OSRS F2P Training Guide: Combat, Magic, Prayer and Runecraft by Level

OSRS F2P Training: The Short Answer

Free-to-play has fewer training methods than members, but the good ones are well known. Take the free quest XP first, get a rune scimitar at 40 Attack, use High Level Alchemy at 55 Magic (it works on free worlds), and treat Prayer as a 43 target rather than a 99 grind.

1. 1

   Melee:

   giant frogs from about 20, moss giants from 40, then the level 50 giant spiders in the Stronghold of Security for AFK training to 99. Brutus gives double combat XP if you finish The Ides of Milk.

2. 2

   Magic:

   Imp Catcher and Witch's Potion take you to level 10. Splash for cheap AFK XP, splash Curse for faster XP, then alch from 55.

3. 3

   Prayer:

   The Restless Ghost gives 1,125 XP (level 9). Big bones and vile ashes get you to 43 in under an hour and a half. The Bone Yard is free but slow.

4. 4

   Runecraft:

   earth runes from 9, body runes from 20. Body tiaras are the fastest F2P method at up to 47,000 XP/hr on a PvP world.

Before You Start: Free XP and Starter Gear

A fresh F2P account should claim the quest XP before grinding anything. These quests are short, cost almost nothing and remove the slowest early levels.

For gear, the F2P melee training page is clear: use the best scimitar you can wield, and the rune scimitar at 40 Attack has the highest damage per second in F2P. Wear the amulet of strength when it raises your max hit, otherwise the amulet of power. A chainbody gives more crush defence than a platebody. Jugs of wine are the cheap food: each heals 11 and lowers Attack by 2.

If you are new to the game, our beginner tips and best quests for beginners cover the rest of the first week.

Pick Your Method: F2P Training Compared

Melee XP is 4 per point of damage in the style you train, plus 1.33 Hitpoints XP, according to the Combat page. The wiki gives no hourly melee rates for F2P monsters, so the melee rows below show XP per kill. Everything else uses the wiki's hourly figures.

F2P Combat Training Spots by Level

The level bands below follow the wiki's F2P melee training page. Attack and Strength should be at the start of the band; Defence can lag if you bring more food.

Giant spiders vs moss giants

These two are the usual AFK question. Both lose aggression after 10 minutes in the same area (tolerance), so neither is truly hands-off. The difference is drops against convenience.

Pick giant spiders if your stats are around 60 and you want the most AFK option: when they stop attacking, run to the next corner of the room or climb the ladder up and down to reset them. Pick moss giants from 40 if you want each kill to pay you back: besides the bones and runes they drop black square shields and mithril swords that are worth casting High Level Alchemy on. The wiki warns that an unattended player can still die at spiders, so hardcore ironmen should stay at the screen.

Brutus: double XP for active players

After The Ides of Milk, Brutus in the Lumbridge cow field has a +100% XP bonus and 58 hitpoints, so a kill is worth about 464 combat XP. He is instanced, drops a raw t-bone steak and bull bones (40 Prayer XP) every kill, and has a 1 in 30 chance at the mooleta, the only F2P shield-slot item with a Strength bonus. The catch: his special attacks scale with your Hitpoints level and have to be dodged. Ringing the cowbell amulet cuts his respawn from 21.6 to 7.8 seconds. Our Brutus guide covers the mechanics.

F2P pures

In F2P every melee or Ranged kill also gives Hitpoints XP, so a pure's only clean XP comes from quest rewards, dummies and lamps, says the F2P combat pure guide. Vampyre Slayer gives Attack only. A 40 Defence rune pure should do Dragon Slayer I at around 30 to 33 Defence, because its 18,650 Defence XP can push you past 40. Magic does not raise combat level while it stays at or below Ranged or two-thirds of Attack plus Strength, and splashing gives no Hitpoints XP. For members builds, see our pure builds guide.

F2P Magic: Splashing vs Curse vs Alching

Magic matters more in F2P than in members: there are no teleport tablets, so most teleports depend on your Magic level, and Falador Teleport at 37 is the highest one. Start with Imp Catcher and Witch's Potion for level 10, which already makes Wind Strike hit up to 6.

How to set up a splash

1. 1

   Get your Magic attack bonus to -64 or lower with full metal armour and d'hide vambraces, per the Splashing page. For Curse, the wiki recommends -65.

2. 2

   Pick a target outside most of Lumbridge.

   Since 11 July 2019 you get no Magic XP for failed casts there once you have 10 Magic. The wiki suggests the lesser demon on the top floor of the Wizards' Tower, which it calls safe even for hardcore ironmen.

3. 3

   Turn on autocast and Auto Retaliate.

   You stop retaliating after 20 minutes without input, so click once every 20 minutes.

4. 4

   Bring enough runes for the session.

   Splashing never deals damage, so it gives no Hitpoints XP.

Curse cannot be cast again on a target it has already lowered, but a splash never lands, so you can recast at once. That is why Curse splashing runs at about 34,000 XP/hr while costing only two water runes and a body rune with a staff of earth.

