A player receives loot from a monster's drop table.
A drop table represents a list of drops that a monster is able to drop. Most monsters have their own drop table that is largely determined by the requirements to reach them, their difficulty to kill, and how quickly they are killed; for example, most slayer bosses have a fairly generous drop table as they can only be killed while on the appropriate Slayer task.
While most monsters in Old School RuneScape have their own drop table, a large majority have several universal sub-tables that are called upon within their main drop table, such as the herb and rare drop table. However, there are many other drop tables that are shared between various monsters.
Tables included on monster's drop tables show the actual drop rate of the item for that monster. On this page, or any individual sub-table page, are described as the table has already been rolled and does not consider the rarity of any particular monster to hit that sub-table.
For example, on the rare drop table, a sapphire is normally a 1/4 drop chance. In the context of a monster, the rare drop table must be hit first, which in this example has a 1/50 chance, then it must hit the sapphire's 1/4 after that. This brings the chance of a sapphire to a 1/200 drop rate for that particular monster.
A pre-roll is a drop table which is rolled before rolling the main drop table. Typically, pre-rolls will go down a list of items in a predetermined order and if no pre-rolled items are hit, the main table is then rolled.
An example of a pre-roll would be loot from the Reward Cart, in which the player first rolls for a dragon axe. If that roll fails, then the player will roll for a Phoenix, then a tome of fire, warm gloves, bruma torch, and lastly a piece of the pyromancer outfit in which the player has the least of (though players will receive the garb, hood, robe, and boots in that order if they do not have any pieces of the outfit). Only when the player fails all six rolls will they roll the main supply crate drop table.
Certain monsters are also known to perform a pre-roll, such as slayer monsters and Wilderness bosses. For example, gargoyles will first roll for a dark mystic robe top, then a granite maul before rolling the main drop table, while Wilderness bosses will roll for their unique drops before rolling their main drop tables.
Tertiary drops are drops that are rolled independently of the main drop table; examples include pets, clue scrolls, and looting bags. Unlike the main drop, multiple tertiary drops can be obtained in a single kill. The long bone and curved bone are unique among tertiary drops in that the curved bone is only rolled if the long bone is not given: both these items cannot be received from the same kill.
Some monsters also access a set of tertiary drops, such as superior slayer monsters, who roll a tertiary drop table alongside three rolls on their standard counterpart's drop table.
If the monster can be found in free-to-play, the roll on the general seed drop table is replaced by 5 coins when killed on free-to-play worlds.
The general seed drop table is unique because the seeds that are available are dependent on the combat level of monster that has access to this table. The formula to calculate which subtables the player will have access to when rolled for is as follows: . A random number between 0 and is rolled in order to determine which of the sub-tables is accessed.
If the is less than 485, the player will roll this subtable.
This standardized list of herb drops is shared by many monsters across Gielinor. If the monster is killed on a free-to-play world, the roll on the herb drop table is replaced by 10 coins instead.
Bird nests can be obtained from chopping trees, or from various sources like frigatebirds. A similar table is used for bird house trapping, but with empty nests instead of seed nests.
This table is accessed mostly by monsters inhabiting the Waterbirth Island Dungeon. It is not to be confused with the talisman drop table accessed from the Rewards Guardian.
Various bosses and high level monsters such as Phantom Muspah, drakes, and Larran's big chest access a table that can yield raw sharks, shark lures, or another fish which varies between sources. The alternate fish is raw in some cases and cooked in others, depending on the source, but the sharks are always raw.
The shark lures always drop in double the quantities raw sharks can drop, so if the table has a drop of 1-3 raw sharks, then it can also drop 2, 4, or 6 shark lures (not 3 or 5). The non-shark fish always drops in the same quantities as raw sharks.
