Pyramid Plunder



Pyramid Plunder is a Thieving activity located in the city of Sophanem at the far southern reaches of the Kharidian Desert. It is run by the Guardian mummy. During the activity, the player has five minutes to loot Jalsavrah, the pyramid in which the activity takes place. There are a total of eight rooms which require progressively higher Thieving levels to enter and loot. Rewards range from pottery scarabs to the rare Pharaoh's sceptre. Pyramid Plunder also provides one of the fastest Thieving experience rates in the game.

Requirements
The player must start the Icthlarin's Little Helper quest and have access to the city of Sophanem in the desert. Alternatively, the player could simply purchase a Pharaoh's sceptre to avoid the quest requirement and Rings of duelling for banking. A Ring of kinship also teleports players fairly close to a bank and has unlimited charges.

A Thieving level of 21 is required to play, but it is recommended to have at least 51 Thieving for efficiency. Level 91 Thieving (or higher) will allow maximum experience from this minigame. Completion of the Contact! quest is strongly encouraged as this opens access to the nearby bank. The Feud, and most of the miniquest afterwards, lowers the Magic carpet ride fee to get to Sophanem. (having a ring of charos(a) with you lowers the magic carpet ride to 75gp with the miniquest requirement).

Getting there

 * Teleporting to Jalsavrah using the Pharaoh's sceptre. This can be done before starting Icthlarin's Little Helper.
 * Taking the magic carpet from Shantay Pass to Pollnivneach, and from there to Sophanem. Players can get to the Shantay Pass quickly by:
 * Using the Amulet of glory teleport to Al Kharid.
 * Using the Ring of duelling teleport to Al Kharid.
 * Using the Broomstick teleport to the Sorceress's Garden in Al Kharid.
 * Teleporting to a Player-owned house in Pollnivneach, then walking or taking the magic carpet to Sophanem.
 * Using the Ring of slaying to teleport to Sumona in Pollnivneach, then taking the magic carpet to Sophanem.
 * Teleporting using the Camulet and walking the remaining distance.
 * Using the Fairy Ring code DLQ and walking the remaining distance.

Equipment
The only truly necessary item is food, unless the player is planning to teleport after each round to bank and return to the pyramid with the Pharaoh's sceptre.

Useful items

 * Pharaohs sceptre.png Pharaoh's sceptre - This is strongly recommended for more experience, especially if you have not completed Contact! It teleports players directly to the mummy, allowing them to quickly start plundering.
 * Cookedmonkfish.PNG Shark.PNG Food - Monkfish and sharks are recommended unless you have a healing familiar. Lobsters can be used if you have a bunyip or other healing familiar.
 * Enhanced excalibur.png Enhanced excalibur - This weapon will greatly aid the player in healing, but food is still recommended. If the player has an Anti-poison totem, only a few pieces of food along with the Enhanced excalibur will suffice. This is only necessary without a healing familiar, as you won't be dealt enough damage to need both.
 * Prayer book.PNG + Holy symbol.png Prayer book + Holy symbol - Can heal poison at a cost of 1 Prayer Point. However, super anti-poison potions would work better.
 * Totem.png Anti-poison totem - With this item, the player does not have to worry about getting poisoned, thus providing faster experience rates. If the player does not have a totem, then 2-4 Super anti-poison potions will prevent the player from being poisoned. A Prayer book and Holy symbol combination can cure poison, but it will require a fair bit of clicking.
 * Ectophial.png Emergency teleport - For emergency escape if life points run low. Players with good armour, high Defence, or plenty of food should not need this.
 * Onyx bracelet.png Regen bracelet - This item, combined with Rapid Heal, boosts health regeneration by four times the normal rate. If you have purchased Rapid Renewal from Daemonheim, you may use this instead of Rapid Heal (combined with Regen bracelet) to regenerate health by ten times the normal rate! Both of these methods work well while wearing Prayer boosting equipment.
 * Ardougne cloak 3 inv.png Ardougne cloak 3 - This cape improves a player's Thieving abilities. It has not been confirmed whether it works in Pyramid Plunder, but wearing it will not hurt. It also offers a good Prayer bonus as well as the ability to teleport to the monastery south of Ardougne to recharge Prayer points if necessary. The teleport may also be used to leave if the player finished his/her final room; it is quicker than leaving by the various exits.
 * Summoning-icon.png Summoning familiar - A Void spinner, Bunyip, titan, or Unicorn stallion can also prove beneficial, as they restore player's life points with either their special move or their primary effect. The special move of a Magpie (level 47 Summoning) or an Abyssal lurker (level 62 Summoning) gives temporary boosts of 2 and 4 Thieving levels, respectively. Players should use the special move in the last room that they are able to enter. Players should note that the special move will not give temporary access to a pyramid level above the character's current Thieving level. Summoning a Spirit terrorbird may be helpful, as it can hold 12 items and recharge run energy, although this is not worth it if you have high agility.
 * Fighter torso.png Full Penance - Combined with the Redemption prayer it may be used to heal the player by 2.5x the player's prayer level when the player is damaged below 10% of the player's life points. The penance gear will restore 3 prayer points per minute and will allow continued use of the Redemption prayer. With high Constitution and Prayer levels this may reduce the need for any healing. Combine this method with the Anti-Poison totem and the Enhanced Excalibur and the player will never need to bank unless he/she wishes to store loot.
 *  Super anti-poison potions - Bringing a few of these potions (2-4) is a very effective method of dealing with poison in this minigame. Each dose will last approximately one trip through the pyramid. These are best drunk immediately after you are poisoned and can sometimes last you multiple trips per dose (with a bit of luck).

