Servant

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This article is about the NPCs in player-owned houses. For other uses, see Servant (disambiguation).

A Servant is an NPC that players can hire for various services in their player-owned house. There are five different servants each having a higher Construction level requirement and offering better services than the last. Their names are Rick, Royal Guard, Maid, Cook, Butler, and Demon butler.

Hiring a servant

Players can hire a servant at the Servants' Guild, which is located north of the marketplace in East Ardougne. All five servants wander inside the building except for the servant you have hired. Before hiring any servant, the player must meet three requirements:

1. The player must have the required Construction level.
2. The player's house must have at least two bedrooms with beds constructed in each one. If one of the beds is removed, then the servant will not become present again until the bed is rebuilt and the player exits and re-enters the house.
3. The player must not have a servant already hired. If you want to switch servants, you must fire your current servant by talking to him or her in your house before going to the Servants' Guild.

Services

The services provided by servants can be cosmetic or vital resources for training Construction efficiently. All of the servants have the same basic services, but the main difference is that the higher-level servants have larger inventories and quicker response times. All of the servants can:

• Be summoned via the bell pull in the dining room or the Call Butler button on the House Settings interface.
• Follow the player like a familiar even in building mode
• Greet visiting players as they enter the house
• Serve food and tea to visiting players provided the player has a dining room with a table and a kitchen with the necessary supplies
• Fetch building materials from the bank
• Take items to the bank
• Un-note noted items (excluding bones and demonic ashes), taking the same amount of time as fetching from the bank

In addition, the Cook, Butler, and Demon butler can:

• Take logs to the sawmill for conversion into planks. You can use noted logs, but the servant must first un-note them and upon returning to you with the un-noted logs, instead of being automatically deposited to your inventory, you have the option of having them take them directly to the sawmill.

Servants can only fetch the following building materials from the bank:

• Plank
• Oak plank
• Teak plank
• Mahogany plank
• Soft clay
• Limestone brick
• Steel bar
• Bolt of cloth
• Gold leaf
• Marble block
• Magic stone

Payment

The costs of a servant may seem expensive for low level players, but for serious trainers and high level players, servants are well worth the money. After completion of the Love Story quest, servant prices are 25% cheaper. When the servant asks for payment, you can pay with money in your inventory or money in your bank.

After using a servant's services seven times, players will be asked to pay the wage again; if it is decided not to do so at the moment, the servant will temporarily keep the items and will not give them until the player pays. After using a servant's services eight times, players are required to pay him or her, otherwise the servant will quit without retrieving the items the player requested. Any items that the servant is holding will be deposited in the bank if you leave the house or if the servant is fired.

Use	Asks for Payment	If not paid
1-6	No	N/A
7	Yes	Continues employment
8	Yes (unless paid previous use)	Leaves Employment
9-14	No	N/A
15	Yes	Continues employment
16	Yes (unless paid previous use)	Leaves Employment
And so forth continued in this pattern. This means it is best to pay the servant every 8th time.

Servant uses

• Servants are commonly used to train Construction. The Butler is the most used servant because his fee is cheaper per item (32 coins) than the demon butler and he can carry 20 items from the bank in 12 seconds, which is perfect for training on oak dungeon doors because each one requires 10 oak planks and takes roughly 5 seconds to build and remove.
• Servants may be used to effectively craft teleport tablets, because they can swap noted soft clay for unnoted.
• Servants cannot be used to train Prayer on an altar due to the fact that they won't unnote bones or ashes, as they think it's unethical.

Servant summary

Servant		Cost (After Love Story)	Cost per item (after Love Story)	Level	Food/Heal	Sawmill?	Inventory	Trip
File:Queens guard chathead.png	Royal Guard	500 (375)	10.42 (7.81)	20	Shrimps 200	No	6 items	60s
	Rick	500 (375)	10.42 (7.81)	20	Shrimps 200	No	6 items	60s
	Maid	1,000 (750)	12.5 (9.38)	25	Stew 625	No	10 items	30s
File:Cook POH chathead.png	Cook	3,000 (2,250)	23.44 (17.58)	30	Pineapple pizza 1624 (2 bites)	Yes	16 items	17s
	Butler	5,000 (3,750)	31.25 (23.44)	40	Chocolate cake 1248 (3 bites)	Yes	20 items	12s
	Demon butler	10,000 (7,500)	48.08 (36.06)	50	Curry 1500	Yes	26 items	7s

Servant bug workarounds

Some people have reported problems with the servant arbitrarily disappearing during training. Pulling on the bell pull gets the message "The house has no servant." Moreover, the head of the Servants' Guild refuses to let the player hire a new servant, saying that a servant is already employed and must be dismissed first. A few known solutions are:

1. The most common problem is that the player (forgetfully) discarded the servant's bed, without which they cannot remain at the premises. Build a second bed, leave the house, and re-enter. The servant should be back.
2. Re-visit the house with building mode off. Use the bell pull or find the servant. This has worked for some people, and the servant will remain when you switch to building mode.
3. Leave, and re-enter the house in building mode. Build a new room onto your house, and then try the bell pull again. This has also worked for some people.

Trivia

• In May 2009, the servant's summoning via the bell pull was changed. Prior to this, the servant would appear nearby and then walk to the player's location. This would sometimes result in a path resolution glitch where the servant got "trapped" behind an object, and the player would have to go to the servant, or move a bit so the servant could figure out a way around the object and come to them. The short-lived "fix" made the servant spawn in the same place the player was standing and "walk out of the player". This was changed shortly after implementation, and the servants now spawn the old way, but with a more robust path-finding algorithm. (However, they can still get stuck. It just happens less frequently.)
  • Something similar can occur when the servant is returning from a trip to the bank or sawmill. That glitch occurs less frequently now, but still happens from time to time.
• With the update of 18 August 2009, servants will now follow players like a familiar upon being talked to or summoned via the bell pull in the dining room. They will cease this behaviour upon being told to "Stop following me." Note that they can frequently become "trapped" behind walls or objects whilst following the player, but will teleport if the player gets far enough away or goes up or down stairs. The chat interface was also changed slightly to become more efficient for sending the servant to the bank or sawmill. This was something several players had asked for via the forums.
• The servants do not actually "un-note", they "un-cert" which may be a carry over from RuneScape Classic.
• The symbol for the servants on the in-game construction skill guide is a bell resembling the bell from the quest "Holy Grail" called a "Grail bell".
• If you ask your servant to make you a cup of tea you can take the kettle off the fire while he/she is making it.