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Pyramid plunder

The Pyramid Plunder Pyramid

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

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

  • File:Pharaohs sceptre.png Pharaoh's sceptre - This is strongly recommended for more experience, unless you have completed Contact! It teleports players directly to the mummy, allowing them to quickly start plundering.
  • File:Cookedmonkfish.PNG File: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.
  • File: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. If you have a healing familiar, the enhanced excalibur is redundant and not worth bringing.
  • File:Prayer book.PNG + Holy symbol Prayer book + Holy symbol - Can heal poison at a cost of 1 Prayer Point. However, super anti-poison potions would work better, as they prevent you from being poisoned for around 5 minutes.
  • Totem 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 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 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 six times the normal rate! Both of these methods work well while wearing Prayer boosting equipment.
  • Dragonstone ring Ring of wealth - While wearing this ring, the change of getting Pharaoh's sceptre and jewelled golden statuettes during the minigame is larger.
  • File:Ardougne cloak 3 inv.png Ardougne cloak 3 or 4- 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 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 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 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.
  • File: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

Pyramid plunder room
Guardian mummy

Talk to the Guardian mummy to start Pyramid Plunder

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.

Inside the Pyramid

Loots

Image Objects Information
Urns as seen in Pyramid Plunder. Urns Each room has 13 urns, except for Room 3 which only has 12 urns. You can choose to steal from an urn or check it for snakes first. If you check for snakes, a snake will appear out of the urn and may then be charmed if you have a snake charm, this will however halve the experience gained. Both checking and stealing from urns earn thieving experience, but charming does not. Unless charmed, a snake may bite for 10-40 damage and may also poison with damage of 20 (a very weak poison that wears off fast). Searching is much slower than stealing, and the rewards from urns are generally poorer than from the golden chest and sarcophagus. Rewards also get better the further you get into the pyramid.
The Gold Chest in the centre of every room, it is 1 of 2 objects the that has a possibly of looting a Pharaoh's Sceptre from, the other being the Sarcophagus. Grand Golden Chest The centre of each room has a golden chest. The best loot is in these chests, but they occasionally contain level 98 Scarab swarms which hit extremely fast and always poison an unprotected player. (The poison starts at 38, so use an anti-poison potion to negate this). A swarm only has 250 life points, however, so using a Dragon dagger along with the Protect from Melee prayer to negate damage will dispatch them quickly. The Pharaoh's Sceptre can only be obtained from the golden chest and the sarcophagus. Opening a chest is very fast, so players seeking treasure find it worth checking all chests on the way to the highest level room. (Players seeking thieving experience should instead concentrate on the urns in the next-highest and highest level rooms they can reach, as urns yield more experience than chests. Skipping all but the final two chests a player can access provides a combination of fast experience and an adequate chance at receiving a Sceptre.) When searching for the door to the next level, a Scarab swarm will not do too much damage and could be ignored. A swarm triggered by an earlier player will just wait at the door the player exited to the next room, thereby showing you which door you should use (unless the doors have been reset after the player left the room). Chests are often saved until everything else in the room has been looted, as scarabs can slow down the process of looting urns.
The Sarcophagus is 1 of 2 objects the that has a possibly of looting a Pharaoh's Sceptre from, the other being the Gold Chest. Sarcophagus Each room has a sarcophagus. There is fairly good loot in these, but opening these gains you Strength experience instead of Thieving. You may awaken a level 84 Mummy. Opening a sarcophagus takes a fair amount of time, which needs to be considered in your Pyramid Plunder strategy. You can open the sarcophagus even if another monster, like a scarab swarm, is attacking you; despite the time it takes to open the sarcophagus the monster's attacks do not interrupt the opening. Most high-level thieves do not consider these worthwhile to open, as they waste significant amounts of time and have only a potential benefit of a Pharaoh's Sceptre. However, if you have finished the rest of your room and still have a few seconds left (more likely if you are mid-leveled) it may be worth it to open it anyway.

