Companions

Companions are player-owned AI fighters - real combatants with real skills that level from combat, wearing real gear you give them. Your feudal rank sets how many you may keep on your banner, and every one of them fights beside you at once - up to three. They come in melee, ranged and mage archetypes, spawn when you log in, follow you across the world in formation, and fight beside you.

Recruiting and the roster

Companions are recruited through General Zo at the castle. Your rank sets your roster - how many soldiers you may keep: a Knight keeps 1, a Lord 2, and a Minister or King 3. All of them take the field together. Each starts with archetype-appropriate gear and a supply pack (brews, restores, sharks, karambwans and a combat potion - restocked free).

Three soldiers at once is real combat power, so the price climbs steeply with every soldier already on your banner:

The Muster window shows the price of your next soldier on every card.

Dismissing and summoning

• ::companion dismiss [slot] - send a companion (or, with no slot, all of them) off duty. He leaves the world but not the roster - levels and gear stay intact.
• ::companion summon [slot] - call a benched companion (or, with no slot, everyone) back to your side. (A companion who is being attacked by another player can't stand down for 10 seconds - the same rule as logging out.)
• The Companions side panel in the custom client does all of this with buttons; benched companions show as cards you can summon.

Where companions stand down

Some content is yours alone. Your companions stand down automatically - with a message saying why - when you enter the Fight Cave or a solo boss instance (Vorkath, Zulrah, the Alchemical Hydra), and rejoin you the moment you leave. Summoning inside is refused with the same reason. Shared-world fights (marches, God Wars, the Wizard Tower) are open to companions; classic bosses are never redesigned around them - they simply sit those out.

Commands

Everything runs through ::companion (and ::companions to list your roster):

• ::companion follow / attack / train / deploy / return - orders for your companion (add a slot number to be explicit). Attack is the aggressive escort: your companion fights any attackable monster near you, wherever you are, and falls in behind you when nothing's left. Train runs the goblin-camp levelling loop when you're around Lumbridge, and behaves like attack everywhere else. Deploy sends him at the city boss autonomously. Follow is a bodyguard, not a bystander: if a monster or a PK bot attacks you, your following companion immediately fights back, and a Rogue Knight jumping you takes priority over whatever he was hitting. A real player is the one exception - see Companions and PvP below. Return recalls him and never picks a fight (your safe pull-out order). He'll never turn on friendly troops - allied knights and General Zo are off-limits, and he won't steal a monster another player is already fighting.
• ::companion equip <slot> <itemId> - give him gear straight from your bank (weapons honour level requirements, and his armour is capped by your feudal rank, same as your own). unequip returns it; gear <slot> <equipSlot> lists what in your bank fits.
• ::companion style <slot> <0-3> - set attack stance.
• ::companion spell <slot> <name|auto> - mages can lock a spell or auto-scale to their Magic level.
• ::companion retaliate <slot> - toggle auto-retaliation.
• ::companion rename <slot> <name> - name him; the world addresses him as "Sir <Name>".
• ::companion bones [slot] - hand over every bone in your inventory: the companion buries them for Prayer XP (the same per-bone rates you'd get).
• ::companion archetype <slot> <melee|range|mage> - re-school a companion to another combat style. His name, every skill he has trained and his gear all carry over, so one companion can master all three schools over his lifetime.

Donor perk: ::companion loot toggles auto-looting - your companion banks nearby drops for you. No command needed in the custom client: the Companions side panel has an Auto-loot to bank toggle.

Companions and PvP

Player-versus-player is human only. Your companion follows you into the wilderness and fights the Rogue Knights, PK bots and monsters there like anywhere else, but:

• He never attacks a real player - not even to defend you. The moment you trade blows with another player he breaks off, steps back into formation with "Sir X stands back - this is your fight", and holds there until about 12 seconds after your last exchange.
• No one can attack him either. Other players get "You can't attack another player's companion" - he is not a free punchbag and not a way to bait you.
• He doesn't count for single-combat: a PKer can still attack you while your companion is fighting a monster beside you, exactly as if he weren't there.

So a companion changes nothing about a PK fight - it's always you against them - while everything else in the wild (camps, rogue bosses, the undead of Fallen Varrock) stays open to him.

Levelling & death

• Companions earn real XP from their kills - a veteran companion is measurably stronger than a fresh recruit.
• Their combat skills (Attack, Strength, Defence, Hitpoints, Ranged, Magic, Prayer) train from fighting; every non-combat skill is already 99 - they're veteran knights, not skillers.
• Prayer trains through ::companion bones - and it matters: in a fight a companion runs the best offence prayer his Prayer level unlocks (Burst of Strength up through Piety, Rigour or Augury by school), and protects against a player attacker's combat style once his level allows the protection prayers. Out of combat the prayers drop and his points recharge on their own.
• Locked into one style? Not any more: ::companion archetype re-schools him, keeping all trained skills - so a melee veteran can pick up a crossbow without starting over.
• When he falls he simply respawns at your side with his levels and gear - there is no revival fee.
• In city boss fights, companion damage counts toward your share of the pooled loot.

Why they matter

A companion is the solo player's answer to group content - a reliable duo partner for shared-world bosses, an extra body in marches, and someone to watch your back on the roads. Gear him like you'd gear an alt.