Runescape newbie PKing experiences and thoughts, Melee vs Rangers

So I took my secondary character, armed with lobsters, out into the Runescape Wilderness to see how she would fare, being only combat lvl 28 and experienced with Melee.

There are a lot of mages and rangers out there, and a lot of folks who are wearing mismatched armor sets which cross melee, mage and ranger. Most people are much higher level than I am at 28, which is good in terms of exploring alone. It took me a while to run into a ranger around my combat level who wasn't in a team of 2-3 others.

I tried to stay in the 1-on-1 combat areas, but by the time I found this ranger, and his same-level ranger buddy, I had wandered into a multi-combat zone. As soon as I noticed this, I ran back to the 1-on-1 zone, with the rangers following me.

Once I was inside the 1-on-1 zone, I turned back and continued fighting with the ranger who had followed the closest.

I noticed that I didn't have a skull over my head - I guess that ranger attacked me first because they had the skull... and all of my 'attacks' were seemingly seen as defensive. This is good, I want to be fighting with a player who has a skull, but not have a skull of my own. I want them to drop stuff if they die, but if I die, I want to keep as much of my stuff as possible.

I've actually read that as something that's advised to newbie PKers - not only the advice about attacking a ranger if you're melee or a melee if you're a mage, but the advice about only attacking players who *already* have a skull over their heads. I would imagine if you made the first hit you'd also get skulled, but you want to be attacking opponents who have a higher chance at dropping everything they have if you defeat them.

Anyhow, back to the battle... There were two rangers, but I pulled them outside the multi-combat zone so I could take them on seperately. The second ranger hung around closely while the battle with the first ranger went on and on. We both had a full inventory of food, apparently.

The ranger I was fighting didn't want me to take his arrows, so every 20 seconds or so he'd advance to where I was standing in order to pick up the arrows. This had the effect of pushing my character to another spot - and eventually I inched my way back into the multi-combat zone and the second ranger joined in again. I ran deeper into the 1-on-1 zone so I couldn't be inched in once again. The rangers followed.

The main ranger attacking me continued his practice of picking up arrows, while the second ranger watched. Then, after a few minutes, the second ranger realized our battle was stopped for a brief moment each time the main ranger picked up arrows, so the second ranger attacked during that moment. It was then that I decided I should pull out because my food was mostly gone, I have no law runes for teleports, and I was at lvl 10 Wilderness fighting with people quite close to my own level.

I bugged out, and headed back to Edgeville to re-stock before making another journey out to explore up to lvl 10 wilderness in the 1-on-1 areas to see where would be a good place to stalk other players.