The Greatest Free-To-Play Moneymaking Guide Ever Written

Part One: Repurposing Items

Making money by repurposing items in one of the most profitable ways to make money in RuneScape, be it by creating new items from other items, changing their form or putting things in them. Every moneymaking strategy involving this “repurposing” theme requires no skills and, as a result, can be used at level 3. Here’s a guide to the best methods of making money using this idea.

Filling Buckets:
This is by far a tiresome but profitable way to make money. Simply buy buckets off of the Grand Exchange and fill them, be it with milk from cows or water, then resell. Milk is a good way to go since the price difference is much higher than filling the buckets with water, but dairy cows are also further from a bank. You should always check prices before investing in the buckets. For example, buckets usually cost 1 GP apiece. This means that you would be better off waiting until buckets of water went up to three, four or even five GP each before buying the buckets to maximize the profit for the time you spend. You should use the water pump by the western Falador bank to fill them.

Tanning Cowhides:
The profit from this method got me my very first F2P 1m of cash. All you have to do is buy as many cowhides as possible, go to Al-Kharid and tan them into hard leathers. You’ll also need to save 3 GP for every cowhide you tan; for example, if you bought 1k cowhides, you’d need to save 3k coins for tanning the hides as Ellis charges 3 GP per hard and 1 GP per soft leather.

Making Soft Clay:
To start off, buy 14 buckets. You can also try to send through offers for buckets of water equivalent to the clay you buy, but this wastes money and lots of time as massive offers for thousands of buckets of water don’t usually go through fast.
All you have to do is withdraw your 14 buckets and 14 clay, then go to Falador’s west bank, run to the water pump, fill the buckets, make the soft clay and fill your buckets again, then withdraw more clay and your bank, make soft clay and repeat.

Part Two: Skills

Using skills to make money can be just as profitable; the only drawback is that sometimes the skill requires a high level to make the most out of doing something, like cutting yews with Woodcutting, or the skill is hard to train, like Runecrafting. But, at any rate, here’s my guide on how to make money-using skills.

Fishing:
This one is pretty obvious. Catching lobsters is great money and requires only 40 Fishing. However, like all other fish to catch, they become much faster and give more GP per hour at higher Fishing levels, preferably 55-60+. They can be caught at either Karamja or at the Wilderness, but Karamja is much more convenient if you have an explorer’s ring 3, along with the fact that there are no revenants. Swordfish can also be caught here, and, contrary to what most people do, I believe that keeping your tuna would give the same amount of money and require less dropping time, but then the banking time would be greater. It’s your call.

Woodcutting:
Yews are good at level 70+ (more on yews coming up on another post).

Mining:
Mining can be extremely profitable no matter what you mine. Ores like adamantite and runite are both very high-level but are very high-value too! However, to make the most money by Mining alone, mining coal in the Mining Guild can be very profitable because of the close proximity to the east Falador bank. Mining mithril ore alone is not recommended for making money because of the slow rate at which the ore comes back along with the fact that it is worth only 50 GP more than coal and mines much slower at any level. Mining clay at the southwest Varrock mine can also bring in good profit, as clay is worth more than 100 GP apiece.

Smithing:
Smelting the respective ores into metal bars can be very profitable but requires a higher Smithing level to make the most out of smelting. But even at level one you can make decent money – just buy equal amounts of tin and copper, then smelt at either Al-Kharid or east Falador into bronze bars. Pretty much any type of bar can be smelted to make profit, though the best ones are bronze and steel bars as they require the least inventory space to make the most bars (bronze is 14 bars/inventory and steel is 9 bars/inventory).
You should never smelt iron bars as they have a 50% chance of success, but even so those numbers can waver from getting seven iron bars an inventory or even 20 bars. Even though iron bars are twice as much cost as the ores, which balances out with the odds, the risk is too high. Also, silver bars are very low profit so they should not be smelted. Mithril bars are good to smelt for their high XP and low cost but steel bars are still preferable.

Magic:
Casting high alch on items, with both the nature rune and item bought, almost never results in a profit. However, supplying your own items that alch for over the price of a nature rune generates profit. A good way to train Magic is to mine and superheat mithril bars, then make into mithril swords on the anvil in the Dwarven Mines, then high alch, which grants 50 GP profit for every nature rune bought. Also requires 50 Smithing and 55 Mining.

Cooking:
Money can be made making anchovy pizza by purchasing the plain pizzas and anchovies separately and then using the anchovies on the pizzas (withdrawing 14 of each at a time) and reselling. This method requires 55 Cooking.

