The Agility Skill in Dragonwilds: Courses, Shortcuts & Carry Weight
Agility arrived in RuneScape: Dragonwilds 0.12.1 and it is the rare survival-game skill that levels itself while you do something else — you gain XP passively just for running around the world. Beyond that it makes sprinting cheaper, opens shortcuts through Kebbit Burrows, raises your maximum carry weight at levels 50 and 75, and hands you a genuine mobility kit — a double jump, an aerial dash, and a Recall spell that will catch you if a fall kills you. For anyone who has spent a session shuttling ore back to base, the carry weight alone is the reason to care.
What Agility Gives You
| Benefit | Detail |
|---|---|
| Passive XP | Earned just by running — Nomad (48) raises the rate from 50 to 200, Trailblazer (85) to 400 |
| Sprint cost | −0.085% sprint stamina drain per level, reaching −8.415% at level 99 |
| Carry weight | +75 at level 50 (Backpacker), +75 more at 75 (Explorer) — +150 total |
| Fall damage | Breakfall at 35, Greater Breakfall at 54 |
| Shortcuts | Kebbit Burrows — dig them open to cut across routes |
| Double jump | Level 10 — and it chains directly into an Air Dash |
| Aerial dash | Air Dash at 32; Phase Dash at 44 adds a second airborne dash |
| Skill spells | Windstep (5) and Recall (57) |
The passive XP has one exclusion, and it is a deliberate joke: "you won't get XP on mounts. Stop cheating and get those knees up!" Riding is faster; running is what levels the skill.
The carry-weight increases at 50 and 75 are the standout. In a survival game the hauling limit shapes every expedition, and Agility is the only skill that raises it passively — no gear slot, no consumable, no trade-off.
But the mobility kit is what actually changes how you move. Agility added a double jump and an aerial dash — "jump, jump again in mid-air and then dash horizontally to get over and around enemies." That is a combat tool as much as a traversal one, since the dash works as an evasive manoeuvre.
Two skill spells came with it:
| Spell | Effect |
|---|---|
| Windstep | Moved from Runecrafting to Agility. At higher levels it "will also cause you to send out a blast of air when you land, sending enemies to the floor" |
| Recall (level 57) | "Leave a runic marker on the ground, and then recast to teleport back to the initial marking spot" |
| Reactive Recall (level 70) | This is the level that catches you. Suffer a fatal fall while tethered and you are automatically teleported back safely, consuming the tether |
Recall doubles as a death save. Jagex's wording: "If you fall to your death while tethered, you'll also teleport back, and the tether will be consumed." In a game where fatal falls still kill you regardless of Agility level, a consumable tether that catches one of them is worth setting before a risky climb.
Note the Windstep move. If you had it as a Runecrafting spell, it now lives in the Agility tree — worth knowing if you went looking for it and could not find it.
The Agility Courses

Courses are scattered across Ashenfall, each marked with a flag, and each gated behind an Agility level:
| Level | Unlock | Opens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chasm Dash | Brynmoor courses |
| 15 | Thunder Assault | Ghornfell courses |
| 30 | Grave Run | Fellhollow courses |
| 51 | Tower Climb | Dowdun Reach courses |
| 65 | Lava Fields | Umbral Sands courses |
The reward capes tell you how many areas have one. There are gilded regional capes for Bramblemead, the Whispering Swamp, the Fractured Plains, the Stormtouched Highlands, Fellhollow, Dowdun Reach and Umbral Sands — so the starting regions carry more than one course each.
The rules of a course are worth knowing before your first attempt:
- Hit the orbs in order. Miss one and you are returned to the last active orb.
- Yellow "Stamina Orbs" refill your stamina mid-course.
- First-time clears award extra XP; repeats give slightly less.
- Monsters will not attack you during a course.
- You cannot build to gain an advantage — but spells and strategic jumps are allowed.
- Abandon by pressing ESC, walking away, or dying.
That "no building" rule is the one people try first, and it is explicitly disallowed. Windstep, Air Dash and Double Jump are the intended shortcuts.
Completion pays, and mastery pays better:
| Achievement | Reward |
|---|---|
| Completing a course | Rewards on completion |
| Mastering a course | Gold Medals |
| Mastering the region's course | A gilded trimmed version of the regional cape |
Gold Medals are wall trophies. They hang like Pristine Fish from Fishing — "as trophies to show everyone who's the boss of the course." On a shared server that is a genuinely social reward, since everyone visiting your base sees them.
The leaderboards matter more on a dedicated server than in single-player, for the obvious reason: a time is only interesting if someone else is trying to beat it. With six players on a persistent world and a course in most regions, that is a lot of low-effort competition.
Kebbit Burrows: The Shortcut System