The equipment above is needed to withstand the damage from monsters and poison during a plundering trip. If the player wishes to reduce banking time, one full inventory of food and potions can last from four to sixteen games depending on how often the player consumes the items. To save time, it is best to eat in between games unless absolutely necessary. To reach level 99 Thieving by playing Pyramid Plunder, the player will need roughly 3,000 lobsters and 500 antipoisons.

Quick banking can be achieved by using the Ring of duelling or the Ring of kinship to teleport to Castle Wars or Daemonheim, respectively. Afterward, the player should use the Pharaoh's sceptre to return to the pyramid. If you have completed the Contact! quest, use the bank in Sophanem for the fastest banking. There is also a summoning obelisk along the east wall of the city (outside the city) for a quick summoning recharge and an altar just southwest of the pyramid.

Helpful items for new players

 * Snake charm.png Snake charm - This is obtained from Ali the Snake Charmer in Pollnivneach by putting three coins into his basket. It helps avoid damage, but it also lowers the overall experience gained. It is generally not considered worth the time spent charming the snakes.
 * Lockpick.PNG Lockpicks (or a Hair clip obtained from the King's Ransom quest) - For easy door opening. These will also lower the overall experience gained by half per door you open using the lockpick. These are also generally not worth it.

To gain faster experience, the player may choose to keep his/her inventory full. With this method, the player does not need to worry about wasting time dropping artefacts. However, if the player is using the Pharaoh's sceptre, this is not recommended because artefacts are needed to recharge the sceptre.

Getting Started
Travel to Sophanem. If you haven't played the game before, talk to Tarik outside the pyramid near the northern gates of the city. Then, attempt to enter the pyramid on one of its four sides. If the room is empty, leave and try another entrance. (Regardless of the entrance you used, you will always exit next to the northern entrance.) Inside one of the entrances, you will find the Guardian mummy. If you haven't played the game before, you must talk to it to gain access to the inner rooms. In later runs, you can start by simply right clicking the Guardian mummy and selecting the "Start Activity" option.

The Guardian mummy changes rooms every 15 minutes, so once you find the correct entrance you can keep using it for a number of trips before it changes.

The mummy may occasionally punch you as you try to enter the pyramid, which stuns you and does a little damage. This only happens at the entrance to the room containing the mummy.

