A player dying after reaching 0 Hitpoints.
Death occurs when a 
player's 
Hitpoints reach zero, a message in the Chat Interface will inform them: Oh dear, you are dead! Players who die are respawned at the respawn point that they had set prior to dying, losing all but three of the most valuable items as well as any untradeable items[1] that they were carrying at the time of death. Players have 60 minutes to retrieve items from where they died before they disappear.[2]
Respawning
When players die outside of safe minigames, they will respawn at one of several respawn points. By default, players respawn in Lumbridge, additional respawn locations can be unlocked through quests and one-time fees.
Falador spawn point can be used after completion of Recruitment Drive, by talking to Sir Tiffy Cashien in Falador Park.- Camelot spawn point can be used after completion of King's Ransom and the Knight Waves Training Grounds, by talking to Merlin.
- Edgeville spawn point can be used by talking to Krystilia in the jailhouse north-east of the Edgeville bank and paying a one-time fee of 5 million coins.
Items
When players die an unsafe death outside of safe minigames, they lose all but three of the most valuable items as well as any untradeable items[1] that they were carrying at the time of death. Activating the Protect Item 
prayer will protect an additional item on death. Item value is determined by the Grand Exchange value, for example dying with a full set of Veracs, a player will lose the 
flail as it is the cheapest item of the four. When skulled (a status applied after attacking someone who did not attack you in the Wilderness, or entering the Abyss) dying will result in all items being lost unless they activated the Protect Item prayer in which case one item will be kept.
Players have 60 minutes[2] to retrieve any lost item from where they died before they disappear unless death occurred in an instance area in which case an item reclaimer may be present. (Note: Certain instances such as Corporeal Beast or Bryophyta do not have an item reclaimer and items will be lost forever.) Players that have already died once, who die again, will have two "gravestones". The first gravestone will not disappear like in RuneScape 3, so the player can loot their items without worries.
If a player dies in cases of player killing, in the Wilderness, or PvP worlds, the loot is only visible for one minute to the player who dealt the most damage before becoming visible to all players. Items lost on death in this scenario will disappear if not picked up after two minutes. If a player is attacked by a player killer and then killed by an NPC, the PvP looting mechanics will take place instead.
Imbued Items
Dying to another player outside of safe minigames will result in an imbued item losing its imbued status unless it was one of the kept on death items. The player will have to obtain the required Nightmare Zone reward points to imbue it again.
Additionally, the 
ring of wealth (i) will lose it's imbue upon any type of death with 50,000 being returned to either the player in a PvM scenario or player killer in a PvP scenario, another 
ring of wealth scroll and 50,000 has to be used to imbue it once more.
The 
magic shortbow (i) will never lose it's imbue on death.
Untradeable items
Upon death within the Wilderness (below level 20), certain untradeable items will become broken and will be kept upon death in this state. These can be repaired by using the items on 
Perdu (or an armour stand at a respawn point on PvP Worlds), a repair fee must be paid in order for the items to be usable again. (Note: Past level 20 Wilderness all untradeable items are lost completely.)
Players who kill another player who has the following items in the list below will receive 75% of the repair cost for their untradeable items.
| Item | Repair cost | |
|---|---|---|
|
Fire cape | 50,000 |
|
Infernal cape | 50,000 |
|
Fire max cape | 50,000 |
|
Infernal max cape | 50,000 |
|
Ava's assembler | 75,000 |
|
Assembler max cape | 75,000 |
|
Bronze defender | 1,000 |
|
Iron defender | 2,000 |
|
Steel defender | 2,500 |
|
Black defender | 5,000 |
|
Mithril defender | 15,000 |
|
Adamant defender | 25,000 |
|
Rune defender | 35,000 |
|
Dragon defender | 40,000 |
|
Avernic defender | 1,000,000 |
|
Void Knight helmet | 40,000 |
|
Void knight top | 45,000 |
|
Elite void top | 50,000 |
|
Void knight robe | 45,000 |
|
Elite void robe | 50,000 |
|
Void knight gloves | 30,000 |
|
Gold decorative armour | 5,000 |
|
Decorative magic armour | 5,000 |
|
Decorative ranged armour | 5,000 |
|
Halos | 25,000 |
|
Fighter hat | 45,000 |
|
Ranger hat | 45,000 |
|
Healer hat | 45,000 |
|
Fighter torso | 50,000 |
|
Penance skirt | 20,000 |
Trivia
Death claiming a player as they die.
- After several DDoS attacks, the death mechanics were altered so items stayed on the ground for 60 minutes.
- If you die during Hallowe'en events, Death will appear to claim your soul.
