Ironman Mode in RS3: A Getting-Started Guide
Ironman mode turns RuneScape 3 into a self-sufficiency challenge: everything you own, you made or earned yourself. It's the most popular way to replay the game, and for a lot of players it's more satisfying than a main account. Here's what you're signing up for.
The core rule: you're on your own
On an Ironman account you cannot trade with other players or use the Grand Exchange, you can't pick up other players' drops, and you can't be assisted. If you want a piece of gear, you have to get the materials and make it, or kill the thing that drops it. That single restriction changes everything downstream: skilling matters far more, quests become essential for unlocks, and every upgrade feels earned.
The three Ironman types
- Standard Ironman, the self-sufficient account described above.
- Hardcore Ironman (HCIM), Ironman with one life: an unsafe death removes your Hardcore status and reverts you to a standard Ironman. It's for players who want the tension of permadeath without deleting the account.
- Group Ironman (GIM), a small team that plays Ironman together. You can trade and share resources within your group, but not with anyone outside it, so it's Ironman with friends.
You choose your type when you start the account (usually via Adventurer's Tutorial / the account settings), and some downgrades are one-way, so pick deliberately.
How Ironman changes your priorities
- Gathering and production skills carry you. You'll be making your own potions, food, ammo, and gear, so skills a main might skip become core.
- Quests are non-negotiable. Many unlocks (access, teleports, gear you can't otherwise obtain) come from quests, see the quest guide and do them early.
- Slayer and PvM are your supply lines. A lot of Ironman gear only comes from drops, so combat progression (via Slayer and PvM) is how you kit yourself out.
- Plan around what you can obtain. Before chasing a setup, check how an Ironman actually gets each piece, the wiki flags Ironman-relevant sources.
Starting tips
- Do an efficient quest order early for the unlocks and lamps.
- Bank organisation matters more, you can't just re-buy something you vialed away.
- Dailies and passive sources (managed resources, reward currencies) are worth more on an Ironman, since you can't buy your way past a shortage.
Group Ironman: what to put in the group storage
Every Group Ironman team (2 to 5 players) shares one group storage, often called the group bank. It holds anything tradeable, and also many things that normally can't be traded, which is what makes it so useful. A good rule of thumb: put in whatever one of you makes or finds that someone else in the group will use.
Worth sharing first
- Consumables for bossing: food and potions, including overloads, extreme potions and adrenaline potions, which the storage allows even though they can't usually be traded.
- Skilling supplies for whoever trains the next step: ores and bars for the smither, herbs and secondaries for the herbalist, logs for the fletcher, seeds and saplings for the farmer, bird's nests, and Summoning charms and spirit gems for whoever trains Summoning.
- Gear and tools you pass around: upgrades someone has grown out of, augmented or partly degraded equipment (if the normal version is tradeable), slayer helmets, crystal tools, and the Imcando and elite tools such as the Pickaxe of earth and song.
- Boss uniques to combine: the untradeable unique pieces from Araxxor, Arch-Glacor, the Queen Black Dragon, Telos and Hermod can be stored, so the group can pool pieces towards one item.
- Clue scrolls: sealed clue scrolls can go in, for whoever does clues, and the storage doesn't count towards the clue cap.
- Archaeology artefacts: damaged and restored artefacts can be stored and handed to whoever is collecting.
What it won't take
Some things that would seem to fit aren't allowed, such as attuned crystal equipment, the Mattock of Time and Space, the portable obelisk, phoenix feathers and ground wyvern bones, most Dungeoneering rewards, and minigame points or tokens. The RuneScape Wiki keeps the full list of what group storage holds.
Agree early on who takes what, so nobody empties the potions the bosser was saving.
Track your Ironman (and your group)
Search your name on The Codex to track your Ironman's XP, milestones, and drops. If you're doing Group Ironman, the site tracks GIM groups too, see tracking a clan or group to follow your whole team's progress and set up a private XP race. Ironman details and sources referenced here are courtesy of the RuneScape Wiki.