As soon as you start the activity, a timer will start on your screen. You have five minutes to loot as much treasure from the pyramid as you can.

Once inside, you will find a room that contains the door through which you entered the room, a spear trap, urns, a golden chest, a sarcophagus, an exit door, and four doors leading to the next room, of which only one works. There are eight rooms in total, the first requiring 21 or higher thieving to enter. Each subsequent room requires ten more levels than the previous room, with the final room requiring 91 or higher thieving.

Navigation
Some players try and pass through all the doors to make it to the highest room they can use and then thieve everything in that room, but this leaves all but the slowest players with much wasted time, and is not efficient for experience. Experience increases from each thievable object further into the Pyramid.

The method generally recommended by experienced thieves is to thieve about half of the urns from the second highest level room you can get to and thieving all of the urns in the final room. But if using this method, one should be careful that they do not use too much time on the second highest room. It is advisable to move on after slightly less than half of your time is remaining. It is still quicker to check the urns before looting them, as you will waste far less time failing. Before moving on, check for snakes on the half you haven't looted.

When in your final room, watch the time you have remaining. If time is about to run out and you haven't thieved everything in the room, leave off thieving the urns and thieve the chest (avoid the sarcophagus - it's a waste of time and experience), for better rewards and a quick final action. If you still have time left after this, you can resume thieving the urns. (If a monster appears from the sarcophagus or chest, the Protect from Melee prayer, if you have it, makes it easy for you to thieve the remaining urns. Keep auto-retaliate off so that you do not turn to fight while trying to loot the urns.)

Check each urn before searching it, then move on to the next earn and repeat. This will make looting the urns much quicker.

Recommended Equipment
A recommended inventory for a player with Medium to High Combat is:


 * About 24 lobsters or simply cakes for lower level players. Or a bunyip or another healing familiar. Or alternatively, an enhanced excalibur. (A bunyip + enchanted excalibur can eliminate all need for food).
 * 2-3 Super antipoisons or a holy symbol with a prayer book. Or alternatively, an Anti-poison totem.
 * An emergency one-click teleport, such as an Ectophial or a teletab.
 * A Pharaoh's sceptre with at least one charge.

Medium to high combat players willing to use teleports between each playing of pyramid plunder can take less food and only one antipoison. The player can take a Ring of duelling, a charged Pharaoh's sceptre, and only one piece of high-healing food. This allows more plunder to be kept per trip while not slowing down the player. At the end of a playing, the player teleports to Castle Wars using the ring, uses the bank chest there, eats food if needed, and teleports back to Pyramid Plunder using the sceptre. Every third trip, the player should remember to bring sufficient artefacts to get the mummy to recharge the sceptre. Alternatively, players who have completed Contact! can simply use the bank in Sophanem.

It is recommended that a player wears:


 * Ardougne cape 3
 * A weapon. A Dragon dagger(p++) or an Abyssal whip is recommended.
 * Weight-reducing garments, such as Boots of lightness, Penance gloves, Agile legs, Agile top and a spotted or Spottier cape.
 * A Ring of duelling for a quick bank teleport. (A Ring of kinship is a cheap alternative).
 * Any prayer boosting clothes.

Alternatively, high level players may wish to equip an enchanted excalibur and an armour/weight-reducing gear combo to avoid having to kill any Scarab Swarms without taking large amounts of damage.

One way to save time is to drink a dose of Super-Antipoison before starting the activity at the mummy. This way, if a chest or urn is failed, there is no need to waste time drinking a dose because the antipoison protects long enough for at least one run.

With a Pharaoh's Sceptre fast bank trips are possible if a player combines a bank teleport with the sceptre teleport to the Pyramid. This gives the option of using lower grade food as the bank round trip can be very fast. Even faster bank trips are possible using the bank in Sophanem after completing Contact!

