OSRS Clue Scrolls

What every reward casket is actually worth, tier by tier, which clues are worth your time, and why medium caskets beat hard ones on average.

Open a case

The casket is the whole point

A clue scroll is a loop with a box at the end of it. You get the scroll from a drop, you work the steps, and the last step hands you a reward casket. The steps are the price. The casket is the thing you actually came for, and everyone who has done a clue knows it: nobody screenshots the cryptic clue, they screenshot the open.

That box is a weighted table. Every tier rolls a set number of times, each roll picks from a published list, and the value you get out is whatever those rolls happened to land on. Most are junk, a few are good, and one or two are the reason people keep doing them. It is worth understanding that structure before you decide which tier to spend your evening on, because the tiers behave very differently and the ranking is not the one most people assume.

Beginner Easy

Easy

Medium Hard

Hard

Elite

Master

The best way to get clue scrolls at each tier

Impling jars are the fastest route at every tier below master, at 1 in 25 for gourmet, eclectic and ninja jars, which give easy, medium and hard clues respectively. Dragon jars give elites at 1 in 50. All of them cost gold rather than time, and at the elite end the jars cost far more than the casket is worth.

If you would rather earn them: pickpocket H.A.M. members for easy clues at 1 in 50, kill Scurrius for mediums at 1 in 25, kill Sarachnis for hards at 1 in 40, and run the Corrupted Gauntlet for elites at 1 in 20. The Barrows chest is the most accessible elite source at 1 in 29.

Master clues have no source of their own. They come out of the caskets of every tier below, at 1 in 50, 1 in 30, 1 in 15 and 1 in 5 going up the ladder, or from Watson in exchange for one of each of the four tiers below elite.

What each reward casket is worth

These are the averages, rounded, and they move with the Grand Exchange because the tables are full of tradeable items. Treat them as the shape of each tier rather than as a quote.

An easy casket averages around 29k. It rolls two to four times from a table where the good outcomes are thin on the ground, so almost all of your return comes from consistent small drops rather than from anything exciting. The 1 in 50 chance of a master clue inside it is worth roughly as much again, which takes the real value of completing one to about 45k.

A medium casket averages around 159k, and with its 1 in 30 master clue chance a completed medium is worth about 186k.

A hard casket averages around 117k. The 1 in 15 master chance is much better, so a completed hard comes out near 172k.

An elite casket averages around 252k, and the master chance is 1 in 5, which is where a lot of the value sits: a completed elite is worth roughly 380k.

A master casket averages around 637k. It rolls six times from the deepest table in the game, which is why it is the only tier where the very rare outcomes meaningfully move the average.

Medium caskets are worth more than hard caskets

That is not a typo, and it is the single most useful thing on this page. A medium casket averages around 159k against a hard casket's 117k, despite being the easier tier with the shorter steps.

The reason is per-roll value, not roll count. A hard casket rolls more times than a medium one, but it rolls from a table whose good outcomes are diluted by a much larger pool of filler. A medium roll is worth roughly 40k on average. A hard roll is worth roughly 23k. More rolls at a worse rate loses to fewer rolls at a better one, and the medium table carries a handful of genuinely valuable outcomes that keep the average up.

Hard clues still beat mediums per completed clue once the master clue chance is counted, because 1 in 15 is a lot better than 1 in 30. But if you are opening a casket rather than finishing a clue, the medium is the better box, and most people would guess the opposite.

Which tier is worth your time

The honest answer is that it depends entirely on how fast you complete them, and that is a bigger variable than the casket values are. A player who can turn around easy clues quickly can out-earn a player grinding elites slowly, because an easy clue is a few steps and an elite is a trek with requirements attached.

As a rule: easy clues pay in volume and are the tier to do while you are doing something else. Mediums are the best value per box in the game relative to the effort. Hards are a step up in time for a step down in casket value, and they are worth doing mainly for the master clue rate. Elites are the sensible ceiling for most players. Masters are not really a money maker at all, they are a lottery ticket you earn.

If you are optimising purely for gold per hour, clues are rarely the best answer in the game. People do them because opening the box is fun, which is a perfectly good reason and worth being honest about.

The rare drops, and what those odds really mean

Every tier has a headline item and the master table has the third age set, which sits at the far end of it at odds the wiki publishes in the millions per roll. Ranger boots carry the medium table, and a handful of expensive rares do the same job at every other tier.

Two things follow from that. First, the average value of a casket is not the value you should expect from any single casket. A number that includes a one in a million outcome is dragged upwards by something almost nobody will ever see, so the typical open is worth noticeably less than the average, which is true of every loot table ever designed.

Second, the reason anyone can talk about these numbers at all is that the odds are published. Jagex publishes the drop rates and the wiki tabulates them, so the maths is checkable by anyone who cares to. An unbox with unpublished odds is a very different proposition, and it is worth holding anything you open to that standard.

A case is a casket without the walking

If you like clues, the reason is almost certainly the casket rather than the cryptic. A case is that same object with the steps removed: a fixed price, a published list of items with a published chance on each, and one roll to see what you get. Same structure, same ten seconds at the end.

The differences are worth saying plainly rather than glossing over. A clue costs you time and pays you gold, so it is earned. A case costs you gold, so it is bought, and like any bought box the house takes a margin for running it. What it gives you back is that you skip the part nobody enjoys and you can do it as often as you like at a stake you choose.

What does carry over is the standard. Every case on this site shows every item and every drop chance before you spend anything, exactly as the wiki does for caskets, and every open is drawn from a server seed committed before you click so you can re-derive the result afterwards and check it landed where it said it did.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average value of an easy clue casket?

Around 29k, and roughly 45k for a completed easy clue once the 1 in 50 master clue chance inside it is counted. Easy caskets pay in small consistent drops rather than rare spikes, so the typical open is close to the average.

Which clue tier is the most profitable?

Per completed clue, elite, at roughly 380k including its 1 in 5 master clue chance. Per casket opened, master at around 637k. Per hour, it depends far more on how fast you complete them than on the tier, and quick easy clues beat slow elites.

Why are medium caskets worth more than hard caskets?

Per-roll value. A medium roll averages around 40k and a hard roll around 23k, because the hard table dilutes its good outcomes with a much larger pool of filler. Hard caskets roll more times, but more rolls at a worse rate still loses.

Are clue scrolls worth doing?

For gold per hour, usually not compared to a focused money maker. For enjoyment per hour, they are among the best content in the game, and the caskets are a real if modest income on top. Most people who do clues are doing them for the box.

What are the odds of third age?

Published by Jagex and tabulated on the wiki, and measured in millions per roll on the master table. It is rare enough that it drags the stated average of a master casket above what a typical open is really worth.

How is a case different from a reward casket?

Structurally it is not: both are a fixed cost paying out one roll against a published weighted table. A clue costs time and pays gold. A case costs gold, skips the steps, and can be opened whenever you like at whatever stake you pick.