Barrows

RS

This is a dangerous minigame. Only bring items you can adequately defend or items you are willing to lose.

This article has a strategy guide here. All information on mechanics and strategy will be on this page.

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Barrows
Release date	9 May 2005 (Update)
Members	Yes
Location	East of Burgh de Rott
Participants	1
Skills involved	Combat
Reward currency	N/A
Tutorial	No
Music unlocked	Dangerous Way

Location on World Map
Castle Drakan
↑
Mort'ton	←	Barrows	→	Meiyerditch
↓
Burgh de Rott

The Barrows minigame is an area-based Combat minigame released on 9 May 2005. It is popular due to the potential of receiving valuable rewards, including the unique Barrows equipment. The objective is to defeat the six Barrows brothers: Ahrim the Blighted, Dharok the Wretched, Guthan the Infested, Karil the Tainted, Torag the Corrupted and Verac the Defiled.

Each brother has his own burial mound and possesses a combat level of 115, except Ahrim the Blighted and Karil the Tainted, who both have a combat level of 98. To enter a mound, the player must stand on top of it and dig using a spade. There is a spade spawn in the nearby shack.

The Barrows brothers are very strong, each with high Defence levels and strong armour. Each brother has a set effect, which is the same as the corresponding armour set. Because of this, consideration should be given to the methods with and order in which the brothers are killed.

Getting there

1.) Red is the longest and most tedious route.
2.) Sky blue is the moderate route if no additional quests are completed aside from In Aid of the Myreque. Those who have access to fairy rings can also use this route.
3.) Green is the penultimate shortest route and makes use of the Myreque shortcut.
4.) Dark blue is the shortest route making use of Morytania legs 3, 4, or Mort'ton teleports.

There are several different methods for travelling to Barrows and for banking. Some of which are:

• Casting Barrows Teleport in the Arceuus spellbook. Requires 83 Magic and at least 60% favour with the Arceuus House. Alternatively, using a Barrows teleport tablet will work just as well.
• Using the fairy ring code bkr to travel to the fairy ring inside Mort Myre Swamp and heading south through the swamp and then through Mort'ton to Barrows. Alternatively, at 50 Agility, players can use the fairy ring code bip, go east, and south, following the path through Mort'ton.

  Note: Fairy ring travel requires Fairytale II - Cure a Queen to be started, and Nature Spirit is required to be started for travel through Mort Myre Swamp.

• With completion of In Search of the Myreque, players gain access to an alternative route to Mort'ton.
• After completion of Ghosts Ahoy, players can use the Ectophial and travel from there. (It also serves as a one-click teleport in case of emergencies.)
• Players can teleport to Varrock and head east (allows players to restore Prayer points at the temple on the way).
• Players can teleport directly to Canifis using the Kharyll Teleport spell, provided they have completed Desert Treasure. This option can be made more convenient by adding a Kharyll portal in your player-owned house (50 Construction needed). This makes it so you can teleport to Canifis while on your regular spellbook and can benefit greatly should you also have an altar to recharge Prayer in your house (also 50 Construction). This method is best used in conjunction with the Myreque's alternative route to Mort'ton.
• With the release of the minigame channels, players can quickly teleport to Mort'ton through the Shades of Mort'ton minigame channel (only if you have completed the quest, Shades of Mort'ton). This method is free and takes up no inventory or equipment spaces.
• Using the Mort'ton teleport scroll and then running to Barrows.
• Using the Morytania legs 3 or 4 to Burgh de Rott and running north through Mort'ton towards Barrows.

Completion of In Aid of the Myreque up until the point in which the bank in Burgh de Rott is restored is useful for a convenient banking method for multiple trips.

Exploring the Barrows

This is the six Barrows brothers' graveyard as well as each brother's combat discipline.

The above-ground portion of Barrows consists of six grave mounds inside a fence. A Prayer-using player should prepare to fight the brother in the mound before entering as preparing after entering the mound will waste prayer points, which constantly drain away when inside the Barrows. To enter a mound, stand on top of a mound, and dig with a spade. The player should enter a crypt with a sarcophagus in the centre. Open the sarcophagus and pray if using Prayer. Every time but once, the brother who is buried there will appear and attack. Kill the brother, leave and proceed to the next one.

At one of the crypts, the brother will not appear. Instead, there will be an entrance to a maze-like lower level of tunnels. If the player has not killed all the other brothers in their crypts yet, it is not recommended to enter the tunnels at this time. Once all the others have been killed, the player should return to this crypt and enter the tunnels.

The tunnels contain nine rooms in a 3x3 grid, connected by short and long corridors. The player must find the way to the central room and the rewards chest there. Some of the doors will be locked, so the player must explore.

