Free-to-play (2024)

Free-to-play, also known as F2P, is the free version of Old School RuneScape where no payment to Jagex is required to play. Players who play the free version of RuneScape are known as "Free players", "F2Pers", or "Non-members". This is in contrast to members, who pay a fee for access to a much larger map and a multitude of skills, items, quests, and activities that are unavailable to free-to-play users.

Free-to-play users can gain access to membership for free through their in-game activities by purchasing membership bonds for coins on the Grand Exchange.

Free-to-play in Old School RuneScape was released permanently on the 19th of February 2015. Before this, a two-week F2P trial was available for new accounts. Anyone with a valid RuneScape account can access free-to-play servers.

Free-to-play content[edit | edit source]

Free-to-play in short

While free-to-play accounts have many limitations that members do not, free to play still yields a decent gaming experience for players.

Skills[edit | edit source]

Free-to-play accounts have access to 15 skills, with a maximum total level of 1493^[1]. Levels in members-only skills do not count towards entry into 500 Total Level and 750 Total Level free-to-play worlds, making the true requirements 508 and 758, respectively.

The skills are:

• Melee skills: Attack, Strength and Defence (and Hitpoints)
• Ranged
• Magic with limited access to standard spells
  • Strike, bolt and elemental blast spells plus Crumble Undead
  • Confuse, Weaken, Curse and Bind spells
  • Level 1, 2, 3, and 4 enchantments (limited to amulets for free-to-play)
  • Home, Varrock, Lumbridge and Falador Teleports
  • Telekinetic Grab
  • Tele Block
  • Bones to Bananas, Low Level Alchemy, High Level Alchemy and Superheat Item
• Prayers are available up to level 45 Mystic Might.
  • The 1^stfloor^[UK]2^ndfloor^[US] of the Edgeville Monastery becomes available at level 31.
• Runecraft elemental, mind and body runes
  • Pouches and the Abyss are not available to F2P, but tiaras are.
• Mining and Smithing
  • Access to metals from bronze to rune
• Crafting
  • Ball of wool
  • Pottery: pots, pie dishes and bowls
  • Soft leather items (except for Coif) and hardleather body
  • Silver: holy symbols and tiaras
  • Gold, sapphire, emerald, ruby and diamond rings, necklaces and amulets
• Fishing and Cooking
  • Available fish are: shrimp, anchovies, sardine, herring, trout, salmon, pike, tuna, lobster and swordfish
  • Cooked meat and cooked chicken
  • Redberry, meat and apple pie
  • Plain pizza, meat pizza and anchovy pizza
  • Cake and chocolate cake
  • Wine
• Woodcutting and Firemaking
  • Trees, oak trees, willow trees, maple trees, and yew trees
  • Canoe

Transportation[edit | edit source]

Running as a form of transportation depletes run energy quickly due to the inability to train Agility. Free-to-play transportation done in an efficient manner is limited to teleportation, Grouping teleports, canoes, items like the chronicle, and some NPCs. When running, lower weight will slow the speed that run energy depletes. The chronicle is a useful early game item for fast access to the Champions' Guild, just south of Varrock, and also close to a canoe station. An axe and 12 Woodcutting are required for creating the first tier of canoe. To go to the Ferox Enclave in the Wilderness, 57 Woodcutting and an axe are required, leaving the Ferox Enclave only requires 12 Woodcutting and an axe. Alternatively, players can use the minigame teleport to Clan Wars, which has a 20 minute cooldown. The Ferox Enclave has a bank, Pool of Refreshment to restore Prayer points, Hitpoints, run energy, and all other skill levels. Home Teleport can be used once every 30 minutes, and does not share a cooldown timer with the minigames teleport. At 37 Magic, players will unlock the Falador Teleport, the last free-to-play teleport available.

Equipment[edit | edit source]

Although there are a great quantity of items unavailable to free players, they can still use most melee equipment up to rune armour (40 attack and defence), including god-affiliated armours. Likewise players can use ranged equipment up to green dragonhide armour (40 ranged and defence) and maple shortbows. Magic equipment is very limited but includes wizard robes and hats. Prayer gear include Monk's robes and the Holy symbol. The best overall amulet is the amulet of power, and the only useful ring is the ring of forging.The equipment with the highest bonuses for each combat-style is listed on this page.

