This complete 1 -99 OSRS thieving guide contains everything you need to know about thieving in Oldschool Runescape. Included are the essential equipment, important quests, fastest methods, and thieving moneymaking methods.
Thieving Equipment
As always we start off by summing up all the possible thieving equipment that boosts exp and profit per hour.
gloves of silence
Gloves of silence reduce the chance of failure while pickpocketing by 5%. They degrade after 62 failed pickpockets but can be repaired using one dark kebbit fur on them (you’ll also need to have thread, needle, and a knife in your inventory and a crafting level of 64).
You can purchase them for around 3K on the grand exchange or you can bring two dark kebbit furs and 600gp to the fancy clothes store in south-west Varrock to get them.
Ardougne cloak
Does not stack with the gloves of silence.
| Diary level | Reward | Benefits | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ardougne easy diary | Ardougne Cloak 1 | 10% increased chance to successfully thieve from stalls in Ardougne | |
| Ardougne medium diary | Ardougne Cloak 2 | 10% increased chance to pickpocket in Ardougne | cloak doesn’t need to be equipped |
| Ardougne hard diary | Ardougne Cloak 3 | 10% increased chance of succeeding when pickpocketing, anywhere in old school runescape | cloak doesn’t need to be equipped |
| Ardougne elite diary | Ardougne cloak 4 | No extra thieving benefit |
Dodgy necklace
Wearing a dodgy necklace provides a 25% chance to prevent yourself from getting stunned and damaged while pickpocketing. This can be especially handy at lower levels.
The necklace holds 10 charges, losing a charge every time the necklace prevents you from taking damage. The necklace evaporates once all charges are used.
These have no affect on blackjacking.
Rogues equipment
Rogue’s outfit can be obtained during the Rogue’s Den mini-game. The full set will guarantee double pickpocketing loot. This is necessary especially if you plan on pickpocketing master farmers or Ardougne knights all the way to 99.
The full outfit takes about 1-2 hours to obtain.
Questing from levels 1 – 24
These quests have no requirements so it’s highly recommended you take this path to 24 thieving. These are essential subquests needed for recipe for disaster, ardougne diaries, and more.
| Quests | Requirements | EXP Reward | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biohazard | none | 1,250 | Quick quest, 15- 20 minutes Needed for Ardougne diaries (cloak) |
| Hazeel Cult | none | 1,500 | Quick quest, less than 10 minutes |
| Fight Arena | defeat monsters from safespot (44,63, 137) | 2,175 | Quick quest, 15 minutes |
| Tower of Life | 10 construction | 500 | 20 minute quest, you can use our 1-99 construction guide to find out how to grind those first 10 levels. You can do them in under 5 minutes. |
| Tribal Totem | 21 thieving (you have this after completing the former 4 quests) | 1,775 | Quick quest, under 20 minutes |
OSRS Thieving Guide – Fastest way to 99
If you don’t feel like questing all the way to 24, you can do men/women in Edgeville and then move over to the Ardougne market to do cake stalls all the way until 25. From then on you can do fruit stalls in Hosidius.
| Levels | Target | Amount | Location | EXP Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – 5 | Men/women | 49 | Edgeville | 15K/hr |
| 5 – 25 | Cake stalls | 466 | Ardougne market | 20K/hr |
| 25 – 30 | Fruit Stalls | 194 | Hosidius | 40K/hr |
| 30 – 37 | The Feud Quest* | N/A | N/A | You’ll get a 15K exp reward |
| 37 – 45 | Fruit Stalls Again | 1,195 | Hosidius | 40K/hr |
Fruit stalls are located in hosidius and require 15% favour to use. Gaining favour for hosidius is very quick and you’ll need it for other skills such as woodcutting and farming so you might as well get it out of the way now.
To get to hosidius you can use the Xeric’s talisman or if you don’t have that you can use the “tithe farm minigame” teleport located in your quest menu.
Levels 45 – 99 Blackjacking
Blackjacking gives the best thieving experience in the game starting at level 45. However, blackjacking is a bit more click-intensive than other conventional methods and tends to be avoided by many players.
Don’t let that scare you away though, once you get the hang of it, it’s really simple.
Requirements:
- The feud quest
- (if ironman) Rogue trade mini-quest to get access to a blackjack
Location: Pollnivneach (travel here by using the magic carpet)
How blackjacking works:
To start blackjacking, you’ll want a bandit corresponding to your thieving level (refer to the table below) Once you found a bandit, right click on him and select lure. Next, lure him into a building. Once inside, close the door/curtains and you can start pickpocketing the bandit.
To pickpocket a bandit, you first need to ‘blackjack’ him. To do this, right-click on a bandit and select ‘knock-out’. This will either put him to sleep (you succeeded) or prompt the line ‘I will kill you’ (you failed).
