Released in May of 2002, Thieving has become a very common skill for Old School RuneScape players, and a fairly quick 99 to achieve. Get ready for thieving, as in this guide, we’ll go through not just the shortest path to 99 thieving, but also go over a few money makers. You never know, you may even make some real life money while training thieving. Feel free to rotate, in particular towards the later levels, through the methods in this OSRS Thieving Guide by Ezrsgold.
Thieving Quests
Prior to the actual thieving guide, we want to discuss the importance of questing. The early thieving grind can be very repetitive and involves intense clicking, so we recommend completing a couple of quests that give a reasonable amount of thieving experience to zoom through early levels. Here’s a rundown of all the OSRS quests offering thieving experience. If you’d like to skip the questing process, consider using our OSRS Questing Service.
Equipment for Thieving
For you to use in your Thieving journey to 99, we recommend you use these following items, as they can make your journey a lot more profitable, faster, or both! If you need some gold to afford these items, consider checking out our OSRS Buy Gold Page.
Ardougne Cloak 3
Upon completing every Ardougne diary you can get these exclusive Cloaks. Upon completing the Ardougne easy diaries, the first stage, the Ardougne Cloak 1, gives you a 10 percent greater chance of thieving successfully from Ardougne stalls. The second-tier stacks with the easy diary after completing the medium diaries and offers an additional 10 percent higher chance of pickpocketing in Ardougne. The third-tier stacks with the previous diaries after completing the hard diaries and provides you with a 10 percent higher chance of succeeding when pickpocketing around Gielinor. Keep in mind, you don’t have to equip the cloaks for the bonuses to come into effect. You can get the cloaks from Two Pints, in East Ardougne’s Flying Horse Inn.
Dodgy Necklace
While equipped, this enchanting opal necklace gives you a 25 percent chance not to get stunned and hit when pickpocketing any NPC. This helps you immensely during pickpocketing and speeds up the rate of experience gain. The necklace has 10 charges, every time you’re saved from a stun a charge is consumed. In basic terms, the necklace can give you immunity from being stunned for up to a minute.
Rogue outfit
To find rogue equipment, you’ll have to open the rogue equipment, which can be done by completing the Rouge’s Den minigame. Besides being a sleek and cool outfit, the full rouge outfit offers the chance to double the loot from an NPC by pickpocketing. We highly recommend this if you go down the route of this guide’s profitable portion.
Thieving Training Guide
Levels 1-5 – Pickpocketing Men & Women
To start off your thieving journey, and this thieving OSRS guide, you’re going to be pickpocketing Men & Women to level 5. Practically everywhere you can find men & women, but they are in great abundance in places like Lumbridge and Edgeville. You ‘re just going to be there for a couple of minutes so don’t get cozy. Here’s a tip for pickpocketing – go to your settings, go to the ‘play controller’ icon at the top right, and select ‘Hide’ under ‘NPC Attack Options.’ This makes pickpocketing so much easier, because your default left-click choice is pickpocketing, not fighting. If you want to skip these early levels and jump straight into the fun parts of Thieving, consider using our OSRS Power Levelling Service.
Levels 5-20 – Stealing from Cake Stalls
You will be stealing from the Cake Stall in East Ardougne market from levels 5 to 20. More precisely, in the east side of the market you can find the cake stall (otherwise known as the Baker’s Stall). To thieve them optimally, stand opposite the side facing the market, and thieve! Drop it (or bank) until you have a full inventory and carry on the thieving. If a guard threatens you in the rare case, you can either run away, or be brave and fight back against him. That way, in a very short time you will be right back to thieving. Anyways, you’ll only be about 20 minutes here.
Levels 20-25 – Stealing from Silk Stalls
The Silk Stall, where you will be from level 20 to level 25, is right next to the cake stalls, which you should have thieved from level 5 to 20. The East Ardougne market has two silks stalls, and we’ve provided you with a map of them. Just as with the cake stalls, to thieve these stalls effectively, just stand opposite the side of the stall facing the market and keep thieving. Also, if you’re looking for some extra cash when doing so, you ‘d be able to sell the silk to the merchants.