The room in which the player enters the tunnels has a ladder leading out. It will often not have any monsters in it the first time the player enters it (but will if entered subsequently). All other rooms and corridors always have some monsters in them (if only the sixth brother) when entered. When passing through a door, the sixth brother may appear and attack. If he does not appear before the chest is reached, he will definitely appear when the chest is opened. Kill the last brother when he appears. Once the chest is opened, the player can get the treasure by searching the chest.

After the chest is looted, the tunnels start collapsing, which will cause damage. Some players teleport away after looting the chest, while others with adequate supplies retrace their route back to the room with the ladder.

If you have adequate supplies to kill the brothers again, it is recommended to use a Barrows Teleport Tab to get out of the tunnels and start your next run. Running back to the ladder will result a reasonable amount of food supplies and time wasted for no particular reason. Using any other means of teleportation will also provide an long run-time compared to the cheap and easy to buy Barrows Teleport Tab. You should also use a different form of banking, such as the Ring of dueling to bank.

Note: Using the ring of dueling will also allow you to fully restore your stats, health, prayer and run if you enter the Clan Wars portal before teleporting to your next destination.

It is not required to kill all the brothers before looting the chest, but the chance of getting Barrows equipment from the chest increases as more brothers are killed. It is possible to skip every brother but the one in the tunnels.

A good method to heal, if you're not using Prayer to kill the brothers, is to find the tunnel in the middle of, or after killing the brothers, use Guthan's and/or a Saradomin godsword to heal off the low level monsters inside the tunnel, and then go back out and finish killing the brothers.

A player safespotting a brother behind a ladder.

In the tunnels, melee-using brothers can be safespotted in many places, such as behind the ladder used to descend into the tunnels (this also works if there is no ladder visible) and rocks. Some players may force the melee tunnel brother to spawn by reentering a door so that they can safespot them and conserve supplies.

Monsters in the crypt

• Barrows brother—One of the brothers' sarcophagi leads to a tunnel into the crypt.
• Bloodworms
• Skeletons (level 77)
• Crypt rats
• Crypt spiders
• Giant crypt rats
• Giant crypt spiders

Door puzzles

Solutions to the puzzles.

Entering the chest room

It's Barrows from the Crypt!

Once the player locates the operational door that leads to the chest, he or she will have to solve a simple puzzle in order to open the door. Due to the monster that spawns when you go into the room, some players prefer killing it, while others simply move back and forth to chase it off. This is useful in the giant crypt rat room, as their large size can block enemies. If you get the puzzle wrong, the catacombs will move around, meaning that the ladder will be in a different room, and so will be the door to the chest room.

Rewards

Mechanics

Barrows drop mechanics

• There is initially one roll at the drop table.
• Each brother killed grants an additional roll at the drop table, to a maximum of six rolls.
• Each brother killed has his associated items added to the possible rewards.

For each roll:

• First, the Barrows equipment is rolled against. The chance of getting a Barrows item is $\frac{1}{450 - 58 \times N}$, where $N$ is the number of brothers killed. Or, in tabular format:

Barrows equipment chance per roll

Brothers killed	Chance
	Frac	%
1	1/392	0.255%
2	1/334	0.299%
3	1/276	0.362%
4	1/218	0.458%
5	1/160	0.625%
6	1/102	0.980%

• If the Barrows item chance is successfully hit, one of the available Barrows items is chosen at random - each part has equal chance, but once chosen it will not be chosen again on future rolls.
• If the Barrows item chance is not met, an additional measure is calculated (here called rewards potential or RP). This is $\text{min}(\text{sum}(combat\ level\ of\ all\ monsters\ killed)), 1000) + 2N$.
  • Or simply, reward potential is the sum of all the combat levels of the monsters killed, capped at 1000 - including the brothers (all six have a combat sum of 656). This is then added to the two times the number of brothers killed, giving a total maximum reward potential of 1012.
• A roll is performed for a value between one and your reward potential (each inclusive). The result then determines what item is awarded, and how many of it.
  • Each item has a range, and the larger the number in that range, the more of it that is awarded.

Item	RP required to unlock	RP required for maximum quantity	Chance at max RP per roll
			Frac	%
Coins	1	380	380/1012	37.5%
Mind rune	381	505	125/1012	12.4%
Chaos rune	506	630	125/1012	12.4%
Death rune	631	755	125/1012	12.4%
Blood rune	756	880	125/1012	12.4%
Bolt rack	881	1005	125/1012	12.4%
Key half	1006	N/A (always 1)	6/1012	0.6%
Dragon med helm	1012	N/A (always 1)	1/1012	0.1%

If players wish to receive more runes (which are generally worth more gold) instead of bolt racks and key halves, they should aim for a Reward Potential of 880. Having exactly 880 points maximises the quantity of blood runes without having bolt racks take up reward slots. Players can achieve exactly 880 points by killing the six brothers, three bloodworms, and one crypt spider (656 + 3(52) + 56 + 2(6)) = 880. It is impractical, however, to get exactly 880 RP every run because crypt spiders will never spawn upon opening doors beneath Barrows, and can only be found in their own room on the east side of the tunnels. It is not worth going out of your way to find and kill one crypt spider, and going for exactly 880 RP should only be done if the configuration of the tunnel allows for an easy way to kill one crypt spider.