Whether you succeed or fail to knock-out the bandit, always instantly pickpocket them.
When you succeed the knock-out:
When succeeding a knockout, pick-pocket the bandit twice. After that, he’ll wake back up.
When you fail the knock-out:
The bandit will now attack you, quickly pickpocket him (to negate the attack) once, and then try to knock him out again.
Repeat.
If the NPC attacks you:
Sometimes you mess up where the NPC keeps attacking you. In this case, try to lure the NPC again right after they hit you. This will stop them from attacking you and you can start blackjacking again.
If this keeps failing, run away and find a staircase. This will also make them unaggressive.
| Levels | Target | Exp Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 – 55 | Bearded Pollnivnian Bandits | 60 – 80K/hr |  |
| 55 – 65 | Pollnivnian Bandits | 100 – 150K/hr |  |
| 65 – 99 | Menaphite Thugs | 250K/hr |  |
OSRS Thieving Guide – Alternative Methods
55 – 99 Ardougne knight
You will no longer fail to pickpocket the Ardougne knight at level 97 with an Ardougne Cloak 2.
Recommended gear:
- rogue outfit (double money)
- gloves of silence (if you haven’t completed Ardougne medium diaries)
- Ardougne cloak 2+ (you don’t actually need to wear it, just own it)
- dodgy necklaces
Inventory:
– Jugs of wine (heals 11HP, costs 3gp each) / alternatively you can steal cakes from the food stall in the market to heal up.
Exp rates and profit per hour at ardougne knights
| Levels | Exp Rate | Amount | Profit (w/o rogues outfit) | Profit (w rogues outfit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 – 70 | 50K/hr | 6,774 | 30K/hr | 60K/hr |
| 70 – 80 | 100K/hr | 14,810 | 60K/hr | 120K/hr |
| 80 – 90 | 150K/hr | 39,861 | 85K/hr | 170K/hr |
| 90 – 95 | 220K/hr | 40,632 | 130K/hr | 260K/hr |
| 95 – 99 | 250K/hr | 50,568 | 150K/hr | 300K/hr |
Coinpouch
Once you successfully pickpocket an NPC, you will receive a coin pouch. You can only have 28 of these in your inventory at once, after that you can no longer pickpocket the knight. Once you reach 28 you simply need to click on the pouch to convert it to coins and you can continue spam-clicking again.
Safespotting the Ardougne knight
Ardougne knights despawn once they become unnaggresive for too long. To counter this, someone needs to splash the knight and keep it aggressive and remain in the same location. This can be done through a main, the official thieving world or clan chats.
Official world: 378 / clan chats: ‘thievinghost’ & ‘splashworlds’
Splash worlds can become a little bit annoying at times as sometimes the knight moves around.
Collonelo has an interesting video where he explains how to safespot the Ardy knight, set up mousekeys/foot pedal and even how to counter the coin-pouch without clicking away from the knight. If you’re interested in doing ardy knights to 99 I’d 100% recommend you check out his video below.
Switch right-click pickpocket in your settings
Open up your options menu (located near the logout button) and navigate to the joystick icon on the top right. Here you will find ‘NPC attack options:’ at the bottom with a dropdown menu. You want to set this to hidden as this will completely hide attacking options for NPCs. This way ‘pickpocket’ will be the only thing that shows up on the Ardougne knight and you can just spam-click them.
Moneymaking Alternative: Master Farmers
Master farmers are a nice alternative to the ardy knights if you have the full rogues armour and and completed the hard ardougne diaries. You can make up to 1.6m gp per hour doing master farmers though the experience rates are significantly lower.
If you have a seed box (tithe farm reward) the seeds will automatically be placed inside the box. This can make this method a little bit easier but it’s not necessary.
The table below assumes you have both Ardougne hard diaries and full rogues outfit.
| Level required | Success rate | Exp Rate | Profit (w/o rogues outfit) | Profit (w rogues outfit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | 57.5% success rate | 30K/hr | 100K/hr | 200K/hr |
| 50 | 64.7% | 40K/hr | 250K/hr | 500K/hr |
| 60 | 70.7% | 50K/hr | 300K/hr | 600K/hr |
| 70 | 84.4% | 75K/hr | 500K/hr | 1M/Hr |
| 80 | 91% | 90K/hr | 600K/hr | 1.2M/hr |
| 90 | 97.6% | 120K/hr | 750K/hr | 1.5M/hr |
| 94 | 100% | 130K/hr | 800K/hr | 1.6M/hr |
locations: hosidius(safespot), draynor (bank/no safespot), ardougne (safespot)
Hopefully, this osrs thieving guide will help you get that money skillcape. Wearing the thieving cape gets you an additional 10% success rate which stacks with gloves of silence and Ardougne Cloak.
