The Chambers of Xeric I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to @Nazuths who has spent countless hours in the past few months to help me finish this massive project, along with @Rapsey and @Thoby for providing us with their assistance to make it that much easier to get it done. Also a huge thanks to @Mvpranger, @Empty, @Iron adam and the numerous other players who have extensively tested this minigame as part of a Bughunter contest during the past few weeks.
The Chambers of Xeric minigame is clan-based. Any member of a clan can start a raid by clicking on the Recruiting board (the red board just outside the Chambers) and choosing "Create a new party". They can then enter the raid's lobby room by going through the large doors. Once you are inside the lobby, other clan members can join in to participate in the raid. When everyone is present and ready, proceed through the tunnel at the other side of the lobby to start the raid. At that point nobody else can enter the lobby, the monster stats are decided and the raid itself begins.
When entering the lobby as party leader, you are shown a randomly generated layout of rooms. After closing this window, you can choose to either accept this layout and enter the raid or to generate a new random layout for 20 PkHonor points (5 if you are a donator). Rooms will be displayed in green or red in the overview if you have set these as your preferred room or rooms you want to avoid. You can choose your preferred rooms at the Recruitment board just outside the Chambers.
I will not delve into the exact mechanics of the rooms themselves, since they are pretty much identical to OSRS. If you would like to know what to expect from each room, you can read all about it on the OSRS wiki. It even has a strategy page with information on how to beat each room. For more strategies and knowhow on this minigame, you can find numerous videos on YouTube (this particular video has helped me a lot to understand how everything works exactly).
Aside from a number of supplies, you have a chance to obtain a unique reward from the Chambers of Xeric, depending on the amount of participation points you have at the end. These points are awarded for dealing damage to raid monsters and completing a number of tasks. For each 8,676 points, you have a 1% chance to receive a unique reward.
Unique rewards 
Rigour+ scroll (34.48% chance): read to unlock the Rigour+ prayer, an ugraded version of the Rigour prayer, providing 22% ranged attack bonus instead of 20%. Requires having Rigour unlocked.
Augury+ scroll (34.48% chance): read to unlock the Augury+ prayer, an upgraded version of the Augury prayer, providing 22% magic attack bonus instead of 20%. Requires having Augury unlocked.
Twisted buckler (6.90% chance): a shield that requires 75 defence and 75 ranged, providing +18 ranged attack and +10 ranged strength bonus. It also has negative melee and magic attack bonuses, weak melee defence and a decent magic and ranged defence bonus.
Dragon hunter crossbow (6.90% chance): a crossbow that requires 65 ranged, offering +95 ranged attack, while providing +30% ranged attack and +25% ranged damage against Draconic creatures, including the Great Olm, Wyverns, Wyrms, Hydras and Drakes.
Dinh's bulwark (2.07% chance): a two-handed shield, worn in the weapon slot, that requires 75 attack and 75 defence. While in Pound or Pummel mode, your strength bonus is increased based on your average defence bonus. While in Block mode, incoming damage is reduced by 20% outside PvP situations. Changing between styles causes a 6 second delay until its passive effect kicks in.
Ancestral hat (2.07% chance): a magic hat that requires 75 magic and 65 defence, offering +8 magic attack and +2% magic damage bonus.
Ancestral robe top (2.07% chance): a magic robe top that requires 75 magic and 65 defence, offering +35 magic attack and +2% magic damage bonus.
Ancestral robe bottom (2.07% chance): a magic robe bottom that requires 75 magic and 65 defence, offering +26 magic attack and +2% magic damage bonus.
Dragon claws imbue kit (2.07% chance): attach to a pair of Dragon claws to create Dragon claws (i), which have an additional +20 stab and +20 slash attack bonus for a total of +61 stab and +77 slash attack bonus. Both items can be traded.
Elder maul (2.30% chance): a two-handed melee weapon that requires 75 attack and offers +135 crush attack and +147 strength bonus. It has a higher attack, but lower strength bonus than the chaotic maul.
Kodai insignia (2.30% chance): attach to a Master wand to create the Kodai wand, a one-handed wand that requires 75 magic and offers +28 magic attack, +20 magic defence and +15% magic damage bonus. It provides unlimited water runes and has a 15% chance of not using runes when casting a spell. Twisted bow (2.30% chance): a two-handed bow that requires 75 ranged, providing +70 ranged attack and +20 ranged strength bonus. It has an accuracy and damage modifier which depends on the enemy's magic level or magic bonus (whichever is higher). The higher the enemy's magic level or bonus, the higher the accuracy and damage. The accuracy modifier is capped at 140%, the damage modifier at 250%. Inside the Chambers of Xeric, the enemy's magic level or bonus is capped at 350. Outside the Chambers, it is capped at 250. Olmlet: when you receive any of the other unique rewards, there is an additional 1/53 chance that you will receive the Olmlet pet.