Levels 25-45 – Stealing from the Hosidius Fruit Stand
Between levels 25 to 45, at the Great Kourend, you must steal fruit from the Hosidius Fruit Stall. The stall, more precisely, is on the east side of the Hosidius house, near the beach. Nonetheless, to do that, you’ll need the Hosidius House 15 percent favor, which is incredibly easy to get. There is a bank to the west, if you want to bank your thieved goods. Do that all until level 45.
Levels 45-55 – Blackjacking Bearded Bandits
We finally get into the core of this thieving OSRS guide. Get used to blackjacking, since you’ll be doing it a lot. You’ll be going to Pollnivneach from levels 45 to 55, to blackjack the Bearded Pollnivnian Bandits. To blackjack you have to have a blackjack, preferably a maple blackjack. Just knock him down with the blackjack once you’ve found a Bearded Bandit, pick him up while he’s unconscious on the floor, and wait before he gets up again. If you have fast hands, click twice when he’s on the floor for even more experience and gold.
When you’re caught trying to blackjack the bandit, though, he’ll attack you for 4hp. When you’ve been hit, just try to knock them back repeatedly and hopefully they’ll be unconscious again. If you’ve been too slow to take them down once they reach you, they ‘re going to start hitting you. If that happens, just run away, restore your health and come back. And if you’re in a building, you can just walk up the steps and wait a couple of seconds.
Ali the Dyer’s building, on the north side of Pollnivneach, is our absolute favorite spot to blackjack all forms of bandits. The reason you ‘re going to want to use this house is because it’s incredibly small and has easy access to ladders to escape.
If you’re ever running out of food and are hoping to live longer, there’s a slightly west banknote exchange dealer, and we’ve provided you with his location on the map. Simply give him some noted food along with a couple of coins and he will un-note them for you, so you can carry on blackjack. Ali the Barman, slightly south, sells wines for 1gp each if you don’t want to bring in food. Just do this method until 55, and you’ll also get a few hundred thousand gold!
Levels 55-65 – Blackjacking Non-Bearded Bandits
Just when you’re blackjacking bearded bandits from levels 45-55, we’ll do the same from levels 55 to 65, except now you’ll be blackjacking non-bearded bandits. They are still in the same place, so you are going to be blackjacking them with the same technique as seen before. To differentiate between bearded and unbearded bandits, look at their hand to see if they are holding a weapon, other than the obvious facial hair difference. All bearded bandits will not carry a scimitar, while unbearded bandits will carry a scimitar with them. Best of all, you’ll get even more hourly experience, and even more gold per hour!
Levels 65-91 – Blackjacking Menaphite Thugs
And we will be blackjacking again from level 65 to level 91. This time, it is going to be Menaphite Thugs. On the south side of Pollnivneach, you will find these level 55s and they are hard to miss. The blackjack strategy for them is the exact same as before. Except this time, you’ll get a lot more experience and a lot more gold! And they get much easier to blackjack at about 77 thieving, which isn’t too far down the lane, according to your current level.
Levels 91-99 – Completing Pyramid Plunder
To complete your OSRS Thieving journey, you’ll complete the minigame of the Pyramid Plunder from levels 91 to 99. You will be in the Jalsavrah Pyramid in Sophanem for this process, which is unlocked after starting the ‘Icthlarin’s Little Helper’ quest. Otherwise you can just use the Pharoh’s Sceptre teleport function to get straight there. We also suggest completing the quest ‘Contact!’ for easy access to the Bank next to the pyramid. If you’ve not done the quest, your next bank is in Nardah, which is quite a tedious walk to do whenever you need food or anti-posion.
We suggest bringing weight reduction equipment, as well as prayer potions, antidotes, food, coins, and stamina/energy potions for the most efficiency. And there’s a 1 in 1000 chance to earn a Pharoh’s Sceptre for an extra reward, which is an incredibly sought-after drop. Unfortunately, we are not going to break down the specifics of Pyramid Plunder and the steps to complete it in this article, because there is too much to cover for an OSRS Thieving Article. Nonetheless, should you find yourself lost while completing Pyramid Plunder, do not hesitate to search the Runescape Wiki Page’s comprehensive guide or browse around Youtube.