Runecrafting:
A simple way to make money using Runecrafting is to figure out the essence/rune ratio. In F2P, there are no ways to make profit using only one rune/essence, however, with, say, three air runes per essence you break even, and making 4+ gives a profit. So divide the cost of the essence by the cost of the rune and round up to find how many runes you need to be able to make (which requires a higher Runecrafting level than just one rune per essence) a profit or break even.

Part Three: Combat

This latest and last installment in this series of moneymaking guides on the RSM blog will deal with moneymaking using combat. Most of these suggestions will be for melee as it is the only skill where an investment does not have to be made (either into runes or arrows) and, hence, the profit is greater.

Killing Cockroaches:
In the Stronghold of Player Safety, cockroach drones, workers and soldiers can be killed for great profit. The drones, which are level 8, have the best drops in the game in relevance to their combat level, dropping various uncut gems, mid-level runes and small amounts of coins. These are good training for levels 15-20 as they hit relatively low and have a good amount of hitpoints. The workers are level 57 and have slightly better drops. Though they still aren’t as good to kill for drops as the soldiers they are good XP for level 65-70+ players and hardly ever have other people in the area. The soldiers are recommended to be fought with other players at level 70+ if not tanking and 80+ if soloing these giant bugs. They are famed to drop rune scimitars (rarely), which can be either high alched for coins or banked at Edgeville, though due to the risen price of rune items selling without alching is recommended. You should use full rune, rune gauntlets and a rune scimitar, battleaxe or 2h when fighting the soldiers and should use a berserker shield when not wielding a 2h if possible. Ranged highly not recommended because the soldiers shoot a powerful ranged slime attack, which can hit very high. If using Ranged, consider using the Protect From Missiles prayer and prayer flashing technique.

Killing Greater Demons:
See this article.

Killing Lesser Demons:
See this article.

The Stronghold of Security:
By far one of the most useful and popular places to train in all of RuneScape, the Stronghold of Security also has some monsters with great drops which are easy to kill with a decent combat level.
Minotaurs, located on the first level, are level 12 and 27. The level 12s can be killed at 20+ combat and the level 27s are good Ranged XP as there’s an excellent safespot in the room in the middle south of the level. They drop large quantities of iron arrows, cooked meat, uncut gems and right skull halves.
Zombies on the second level are level 30, 44 and 53. They drop large amounts of steel arrows almost one in every two or three kills. They also drop uncut gems, amounts of coins almost reaching 100 coins a drop and iron ore. The level 30s can be killed at combat levels 40+, the 44s at 50+ and the 53s at 65+ combat level. Also on this level are level 28, 35 and 41 flesh crawlers, which are excellent XP and have great drops, including most of the drops that zombies have, along with the sceptere bottom.
On the fourth and final level, you can kill ankous, which come in level 75, 82 and 86 varieties, all of which can hit up to 8, and fairly often, so bring food like tuna or better. They can drop left skull halves, adamant arrows, noted mithril ore in stacks of 5, rune essence and uncut gems. To fight any of them I would recommend 70+ combat since their defense is very low. Also, in one of the rooms with level 82s there is a safespot that makes it very effective to cast Crumble Undead on the ankous and skeletons located there.

Hill Giants:
These giant, erm, giants, are located in the Edgeville Dungeon. To get to there the quickest, bring a brass key and enter through the shed just northeast of the Barbarian Village, then simply head south into the cave. This place is oftentimes extremely crowded, so try a PKing world. Collect big bones, limpworm roots and any uncut gems that you receive as drops, then bank at the west Varrock Bank, or at Edgeville, though Varrock is probably better.
You can also kill moss giants on Crandor or in the Varrock Sewers for some money as well, casting high alch on black sq shields, various steel armor and mithril kiteshield drops.

That’s all for my epic moneymaking guide of epic proportions. You can email in any suggestions for these three guides and I’ll edit them in, with your name appearing in the credits at the bottom. Until next time, keep RuneScaping – and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, subscribe to the Rune Guys Podcast, join the Rune Guys Forum and recommend this site to friends. =D

Free-To-Play Magic Guide

Magic is a very versatile skill that can do anything from take you to a different locale, turn items into coins, help you fight monsters or even turn bones into bananas. But today I bring to you a comprehensive guide to the entire free-to-play version of the skill, with training tips and the best and fastest way to get 99. So let’s get started!

Magic at lower levels is very combat-oriented; not until higher levels (namely, 25+) do the spells become more useful outside of combat. Here’s an overview of the different types of spells and what runes you will always need to cast them.

Types of spells:

Combat spells: These spells are used to fight enemies and have a base XP amount, with higher base XP the higher level Magic you need to cast it. They also give XP with the damage done, so for example a spell with 20 base XP would give 32 XP if you hit a 3 with the spell. Crumble Undead is a good way to train Magic because it can hit up to 15 regularly and has a lot of base XP; the spell requires chaos runes to cast. There are three types of combat spell: Strike, bolt and blast. Strike spells always require mind runes, with chaos and death runes required for bolt and blast spells, respectively.

