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.
Useful Thieving Equipment & items
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
The Ardougne Cloak is a reward from the Ardougne Achievement Diaries.
The 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 effect on blackjacking.
Shadow Veil Spell
Shadow Veil is a spell that requires the Arceuus Spellbook. When active, this spell gives you a 15% chance to avoid being stunned AND stacks with the dodgy necklaces.
Shadow Veil requires 47 Magic and 100% Arceuus Favour.
Using Shadow Veil in combination with Dodgy Necklaces is key to accelerating thieving experience rates.
Your chance of dodging the stun is 36.25% when using the Dodgy Necklaces in combination with the Shadow Veil spell as revealed by Mod Ash.
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 2+ hours to obtain.
Settings to make thieving easier
Thieving using the default settings isn’t that great and definitely won’t give you the best experience rates. If you don’t want to waste hours of your life on your way to 99 thieving, you’d do well to toggle these settings before we get started with the rest of this guide.
Here are some Quality of Life setting that make thieving easier.
NPC attack options hidden
To prevent yourself from attacking the NPC’s you are going to pickpocket, you should set NPC attack options to hidden in your controls.
Menu Entry Swapper
Players who use Runelite have access to a plugin called ‘Menu Entry Swapper’. This plugin allows you to change the left click of any NPC to ‘pickpocket’ so that you can spam-click the NPC to pickpocket them instead of talking to them.
To use this feature, hold SHIFT and right-click on an NPC than select ‘swap left click’ and set it to pickpocket.
If you have Runelite but this feature doesn’t show up, ensure that your Menu Entry Swapper plugin is toggled on and that you have toggled ‘Customizable left and shift click’ in the NPC Swaps settings.
OSRS Thieving Guide – Different Paths
Thieving can be very click-intensive. Our fastest path will get you to 99 thieving ASAP, but to keep you sane it’s best to combine it with some alternative methods along the way as well as some money makers.
This OSRS Thieving Guide is divided into different parts:
- Thieving Quests
- Fastest way to 99 Thieving
- Alternative ways to 99 Thieving
- Profitable Thieving Moneymakers
P.S. This OSRS Thieving Guide was updated in March 2023 to provide you with the best meta to get 99 thieving.
These paths should help you get 99 thieving at your own pace. The fastest way isn’t for everyone (blackjacking isn’t all that fun), therefore we have assembled alternative methods (e.g. Ardy Knights) which can be used in-between as a break from the hardcore methods or even replace the methods as a whole.
It’s totally fine to replace Blackjacking with Ardy Knights to get 99 Thieving. This guide will help you out with whichever path you wind up choosing.
I’d also like to mention that there are quite a bit of quest that grant Thieving experience, so if you are starting from level 1 it might be worth it to skip the initial levels if you like questing. But again, this is entirely up to you.
If you plan to use Blackjacking, you’ll need to complete the quest ‘The Feud’ to unlock this training method. You should do this at 43 Thieving as the experience reward will bump you up to level 45 at which point you can start Blackjacking.
Optional: 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 |
Fastest way to 99 thieving
Levels 1 – 5 Men/women
If you aren’t going to do the starter quests, you’ll have to pickpocket men and women from levels 1 – 5. You can find them everywhere but the best spot is Edgeville which has a house full of them.
It will take 49 successful pickpockets to get to level 5 thieving.
Levels 5 – 25 Bakery Stalls
Cake stallls offer the fastest experience from levels 5 – 25 thieving. Find the bakery stall in the Ardougne Market as illustrated above. Stand underneath the baker to avoid getting caught by him while stealing from the stall.
Location & how to get there
Cake stalls are located in Ardougne Market. You can get here using Captain Barnaby’s boat in Rimmington for 30GP. Other methods include Fishing Trawler minigame teleport in the Grouping Menu or using the Ardougne Cloak.
 | For more travel methods, check out: How to travel to Ardougne |
Levels 25 – 43 Fruit Stalls
Location & how to get there
Fruit stalls are located Hosidius. To get here for the first time, you have to take the boat from Veos in Port Sarim. Otherwise, you can use the Woodcuting Guild teleport on the Skills Necklace, Xeric’s Glade teleport on the Xeric’s Talisman, or continue to use Veos’ boat.
| For more travel methods, check out: How to travel to Hosidius |
Strategy
The best location for Fruit Stalls is the house located east from the market that has two different fruit stalls.
Here you can pickpocket 1 fruit stall for chill EXP rates, or if run between the two stalls for a slightly increased exp rate.
