still prints the launch roster and a level 50 cap. The snapshot is genuinely useful — its spell names, rune costs and cooldowns are the most complete list in the sources behind this page — but read its roster and its cap as history rather than as the current game.
The level cap, and what it used to be
The ceiling moved on the way to 1.0, and the old limits explain a lot of the numbers still quoted in guides.
Skills are trained with experience and go up to level 99, with each level unlocking a small bonus or a new spell tied to that skill. That has not always been the shape of progression. For most of Early Access the tracks stopped at 50, and the tables most guides are built from were written inside that ceiling.
- Current cap
- Level 99 in every skill.
- Cap before Dowdun Reach
- Level 50 for most skills, with Farming the single exception at level 65.
- Experience past the old cap
- The wiki records that it was not wasted: the overage was converted into a higher maximum experience cap, written as 100,000,000 + n XP.
- 29 January 2026
- Jagex revealed the increase to level 99 across all skills, framing it as making room to backfill content while the world of the game grows.
- 15 May 2026
- Jagex moved Agility to July 2026 and put Prayer after the conclusion of Kuldra's Saga.
- Skills at Early Access launch
- Nine, out of the twelve that can be trained now.
Assume every published level number is dated
The per-level tables behind the next two sections were written against a track that ended at 50. A video published three weeks before 1.0 already reports different numbers for some skills, and the wiki flags unlock pacing as something to re-check after launch week. Treat each level below as a claim from a dated source, and check your own skill screen before grinding towards a number.
Three further skills sit inside the game files but have never been announced: Defence, Herblore and Thieving. Nothing in this guide treats them as content you can plan around. They are mentioned so that the next datamined list you read does not send you looking for a trainer that is not there yet.
What a level gives you, and where Skill Spells fit
Two progression lines feed one spellbook, and only one of those lines is Magic.
Before the spells, it helps to know what a plain level buys. The pattern below comes from the per-level tables on the IGN skills page, and it is worth reading as a description of that source's version: the tracks that give no statistic per level are the two whose unlock levels carry all the weight.
| Skill | What each level adds |
|---|---|
| Attack | 1% off the Attack Stamina cost per level, on top of abilities and crafting recipes at set levels. |
| Magic | 1% off the Magic Stamina cost per level, which stretches every spell you can already cast. |
| Mining | A higher Mining Critical Hit Chance per level. |
| Woodcutting | A lower Woodcutting Stamina cost per level. |
| Artisan | Less equipment durability loss per level, so gear lasts longer between repairs. |
| Cooking | A slightly higher chance of producing Delicious Food, the premium version of a dish with stronger effects. |
| Construction and Runecrafting | Nothing per level. The same source lists no statistic for either track, which is why their spell and recipe unlocks are the whole point of levelling them. |
| Agility | A gradual reduction in the stamina you spend sprinting, plus less fall damage as you progress, according to the video guide. It also places the Windstep, double jump, Air Dash and carry-weight unlocks on this track. |
Now the crossover. A Skill Spell is owned by the skill that unlocks it, and almost all of them are still paid for with runes. The track that owns the spell sets the level it appears at, and the Runecrafting line decides whether you can afford to keep casting it. That is why a Construction level produces a magic-shaped effect, and why Windstep — a movement spell — appears on a crafting table rather than on Agility.
Chase the level that owns the spell you want
If you are deciding where to spend an evening of levelling, work backwards from the unlock. The spell arrives on the track that owns it, so pushing Construction gets you the chest and pushing Runecrafting gets you the runes, and neither substitutes for the other.
The Skill Spells and abilities worth planning around
Compiled from the per-level tables on the IGN skills page, with effects added from the video where a table gives only a level and a cost.
The utility list is the one that changes how a session goes. Every entry below is unlocked by a gathering or crafting skill, and every one of them is cast with runes.
