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Note: this guide will assume you did not get a starter kit.
Hello everyone 
! I noticed a lot of people are completely lost when it comes to starting out a new HCIM (or other restricted game modes). I decided to make this guide in hopes to help out those newer (and older) players get on the right track. This guide will be focused mostly on the HCIM game mode, but can partially be applied to other ones.
Starting Knowledge
Alright so you created a new account. The first step is to enable 2fa (;;2fa). This will give you the option to get 50% bonus XP from vote books, whenever you use them. Now that you have 2fa enabled, make sure you vote and claim your vote book. You'll need to start racking up your vote points to buy some really helpful items early on.
Where to claim your vote-book/vote shop location:
What you should buy in order: 1. Rada's blessing: Perks: 2. Silver Sickle: requirement for clue scrolls. 3. Magic secateurs: 5% boost from herb patches. 4. Crystal Keys: up until you get ranger boots. Will also supply you with a ton of runite bars, charged glories, coins, alchables, and raw karambwans. Chest Location: Chest Drop table: 5. Coal Bag: will be very helpful for blast furnace. 6. Gem Bag: helps you start saving up your gems (which will be needed later). 7. Cosmetics/Ornament Kits: at this point you will have all the essentials from vote shop, you can spend your points on ornament kits or pets. Safe Deaths Alright, now that you know what to do with your vote points; you will need to familiarize yourself with the HC death system. Efficient Startup The first thing you want to do is go to ;;thieve and start thieving at the stalls. Sell the items you obtain to "Ali Morrisane" (the npc). Continue this step until you have 38 thieving. Once you have 38 thieving, go to ;;shops and talk to paul (ironman shop). Buy the following items: These items will be very helpful in the near future. Now that you have your items (and 38 thieving), you will need to get your HP up. Grab your bronze pickaxe and head to the teleport wizard -> skilling -> falador mine. Grab a full inventory of tin & copper and head back home. Once you are there head north east from inside the bank until you see the furnace. Withdraw your hammer, a full inventory of tin and copper and start smelting bronze bars. Once you have your bronze bars, click on your magic tab, then click on the varrock teleport (no runes required). Run west until you reach the anvils. Once you are there click on the anvil to start smithing. Start out with some bronze daggers (create one at a time), and then move onto the items that get unlocked after each smith. You should be at around 15 smithing now. Head back to the mines and repeat the process but with Iron bars this time. Once you start smithing you should reach 20 smithing by the end of the inventory (if not, then do another inventory of iron bars). Smith an Iron Scimitar (you will need this for the next part). Now that you have your weapon, head to the teleport wizard -> monsters -> sand crabs. These monsters will always hit 0's on you. Stay here until you have around 30 hp. You will get caskets, as well as easy clue scrolls, make sure to pick them up as they will be of great help. Once you have your 30 hp. Head to ;;shops and run north east towards the wilderness ditch. Once you reach the ditch continue up to the monk's monastery. Here you will find master farmer. Keep thieving the farmer for starting seeds. The farmer will damage your hp on every failed attempt. Be sure to watch your hp. Once your hp drops head to ;;thieve and talk to the lady beside the altar to refill it. Once you have a fair amount of seeds banked you will start your herblore grind along with your meele stats. At this point you can continue to use the iron scimitar at sand crabs, as it'll probably be faster than grinding a rune scimitar. Do farm runs in-between your training. Farm & Herblore Runs There are currently 4 function herb patches (not including the farming guild). Catherby, Falador, Experiments, and Ardounge. I would recommend skipping the Ardounge patch until you have an Ardy Cloak from the achievement shop, as it will give you a direct teleport to the patch. Start your inventory with a rake, spade, seed dibber, secateur, 3 guam seeds, and 6 potato seeds. Use the herb patches to plant your guams, and the allotment patches to plant your potatoes. These take around ~15 minutes to fully grow (1/8th of OSRS). Clean the guams, use them on the vial's of water you purchased earlier and then use the eye of newts on them to create attack potions. Once you hit 26 farming, start bringing limpwurt seeds to your farm runs, and plant them at the flower patches (will be used for herblore + amazing xp). Once you can plant limpwurts, start bringing tarromin seeds instead of guams, as you will be making strength potions. Continue doing this until you have hit 38 herblore at which you can start making prayer potions (very important). The AFK Grind Now that you can make prayer potions, you'll need to get your attack level to 60 (in order to wield the dragon scimitar). The best way to do this is to AFK sand crabs with your iron scimitar while training strength at the same time. Achievement Shop Once you hit 10 hours of in-game time, head over to paul and auto-complete your PVP achievements. This will give you a good starting amount of achievement points. Once you get them, buy the tome of fire (infinite fire runes & magic bonus), cooking gloves (more cooking success), and the ardy cloak. I would also recommend killing 20 men at lumbridge, as this will complete an achievement granting you enough points to purchase the chaos gauntlets (extra damage when casting bolt spells). Once you have your ardy cloak start adding the patch to your runs. Wield the cape and right right click teleport from equipment page. 38 Prayer Grind Now that you have most of the items, prayer potions, and 60 attack; you will need to start working towards monkey madness. The fastest way to do this is to teleport to lumbridge, run north, kill goblins for bones, teleport to ;;shops, run to poh -> friends house "altar" and use the bones on the altar. Another alternative is killing hill giants in the edgeville dungeon but they are a pretty long walk to get to. Magic Grind (Monkey Madness) Head over to the teleport wizard -> cities -> yanille. Enter the mage guild, go upstairs and trade "Wizard Sinina". Buy some starter packs, as you will use these runes to train your magic level. Head over to varrock, run south until you reach the pub and start killing thiefs (lvl 16) beside the pub. These will drop an air staff. You will use this air staff to auto-cast. Now head over to ;;shops and run north west to the hut beside the shops. You will find a wizard's hat spawn on the table, take it. Now equip your wizards hat, tome of fire, air staff, bring your runes and head over to sand crabs. Start training your magic (should be fairly quick) to 35. Once you have 35 magic you are ready to get that juicy scimitar. Quest Guide: TL;DR: use firebolt (with air staff, and tome of fire, and chaos runes), pray magic, sip on prayer potions whenever your magic drops. Now that you have got your account to a decent standpoint, you have 3 routes to choose from. Route 1 AFK sand crabs until you have 70 base meele combat stats, then go fishing, up until lobsters, cook them, and start with barrows (using mage). This is the one i'd recommend. Make sure you have a decent defense level as Verac can hit quite a bit. If you choose this route be sure to get a Ring of Wealth (i) as it will help increase your barrows loot & casket drops (sandcrabs), as well as a imbued heart if you can afford it. You can find these in the ;;store. Route 2 Start training slayer right away. This will work towards your longterm goals much faster. You can get a task from the slayer master in front of ;;shops. Route 3 Skilling. You can find various skilling guides on the forums. Range Training To start off your range training, make some iron knives from bars, and use them at sand crabs. Try to get an avas at 40 ranged from pest control (should only take 2-3 games). You can also make iron darts for fletching xp. I hope this will give you some sort of direction on how to pick up the pace on a HCIM. Best of luck with your grinds! Future Grinds/Long-term Goals: FAQ Will continue to update the thread throughout the week. Let me know if theres anything you would like to see added into the thread. Also, you can always ;;staff -> and pm a staff member if you need assistance. 