EXP Rate
- 1 stall: up to 35k EXP/hr
- 2 stalls: up to 40k EXP/hr
Levels 43 – 45 The Feud Quest
You’ll need The Feud to unlock the next fastest method to 99 Thieving which is Blackjacking. The Feud has a 15K experience reward which will bump you up to level 45 Thieving which is just enough to start Blackjacking. Efficiency!
If for some reason you don’t want to do The Feud, or don’t want to Blackjack (it’s not for everyone), you can skip ahead to the Alternative methods and check out Ardougne Knights or Stealing Artefacts instead.
Levels 45 – 91/99 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:
Blackjacking can only be done in Pollnivneach. You can reach Pollnivneach easily by using the Magic Carpet from the Shantay Pass in Al Kharid.
EXP Rate
| Thieving Levels | Target | EXP Rate | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 – 55 | Bearded Pollnivnian Bandits | 60 – 80K/hr |  |
| 55 – 65 | Pollnivnian Bandits | 100 – 150K/hr |  |
| 65 – 99 | Menaphite Thugs | 250K/hr |  |
Before you start Blackjacking, be sure to hold shift and right-click in order to select ‘swap left click’ and set it to pickpocket. This is a Runelite feature and was explained at the start of this Thieving Guide. [Click here] if you need a refresher.
How Blackjacking works
The first thing you’ll need to do to start Blackjacking, is to lure a bandit or thug responding to your level into a building. You can do so by right-clicking them and selecting ‘lure’. They aren’t very bright, and will follow you wherever you go.
Once trapped, close the curtain door.
The next thing you’ll want to do is knock them out cold so you can pickpocket them. So right-click 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.
Even if you fail, this action will prevent them from staying aggressive on you.
When you succeed the knock-out:
Once knocked out, you can pickpocke them twice, before choosing knock-out again and repeat.
When you fail the knock-out:
Sometimes the pickpocket will fail, in which case you have to quickly pickpocket again to cancel the out the aggression. Then simply knock him out again and repeat.
If the NPC attacks you:
If you fail to cancel out the aggression, find a staircase to de-aggro them and start over.
Rinse and repeat! Blackjacking is pretty simple once you get the hang of it, it’s just very click-intensive with the continuous right and left clicks.
Food strategy
During blackjacking, your inventory should be full at all times. Since you’ll get hit, you should have cash in one inventory slot and food in the remain ing 27 inventory slots. You should pick a food source that doesn’t leave your inventory when consumed.
The best food source for blackjacking is jugs of wine as you can purchase them from the Pollnivneach pub.
Helpful plugin
From your Runelite Plugin Hub, you can install the ‘Blackjack’ plugin which highlights the thugs for you and showcases whether they are blackjackable or not. It’s nothing game breaking, but it does help.
Levels 71/91 – 99 Pyramid Plunder
Starting at level 91 Thieving, Pyramid Plunder unlocks the fastest thieving experience in OSRS while being a much chiller and more fun activity than Blackjacking.
At maximum efficiency, you can expect experience rates up to 240k/hr at Pyramid Plunder.
Pyramid Plunder is a mini-game and being able to play it does come with some requirements.
Requirements
- Access to the city of Sophanem: start Icthlarin’s Little Helper
Recommendations
For banking & Travel:
- Finish Icthlarin’s Little Helper for fast travel to Sophanem
- Finish Contact! for bank in Sophanem
- OR buy a Pharoah’s Sceptre from the Grand Exchange for teleport into the minigame, and easy banking in an alternate location
For the mini-game itself:
- Graceful equipment to maintain run energy
- Serpentine helm for anitpoison immunity
- Antipoison or Antidote potions if no Serp helm
- Food
- Stamina Potions
How to get to Pyramid Plunder
The best way to get to Pyramid Plunder is to purchase a Pharoah’s Sceptre (around 5m) from the Grand Exchange and use it to teleport to Pyramid plunder.
Otherwise, you will have to travel via rug merchant at the Shantay Pass in Al Kharid.
Option 1: The Rug Merchant in Pollnivneach can take you to Sophanem (where Pyramid Plunder is) provided you have completed the quest Icthlarin’s Little Helper.
Option 2: Take the rug merchant to Pollnivneach and run towards Sophanem.
[MAP drawing]
Banking Strategy:
Players who have completed Contact! quest can bank inside Sophanem by going to the basement of the northeastern temple.
Players without Contact! should use a Pharoah’s Sceptre to teleport to Pyramid Plunder and use another teleportation method (e.g. Ring of Dueling) to bank. Otherwise, players will have to continously bank with a ring of dueling and use the rug merchant to travel to Sophanem.
Exp Rates:
- Level 71 Thieving: up to 120k exp/hr
- Level 81 Thieving: up to 190k exp/hr
- Level 91 Thieving: up to 270k exp/hr
How Pyramid Plunder works
Pyramid Plunder is pretty simple and doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. The minigame is started inside one of the 4 openings in the pyramid in Sophanem.