Alternative method from level 49 to 99
This method is amazing as it gives 130k-150k XP/H right when you can start doing it at level 49 and you can get up to 260k XP/H on later levels. This method is called Stealing artifacts and it requires 49 Thieving as well as 75% Piscarilius favour. Also, this method allows you to train other skills while doing it, like you can cast high alchemy spells while you’re running, you can make darts or like in the example video below – you can even train herblore. It’s an extremely creative way to maximize efficiency and I highly recommend you try it out. Also, if you choose to alch items while you do it, check out this guide for a method that can make you up to 1M per hour while doing so.
OSRS Thieving Money Making
Pickpocketing Elves (3350k GP/H)
You can start this method at level 85 thieving, although the profit will be about 2.3m GP/H.
For this method we recommend wearing Rogue equipment, Dodgy necklaces, food & a thieving cape if you have one. Also, to speed things up we recommend using Shadow Veil spell from Arceuus spellbook, because this spell gives you a 15% chance to avoid being stunned and damaged while pickpocketing.
For this method you will also need to have completed the hard Ardougne Diary as well as Song of the Elves quest.
Elves are located in Prifddinas and the main money to be made from this method comes from pickpocketing enhanced crystal teleport seed. You will also make a portion of your money from crystal shards, coins and some other miscellaneous items.
Pickpocketing vyres (3250k GP/H)
The same principles apply as in Elves method, however, there is a different quest requirement – Sins of the Father. This method also requires 82 thieving to start, although the profit at that level would be roughly 2.1m GP/H. I would also recommend bringing a gem bag, as you will be getting quite a few gems. This method may also require a bit more luck, as statistically, it should take about 3.3 hours to receive the main drop – blood shard.
Vyres can be found in Darkmeyer.
Pickpocketing H.A.M members (1050k GP/H)
To start the money-making section of the guide, we’ve got one of RuneScape’s best methods to make quick gold – pickpocketing H.A.M members! Players with level 15 Thieving can pickpocket female H.A.M members and at 20 Thieving can pickpocket male H.A.M members. When pickpocketing H.A.M. members you get a 1/50 chance to get an easy clue scroll. Much of the value you get from an easy clue scroll is from trimmed armour, God pages, cosmetic items, and some very rare items like gold trimmed
monk robes. You can no longer fail pickpocketing H.A.M. Members at 93 Thieving if you have completed the Ardougne Hard Diary. Alternatively, you can’t fail either if you have 99 Thieving and wear the Thieving cape. Since a pickpocket takes 1.2 seconds, it will take on average a little over a minute to get an easy clue scroll. A clue scroll can usually be completed in under 90 seconds with teleports all unlocked and accessible. The general strategy is to teleport to Draynor Village using an Amulet of Glory, running to the hideout, obtaining a clue scroll through pickpocketing and completing the clue scroll, repeating the process by banking in Draynor Village. If you’re a lower thieving level, consider wearing a dodgy necklace and H.A.M. robes to minimise the risk of being kicked out the hideout.
Pickpocketing Master Farmers (850k GP/H)
As you pickpocket Master Farmers in Draynor Village, the money will really start rolling in. These farmers will give you a tremendous amount of seeds, including ranarrs and snapdragons! You’ll leap to the range of more than a million gp an hour, and we strongly recommend getting the rouge outfit for this. If you have a seed box, that’s going to be very beneficial, too. If you have a low hit point level, make sure you bring some food (if you have the rouge ‘s outfit at level 94, don’t worry about bringing food). Head over to Draynor with your things, and find Martin, the master gardener, as seen on the map. Wait until Martin is stuck inside the pig pin for the best efficiency. Then pick-pocket away from here, dropping the worthless seeds. And once again scroll for a helpful tip on pickpocketing up to the very first step in this guide. After making a bunch of gold, consider selling it for real life cash through our OSRS Sell Gold Page.
And with that, we conclude our OSRS Thieving Guide. Good luck with your thieving journey, don’t get caught!