OSRS NPC stats A lot of our NPC's, in particular the ones older than 3 years, never had their proper stats from OSRS. Wilderness bosses, Dagannoths, Zulrah, Barrelchest, Corporeal beast, Kraken and the Thermonuclear Smoke devil, just to name a few, simply had a fixed attack and defence stat that we initially thought was somewhat in line with their combat level. In many cases, this led to their defence actually being far lower than in OSRS and making it very easy to kill them with high DPS combinations like the toxic blowpipe and completionist cape (chaos). By giving them their proper OSRS stats, we have now managed to achieve the following:
- The Magma and Serpentine blowpipe are the best ranged weapons against NPC's with a low defence
- The Twisted bow is the best ranged weapon against NPC's with a high magic level or bonus
- The Craw's bow is the best ranged weapon against most (if not all) wilderness bosses
- The Dragon hunter crossbow is the best ranged weapon against Draconic creatures
- In other cases, the Armadyl crossbow is the best one-handed ranged weapon when combined with enchanted crossbow bolts
- In other cases, the Chaotic crossbow is the best one-handed ranged weapon when not using enchanted crossbow bolts
Item rebalances The stats of the Abyssal tentacle have been changed so they now match with those of OSRS:
Abyssal tentacle:Slash attack: +94
→ Slash attack: +90
Strength: +94
→ Strength: +86
In addition, we have lowered the stats of the following items in order to better balance them out and give all our top tier weapons a proper use in the game:
Chaotic crossbow:Ranged attack: +120
→ Ranged attack: +105
Chaotic rapier:Stab attack: +94
→ Stab attack: +86
Strength: +101
→ Strength: +93
Chaotic maul:Crush attack: +167
→ Crush attack: +123
Custom whips and tentacles (holy, unholy, balance, fortune, magic, shadows & souls):
Strength: +101
→ Strength: +96
Whip and Tentacle of chaos:Slash attack: +84
→ Slash attack: +79
Strength: +91
→ Strength: +81
Completionist cape (chaos):Stab attack: 0
→ Stab attack: -5
Slash attack: 0
→ Slash attack: -5
Crush attack: 0
→ Crush attack: -5
Range attack: 0
→ Range attack: -5
Strength: 0
→ Strength: -5
In other news
- You can now mine Amethyst in the Falador Mining guild at 92 mining. They can be cut into Amethyst arrowtips at 85 crafting and into javelin heads at 87 crafting.
- The ranged strength of the crystal bow has been increased to +78 (from +70). This ranged strength will also no longer reduce as the bow degrades and remain at +78 until fully degraded.
- Fixed a bug that would delay the respawning of the Nightmare of Ashihama if a player enters the room just as it is about to respawn.
- You can now fletch dragon darts by combining dragon dart tips with feathers.
- Dragon dart tips are now tradeable.
- The "Monster Examine" spell from the Lunar spellbook now works.
- When switching from a ranged weapon to a staff that already has an autocast spell set, you will no longer run up to your target. This bug only occured when you had the "Keep attacking when eating/switching (PvM only)" setting enabled.
- Fixed the Tormented bracelet (or) not offering +5% magic damage bonus.
- As of now, if you are about to train fletching and have brawling gloves (fletching) on your account but not equipped, you will be shown a warning and will not be able to proceed. To ignore the warning, simply perform the action again. The warning will only trigger once every two minutes. This measure is to protect unattentive players from fletching huge stacks at once if they forgot their brawling gloves (fletching).
- Banks on Lunar Isle, the middle bank South of Thieving teleport and the bank East of Falador now work properly.
- Lizardmen (shamans/brutes) have the proper animations + projectiles .
- Making holy/unholy necklaces consumes a ball of wool.
- Unfinished Potion Maker now goes off the amount of Vials of water or herbs, whichever is higher (previously only went off the amount of herbs).
- The Abyss portal at the Chaos Runecrafting altar has been fixed.
- Correct animations were added to the ranged and mage Zamorak GWD minions.
- The "deposit carried items" button on the bank interface has been renamed to "deposit inventory".
- String jewellery spell now works.
- A bug with Tele grab, where clicking on the item you're trying to telegrab before the animation was finished would stop the telegrab and stop the player from using telegrab until relog, is now fixed.
- Lizardman Handholds to go back up from Lizardmen Shamans has been fixed.
- Demonic gorillas now count for Black Demon task.
