Beast of Burden
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- "BOB" redirects here. For a list of non-player characters with this name, see Bob.
Beast of Burden (sometimes abbreviated to BOB or BoB) is a type of Summoning familiar that has the ability to carry items for the player. To access their familiar's inventory, players need only to right-click on them and select "store", or interact with them and manually ask them to open their inventory for you. The familiars with this ability are shown in the table below.
| Familiar | Summoning Level Required | Number of Slots | Time (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thorny snail | 13 | 3 | 16 |
| Spirit kalphite | 25 | 6 | 22 |
| Bull ant | 40 | 9 | 30 |
| Spirit terrorbird | 52 | 12 | 36 |
| Abyssal parasite | 54 | 7 Essence only | 30 |
| Abyssal lurker | 62 | 7 Essence only | 41 |
| War tortoise | 67 | 18 | 43 |
| Abyssal titan | 93 | 7 Essence only | 32 |
| Pack Yak | 96 | 30 | 58 |
Contents |
[edit] Item storage
If you have a beast of burden (BoB) familiar, you can move its entire inventory into your bank by clicking the summoning familiar icon at the bottom of the bank interface.
Before the familiar's time limit is up, two messages will appear, along with a tick-tock! sound:
- You have 1 minute before your familiar vanishes.
- You have 30 seconds before your familiar vanishes.
After that: Your familiar has dropped all the items it was holding. Beware! Once your familiar has dropped the items it was once carrying the items will disappear after approximately 1 minute, the same procedure as if you had dropped it yourself!
[edit] Limits of items carried
Currently the known limits for what a beast of burden will carry are as such:
- A maximum amount of coins , depending on the familiar
- Only tradeable items (untradeable items cannot be carried by the familiar)
- Items with lower values.
- Rune and pure essence can be carried only by the three abyssal familiars which can only carry essence. (See Below)
Currently it is unknown what the limit is for the items with lower values. The limit is not based on high alch but rather the Grand Exchange market value. For example, a beast of burden will carry a rune full helm, but not a green h'ween mask .
If you use an item on your familiar, this puts the item into your Beast of Burden, as long as it has a free space.
The amount a familiar could hold was changed with the release of summoning batch #2. There is speculation that it was changed because people were complaining about the limited amount of items a player could store with the familiars.
[edit] Beast of Burden flaws
Although in most cases Beast of Burden helps, there are a few factors that should be taken into consideration before using it.
- Premature Death.
If a beast of burden dies while carrying items, those items will just be dropped onto the floor and you may not be able to retrieve them if you do not have room in your inventory to pick them up. You may want to think about how many items you load your familiar with depending on what level monster you will be fighting, at least then if they die you (if calculated correctly) should have enough inventory space to pick up those items and restock your inventory.
- Familiar Timer
All familiars have a set lifespan - including B.O.B's. You should consider how long your trip might take or your familiar's timer might end up running out and your items may be lost. If you are only using the familiar to bring items back and not take them, you could consider waiting until you really need the familiar before summoning them.
On 29 April, 2009, an update allowed players to replenish the familiar's lifespan. They are required to bring the pouch of the familiar they currently have.
- Withdrawing items during combat
While in combat you cannot bring up the familiar's inventory interface, so if you are depending upon the items they are carrying to survive, you should try and find a safe spot, access the inventory, take what you need and resume battle.
With the introduction of the "take items" button in your familiar interface withdrawing items from them has become a lot easier, but you cannot select which items and how many of them you receive, but if the items carried are all the same (such as food) then this does not matter. You will only receive the amount of items your inventory can hold, none will be dropped on the floor.
[edit] Carrying pure essence or rune essence in a familiar's inventory
Possibly to prevent rune prices to drop, Jagex has created specific Abyss-based creatures that are classified as beast of burdens. Although they only hold rune essence or pure essence, and are the only Beasts of Burden than can hold these items. These consist of the following:
| Familiar | Summoning Level Required | Number of Slots | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abyssal parasite | 54 | 7 | 30 |
| Abyssal lurker | 62 | 7 | 41 |
| Abyssal titan | 93 | 7 | 32 |
[edit] Glitches
- There was a glitch when using Cyreg Paddlehorn's boat (to or from Mort'ton). When a beast of burden was following a player the beast would be forced to leave and while doing so it dropped all of the items it was carrying, however there was no way to pick up the items from the boat. The messages only appeared after arriving at the destination and dismissing the message that informs the player of the arrival.
- There was also a glitch on the first days summoning came out involving Beasts of Burden, on the Barbarian Assault minigame. A player choosing the "Attacker" role would constantly take runes/arrows (Though runes were commonly taken due to their higher price, because highest arrows available from machines are mithril) from the attacker supply machine, sometimes even letting their team lose. This was highly annoying for players that actually wanted to play the game normally. Then the player would deposit the arrows or runes on their Beasts of Burden. After the round was finished, the player would NOT lose the arrows and runes deposited on their familiars, and were free to trade/use them. Some players took advantage of this bug to get easy money or magic/ranged supplies. This was swiftly detected by Jagex and is now fixed, without many players noticing about the bug. Almost all players that were detected taking advantage of this bug were harshly punished by Jagex.
 The red dot showing the dropped items (only visible after second trip). |
 The messages that appeared after arrival. |
