Wander radius

An example of a guard's wander range.

The wander radius of a non-player character refers to the maximum number of game tiles it can walk from its spawn point. In general conversation, the term is typically used to describe an NPC's overall wander area, alongside the terms wander range, wander distance, and roam range.

With some exceptions, monsters have an invisible square drawn around their spawn point, in which they will randomly wander. Due to the nature of RuneScape's tiles, drawing an odd-numbered square of tiles around a monster results in an equal number of tiles from the center of the square to any of the tiles along its perimeter; as such, the wander radius refers to this distance from the spawn to the edge, and the range refers to the area of the square itself.

Wandering

Mechanics

As mentioned above, NPC can pathfind freely inside all of the drawn square. The NPC will move in a two-step process of first selecting one tile at a time inside the wander area, and then pathfinding to the tile selected. This process will also occur outside the wander range, and will only halt if the NPC is in combat, in interaction mode (see other ranges below) or when retreating. The wander range is almost always smaller than the maximum range of an NPC, but they are independent.

Examples

Implings have the highest wandering radii in the game (unlimited), as they are able to go almost anywhere in RuneScape that is not blocked by an object or landmass. Bob the Jagex Cat has the next largest wander range, matching that of implings, but not being able to travel over water. Implings have a number of spawn areas around Gielinor, and Bob respawns outside his human Unferth's house in Burthorpe after each system update, after which he can roam up to 30,000 tiles in any direction.

Monkey archers, the Black Knight Titan, and other stationary NPC's have the lowest wander radii (zero) due to not being able to move at all. The Evil Chicken used to also have a wander radius of zero before being retired as a random event.

Quest NPC's usually have a low wander range, ensuring that players can find them during or to start their quest. An exception is Romeo, who, although always in Varrock, wanders all around the fountain and sometimes enters the Varrock general store.

Safespots

Wander ranges are useful to know as they allow players to use safespots, areas that the NPC cannot reach. Often times, safespots are created by trapping a monster while not quite outside of its wander range, but in some cases, standing one tile outside the monster's wander range works as well. Some safespots work because a monster's range extends to an area that is otherwise obstructed or difficult for the monster to get to, causing it to stand on the closest tile to the player and never moving around the obstacles.

Stepping past some melee-based monsters' wander range will cause them to stop attacking you immediately and return to wandering. Similarly, if a player is attacking a monster beyond its wander range, it will sometimes begin to retreat unless it can use a long-ranged attack on the player; many monsters that do not usually retreat at low hitpoints will still do so if a player is outside of its wander range.

It's unknown the exact extent that wander radius affects attack radius in the case of long-ranged attacks, or if the two are the same; some monsters with long-ranged attacks can be safespotted as well, indicating that there is likely a correlation.

Other ranges and radii

See also: Attack range#Monster attack range and Retreat#Retreat interaction range

There are many types of ranges that are calculated for NPC's. Among them is the interaction range. The origin of the interaction range is the south-west tile of the NPC, which will dynamically change as the NPC is moving around.

Interaction range

The interaction range of a banker in Al Kharid. Note the way the banker follows the player at all points inside the green square.

The interaction range, also known as talking range, is the area in which the NPC will remain focused on the player, putting it in a state known as interaction mode. When in interaction mode, the NPC will constantly face the player. Interaction mode is triggered by initiating dialogue between the player and the NPC, usually through the "talk-to" action. The interaction range is usually only 1, but NPCs in unreachable areas (such as bankers or NPCs in prison) will have a bigger interaction range.