1.) 3 Hitting = <3>
This is the best! Pure ownage and the one true evidence of a pker's strength.
Nothing can equal the thrill of 3 hitting your opponent. Even to this day, ask any RSC pker and he is sure to recall his best 3 hit kill. Not just 3 hitting, there are also 1 hit and two hit kills though these are mostly for lower level kills.
Unlike today's RS combat system, in Runescape Classic you could not eat for 3 rounds of fighting. 3 hitting is when you are able to kill your opponent in exactly 3 rounds of fighting while he is still unable to eat.
3 hitting is very simple and looks effortless yet it is so rare. To those who have been 3 hit, this is the ultimate in humiliation and weakness as they are completely defenseless against it.
You can run... except when you get 3 hit.
2.) Catching = 1337 skillz!
What is catching? This is the pker's secret of how to catch a player who runs from a fight. With fast reflexes and timing, a player could stop the opponent from running away. See this guide to catching for more details.
Only the very best and most skilled of pkers mastered catching.
Any noob who trained their str high enough can 3 hit but it wasn't just anybody who could catch players to death. Those who could catch well were the most feared pkers in the wilderness because there would be no getting away from them.
Catching someone to death was the supreme proof of the pker's skill. These pkers were in their own class and were idolized by the other pkers.
3.) Luck = !!!???%$@#!#@!*^!
Some might be surprised but actually I would say luck played a very big and important factor in pking which added a fun factor to the game. You just never knew what would happen!
Two characters with the same stats can hit very differently from each other even if they used the same equipment, prayers, style and magic/range.
It wasn't cut and dried that the higher level always defeated the lower level. Possibly, a player could to totally dominate someone higher level or same level. Alternatively, a player could get completely owned by a lower leveled character.
With 99 str, you could hit 1s. Or you could hit 30s+. This all depended on luck.
Someone asked me once how to 3 hit more and I told him:
ruby ammy+gaunts (highest str bonus at that time), str mode, ultimate str prayer + pray irl to the god of pking that you hit!
You just couldn't really control whether you would really hit 30 29 dead or 1 0 0 on your opponent.
A player has not experienced true e-rage until he has hit a large number of 0s on a player who is full red barred! A char with 2 hps left could even kill you, even if you had 70 hps remaining.
Wacky, yes, but this is the thing that enabled players to pk more. If it had been certain that a level 50 would always die to a level 70, then the level 50 would just run away and log at once. The luck factor meant that the level 50 could stay and try his luck, if he wanted to.
I've escaped countless times from higher level groups, purely on luck and many have also escaped from me the same way. Players need to know that they aren't necessarily dead at once in one hit if they go up against a group or a higher level person. Isn't it very satisfying to kill a member of a huge group that was trying to kill you and then escape with the loot? Luck made this possible.
Conclusion
These three things, in my humble opinion, were the most fun things about RSC pking. For me, it wasn't getting a 1 million gp worth of stuff in a neat pile under my feet but what about you?
Please post your opinions and comments. Thanks. :)