Template:Dangerous minigame The unofficial world for this minigame is world 64.
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Pyramid Plunder is a Thieving minigame located in the city of Sophanem at the far southern reaches of the Kharidian Desert. It is run by the Guardian mummy. During the minigame, the player has five minutes to loot Jalsavrah, the pyramid in which the minigame takes place. There are a total of eight rooms which require progressively higher Thieving levels to enter and loot. Rewards range from the common pottery scarabs to the rare Pharaoh's sceptre, the very rare Sceptre of the Gods and pieces of Black ibis outfit. Pyramid Plunder also provides one of the fastest Thieving experience rates in the game, with up to 300k thieving xp per hour if players have Sceptre of the Gods.
Requirements and recommendations
Requirements
- Access to the city of Sophanem
- Started Icthlarin's Little Helper or Pharaoh's sceptre (can be used to avoid Quest requirement)
- Level 21 Thieving
Recommended
- Completion of Contact!, for access to the bank in Sophanem
- Level 91 Thieving (or higher) for maximum experience from this minigame
- A Pharaoh's sceptre (or Sceptre of the gods) will significantly reduce the amount of down time between each run, and enough artefacts will easily be recovered for recharging
- Completion of The Feud, for reduced magic carpet ride fee, or a Ring of Charos (a) (not required with a sceptre)
- Completed Desert Hard Tasks for double teleport charges on sceptres (6 and 20 respectively) and reduced chance of Scarabs and Mummies spawning.
Getting there
- Teleport to Jalsavrah using the Pharaoh's sceptre. This can be done before starting Icthlarin's Little Helper. Sceptre of the Gods teleport also works.
- Use Ring of slaying to teleport to Sumona in Pollnivneach, and from there to Sophanem.
- Take the magic carpet from Shantay Pass to Pollnivneach, and from there to Sophanem. Players can get to the Shantay Pass quickly by
- Using the Lodestone Network to teleport to Al Kharid .
- Using the Ring of duelling teleport to Al Kharid duel arena .
- Using the Broomstick teleport to the Sorceress's Garden in Al Kharid.
- Teleport to Pollnivneach, then walk or take the magic carpet to Sophanem.
- Teleport to a Player-owned house in Pollnivneach
- Teleport to Pollniveach using a chipped house teleport tablet from the Love story quest
- Use the Ring of slaying to teleport to Sumona in Pollnivneach
- Teleport to the Bandit camp lodestone (Desert Treasure quest required) and walk to Pollnivneach
- Teleport using the Camulet and walk 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. (However a healing familiar can make food less of a necessity.)
Useful items and techniques
The Black Ibis outfit DOES provide bonus experience here, after an update.
Health
- Phoenix necklace - Heals by 30% of maximum if the player's life points drop below 20% of the maximum (can be considered risky).
- Food - Monkfish and Sharks are recommended unless you have a better healing method. Lobsters can be used if you have a bunyip or other healing familiar. Teleporting to bank is fastest and free healing method.
- Summoning familiar - A Void spinner, Bunyip 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.
- Anti-poison totem - A Dungeoneering reward held in the off-hand slot which provides immunity to being poisoned (note that this effect does not cure or heal a player who is already poisoned previous to equipping the totem). This item requires 60 Defence, 70 Herblore, and 60 Dungeoneering to wield. It may be bought from the Rewards Trader for 44,000 Dungeoneering tokens.
- Trahaearn exoskeleton set - A reward from the Plague's End quest, it gives a 25% chance to nullify damage received when looting urns. It has no defensive bonuses.
- Warpriest armour (Saradomin or Zamorak) - This armour provides a small chance to negate most of the damage received from a failure. It may be used if the player has not completed Plague's End. Note that the Armadyl and Bandos warpriest armours do not have this effect.
- If all else fails, you can always use the bank located just east of the pyramid. You regenerate health within seconds of climbing down the ladder. This is very helpful and can cut all costs and or prayer usage down to its minimum.
Teleports and other items
- The enchanted excalibur is useful if activated while equipped. It will heal over time and raise your Defence level.
- Sceptre of the gods or Pharaoh's sceptre - Having one of these items is strongly recommended for more experience. After finishing the 5 minute run, the player may use the Jalsavrah teleport with either sceptre to teleport directly to the minigame's start, making it the best way to reach the minigame. Sceptre of the gods is better as it holds more charges, but it can only be obtained through Pyramid Plunder.