If it’s your first time, you must speak with Tarik first.
Once you spoke with Tarik, start looking for the ‘Guardian Mummy’ he will be located inside one of the four start rooms of the Pyramid.
Since the Guardian Mummy is spawned inside one of the 4 rooms randomly, you may have to enter a couple of doors before finding him.
Players with access to a Pharaoh’s Sceptre don’t have to do this step as they can teleport inside the pyramid.
Once you do find the Guardian Mummy inside one of the four rooms, you can start Pyramid Plunder.
During Pyramid Plunder, you have 5 minutes to clear all the rooms. This timer will be indicated on screen with a green bar, once your time is up you will be kicked out.
Pyramid Plunder consists out of 8 rooms which all hold a thieving level requirement to enter. Room 1 requires 21 Thieving, Room 2 requires 31 thieving and this pattern continues all the way up to room 8 which requires 91 Thieving.
Pyramid Plunder Rooms
| Image | Object | info | Thieving Experience | Loot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Spear Walls | Spear Walls are located at the start of each room and need to be disabled. This can fail, dealing 1 – 4 damage. | No | No |
 | Urns | Urns grant loot and thieving experience. Two options: – Search: fastest experience – Check for snakes: takes longer | Yes | Trinkets |
 | Sarcophagus | No thieving experience, but same rewards as the golden chest Chance of opening is affected by strength level and grants strength experience There’s a level 84 mummy inside that will attack you. Chance of Pharaoh’s Sceptre. Should be avoided for maximum experience | No | Trinkets Chance of Pharaoh’s Sceptre. |
 | Doors | Each room has 4 trick doors. only 1 is a real exit door. | Yes | No |
 | Grand Gold Chest | Grants no experience. Chance of Pharaoh’s Sceptre. | Yes | Trinkets Chance of Pharaoh’s Sceptre. |
Pyramid Plunder Strategy
For the best experience rates, you should always play Pyramid Plunder in the official world, which is world 493. Since the mini-game is the same for everyone, you can don’t have to pick the lock of every trick door and instead you can just pay attention to which door unlocks for other players, saving a bunch of your time.
Once you get to the higher floors, you’ll want to start looting the urns and gold chest in the middle. Steer clear from the Sarcophagi as they don’t grant thieving experience. Use search on the urns, not ‘check for snakes’.
Since you get only 5 minutes inside, you should always make sure you can FULLY loot the final room which will grant the most experience. This might be a bit tricky at first, but you will get the hang of your time limit as you continue to play the mini game.
So to recap:
- Play in world 493 and follow the other players
- Only loot the final 3 rooms, prioritizing the final room
- Don’t loot sarcophagi, don’t check for snakes on the urn
This strategy should grant you up to 120k exp/hr at level 71 (after some finetuning) and the rates will go up to 240k exp per hour at level 91 Thieving.
Runelite Plugin
There is a Pyramid Plunder plugin for Runelite which you can download from the Plugin Hub. This plugin will highlight all the doors and traps making it easier to see them, making the mini-game that bit easier.
OSRS Thieving Guide – Alternative Methods
Levels 55 – 99 Ardougne Knights
Ardougne Knights are a great alternative thieving method. While you gain less experience than with Blackjacking, it’s much less click-intensive, AFKable AND you make more money.
Players have found ways to make Ardy Knights so AFK, they can do it while watching movies, studying, working or any other activity (we’ll get to that).
All in all, it’s definitely worth considering doing Ardougne Knights every now and then, or even use it as your main way to get 99 thieving. Ardy knights are also the most lucrative method for ironmen looking to make some money on their way to 99 Thieving.
You will need the full rogues set to make this method worth it.
Players with Rogues outfit make around 60k per hour starting at level 55 and can gain all the way up to 300k per hour at level 95.
Doing Ardy Knights all the way from levels 55 – 99, you can make a total of 15M GP.
You stop failing Ardougne Knights at level 97 Thieving with an Ardougne Cloak 2 or higher.
EXP Rate & Profit/hr
| 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.
Ardougne Knight Clan Chat
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.
Trapping the Ardougne Knight
You can also trap the knight yourself using the dragon spear special attack.
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.
Levels 71 – 99 Pyramid Plunder
For a much chiller experience, stop blackjacking at level 71 and do Pyramid Plunder instead. You will get lower experience rates (120k exp/hr) but you will have a lot more fun and keep your sanity!
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.
UPDATE: to combat bots, the drop-table for master farmers now scales to your farming level. To keep the same profit rate as below, you will need 85 Farming.
| 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)
More Thieving Money Makers.
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.
