Items Kept on Death
Items Kept on Death is a menu accessed from the Worn Equipment button on the Interface that shows which items players will keep when they die. Normally, the three most valuable items will be kept upon death, where the value of the item is either determined by its Grand Exchange values, or their item value if not tradeable on the Grand Exchange. Conversely, if a player is skulled, all items are dropped upon death. If the Protect Item prayer is activated, one extra item will be retained, even if skulled. This prayer is not available in certain High Risk Worlds.
Upon death, the player will respawn with full health and prayer at their current respawn point. The respawn points available are:
- Lumbridge (default)
- Falador (Recruitment Drive must be completed)
- Camelot (King's Ransom must be completed)
- Edgeville (unlocked by paying 5 million coins to Krystilia)
- Prifddinas (Song of the Elves must be completed)
- Ferox Enclave (unlocked by paying 5 million coins to Ferox)
- Kourend Castle (A Kingdom Divided must be completed)
- Civitas illa Fortis (requires challenger rank - 5,000 glory, at the Fortis Colosseum)
Important note: Ultimate Ironmen will drop all tradeable and untradeable items on the ground upon unsafe death. They are also unable to benefit from Protect Item despite being able to activate it. They have 60 minutes in game time to reclaim the items either on the tile they died on, or if that was in an instance, the tile other players would find their gravestone.
Unsafe item mechanics
Whenever an item is not in the limited amount of protected items (four without skull and with protect item, three without either skull or prayer, one with both skull and protect item, zero with skull and without prayer), it will be subject to varying rules, depending on what type of item it is. In this table, an overview of different item types is given and their behaviour when not protected on death. The first entry in this table an item qualifies for will be the behaviour that item follows. For example, an undamaged Barrows item will be subject to the Degradeable items rule, not the Tradeable items, because only topmost rule these items qualify for applies.
| Example item | Item type | PvM death | PvP death | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Old school bond | Bonds | Automatically protected (does not count towards the limited amount of kept items). | |
 |
Dharok's greataxe | Degradeable items | Goes to the gravestone without breaking. | Dropped to the PKer as the item's broken version. |
|
Dharok's greataxe 50 | Degraded items | ||
 |
Fire cape (l) | Locked items | Automatically protected because it has had a trouver parchment used on it. Keeps its (l) status. | The victim keeps it in their inventory as the standard version (i.e. neither (l) nor broken). The PKer receives the Trouver cost (500,000, or 50,000 for bronze through adamant defenders). |
|
Fire cape | PVP-Breakable items above 20 Wilderness | Turns into a tiny pile of coins. | Turns into a tiny pile of coins that is dropped to the PKer. |
| PVP-Breakable items | Goes to the gravestone without breaking. | Kept by the victim in their inventory as its broken version, and the PKer receives the item's repair cost. | ||
 |
Barrelchest anchor | Perdu items | Goes to the gravestone. | Dropped to the PKer as coins. |
 |
Green slayer helmet (i) | Slayer helmets (imbued or non-imbued, recoloured or not) | Goes to the gravestone | Dropped to the PKer as a black mask. The other parts are lost. |
 |
Magma helm | Tradeable items with untradeable modifications | Goes to the gravestone, still as the modified version with its untradeable modification (e.g. magma mutagen or twisted ancestral colour kit) still attached. As a charged item, it uncharges itself, but the scales go to the gravestone too. | Dropped to the PKer as the tradeable uncharged unmodified version. The PKer gets the charges stored in the helm as well. |
 |
Serpentine helm | Chargable items | Goes to the gravestone as an uncharged version, and drops the items that would result from uncharging the item to the gravestone too. | Dropped to the PKer as the tradeable uncharged item, and drops the items that would result from uncharging the item to the PKer too. |
 |
Armadyl godsword (or) | Tradeable items with tradeable ornament kit | Automatically protected (counts towards the limited amount of kept items only if of sufficient value[M 1]) because it has a tradeable ornament kit attached to it. | Dropped to the PKer as the tradeable, non-ornamented item. Also drops the tradeable ornament kit to the PKer. |
 |
Rune defender (t) | Untradeable items with tradeable ornament kit above 20 Wilderness | Automatically protected (counts towards the limited amount of kept items only if of sufficient value[M 1]) because it has a tradeable ornament kit attached to it. | Drops the tradeable ornament kit to the PKer. The untradeable item disappears completely. |
| Untradeable items with tradeable ornament kit | Drops the tradeable ornament kit to the PKer. The untradeable item goes to the gravestone. | |||
 |
Burnt meat | Tradeable items (even those not available on the GE) | Goes to the gravestone. | Dropped to the PKer. |
 |
Looting bag | Items always lost on death | Disappears completely | |
 |
Weird gloop | Untradeable items above 20 Wilderness | Goes to the gravestone. | Disappears completely. |
| Untradeable items | Goes to the gravestone. | |||
Wilderness
Above level 20 Wilderness, different mechanics apply to some types of items. Items that would otherwise break under level 20 Wilderness, as well as some other valuable untradeable items, will now be converted into coins. Other, less valuable untradeable items will all be permanently lost. A Trouver parchment can be applied to certain untradeable items to prevent them from being destroyed above level 20 Wilderness.