- Ring of wealth - (Highly recommended!) While wearing this ring, the chance of getting Pharaoh's sceptre and Jewelled golden statuettes during the minigame is increased. In addition it can also be used to teleport to the Grand Exchange (bank).
- Ring of duelling - One Ring of duelling can teleport to a bank to save some time if you want to achieve the best exp/h.
- TokKul-Zo - See Ring of duelling, this is equal, if not better. It has unlimited teleportation charges. It is a significant item to risk losing though.
- Skull of Remembrance - Similar to the ring of duelling, but provides unlimited teleports directly to a healing bank. Removes the need to bring food.
- Desert amulet 3 or 4 - Provides an unlimited teleport fairly close to a bank, has decent all around stats, and is automatically kept on death should you die. Once obtained (not required to be worn), it also reduces the chance of Mummies and Scarabs spawning and doubles charges on the Pharaoh's sceptre and Sceptre of the gods.
- Emergency teleport - For emergency escape if life points run low. Players with good armour, high Defence, or plenty of food should not need this.
- 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.
- File:Legendary five-finger discount.png > File:Supreme five-finger discount.png > File:Master five-finger discount.png > File:Greater five-finger discount.png > File:Five-finger discount.png Five-finger discount - Increases chances of successful thieving +15% for Tier 5; +10% for Tier 4; +7% for Tier 3; +5% for Tier 2 and +3% for Tier 1. They all last for 1 hour; recharge takes 3 hours.
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, the Ring of kinship, or the TokKul-Zo to teleport to Castle Wars, Daemonheim, or TzHaar City, respectively. All have banks nearby. Afterward, the player should use the Pharaoh's sceptre to return to the pyramid the quickest. If you have completed the Contact! quest, use of the bank in Sophanem is another option. 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.
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 minigame" 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 minigame, 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 speartrap, 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
Loot
Image | Objects | Information |
---|---|---|
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 small damage (starting around 20 at the lowest level and increasing to about 80 at the highest level). There is also a chance of being poisoned by the snakebite, but since the lifepoints updates, the poison level does not appear to have been updated, and therefore the poison damage is very small (less than 10) and can be mostly ignored. 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. | |
Grand Golden Chest | The centre of each room has a golden chest. The best loot is in these chests, but they occasionally contain level 112 Scarab swarms which hit extremely fast and can poison an unprotected player. (The poison starts at 38, so use an anti-poison potion to negate this). A swarm only has 2500 life points so using a dragon weapon will dispose of 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. | |
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 100 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 consume 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-levelled) it may be worth it to open it anyway. | |
Engraved sarcophagus | Located in the eighth room, the Engraved Sarcophagus requires 91 thieving and 75 runecrafting to loot. When opened, it gives you a chance of receiving jewelled and regular loot, the Pharaoh's Sceptre, the Sceptre of the gods, or a Black Ibis outfit piece. Opening an Engraved sarcophagus gives you runecrafting experience instead of strength experience like the regular Sarcophagus does. You may also awaken a level 70 mummy when attempting to loot this. |
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. However, players using this method 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 for some additional quick experience.
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 steal from 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.)
Maps of the pyramid
Experience
This minigame is one of the fastest ways to gain 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, a max of around 300k experience per hour is possible with sceptre of the gods. It is possible for a player to search the chests in all rooms, successfully search all urns in the two highest level rooms. A typical player with 61 Thieving will gain the following experience in 5 minutes:
- 540 (chests)
- 1200 (6 urns in level 4)
- 3900 (13 urns in level 5)
- 270 (opening doors to next level, 540 if not using a lock pick)
This adds up to 5910 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 per hour 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. 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.
Level 91+ Thieving can yield around 260-265k experience per hour and around 300k experience per hour when using a Sceptre of the Gods, however 200-230k experience per hour is a more realistic figure in practice.
- Minimum 50 damage, Damage from failing urns.