| Spell or ability | Unlocked by | Level | Rune cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windstep | Runecrafting | 8 | 5x Air Rune, 3s cooldown | A movement spell. The video describes Windstep as a large improvement to vertical movement, but places it on the Agility track at level 5 instead. |
| Axtral Projection | Woodcutting | 11 | 5x Astral Rune and 10x Air Rune, 45s cooldown | Fells several trees in a single cast. |
| Rocksplosion | Mining | 11 | 15x Earth Rune and 5x Fire Rune, 45s cooldown | Empties a whole ore deposit in one cast. |
| Eye of Oculus | Construction | 11 | 3x Astral Rune, 3s cooldown | A placement camera that makes building large structures easier. |
| Bark to Bones | Artisan | 11 | 10x Earth Rune and 10x Nature Rune | — |
| Summon Shelter | Construction | 20 | 10x Astral Rune and 10x Earth Rune, 15s cooldown | — |
| Superheat | Artisan | 20 | 15x Fire Rune and 5x Air Rune, 10s cooldown | — |
| Internal Alchemy | Cooking | 20 | 10x Nature Rune, 210s cooldown | — |
| Detect Ore and Clay | Mining | 24 | 5x Astral Rune and 5x Earth Rune, 10s cooldown | — |
| Splinter | Woodcutting | 27 | 5x Nature Rune and 10x Earth Rune, 45s cooldown | — |
| Magical Mending | Artisan | 27 | 10x Nature Rune and 20x Earth Rune, 60s cooldown | Repairs your equipment in the field: drop the gear on the ground, cast, and it repairs and returns to you. |
| Bones to Peaches | Cooking | 27 | 10x Nature Rune and 5x Earth Rune, 3s cooldown | — |
| Essential Strength | Runecrafting | 27 | An ability rather than a spell | Cuts the weight of Rune Essence by half. |
| Personal Chest | Construction | 40 | 20x Law Rune and 15x Astral Rune, 5s cooldown | Remote access to your own storage from anywhere in the world, and the unlock the video calls the biggest reason to level Construction. |
A dash marks an entry where the source lists a level and a rune cost but no effect: those spells are recorded rather than guessed at.
The combat side works the same way, and mixes upgrades with spells. Attack spends its early levels on abilities and only starts handing over spells in the teens, while Magic spends its levels lowering the cost of everything you already cast.
| Spell or ability | Unlocked by | Level | Rune cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parry | Attack | 5 | An ability | — |
| Special actions for melee weapons | Attack | 8 | An ability | Described by the video as weapon special attacks. |
| Tempest Shield | Attack | 11 | 15x Air Rune, 60s cooldown | — |
| Enchant Weapon: Fire | Attack | 20 | 15x Fire Rune and 5x Astral Rune, 90s cooldown | — |
| Adaptability | Attack | 23 | An ability | Lets you block or evade without interrupting your melee combo. |
| Enchant Weapon: Air | Attack | 30 | 15x Air Rune and 5x Astral Rune, 90s cooldown | — |
| Surge | Magic | 11 | 10x Law Rune and 10x Astral Rune, 45s cooldown | — |
| Rune conservation | Magic | 20 | A passive, not a cast | A 30% chance that runes are not consumed when you make a magic attack. |
| Confuse | Magic | 30 | 25x Astral Rune, 120s cooldown | — |
| Greater Confuse | Magic | 44 | An ability | — |
Ranged is the one combat style with no section on the IGN page we cached, so the video's description of trick shots and snares is noted here without level numbers.
Where the two sources disagree
Two conflicts are left standing rather than resolved. The video says Agility level 5 unlocks Windstep and puts fire runes at 25, nature runes at 38 and law runes at 50. The IGN tables put Windstep in Runecrafting and the same runes at 13, 18 and 16. We have no in-game check for either, so both are reported as claims, and the level column above is the one the tabulated source gives.
Runes, travel and the Runecrafting line
Almost every utility spell is metered in runes, which makes Runecrafting the quiet hub of the whole skill list.
Runes reach you from three directions, according to the video guide: crafting them yourself at a rune altar, collecting rune essence from rune geysers and from defeated enemies and chests, and siphoning the Anima events scattered through the world. The Anima event beside the starting church is the example it gives, and it takes a few in-game days to replenish, which is the argument for producing your own runes instead of waiting on it.
| Rune | Recipe level | What it is spent on |
|---|---|---|
| Earth Rune | 11 | Rocksplosion, Detect Ore and Clay, Summon Shelter, Splinter, Bark to Bones, Magical Mending and Bones to Peaches all call for earth runes. |
| Fire Rune | 13 | Enchant Weapon: Fire, Rocksplosion and Superheat. The video adds that fire runes are also what your staff burns to deal fire damage. |
| Law Rune | 16 | Surge, the Personal Chest spell and lodestone travel. The video calls law runes the most important Runecrafting milestone, and this is the entry where the two sources disagree most. |
| Nature Rune | 18 | Splinter, Magical Mending, Bark to Bones, Internal Alchemy and Bones to Peaches. |
Recipe levels are the ones printed in the IGN level tables; the level 50 track they were written against no longer exists.
The law rune level is the widest gap on this page
The table gives law runes at Runecrafting 16 because that is what the level table says. The video, published three weeks before 1.0, tells players to finish the grind to Runecrafting 50 for law runes and treats that level as the point where the world opens up. We cannot settle it from the sources read here, so if you are about to spend an evening on Runecrafting, read the level track in your own game first.
Travel is the reason law runes carry that weight. Lodestones handle fast travel and become craftable once you lift a vault core from your first vault. The video adds that the cost of each jump scales with distance and with the weight you are carrying, which matches the same description in our map and regions guide.
Where a new character should spend levels
This order comes from a video published three weeks before 1.0, and its author introduces it as personal priority rather than a ranking of the skills overall.