Melee equipment:

• Basic weapons and armour made of bronze, iron, steel, black, mithril, adamant and rune, but some specifics like metal gloves, halberds and metal boots are not included.
• Melee decorative armour from the Castle Wars minigame with bonuses equivalent to steel, mithril, and adamant equipment. Despite the regular metal boots being unavailable in the free-to-play worlds, decorative boots can be bought and worn by all players. Importantly, decorative boots (gold) provide the highest melee defence bonuses as well as a small melee strength bonus.
• Additional notable items include hill giant club, barronite mace, swift blade and shaman mask.

Ranged equipment:

• Ranging gear includes leather armour, studded leather armour and green dragonhide.
• Normal, oak, willow, and maple bows are available with ammunition up to adamant arrows.
• Crossbows and phoenix crossbows can be used with normal bronze bolts.

Magic equipment:

• Magic armour is limited to blue and black wizard robes and Zamorak monk robes, and staves are limited to the four elemental staves, Bryophyta's staff, Magic staff, basic staff, and Skull sceptre.

Prayer equipment:

• Prayer items include: Holy symbol, Monk's robes, Priest gown and Shade robes

Potions[edit | edit source]

The only potions available in free-to-play are energy potion, antipoison, and strength potion, all obtainable from the Grand Exchange or the Apothecary. Strength potions are an economic way to train melee combat stats, so it's recommended to use them.

Food[edit | edit source]

Foods are consumables that restore Hitpoints. The highest healing food in a single bite is a swordfish at 14, the highest healing per inventory slot is an anchovy pizza at 18, 9 Hitpoints in 2 bites. There are sometimes better foods in terms of price per healing, so be sure to check the food page.

Monsters[edit | edit source]

There are relatively few monsters in free-to-play, partly due to there being only eight dungeons in the free-to-play map. The dungeons are:

• Asgarnian Ice Dungeon (except the Skeletal Wyvern area)
• Crandor and Karamja Dungeon
• Dwarven Mine
• Edgeville Dungeon (except the section that is in the Wilderness)
• Stronghold of Security
• Varrock Sewers
• Corsair Cove Dungeon
• Draynor Sewers

Some monsters have restricted drop tables in F2P, and not all areas contain all of the monsters found in P2P servers.

The highest level free-to-play monsters are Evil Chicken and shades. There are 2 bosses with broadcast loot and kill counters, the first being Obor, who can be killed in Edgeville Dungeon after having retrieved the key to his lair. The second being Bryophyta, who can be found in her lair in the Varrock Sewers after the player had obtained a mossy key from a moss giant. Other notable higher level monsters include ankous, lesser demons, greater demons, ogress shamans, ogress warriors, and the quest boss, Elvarg.

Quests[edit | edit source]

There are 22 free-to-play quests with a total of 44 available quest points. With 32 quest points, the Champions' Guild becomes available, along with the ability to start the Dragon Slayer I quest.

Minigames[edit | edit source]

Free players have access to the following minigames with some restrictions:

• Castle Wars: the rewards are limited to the melee decorative armours, cloaks, hoods and banners.
• Last Man Standing: competitive mode is disabled. Some rewards such as the adamant arrows or swift blade can be bought and used on the free-to-play worlds, but the points cannot be earned.
• Treasure Trails: limited to the beginner clue scrolls. Some cosmetic rewards such as rune god armours, gilded armour and gilded dragonhide armour can be traded and worn on free-to-play worlds.
• Clan Wars: several maps are unavailable.
• Emir's Arena: restricted to the non-competitive legacy mode roughly resembling the removed Duel Arena without the possibility to stake coins or items.
• Shooting Stars: experience is limited and the associated rewards may not be purchased or used.

Restrictions for newly created characters[edit | edit source]

An Update added several restrictions to newly created Free-to-play characters.

Newly created characters cannot:

• Receive beginner clue uniques.
• Drop items for other players to pick up. They can still pick up items dropped by others.
• Give away items in a trade. They can still receive items.
• Log in to PvP worlds.
• Create Sell offers for commonly botted items on the Grand Exchange.
• Add items to the Party Chest in the Party Room in Falador.

Additionally, if a newly created character is killed by another player, the amount of noted items that the other player receives as loot are capped at 20 notes per item.These Restrictions can be removed by meeting each of the following requirements:

• Playing over 20 hours.
• Earning 10 quest points.
• Reaching a total level of 100.