Agility Shortcuts run through Kebbit Burrows placed around the world. They are marked on your map, and you dig them up to open a tunnel that cuts across a side route.
There is a real cost at low levels. Per Jagex: "In early Agility levels, you might take damage when failing to squeeze through unharmed, so be careful using the shortcuts on low HP."
The burrow networks unlock by region, and the damage risk is reduced twice:
| Level | Unlock | Opens |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | Common Burrower | Brynmoor and Ghornfell networks |
| 42 | Wild Burrower | Fellhollow — and reduces the damage chance and amount |
| 55 | Dark Burrower | Dowdun Reach network |
| 67 | Desert Burrower | Umbral Sands network |
| 80 | Razor-backed Burrower | Further reduces the chance and amount of damage |
So the shortcut is a gamble early and free later — which makes it one of the better reasons to push the skill rather than let it accumulate passively. A shortcut you cannot safely use after a hard fight is not much of a shortcut.
At higher levels the falling perks stack with this: you "start to break your falls from higher up by rolling out of them to avoid taking as much damage." Combined with fall damage being rebalanced to start later in the same update, and the breakfall mechanic in the Agility tree, traversal becomes markedly less punishing.
One limit is explicit: fatal falls still kill you. Agility softens the curve; it does not remove the floor — until Reactive Recall at level 70, which teleports you back safely from a fatal fall if you are tethered.
And at level 53 the tree hands you a consumable: the Stamina Potion recipe, for a potion that stops stamina drain while running.
How Agility Fits the Rest of 0.12.1

Agility shipped alongside the combat rework, and the two are designed to compound:
| Change | Source |
|---|---|
| Jumping costs 10 stamina, down from 20 | Combat rework |
| Jump cost drops further as Agility levels | Agility |
| Sprint stamina cost falls with Agility | Agility |
| Parrying returns 50% of max stamina | Combat rework |
| Fall damage starts later | Combat rework |
| Breakfall absorbs higher drops | Agility |
| Ledge forgiveness on jumps | Combat rework |
Read together, that is a substantial rewrite of your stamina economy. Before 0.12.1, moving and fighting competed for the same shrinking bar. Now traversal is cheaper on both ends — the base cost fell, and Agility keeps cutting it — while parrying refunds stamina during fights.
The practical consequence for a group: the player who has levelled Agility is now noticeably better at getting to content, carrying more of it home, and surviving the terrain in between. On a six-player server that is a role worth someone taking deliberately.
One planning note. 1.0 arrives on 15 September and Jagex have been clear it is "not the end" — Mod Dutch described the release as one stage of a long roadmap rather than a finish line. Agility levels earned now carry into it; there is no indication of any reset.
Practical tips
- You gain Agility XP passively while running — but not while mounted.
- Level 50 gives +75 max carry weight and level 75 another +75 — +150 total. The main reason to push it.
- Reactive Recall at 70 is what saves you from a fatal fall — plain Recall at 57 does not.
- On a course: hit orbs in order, grab Stamina Orbs, and you cannot build for an advantage.
- Six courses, each repeatable for XP, each with a leaderboard.
- Mastering a region's course gives a gilded trimmed regional cape; Gold Medals hang as trophies.
- Kebbit Burrows are map-marked shortcuts you dig open.
- At low Agility, squeezing through can damage you — do not use them on low HP.
- Fatal falls still kill, no matter how high the skill — but Recall's tether catches one, and is consumed doing it.
- Windstep moved from Runecrafting to Agility. At higher levels it floors enemies where you land.
- You get a double jump and an aerial dash — evasive tools, not just traversal.
Running your own RuneScape: Dragonwilds server
Agility rewards time spent in the world, and course leaderboards only mean something when other people are chasing them — both of which favour a world that is always up rather than one that exists while a host is online. A gamever Dragonwilds server keeps Ashenfall available around the clock for your six-player group, updates itself so client and server versions stay matched after every hotfix, and takes one-click backups before big changes — worth having in place ahead of 1.0 on 15 September.
Conclusion
Agility landed in Dragonwilds 0.12.1 and levels passively while you run — though not while mounted. Its concrete payoffs are reduced sprint stamina cost, breakfall rolls that soften high drops, Kebbit Burrow shortcuts dug open from map markers, and most importantly passive maximum carry-weight increases at levels 50 and 75. It also brings a genuine mobility kit: Windstep at 5, a double jump at 10 that chains into the Air Dash at 32, a second airborne dash (Phase Dash) at 44, and Recall at 57 — a runic marker you can teleport back to. The fall-saving behaviour is a separate, later perk: Reactive Recall at 70, which teleports you back safely if a fatal fall lands while you are tethered. Agility courses across Ashenfall offer repeatable XP, leaderboard times, Gold Medal wall trophies and a gilded trimmed regional cape for mastery — with gilded capes existing for seven areas, so the early regions hold more than one course each. Treat the shortcuts carefully at low levels, where failing to squeeze through damages you, and remember that fatal falls still kill regardless of level. Combined with the combat rework's cheaper jumps and stamina-refunding parries, 0.12.1 rewrote how much the game charges you simply to move.
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