The reasoning behind the order matters more than the order itself: it follows the unlocks that remove repeated work, not the unlocks that add damage.
Agility first, for movement and carry weight
Experience arrives from running, jumping and the courses placed around the map, so the track fills while you explore. The video credits it with Windstep, a double jump and an Air Dash at levels 5, 10 and 32, a falling sprint-stamina cost that also helps in combat, and carry-weight increases at levels 50 and 75.
Construction second, for the Personal Chest
The video calls the level 40 Personal Chest its biggest single target, because remote storage plus a supply of law and astral runes behaves like an extra inventory with no weight attached. Level 11 Eye of Oculus and the level 18 oak building tier support it, and higher-tier building pieces come with more health and better structural integrity.
Runecrafting as the supply line
Every utility spell on this page is bought with runes, so the Runecrafting track sets the ceiling on how much the rest of your progression is worth. The video recommends dedicated levelling into each unlock rather than leaving the skill a few levels short of one.
Artisan to 27 for Magical Mending
Field repairs replace the trip home to a crafting station: drop the gear you want repaired on the ground, cast, and it repairs and returns to you. The video also notes this track levels fastest of the set, because you are processing materials constantly anyway.
Mining and Woodcutting, watching the exploration unlocks
Rocksplosion at Mining 11 and Axtral Projection at Woodcutting 11 handle a deposit or a cluster of trees in one cast. Mining 20 opens crumbled walls and Woodcutting 20 opens thorny vines, both of which gate hidden areas — and both need a tool of the right tier for the zone. The video's advice is not to power level either track in your first hours.
All three combat styles, not one
Enemies carry elemental and damage-type weaknesses, and the video's recommendation is to carry every weapon type and level the styles together for harder content, while concentrating on a single style at the very start. The melee milestones it names are Parry at Attack 5, weapon special attacks at 8 and Adaptability at 23.
Cooking, Farming and Fishing as one system
The three feed each other. Food covers healing and carries the buffs that matter for combat, stamina regeneration and gathering, which is why the video treats them as a unit rather than three separate side tracks.
Construction recognises furniture spam
Placing the same cheap piece of furniture or wall over and over does grant experience, but the video reports that the game eventually caps you and puts you on a timer with no experience gain until it expires. Treat repeated building as a shortcut with a ceiling rather than a plan.
What this page answers, and what belongs on another page
Skills and spells cross into almost every other system, so here is the split this site uses.
| Question | Where it is answered |
|---|---|
| Which skills exist, what each level unlocks, and what a spell costs to cast | This page. |
| Which weapon, armour set or enchant to wear, and how the combat styles compare in practice | Our builds guide, with item-level detail on the weapons and armour pages. |
| Where a specific material is found and how a crafting chain works | The materials guide. |
| How fast travel, lodestones and regions are unlocked | The map and regions guide. |
| How Farming and Fishing actually play once they are unlocked | The Farming and Fishing guides. |
A spell question belongs here when it is about unlocking, affording or understanding a spell. It belongs on a build page when the answer is which spell, weapon and armour combination to bring to a particular fight.
Sources
What this page was checked against.
- RuneScape: Dragonwilds Wiki — Skills
- IGN — RuneScape: Dragonwilds Skills
- Primitive Nomad — RuneScape Dragonwilds: Best Skills to Level First
How this page was verified
Written on 16 September 2026 from the wiki skills article, the per-level tables on the IGN skills page and one video guide published on 24 August 2026, cross-checked for the level-cap dates. No skill was levelled and no spell was cast for this page: every level, cost and effect here is attributed to the source that published it, and the disagreements between those sources are reported instead of smoothed over.
Still open
- The rune recipe levels conflict: the video puts fire runes at 25, nature runes at 38 and law runes at 50, while the IGN tables put them at 13, 18 and 16. Both sources sit within months of each other, the video transcript is machine-generated, and neither could be checked in game, so both are reported.
- Windstep is grouped under Runecrafting 8 by the IGN table and described as an Agility 5 unlock by the video, so the same uncertainty applies to at least one other entry on the spell tables.
- Whether 1.0 retuned unlock pacing is unknown. The wiki flags it as something to re-check after launch week, and this page was written the day after launch.
- Several spells — Bark to Bones, Summon Shelter, Superheat, Internal Alchemy, Detect Ore and Clay, Splinter, Bones to Peaches and Tempest Shield — have no published effect description in any source read here. They are listed with a level and a cost and left otherwise unexplained.
- The video describes cooking unlocks that the IGN Cooking table does not match: a grill at level 6 and a set of perk-granting recipes in the mid-teens, against a pan rack at 11 and Delicious Food chance in the table. The cooking numbers in this guide are therefore attributed rather than tabulated.
- Ranged has no section in the cached IGN page, so its abilities are reported from the video without levels and are the thinnest part of the combat picture here.