Teleport spells: These spells are used to teleport you all across RuneScape. In free-to-play, there are three different locations you can teleport to: Varrock, Falador and Lumbridge. The most basic teleport spell, Lumbridge Home Teleport, teleports you to Lumbridge with no requirements and no runes needed; however, the same teleport can be accessed at level 31 Magic but using runes. All teleport spells use law runes and are good XP for those with a lot of money because teleports take not much longer than two seconds to cast. Also, Teleport Block, the highest level free-to-play spell in the game at level 85 Magic, is very useful in PvP worlds to make sure a fight doesn’t end with an opponent teleporting away.

Alchemy spells: Alchemy spells are spells that, when cast, have an effect on an item in your inventory or nearby. The most popular spell in this category for training is High Level Alchemy, which is accessible at level 55 Magic. Other spells in this category include Low Level Alchemy, Superheat Item and Bones to Bananas. All alchemy spells require nature runes.

Curse spells: These spells are like combat spells but give no Hitpoints XP at all. They have adverse effects on your character like the lowering of your Attack, Strength and Defense and the inability to move. A popular way to train Magic at low costs and high XP is to buy runes for the Curse spell and perform it on magic dummies in Lumbridge. Other spells like Bind are useful as well in PvP worlds or minigames to hold your opponent in place; however, they only last for 5 seconds at a time. Spells that lower combat stats require body runes; freezing spells require nature runes.

Enchanting Spells: These spells require cosmic runes and are used to give a piece of jewellery special abilities, with an example being enchanting a ruby amulet into an amulet of strength with a Magic level of 49. Amulets of magic, power, defense and strength can be made from sapphire, diamond, emerald and ruby strung amulets and water, air, earth and fire runes, all respectively.

Elemental runes:

Knowing the spells is one thing; knowing the runes is another. Air runes are used in almost every combat spell in existence along with all teleport spells, making them highly traded on the Grand Exchange. Water runes and used mainly only for water-type combat spells but are also used in some curse spells. Earth runes are used in a lot of curse spells as well as for earth-type elemental spells and fire runes are used for most alchemy spells and fire-type combat spells. Also, each rune except for air has a respective teleport spell it is used for: water for Falador, fire for Varrock and earth for Lumbridge.

Uses:

Magic is very useful when training other skills because of the abilities to teleport close to banks and deposit items. However, alchemy spells can also save banking time by converting items into coins without having to sell them; just be sure that the alchemy price is higher than the cost of a nature rune, something that can be easily determined from information from various websites. Drops from monsters like lesser demons, moss giants and greater demons are often alched because these monsters can be far away from banks and as a result it is easier to alch them than bank them and sell later.

Another example of this is mining and superheating. Casting Superheat Item to create a bar results in profit in all bars except bronze bars, assuming that all ores and coal are mined and not bought. If the ores are all bought a loss will occur most of the time.

Training:

1-13: At these very low levels of Magic, the only option to train is by using combat spells. These start, obviously, with wind strike, which requires air and mind runes to cast. These can be bought off of the Grand Exchange or various rune stores in Port Sarim or Varrock or obtained for free from the Magic Tutor in Lumbridge. However, she only supplies 30 of each rune per half hour and will not give you any if you already have those runes in your inventory, bank or if there are some on the ground nearby. You should attack goblins or chickens around Lumbridge, or use the magic dummies to gain only base XP. An alternative would be to use curse spells. Purchase a wizard’s mind bomb from the Grand Exchange or the pub in Falador and stock up on body, water and earth runes. Teleport to Lumbridge and head north to the combat tutors’ building. Drink the mind bomb and repeatedly cast Weaken on the magic dummies until your Magic level is 3 anyways, and then repeat until level 13.

13-39: Fire strike is only slightly more expensive than air strike and gives very good XP. Its maximum damage is 8, four times as high as air strike, so targets can be killed much more easily. Targets that can be used are the magic dummies, the caged lesser demon in the Wizard’s Tower or guards in Falador or Varrock, though Edgeville guards are the best XP at these levels because of the high respawn rate and the 100% effective safe spot. Or, just continue casting Weaken until level 19, at which point the spell Curse should be used on the same targets.

39-55: At this level by far the best XP is the spell Crumble Undead. It can hit up to 15 fairly often and has high base XP. The best places to cast this spell are in the Varrock Sewers as the sewage river provides safe spots for attacking skeletons, ghosts and zombies. However, drops cannot be collected while casting Crumble Undead here.

