Spears are two-handed, mostly members-only stabbing weapons, whereas hastae are one-handed. They deal the same amount of damage as two-handed swords, except that they use the stabbing style instead of slashing. They are obtained from either monster drops, purchasing from a shop, trading with other players, or smithing on the special barbarian anvils after learning in Barbarian Training.
The normal metal spears can be bought at Tamayu's Spear Stall, although the shop only sells (kp) spears, which cannot be wielded. A cleaning cloth must be used on these spears to be able to wield or trade them.
In RuneScape Classic, spears were ranged weapons and only bronze to rune spears were available. Javelins have replaced their old function.
When RuneScape 2 was first released, spears originally had an attack delay of 3.6 seconds, equivalent to battleaxes. With the Barrows update on 9 May2005, their attack speed was increased to 3.0 seconds, equivalent to longswords. It was decreased again to 3.6 seconds (now known as "average" speed) with the release of the Evolution of Combat.