Purchasing membership will remove all restrictions as well.

Other[edit | edit source]

Limited Bank Size

Free players are limited to 400 bank spaces in which to store items, with up to 460 after setting up a Bank PIN (adds 20 additional bank spaces), Authenticator (adds 20 additional bank spaces) and having a linked Jagex Account (adds 20 additional bank spaces). Additional 360 slots in blocks of 40 can be bought at increasingly higher prices for a total of 888,000,000, bringing the maximum total available space to up to 820.

Grand Exchange Offer Slot Limitation

Free players are limited to 3 Grand Exchange offer slots.

Membership Bonds

Old school bonds can be purchased with real-world cash or with in-game coins, and can be redeemed in-game for membership playtime. It is possible to make enough money in-game to play membership content without having to pay any real-world money.

Comparison to regular Runescape F2P areas in the past

The current F2P accessible areas on the surface of OSRS currently closely resemble that of the early to mid era of Runescape HD, with some added content that never existed in the original RuneScape game.

Since its inception, areas such as the Corsair Cove or Ruins of Camdozaal have been added. The Edgeville smelting furnace and Castle Wars have also been made F2P.

Treasure Trails

• All beginner clues are available to be done by F2P players. All beginner clues rewards are thus available to F2P players.

Treasure Trail rewards available for F2P players to buy through trading or the Grand Exchange (but can only be obtained through Treasure Trails in P2P):

• Easy clues: bronze trimmed armour set, bronze gold-trimmed armour set, iron trimmed armour set, iron gold-trimmed armour set, black trimmed armour set, black gold-trimmed armour set, blue trimmed wizard robe set, blue gold-trimmed wizard robe set, black trimmed wizard robe set, black gold-trimmed wizard robe set, trimmed studded leather body, trimmed studded leather chaps, gold-trimmed studded leather body, gold-trimmed studded leather chaps, gold-trimmed leather body, gold-trimmed leather chaps, black heraldic armour h1 to h5 (helms, platebodies, shields), amulet of magic (t), amulet of power (t), ham joint, black pickaxe, team cape i, team cape x, team cape zero, wooden shield (g), golden chef's hat, golden apron, Monk's robe top (g), Monk's robe (g)
• Medium clues: mithril trimmed armour set, mithril gold-trimmed armour set, adamant trimmed armour set, adamant gold-trimmed armour set, Green d'hide body (t), Green d'hide chaps (t), Green d'hide body (g), Green d'hide chaps (g), adamant heraldic armour h1 to h5 (helms, platebodies, shields), Wolf cloak, Strength amulet (t)
• Hard clues: rune trimmed armour set, rune gold-trimmed armour set, Guthix rune armour set, Saradomin rune armour set, Zamorak rune armour set, Ancient rune armour set, Bandos rune armour set, Armadyl rune armour set, gilded full helm, gilded platebody, gilded platelegs, gilded kiteshield, gilded med helm, gilded chainbody, Gilded sq shield, gilded plateskirt, Gilded d'hide body, Gilded d'hide chaps, Gilded d'hide vambraces, Gilded 2h sword, gilded axe, gilded scimitar, gilded spade, gilded pickaxe, rune heraldic armour h1 to h5 (helms, platebodies, shields)
• Elite clues: ring of nature, all gilded items mentioned in hard clues (gilded full helm, gilded platebody, gilded platelegs, gilded kiteshield, gilded med helm, gilded chainbody, Gilded sq shield, gilded plateskirt, Gilded d'hide body, Gilded d'hide chaps, Gilded d'hide vambraces, Gilded 2h sword, gilded axe, gilded scimitar, gilded spade, gilded pickaxe)
• Master clues: ring of coins, all gilded items mentioned in hard clues (gilded full helm, gilded platebody, gilded platelegs, gilded kiteshield, gilded med helm, gilded chainbody, Gilded sq shield, gilded plateskirt, Gilded d'hide body, Gilded d'hide chaps, Gilded d'hide vambraces, Gilded 2h sword, gilded axe, gilded scimitar, gilded spade, gilded pickaxe)

Free-to-play servers[edit | edit source]

Changes[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

• Free-to-play account builds
  • Free-to-play Ironman guide
  • Free-to-play combat pure guide