Hitpoints

Hitpoints (also known as "health" or "HP", or Constitution in RuneScape 3) represents a player's health. If it reaches 0, the player will die. Hitpoints is the only skill to start out as level 10 on Tutorial Island, where the player starts out with exactly 1154 experience.

Fighting
While fighting, both the opponent and the player will have a bar on top of them. This bar represents their Hitpoints. There are two colours on the bar: green and red. The green part of the bar represents how many hitpoints the player and opponent has left. The red part of the bar represents how much damage has been taken away from their hitpoints. So if a player is low on hitpoints, then the bar on top of them would be mostly red, meaning they are near death. Players often refer to "being redbarred" when barely surviving or only just getting a kill.

Recovering hitpoints
A player can heal to restore their hitpoints back to its maximum. There are a number of ways to do this.
 * Let it recharge on its own. A player will recover one hitpoint about every minute. However, this is very slow as a means of recovering hitpoints.
 * Eat food. Players can eat various foods to restore their hitpoints. The best foods that heal a lot are the ones that can be cooked by a player. This is the recommended way a player heal themselves.
 * The monks at the Edgeville Monastery will heal players if they ask them. They heal 8 hitpoints each time.
 * The nurses at the infirmary north of Al Kharid Duel Arena will heal players if asked.
 * The Rapid Heal Prayer increases health recovery by 1 per minute, as does the regen bracelet. This is much slower than food, however.
 * Die. When a player dies, they respawn at full health and stats. This is recommended if the player has banked all items and wants to go to an area near their respawn point. It is also possible for one to die in safe minigames such as the Al Kharid Duel Arena or Pest Control, regaining all stats without the risk of losing any items.
 * Guthan the Infested's equipment has a chance of healing the wielder an amount of hitpoints equal to the damage dealt.
 * Use Blood spells which heals the caster 25% of the damage dealt.
 * Use the toxic blowpipe's special attack which increases its damage by 50% and heals its wielder by 50% of the damage dealt.
 * Use the saradomin godsword's special attack Healing Blade which heals 50% of the damage dealt, and 25% of the damage dealt is restored to the player's Prayer. There is a minimum restoration of 10 hitpoints and 5 Prayer points, even with a hit of 1.
 * Use onyx bolts (e) which has a chance of doing 20% extra damage, and heals the player by 25% of the damage dealt. However, it does not work on the undead creatures.
 * Teleport to Clan Wars using a ring of dueling, and then enter the Free-for-all portal (white portal), leave the portal and your hitpoints, prayer, run energy and stats will be restored.
 * The Elidinis Statuette in Nardah will fully restore a player's Prayer level, completely heal them, completely restore run energy, completely restore special attack energy, cure poison and give a temporary Hitpoints boost depending on your Hitpoints level. Players who have completed the Elite Desert Diary can take advantage of the desert amulet 4, which provides unlimited Nardah teleports and teleports the player in close proximity of the statue. It is also directly south of a Fairy ring. However, this statue cannot be used until Spirits of the Elid is complete.
 * Wearing a Regen bracelet and the hitpoints cape is a good passive way to regenerate 4 hitpoints per minute.
 * Drink from an ornate rejuvenation pool in a player-owned house.

Death
When a player's hitpoints reach 0, then they typically will die and respawn in one of four locations. The default location is Lumbridge. Players can change their respawn location to Falador, Camelot, or Edgeville by completing certain quests or paying a specific NPC. However, a player will only keep up to 3 of their highest valued items based on the Grand Exchange value of the item. One more item can be saved if a player dies with the Protect Item Prayer activated. All other items will be dropped onto the ground, but due to changes made to the game in 2015, the player's items no longer become visible to other players. Rather, the player has one hour to retrieve their items being visible to only them, after which they will vanish forever.

If a player attacks another player in the Wilderness that hasn't engaged in combat with them, or has used the Abyss for Runecrafting, they are given a skull that appears over their head. If a player dies of any circumstances while being "skulled" they lose all of their items carried at the time. However, the Protect Item Prayer can still be used to keep a single item when skulled (unless the player is in a high-risk world). The skull will disappear if a player who has a skull does not attack a player again in the Wilderness, or does not enter the Abyss within twenty minutes of receiving the skull.

A ring of life can also teleport the player safely back to their respawn point automatically upon reaching 10% or below their maximum hitpoints. However, if the player is hit with a killing blow they will not teleport away. Also if they are beyond level 30 in the Wilderness, they will not teleport away.

There are a few areas where if a player dies, they will not lose any of their items:
 * Pest Control
 * Castle Wars
 * Nightmare Zone
 * Inside of a player-owned house
 * Duelling with another player inside the Duel Arena
 * TzHaar Fight Cave/Pit
 * Clan Wars
 * Zulrah
 * Vorkath
 * Grotesque Guardians

Respawning
When a player dies, they will respawn, meaning they will live again. The default spawn location is located in Lumbridge. However, after the completion of the Recruitment Drive quest, members have the option of respawning in Falador as well by talking to Sir Tiffy Cashien in the Falador Park. After completing the Camelot training room minigame, you are able to change your respawn point to the front of Camelot by talking to Merlin. In addition players are able to spawn in Edgeville near the wilderness lever by paying Krystilia a one time fee of 5,000,000 coins.

Earning experience
To earn experience in Hitpoints, a player has to fight or complete quests which reward Hitpoints experience.

When fighting, whether it be by melee, Ranged, or Magic, a player will earn hitpoints experience whenever damage is dealt. For every damage point dealt, 1.33 experience is given to the player's hitpoints. However, a few monsters have greatly reduced experience due to their ability to regenerate. (An exception to this being Monkey Guards from Ape Atoll)

Temporary boosts

 * Saradomin brew - Made using the Herblore skill. Drinking this brew raises defence by 20% + 2 and hitpoints by 15% + 2, even above maximum if a player's Hitpoints is 99, though all other combat skills decrease by 10%.
 * Anglerfish - Caught with the Fishing skill and cooked with the Cooking skill. Can boost hitpoints by up to 22 with a Hitpoints level of 99, giving it the highest possible hitpoints boost in the game.
 * Altar of Elidinis - This altar in Nardah will heal you and raise your total Hitpoints, and will also refill your Prayer. Players need to have completed Spirits of the Elid.
 * Hitpoints cape - Owners of the Hitpoints cape can boost their hitpoints by 1 every minute, by operating the cape or re-equipping it. The cape is one of the Capes of Accomplishment, and can only be bought and equipped by players with 99 Hitpoints.
 * Guthan the Infested's equipment with the amulet of the damned - When using the Guthan's armour set and the amulet of the damned, you gain the ability to boost your health by 10 over its maximum.

Trivia

 * In RuneScape Classic, all players started with level 10 Hits and 1000 XP - slightly less XP than would be required for level 10 in all other skills. When RuneScape 2 was released, accounts that had not gained the Hits XP needed to reach level 10 or higher had their Hitpoints stat "corrected" to level 9. The only way to have level 9 Hitpoints was to have created an account prior to RuneScape 2 and not to have trained the Hitpoints skill since. The minimum combat level is still 3 for those players. However, since all accounts start fresh, no players in Old School RuneScape have 9 Hitpoints.

Skill choice
Upon completing any of the following quests, players may choose to allocate experience to Hitpoints. These rewards usually come in the form of items, such as lamps or books, and are independent of any experience rewards directly received for completing the quest.