One/three-iteming
Using a single item (usually weapon) to minimise risk when player-killing is called 1-iteming. As long as a skulled player has Protect Item and doesn't get smited, an item will be protected.
3-iteming refers to a player limiting themself to only three items when going out into the Wilderness. In order for this to work, said player must remain unskulled, which means they cannot be the aggressor in combat towards another player, nor enter the Abyss without wearing an Abyssal bracelet. Since Items Kept on Death allows the three most valuable items to be kept upon death based on their Grand Exchange values, players can effectively 3-item (or 4-item with Protect Item activated, where the 4th item is colloquially referred to by players as a "+1") and retain their items as long as they are not skulled.
Warning: When players are 3-iteming, they should also keep their ammo and any stackable items down to a minimum. It is highly recommended that players using this strategy should toggle on the PK Skull Prevention setting in order to avoid accidentally clicking on players. Additionally, such players should not use any multi-hitting weapons, spells, or ammunition (e.g. burst/barrage spells, chinchompas, etc.) inside the Wilderness. Players using a spell that cannot be autocast, such as the god spells using their respective god staves, should take extra care to not cast these spells on players, even those dressed similarly to the NPCs in the arena. Abiding by these suggestions virtually eliminates the risk of falling victim to various skull tricking strategies.
Safe areas
Safe areas are locations where on death, a player will keep all their items, and the Hardcore Ironman status will not be revoked on death. These areas include all random event areas, such as Leo the Gravedigger's event space, as well as player-owned houses. Several minigames, such as Castle Wars, Emir's Arena, or Pest Control, also take place in safe areas.
Items that are never kept
Certain untradeable items cannot be kept upon an unsafe death. This is regardless of whether the item is the most valuable item, or if Protect Item prayer is used. When the player dies, the item is lost forever and will not appear to other players. Some of these items include:
- Clue box
- Chronicle (teleportation charges are kept whenever the chronicle is re-bought though)
- Looting bag
- Rune pouch (if death is in PVP area)
- Any League trophies
- Amulet of the damned
- Most untradeable event rewards
Guide risk value
When examining items kept or lost on death, in the bottom right of the window will be a listed gold value. This represents the value, in gold, of your items lost on death based on the following criteria:
- Grand Exchange guide prices for items that can be traded through the Grand Exchange
- Repair costs if the item becomes broken and must be repaired via Perdu
However, for items that don't fall within these two categories, the Guide risk value seems to be determined on an individual basis, through unknown means, that may or may not correspond to its value, purchase price, or gold value when lost on death.
In some cases, the amount of gold that an item converts to on death accurately represents the purchase price of the item from the NPC that the item can be purchased from, and in other cases it may not.
Historical death mechanics
On release of Old School RuneScape, players always kept only their three most valuable items, regardless of whether they are untradeable. Items that were dropped on the ground remained visible exclusively for the player for only one minute, and one additional minute for everyone before disappearing. Due to network issues with the game servers, at least partially caused by DDoS attacks, the time for the items to appear for others and despawn was incrementally increased, and untradeable items were made always protected.[1][2][3] As these changes were meant as a temporary relief, Jagex has since considered new ways to re-implement more punishing death mechanics.[4]
Trivia
- Metal gloves bought from the Culinaromancer's Chest were once always lost on death. This has now been turned into a cash drop when you die, depending on the type of gloves you died with.
- Free-to-play players that have previously been members and who still have member items can still check the worth of the items, even though they aren't members any longer.
- When dying with two or more objects of the same value, the item kept on death is determined based on several aspects, among which is the location in the player's inventory.
- Viewing "Items Kept on Death" whilst in the Death's Office will show an additional message about the office being a safe area (despite its' appearances) and Death considering dying there silly.
See also
Changes
 |
| Date | Changes |
|---|---|
| [[{{#explode:24 June 2020| |0}} {{#explode:24 June 2020| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:24 June 2020| |2}}]] (update) |
Death mechanics underwent large changes. This update introduced the gravestone system and Death's Office, which replaced items appearing on the ground for a limited amount of time after death. With this, all items lost inside of an instance also appear outside of said instance. |
| [[{{#explode:28 April 2016| |0}} {{#explode:28 April 2016| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:28 April 2016| |2}}]] (update) |
Deadman Mode items lost on death interface has been updated to include more detailed information. |
| [[{{#explode:22 May 2015| |0}} {{#explode:22 May 2015| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:22 May 2015| |2}}]] (update) |
Temporarily, if you die outside of PvP, any non-tradeable items will appear in your inventory. |
References
| Control Panel |
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimap | |||||
| Other | |||||