- Nightmare pillar inspect had a "@cya@" which is now removed.
- Skotizo will always drop a hard clue (if the player doesn't have one yet) regardless of an elite being rolled.
- Jad pet gets added to the bosses collection log when a player receives one.
- Bonecrusher necklace had the wrong message displayed.
- Small typo in making enchanted staves in PoH was fixed.
- Toxic Staff of the Dead charges percentage went off the Serpentine Helm charges instead of Toxic Staff charges.
- Guthan's Spear attacks now have the correct attack animations.
- Crafting any dragon leather into equipment displays the correct animations now.
- The bank chest at Mage bank is now functional.
- The Black d'hide body crafting requirement has changed from 82 to 84.
- The Gnome Guard now has the correct attack animation.
- Nechryaels in Catacombs of Kourend now properly count towards the Kill Count book.
- One extra vial is given when making overloads.
- (Toxic) Staff of the Dead and Staff of light now have the correct attack animations.
- (Toxic) Staff of the Dead now has the correct graphics and animation for its special attack.
- The "nothing interesting happens" message for trading in Evil Chicken's eggs has been removed.
- A non-lucky Scorpia pet now has the left click option as release.
- Abyssal Orphan "talk-to" option on right click used to pick up the pet, changed to "pick-up" now.
- Small error in the text for slayer task only drakes cave was fixed.
- Right click toggle-vial on the Barbarian guard is now functional.
- The missing "Ranging guild" teleport on the Combat Bracelet was added.
- Yew Shortbow now has the correct attack bonuses.
- Account creation clickboxes have now been improved to prevent people from thinking they correctly selected the game mode, while this was not the case.
- Bandos Cloak and Armadyl Cloak were added as part of the Bandos GWD and Armadyl GWD protection respectively.
- Any Javelin that should be considered ammo, is now considered ammo, instead of a weapon.
- Purchasing a Crystal Weapon Seed from Estate Agent now works as intended.
- Opal bolts now have the correct damage calculation and graphics.
- The Dragon Claws special attack damage calculation has been improved to better reflect the OSRS Dragon claws.
- The existing ranged shields (odium ward, dragonfire ward) have now received ranged strength bonus of +4 and +8 respectively.
- A small fix was made to the herblore skill interface.
- The Inadequacy, The Everlasting and The Untouchable of the Correcting History quest now have the proper attack\death animations.
- Certain looped animations should now stop when a player uses make all, whereas they didn't before.
- Bandos Godsword was not working properly on NPCs that use the old stats, resetting the defence after a certain threshhold, additionally, Dragon Warhammer special attack defence reduction was not always calculated correctly. Both should work as intented now.
- You are no longer limited to Buy 100 from Junk Store.
- Two Man (Lvl-2) were added to Edgeville.
- Fixed a bug where the amount of Sacred Eel cooking grew exponentially when a player used the knife again.
Future plans
The Chambers of Xeric has been the biggest project I have worked on intermittently over the past two years. Now that it's finally finished, it's time to look to the future.
The next piece of content that will be coming to PkHonor is also related to the Chambers of Xeric: leaderboards for the fastest CoX runs and Challenge Mode with additional rewards, such as Metamorphic dust to morph the Olmlet pet into one of the other CoX bosses, along with Twisted ancestral colour kits to recolour the Ancestral equipment pieces. Most of the work has already been done on this, now we mostly still have to test everything and add the finishing touches.
After that, Nazuths would like to get started on The Gauntlet minigame in order to obtain Crystal equipment, while I will continue my work on instanced bosses. Not just to add an instanced Nightmare boss that you can fight solo or with a team of your choosing, but also many other instanced bosses where you can pay to have a boss for yourself or a team of your choosing. The new instance management will hopefully also fix a few longstanding bugs with Ironman instances. After these instances have been added, I would like to work on a new gamemode: Group Ironman.
There is also one other side project that we will be working on from time to time: upgrading our client to fix some of the longstanding issues, such as framedrops and lagspikes in certain areas, NPC clickboxes that are too large, not being able to zoom out very far properly etc. And of course, it would be nice to have actual RuneLite integration. We have no idea how easy or how hard it will be to get all of this done, so a lot of research is still needed to assess the viability of such an undertaking. We'll definitely keep the community posted about this, because we're all too eager to get rid of the annoyances and to provide all the features that our players like and enjoy about OSRS and RuneLite.
There is of course also the recent addition of Nex into OSRS, with a new map and a couple of new items (and of course a pet) which we definitely want to add into the game as well. Last but not least, we're all very excited to see what the third raid in OSRS will look like and to see what it will take to add it into PkHonor.