Room 1: 1% of your max hp
Room 2: 1% of your hp
Room 3: 1% of your hp
Room 4: 1% of your hp
Room 5: 1.5% of your hp
Room 6: 1.5% of your hp
Room 7: 2% of your hp
Room 8: 3% of your max hp
Thieving experience
Min. thief | Room | Check urn | Search urn[1] | Gold chest[2] | Sarcophagus[3] | Engraved sarcophagus[4] | Door[5] | Trap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Level 21 | #1 | 20 | 60 (40) | 40 | 0 (20 str) | NA | 40 (20) | 10 |
Level 31 | #2 | 30 | 90 (60) | 60 | 0 (30 str) | NA | 60 (30) | 10 |
Level 41 | #3 | 50 | 150 (100) | 100 | 0 (50 str) | NA | 100 (50) | 10 |
Level 51 | #4 | 70 | 215 (140) | 140 | 0 (70 str) | NA | 140 (70) | 10 |
Level 61 | #5 | 100 | 300 (200) | 200 | 0 (100 str) | NA | 200 (100) | 10 |
Level 71 | #6 | 150 | 450 (300) | 300 | 0 (150 str) | NA | 300 (150) | 10 |
Level 81 | #7 | 225 | 675 (450) | 450 | 0 (225 str) | NA | 450 (225) | 10 |
Level 91 | #8 | 275 | 825 (550) | 550 | 0 (275 str) | 0 (275 rc) | N/A (N/A) | 10 |
- ^ 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.
- ^ No experience is gained from a chest if a Scarab swarm is found.
- ^ The sarcophagi do not give Thieving experience, but give Strength instead. Unless you are solely looking for Pharaoh's Sceptres or Black Ibis thieving garments, 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 can easily be nullified by wearing good armour (Run energy is not ever noticeably drained below 95% in this minigame).
- ^ The engraved sarcophagus does not give thieving experience, but gives Runecrafting instead. There is only one engraved sarcophagus in the pyramid, in room 8.
- ^ 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
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 hole in the wall behind the bank in Sophanem 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.
An August 2012 update made it possible to trade noted gold artifacts to Simon Templeton. This makes the Tok Ring/Sceptre method a good way to collect the artifacts for sale.
Below is a table showing what each item is worth in coins, with the Grand Exchange values between brackets.
Type | Ivory | Pottery | Stone | Gold | Jewelled golden |
Jewelled diamond |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Combs | 50 (2658) | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
Seals | -- | -- | 150 (151) | 750 (1330) | -- | -- |
Scarabs | -- | 75 (224) | 175 (166) | 1000 (1298) | -- | -- |
Statuettes | -- | 100 (96) | 200 (193) | 1250 (2769) | 7500 (27838) | 12500 (Not tradeable) |
|}
You may also find a Pharaoh's Sceptre in one of the Grand Gold Chests or Sarcophagi. Immediately after finding a Pharaoh's Sceptre, a player receiving a sceptre from a chest or sarcophagus will be expelled from the pyramid, but other players will remain inside. The players left inside the pyramid will see an "Annoyed guardian mummy" standing beside the chest in all rooms who shouts at the players. Previously, 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. One can also receive a Sceptre of the gods (), but only from looting a sarcophagus in the eighth room, which requires 91 Thieving and 75 Runecrafting. It has the same uses as a Pharaoh's sceptre, but with 10 teleport charges and when wielding it, you have a greater chance of finding Black Ibis clothes.
Black Ibis outfit
By looting urns and sarcophagi, there is a slim chance to receive a piece of Black Ibis outfit. When wearing pieces of this outfit while performing any thieving activity (except for Blackjacking), some bonus xp is received, up to 5% of the normal xp when wearing the whole set. The pieces are rare, but the chances are increased when wielding a sceptre of the gods. The bonus does stack with other boosts or benefits, such as an Ardougne cloak.
Tips
- While using Thieving boosts can make looting easier, they will not allow you to reach a room above your level (e.g. being level 90 and boosting to 91 will not allow you in the final room).
- 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 a sceptre at all times. Then you can use it 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.
Trivia
- When examining the Grand Gold Chest, it will say "Anyone lost an ark?" This is 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. Another possibility is that "Anyone lost an ark?" could also allude to the Biblical Ark of the Covenant which held the 10 Commandments.
- 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. The entrance to Sophanem also has an Eye of Horus.
Icon | Item | Price | Direction | Low Alch | High Alch | Limit | Members | Details | Last updated |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pharaoh's sceptre (3) | 1,806,744 | 40 | 60 | 10 | view | 3 years ago |