The table below lists the various thieving options and the reward associated with it. Note that the experience from checking and searching adds up when both steps are performed. When the check step is ignored, players get more damage, but can use the check and charm time to search more urns yielding more overall thieving experience. If the search option is successfully performed before checking, players will still get all of the experience they would have if they had both checked and searched (ex. a Room 3 Urn yields 150 experience when being only searched). Note that the experience received when using a lockpick on a door is halved.

Experience
This activity gives the fastest thieving experience in RuneScape at level 91 and above. It is the most common method to attain 99 Thieving. (Blackjacking the coshing volunteers at the Thieves' Guild gives the safest and easiest experience, at 84k-96k experience per hour. Most do not use this method, however, partially because it requires training in quick clicking the 'loot' option, it gives no reward, such as coins, other than experience, and it is limited in the number of times it can be done in a week.)

At 61 thieving, 80k experience can be gained in an hour, and even more at higher levels. At 91 or higher thieving, 200-240k experience per hour is possible. Depending on how lucky a player is they might get all doors in first try and are able to search all urns on the level below. If they keep this up for an hour you can obtain upwards 260k per hour. It is possible for a player to search the chests in all rooms, successfully search all urns in the highest level room as well as 6 urns at the previous level. A typical player with 61 Thieving will gain the following experience in 5 minutes:


 * 840 (chests)
 * 1200 (6 urns in level 4)
 * 3900 (13 urns in level 5)
 * 270 (opening doors to next level)

This adds up to 6210 every 5 minutes or to approximately 70k experience in one hour as players have to refuel time to time in bank. Higher experience rates require players to search more urns at level 4 or to replace chest searching with searching more urns at level 4.

Level 81+ Thieving yields 180k experience when the 71 room is half looted and half checked, and the 81 room is entirely looted, looting no sarcophaguses and only the chests in 71 and 81.

The strategy should be to get to the room before your "level" and check and loot half of the urns, open the chest, and check the other half of urns. Then, move to your maximum room and check and loot all urns, then open the chest. If you find you still have time at the end, open more urns in your second-highest room for future runs.

Thieving experience
1 - Numbers in parentheses are thieving experience if snake charming is used. Note that the experience gained with charming is only about 2/3rds the experience if charming is not used.

2 - No experience is gained from a chest if a Scarab swarm is found.

3 - The sarcophagi do not give Thieving experience, but give Strength instead. Unless you are solely looking for Pharaoh's Sceptres, it is advised not to open these because 1) They slow you down and 2) The mummies can attack you or any other players passing by, which is looked upon by those trying to train thieving as rude/noob-like.

4 - Numbers in parentheses are thieving experience if a lock pick (or hair pin) is used. Note that the experience gained with a lock pick is only 1/2 the experience if a lock pick is not used.

Snake charming is a waste of time.

Pyramid Plunder is enhanced by having other people in the room to give clues about which doors to open. A Pyramid Plunder Guild operates on World 64. Unfortunately a world that is too busy can work against you, because the dead ends behind doors change every time a player begins a new game. In addition, players who let out the mummy reduce XP rates for all players.

Rewards
When you loot the urns, sarcophagi and chests you will find various trinkets that you can trade in for Coins at Simon Templeton at the Agility Pyramid not far from Sophanem. Players can use a crack in the wall behind the bank to get to Simon Templeton even faster. Fastest of all, if you have a Pharaoh's Sceptre its Jaleustrophos teleport brings you right to Simon. To really speed your ability to cash in artefacts, there is an optional reward after you've done Dealing with Scabaras that will allow you to bring Simon Templeton noted artefacts. However, he will not accept noted gold artefacts because of the possibility of forgeries or some such reason. This does make it worthwhile to bank in between games if you can bank in Sophanem to at least save up all the stone artefacts.

Below is a table showing what each item is worth in coins.