55+: High Level Alchemy is arguably the best XP in free-to-play, giving 65 XP per spell cast. However, the value of the alched item has no effect on the XP. If a player has lots of money he/she can buy nature runes and other items low in price, like bronze arrows or feathers, and not waste time repeatedly buying expensive items buy lose a lot of money in the process. The best items to alch are green dragonhide bodies, rune maces, rune square shields and adamant platebodies.

37+: If you have the money, purchase law runes in bulk and cast Falador Teleport repeatedly. This will result in major loss but fast XP for the player.

Making money using Magic:

Making money using Magic is not as easy to profit off of as skills like Woodcutting or Mining but is effective if you know what you’re doing. One of the best ways to make money with Magic (and probably one of the best ways to make money in all of F2P) is by telegrabbing Zamorak wines. They are located in the Chaos Temple on the very northwest corner of non-Wilderness free-to-play RuneScape. In your inventory, bring 28 law runes and wield a staff of air. Run northwest of Edgeville, around the border of the Black Knight’s Fortress and then past the Goblin Village and Monastery. I would recommend logging into crowded worlds such as worlds 1, 3, 20 or other worlds that happen to be crowded at the time. If there’s someone else there, stay at the temple. If you manage to steal a few of their wines they’ll get irritated and most likely leave. Remember that you can still waste a law rune if you cast the spell at the same time as your opponent and they get the wine. The wines sell for about 800-900 GP apiece, so about 500 GP profit is made per law rune bought and 43 Magic XP is gained per cast.

Another way to make money that can involve Magic is Fist of Guthix. Magic is very useful to use while hunting your opponent to freeze them, weaken them and, of course, attack them. If you use your tokens on rune gauntlets, which is the best way to spend them, the exchange rate is about 100 GP per token, which means that you can be earning upwards of 1 to 2k GP per game. All in all, Magic is a pretty cool and fun skill that has easy-to-reap rewards at higher levels. It’s a nice skill to have high levels in and is also very useful in combat, so check back to this guide whenever you need to know something about free-to-play Magic.

Using Magic for PKing:

Now for the part my friend from Twitter, Linkbuilder, suggested – PKing! Using Magic for PKing can be very effective, but not if using only Magic armor. Rangers are very powerful against mages, but that doesn’t mean you should wear plate armor. A green dragonhide body and chaps should be worn along with either an amulet of power, defense or a holy symbol. Even better, have all three in your inventory for different situations; the amulet of power should be used against rangers for higher defense and magical strength, the amulet of defense for melee fighters and other mages. The holy symbol is especially useful is your Prayer level is 43+ for each of the Protect From prayers to help them last a lot longer. This is also very useful if you’re PKing near an altar, like in Lumbridge or Varrock because there are altars very close to banks and other non-PvP zones.
PKing using Magic against melee fighters involves two basic strategies: Safeing and bombarding. Safeing involves using Bind to keep opponents away from you, casting the spell at five-second intervals to make sure they stay within a range that allows you to not get hit. The spell that can be used in this strategy for the main fighting does not have to be very powerful, because your opponent cannot hit back. Fire strike and fire bolt are both cheap and effective in combat, but fire blast can be used as well.
Bombarding requires more food and has higher risk but is overall easier to do than safeing. This strategy will preferably have you wearing a rune full helm and/or rune kiteshield to minimize damage done by a melee fighter, along with the green dragonhide chaps and body. Spells like Curse and Weaken can also be helpful to lower your opponent’s attack and strength; lowering their defense may not be necessary because their plate armor is already very weak to magic attacks, though if they are not using plate armor a Defense-lowering spell can be used.
Fighting against rangers and other mages can be a bit trickier because they can fight back without needing to be in the square next to you. This means that higher the higher defense you have against those attacks the better. There isn’t really anything else to say about this because it’s basically attack and fight – there’s no point in binding opponents unless more XP is wanted. Wearing a green dragonhide body and chaps offers protection against both types of combat, so wear an amulet of magic if your defense level is 60+ and an amulet of defense if it isn’t. When attacking another distance fighter, try to stay as far away from them before attacking as possible and use any safespots so that they cannot retaliate as fast.

When PKing with Magic, your inventory should have an amulets of power, defense and a holy symbol, with one being worn already to gain more slots for food, which is what the rest of your inventory should be filled with, unless you want to bring teleport runes in the case of an emergency such as a food outage or a good drop is obtained and needs to be banked. The runes brought should be for Lumbridge teleport as it is in a safe zone and is relatively close to a bank. Your food should be at least tuna, preferably lobsters or even swordfish. You should also bring a rune full helm and/or kiteshield for “bombarding” melee fighters.

Happy spell casting!