Navigation

Image Objects Information
The Spear Trap on the wall of entrance to every room. Spear Trap The entrance corridor to each room has a spear trap, which takes up two squares in each of the two walls. Click on either of the two closest squares to attempt to deactivate the trap. You will be hit with 10-40 damage if you fail, if you attempt to walk into the room without trying to deactivate it, or if you click on either of the farther squares.
The Exit and Entrance Exit / Entrance Door Each room has an exit door on each floor, allowing for fast exit from the entire pyramid but this can be interrupted by scarabs or a mummy. The door from which you entered a room may also be used like the exit door. You must pass the spear trap again and can fail it. This door can be useful, however, if you are seeking to escape the attacks of scarab swarms or mummies. Their attacks will interrupt your attempts to leave by the exit door. However, the monsters will not follow you through the spear trap, so you are safe once you pass the trap. The monsters' attacks do not interrupt your attempt to pass the spear trap, since this is a single-click operation.
The Picklockable Tomb Door. Tomb Door There are four doors per room which you can use to try to reach the next room. Only one of the doors actually connects to the next room, and the other three are dead ends. So, you must check each door until you find the correct one. You can fail to open a door, in which case you can try again. You receive some thieving experience for opening each door. The door to the next room changes periodically (each time any player on the current world begins a new game of Pyramid Plunder). The door thus remains the same for all players on the world for short periods of time. Hence, it is possible for a group of players to play together, quickly searching all the doors in a room. The other players can then follow the player who found the correct door. Sometimes, the doors will reset while you're opening them, and you may find that all four are dead ends. In this case, check them all again.

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.

Maps of the pyramid

Recommended Equipment

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

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:

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).

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. With luck, a player might find all of the doors on the first try, which will allow them to search all urns in both the second-to-last and last rooms. This would allow upwards of 260k experience per hour, but is highly improbable. 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 sarcophagi 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

Pyramid Plunder thieving experience
Min Thief Room Check Urn Search Urn1 Gold Chest2 Sarcophagus3 Door4 Trap
Level 21 #1 20 60 (40) 40 0 (20 str) 40 (20) 10
Level 31 #2 30 90 (60) 60 0 (30 str) 60 (30) 10
Level 41 #3 50 150 (100) 100 0 (50 str) 100 (50) 10
Level 51 #4 70 215 (140) 140 0 (70 str) 140 (70) 10
Level 61 #5 100 300 (200) 200 0 (100 str) 200 (100) 10
Level 71 #6 150 450 (300) 300 0 (150 str) 300 (150) 10
Level 81 #7 225 675 (450) 450 0 (225 str) 450 (225) 10
Level 91 #8 275 825 (550) 550 0 (275 str) N/A (N/A) 10

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.

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

A Pottery statuette a common reward from Pyramid Plunder.
File:Sceptre Teleport.gif

A player using the Sceptre's teleport.

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

File:Finding Pharaohs Sceptre.png

The dialogue after a player finds the Pharaoh's Sceptre.

.

Type Ivory Pottery Stone Gold Jewelled
Comb File:Ivory comb.PNG 50 (2658) -- -- -- --
Seal -- -- File:Stoneseal.png 150 (151) File:Goldseal.png 750 (1330) --
Scarab -- File:Pottery scarab.PNG 75 (224) Stone scarab 175 (166) Golden scarab 1000 (1298) --
Statuette -- Pottery statuette 100 (96) Stone statuette 200 (193) Golden statuette 1250 (2769) Jewelled golden statuette 7500 (27838)

|} There is now also a jewelled golden statuette reward as of 15th March 2011 Ring of Wealth update. This recharges the sceptre with just a single item or alternatively can be sold on the grand exchange for 7.5k gp. 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.
Pyramid plunder eye of horus

The eye of horus.

  • 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.

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Icon Item Price Direction Low Alch High Alch Limit Members Details Last updated
Pharaoh's sceptrePharaoh's sceptre1,642,570
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406010P2P iconview3 years ago
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