A common misconception is that the ideal combination would be killing the six brothers and three skeletons, which would result in 880 RP. The actual value for this would be 899 RP (656 +3(77)+2(6)) = 899, which puts one a fair way past the threshold for getting bolt racks.

Possible KC options to maximise overall profit, without needing to go out of your way to gather KC could be the following:

2 Skeletons, 1 Bloodworm (874 RP)

4 Bloodworms - (876 RP)

5 Crypt Rats - (883 RP)

1 Skeleton, 1 Bloodworm, 2 Crypt Rats - (883 RP)

N.B. It is usually easier to get killcount with these three types of creatures as they are the types that will spawn upon opening doors beneath Barrows and will automatically become aggressive towards the player. It is usually impractical to include the other types of monsters since one cannot control what their tunnel configuration will be every time.

Runes/Ammunition

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Mind rune	1–2,889	Common	3–8,667
	Chaos rune	1–885	Common	89–78,765
	Death rune	1–578	Common	203–117,334
	Bolt rack	1–191	Common	94–17,954
	Blood rune	1–236	Uncommon	367–86,612

Barrows Equipment

Ahrim's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Ahrim's hood	1	Rare (1/418)	61,586
	Ahrim's robetop	1	Rare (1/418)	2,900,631
	Ahrim's robeskirt	1	Rare (1/418)	2,169,900
	Ahrim's staff	1	Rare (1/418)	104,883

Dharok's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Dharok's helm	1	Rare (1/418)	243,630
	Dharok's platebody	1	Rare (1/418)	978,025
	Dharok's platelegs	1	Rare (1/418)	1,026,058
	Dharok's greataxe	1	Rare (1/418)	652,656

Guthan's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Guthan's helm	1	Rare (1/418)	550,010
	Guthan's platebody	1	Rare (1/418)	819,022
	Guthan's chainskirt	1	Rare (1/418)	427,208
	Guthan's warspear	1	Rare (1/418)	917,108

Karil's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Karil's coif	1	Rare (1/418)	62,835
	Karil's leathertop	1	Rare (1/418)	1,972,648
	Karil's leatherskirt	1	Rare (1/418)	224,442
	Karil's crossbow	1	Rare (1/418)	107,192

Torag's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Torag's helm	1	Rare (1/418)	95,267
	Torag's platebody	1	Rare (1/418)	218,595
	Torag's platelegs	1	Rare (1/418)	241,084
	Torag's hammers	1	Rare (1/418)	97,256

Verac's

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Verac's helm	1	Rare (1/418)	116,139
	Verac's brassard	1	Rare (1/418)	177,411
	Verac's plateskirt	1	Rare (1/418)	624,036
	Verac's flail	1	Rare (1/418)	102,775

Other

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Coins	1–5,306	Common	Not sold
	Loop half of key	1	Uncommon	10,307
	Tooth half of key	1	Uncommon	10,840
	Clue scroll (elite)	1	Uncommon (1/33.75)	Not sold
	Dragon med helm	1	Rare	58,488

Notes

• According to the formula released by Mod Kieren on his Twitter, the chances of getting at least one piece of Barrows equipment is 1/17.42 if you kill all six brothers. This chance is unaffected by the kill count of the other monsters in the crypt. Therefore, the chance of receiving a specific equipment piece is approximately 1/418 (17.42*24).
• In order to receive a piece of Barrows equipment, the corresponding brother must be killed before the chest is looted. Thus, if you wanted a piece of Guthan's equipment, you would have to kill Guthan before you are eligible to obtain his equipment. Therefore, it is impossible to acquire Barrows equipment if no brothers are slain.
• For every brother killed, you get an extra roll for rewards; so if all six brothers are killed, it is possible to obtain six pieces of Barrows equipment. Thus giving you a 0.000003578% chance of seeing a six item drop. However, this is extremely rare. It is possible to get multiple items from the same brother, contrary to popular belief.
• Killing all of the brothers is not required to receive loot; however, not killing all brothers decreases your chance of receiving a Barrows item, and you will not be able to receive the items from the brothers that you missed.
• 50% more runes are received with the completion of the Hard Morytania Diary.

Trivia

• There is currently a glitch where if Guthan is slain and he heals simultaneously, a message will appear in the player's chatbox stating "We'll finish this later...".
• Prior to an update, Barrows did not tell you what brothers the player had slain. In addition, before the aforementioned update, there was no looting interface upon searching the chest for rewards.
  • Upon release, there was also no spade spawn in the nearby shack. This was added in Content Poll #14.