You may also find a Pharaoh's Sceptre in one of the Grand Gold Chests or Sarcophagi. Immediately after finding a Pharaoh's Sceptre, all players used to be expelled from the pyramid and all the chests, urns and sarcophagi are reset and a new sceptre is placed in one at random.
 * }

This has been changed since it was first made—now upon a player receiving a sceptre from a chest or sarcophagus, that player will be expelled from the pyramid, but other players will remain inside. The players left inside the pyramid will see a mummy standing beside the chest in all rooms who shouts at the players.

Tips

 * Scarab swarms will only target the player who triggered them. They will ignore other players, allowing players to safely pass them without getting attacked.
 * Mummies usually will first target the player who triggered them but can and often will attack other players, too. Releasing mummies into a room with other players present is generally frowned upon.
 * Sometimes you may open all four doors in the room, only to find all of them are dead ends. This can happen when another player on the world starts the game, as the door connections are changed when this occurs. Just go back and recheck the other doors in the room and you will find the correct one. (The doors will still be open, but you can recheck them anyway.)
 * Players who have completed Contact! can use the bank located at the north east corner of Sophanem (below the ladder). This can be used instead of teleporting back & forth from a bank.
 * With the pharaoh's sceptre a fast way to train is using a bank teleport (castlewars with ring of duelling or edgeville bank with amulet of glory recommended) after every pyramid plunder run, then simply bank all items, take out the sceptre and a super antipoison potion (taking a sip here and banking the rest gives 1 more free inventory slot) and teleport back into the pyramid. When the sceptre has only 1 teleport left also take 12 stone items with you to recharge it when you arrive at the mummy.
 * Carry two sceptres at all times. Then you can use them to teleport to the mummy to begin the next round instantly instead of searching for the correct door to enter the pyramid. This will allow for more experience per hour.
 * If a snake bites you while searching an urn repeatedly click the urn until you receive experience successfully.
 * Players commonly start clan chats with each other while here. That way each player can choose the same door on each floor every round. Instead of a player having to search all doors in the pyramid the player can simply follow another member of the clan chat who opens the correct door. This works best if players use a common method to call out open door locations (such as 11 for first floor and first door going clockwise, 21 for second floor first door going clockwise, and so on). Utilising this method properly may require finding a team in world 64 and then moving to an empty world where doors will not change randomly. Experience can be gained very quickly by using this method.

Trivia

 * When examining the Grand Gold Chest, it will say "Anyone lost an ark?" This is an allusion to the biblical Ark of the Covenant which held the 10 Commandments. It is also more probably an allusion to the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark which uses the account of the biblical Ark as its main storyline. After looting and examining it you will receive the message "Phew, no evil ghosts in there". This is an allusion to the same movie.
 * If you are attempting to open a sarcophagus as the game ends, you will continue to do the animation for opening the sarcophagus outside of the pyramid, and a mummy may appear and attack you outside of the pyramid.
 * The Dwarven Consortium can be seen from the entrance of room 3.
 * Waterbirth Island dungeon is viewable from the entrance room, using the Orb of Oculus.
 * An old Holiday event room can be seen from room 3 using the Orb of Oculus.
 * The Dragonkin Castle from Tail of Two Cats can be seen NW of room 1, using the Orb of Oculus.
 * You can see the Pyramid Plunder dungeon from the Waterbirth dungeon room with 10 rock lobsters, northeast corner.
 * In the entry area of some tombs, including the first, fourth, and fifth ones, there is what appears to be an Eye of Horus, a real-life Egyptian hieroglyph. Not all the tombs have an Eye of Horus.
 * If players wanted to spend the runes and time they could bring runes for cure me from the lunar spell book, but this will slow you down as the effect only works once.
 * Room 3 only has 12 urns instead of 13. It is not known if this is a mistake in the design of the room.
 * Room 8 has four tomb doors, like the other rooms. However, there is no room after this room, and clicking on any of these doors works like clicking on the exit door.
 * Now players wishing to exit the tomb earlier before the time runs out when clicking on a door to leave the no longer receive the "Are you sure wish to leave" screen where players clicked "Click to continue" before seeing options to leave or stay, due to the 6th October 2010 update.

Le Pillage de Pyramide