The Ultimate OSRS F2P Magic Guide (1-99)

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Runes. The keys to arcane powers and abilities beyond the ken of mere mortals. 

No, the game isn’t Run Escape. It’s RuneScape — and with good reason. The magic in OldSchool RuneScape may be dated, but when you’re slinging spells and transmuting platemail armor to gold coins, it still feels just as fresh and exciting as it did in 2007. 

So, you want to become an archmage of Gielinor? Chief among wizards, master of the elements, and practitioner of the runic arts? Well, you’d best put on your robe and wizard hat. There’s sorcery afoot.

This is the OSRS F2P Magic Guide.

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OSRS F2P Magic Guide: Preparing for Sorcery

I hate to break it to you, but the Magic grind doesn’t offer a lot in the way of “jumping the gun.” Sure, there’s a bit over 1K experience you could earn by completing the Witch’s Potion and Imp Catcher quests, but by the end of the grind, those will be mere atoms beside the mountain of experience you’ll have gained. Let’s just assume you completed them while preparing for the Combat Guide and move on.

Besides experience, the other resource you’ll always need is money — raw gold coins that you can translate into runes of all varieties. Perhaps after grinding through the Mining or Fishing guides, you found yourself with some spare coin or some items you can turn into gold. Hey, it doesn’t take a wizard to turn items into gold. Some folks just do it more directly than others.

Remember that the elemental staves provide you with an unlimited number of runes of their type. For most of our calculations, we’ll assume you have a staff of air. You’ll probably want one of each of the other types as well, especially fire. But as for the runes (especially the combat runes like mind runes, chaos runes, and death runes), they will be your responsibility to keep stocked. Certain monsters may drop runes, so we’ll try to point them out when discussing options for grinding. 

For our particular flavor of Magic guide for OSRS F2P, we’re going to break the grind up into sprints. Some sprints may offer multiple routes to get you from point A to point B. But they’ll all bring you to the same place: the coveted Level 99 Magic. 

The First Sprint

Our first sprint will be combat-focused — you won’t really have the spells to consider anything else. The goal here is to get to Level 55 Magic, where you’ll unlock High Level Alchemy and open the doors to (relatively) profitable training. And, if you so choose, you’re only a short skip away from the strongest spell we’ll cover in our F2P OSRS Magic Guide for the next sprint. 

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s focus on the first one.

Equipment List for the First Sprint

You should also purchase air runes for casting fire spells as needed, as they’re cheap and easy to come by. We’ll be sticking with the air spells for each group of spells (demarcated by the combat rune used) until we unlock the fire spell. We’ll then use the fire spell for that group until unlocking the air spell for the next group. In this way, when coupled with a staff of air for the air spells and a staff of fire for the fire spells, we make the most efficient use of our runes and minimize the runes needed. This is good because, as you can see, you’ll still need a whole lot of runes. 

Then, of course, we don the amulet of magic and wizard adornments for the magic buffs. The skirt doesn’t actually help us — it just completes the ensemble. You’ll be the snazziest wizard around. 

The Second Sprint

This is where the wild and wonderous realm of magic unfurls before you, like the moors and highlands of some mystical country as the morning fog burns off beneath the sun. At Level 55, you’ve unlocked High Level Alchemy, which means with some savvy market plays, your Magic training can be self-sufficient. 

Likewise, this is also where you see the peak of the mountain towering high above you. There’s really not much variation between here and the goal — just a lot of climbing and grinding. 

Maybe you want to keep slaying things with spells on the way up. Or perhaps you prefer a combination of combat, alchemy, and teleportation. Allow me to crunch the numbers on the spells you need to get where you’re going, then at least you can make an informed decision. We’ll talk more about the specifics in a moment. 

Equipment List for the Second Sprint

There are some staggering numbers up there. Let’s break them down. 

Teleportation

Running to 99 purely via teleporting to Falador is a nice middle ground in terms of cost while being a relatively AFKable training method. All you’ll be doing is clicking the Falador Teleport button (and perhaps making occasional trips to the GE to buy more runes). Throw Netflix up on another monitor, and baby, you’ve got a stew going. 

Of course, you won’t be making any moolah teleporting over and over. That’s what High Level Alchemy is for. 

High Level Alchemy

High Level Alchemy might be one of the most attention-intensive means of training Magic. Not to mention the sort of market plays you’ll need to make to secure the items you need. Given a staff of fire, the only runes you need to cast alchemy spells are nature runes, and as long as you’re alching items that produce more than 300gp profit, you’ll be covering the cost of the nature rune and perhaps little more. 

Some items that consistently produce this profit are the rune platearmor family, rune 2h swords, green dragonhide bodies, and perhaps others. This will require keeping a finger on the pulse of a real and dynamic virtual market to ensure you stay profitable, but as a result, it may have the lowest actual cost to train. All you need is a bit of startup capital to ensure efficiency while training and spending less time clicking through buy orders. 

Monster Slaying

But perhaps you want to take the combat route. I respect that.

Training to 99 with combat will be another attention-heavy route, although you may be able to split your attention a bit more than High Level Alchemy when fighting the right creatures. Combat training is, in fact, the most expensive route we cover in our OSRS Magic Training Guide for F2P, so it might seem daunting at first glance. But bear in mind that by fighting level appropriate monsters and playing smart, you may be able to recoup a fair bit of that through selling item drops. 

One promising target for combat Magic training are Hobgoblins, which drop some runes and items like limpwurt roots. They can be sweet spotted by attacking them out on the peninsula by the Crafting Guild, so you can minimize the amount of attention you need to spend. Other potential options are the Moss giants in the Varrock Sewers for their big bones, Lesser demons in the Karamja Volcano for their rune gear drops, and Hill giants in the Edgeville Dungeon for their big bones and limpwurt roots.

More than likely, you’ll opt to mix and match the above routes as you feel compelled. Whatever it takes to keep the scenery fresh and keep you laser-focused on the goal. Remember, this train ain’t stopping before 99 Magic. This wouldn’t be a F2P 1-99 Magic Guide for OSRS otherwise. Just remember to take breaks to sell your loot on the GE, maybe do some High Alching while you’re there, then get back on the grind. 

You can do this. 

The High Ground for Level 99 Magic

That’s the final curtain on our OSRS Magic Guide for F2P. If you made it this far, congratulations. You’ve either reached Level 99 Magic or you’re well on your way, and there isn’t a shred of arcane knowledge on Gielinor that remains hidden from you. Well done, Archmage. Can I call you Archmage? Maybe Archie for short?

Point is, you’ve put another notch on your belt. Another skill conquered, another day (or many) seized. That’s no small feat. Take a moment to celebrate. Then gear up for your next 99 grind. 

Might I recommend Melee or Ranged to fill out the other corners of the combat triangle? We’ll see you in the next guide. 

Related Reading

• OSRS F2P Combat Guide
• OSRS F2P Ranged Guide
• OSRS F2P Mining Guide
• OSRS F2P Smithing Guide
• OSRS F2P Fishing Guide