At 33 Magic, Telekinetic Grab (43 XP) lets you grab wines of Zamorak in the Chaos Temple north of Falador. Taking the wine drains your stats, including Magic, so bring wizard's mind bombs to stay above 33. For the members side of Magic, see our Magic 1–99 guide.

F2P Prayer: Bone Yard, Chaos Temple and Lesser Demons

The wiki calls Prayer one of the most difficult F2P skills because it is expensive, slow and click-heavy. Do The Restless Ghost first for level 9, then decide between paying for bones and collecting them yourself.

The Bone Yard has 34 bones spawns and 6 big bones spawns. Wait out the skeletons' 10-minute aggression timer first, then pick up and bury with an empty inventory so your run energy lasts. World hopping does not reset that timer, and walking too far away does.

Which Chaos Temple is free-to-play?

Three buildings share the name, and only one has the famous bone-saving altar. That one is members-only.

Lesser demons are the F2P ash source. They live in the Crandor and Karamja Dungeon (partial Dragon Slayer I and a 30-coin boat to Karamja), the Wizards' Tower cage, the Lava Maze and the Demonic Ruins. Each drops vile ashes for 25 XP, and they have a 40% weakness to water spells, so they train Magic and Prayer together. The wiki notes giant frogs still give faster Prayer XP among bone-dropping monsters because they die so quickly.

F2P Runecraft: Earth Runes, Body Runes and Tiaras

F2P players can craft air, mind, water, earth, fire and body runes, but not cosmic, chaos, nature, law or death runes. Pure essence gives the same XP as rune essence, so buy whichever is cheaper.

Earth runes vs body tiaras comes down to cost. Earth runes pay you a little and run at about 6,900 XP/hr. Body tiaras cost a tiara and a talisman every time but run nearly seven times faster. Binding a tiara needs only 1 Runecraft; making a plain tiara needs 23 Crafting, or you buy them.

Body runes are the F2P middle ground. From 46 you get two runes per essence and from 92 three, so the runes you sell grow with your level. The wiki puts energy potions at 30 to 50% more XP for every method in the table. The PvP-world rates need 20 hours of play, 10 quest points and 100 total level to enter, and you can be attacked outside the Lumbridge safe zone.

Best F2P Method per Skill, by Level

Here is the same advice as a level-by-level route. Where a row names two methods, start with the first one.

Before You Buy Membership: F2P Checklist

Some F2P levels carry straight into members, others are much cheaper to get after you subscribe. The F2P Prayer page puts it in numbers: 99 Prayer takes 868,962 big bones in F2P but one bond plus 51,724 dragon bones at a members gilded altar, and about 20 hours of offering instead of about 112 hours of burying and scattering.

• Claim all the free quest XP: The Restless Ghost, Imp Catcher, Witch's Potion and Vampyre Slayer.
• Finish Dragon Slayer I (32 quest points) for the rune platebody, green d'hide body and Crandor. Many F2P quests are also requirements for members quests later.
• Get 40 Attack for the rune scimitar, and 40 Defence for rune armour unless the account is a pure.
• Get 43 Prayer for Protect from Melee, then stop. Members Prayer is far cheaper per XP; our Prayer 1–99 guide has the altar maths.
• Get 55 Magic for High Level Alchemy. It works the same way on members worlds, so these levels are never wasted.
• Clear the Stronghold of Security for 10,000 coins and boots, and finish The Ides of Milk for the cowbell amulet and the 1,000 XP lamp.
• Leave Runecraft past 20 unless you enjoy it: members methods in our Runecraft guide are faster.
• Plan your first members combat training with our Nightmare Zone and Pest Control guides before the bond runs.

Hours and Kills to Your Goal

XP needed comes from the wiki's experience table, divided by the hourly rates above. Real sessions with banking and breaks run slower, so treat these as minimums.

Common Mistakes

1. 1

   Assuming alching is members-only.

   Both alchemy spells are on the standard spellbook in F2P. Skipping 55 Magic leaves 78,000 XP/hr on the table.

2. 2

   Splashing in Lumbridge.

   With 10 or more Magic, failed casts in most of Lumbridge give no XP. Move to the Wizards' Tower or Varrock.

3. 3

   Standing still after tolerance kicks in.

   Giant spiders, moss giants and Bone Yard skeletons stop attacking after 10 minutes. Reset spiders with the room corners or the ladder; at the Bone Yard the calm is what you want.

4. 4

   Taking bones to the level 38 Chaos Temple.

   Its altar bonus is members-only, and the PKers are not. In F2P, bury at the level 11 temple or outside the Wilderness.

5. 5

   Doing Dragon Slayer I too late on a rune pure.

   Its 18,650 Defence XP can take a 34+ Defence account past 40. Do it at 30 to 33 Defence.

Where Paid Help Fits

Most of this page is cheap to do yourself; the cost is time, especially the long F2P Runecraft and alching stretches. If you would rather hand a level range to someone, our Skills training service covers all 24 skills, played by hand with no bots, and you pick the method and the start and end levels on each skill's page.

FAQ

Still stuck on a mechanic? Ask the team on our Discord, it is free.