Magic Guide
Intro
The Runes
The spells
Experience Points
High Alchemy Spell
Special spells
Staves
Magical armour
Training
Player Killing
Intro
Magic is a very multi functional skill, it can be used to make money, to kill other people or NPC's and many more things. The spells you can do can be divided into 2 categories, each with with sub-categories. The two categories are harmful and non-harmful spells. The harmful spells are used to kill people or NPC's and the non-harmful ones to make your Runescape life easier. The harmful spells are divided into several categories; strikes, bolts, blasts, waves and some other special tricks. The non-harmful spells exist of teleport spells, alchemy spells, enchanting spells and some other sneaky things. What all these spells do, how you're are able to cast them and many more things about magic are all in this guide.
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The runes
First we start with runes, in order to cast a spell, you need runes in your inventory which will be used to cast the spell. I'll start with a list of all the runes, where they respawn and how they look like;
The runes | |||
Pic | Name | Description | Respawn location |
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Fire Rune | This is one of the elemental runes. | The cave on Karamja & Scorpion pit. |
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Air rune | This is one of the elemental runes. | Lumbridge swamps & Banana field on Karamja. |
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Earth rune | This is one of the elemental runes. | Varrock sewers & forest north of Varrock castle. |
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Water rune | This is one of the elemental runes. | Scorpion pit. |
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Body rune | Required for curse spells. | Upstairs the Al Kharid scimitar-shop, Varrock sewers & west of Varrock castle. |
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Mind rune | Required for strikes. | Inside Lumbridge castle ∓ Varrock sewers. |
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Cosmic rune | Required for enchanting spells. | Top left corner of the wilderness (level 48), guarded by Ice giants and Ice warriors. |
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Chaos rune | Required for bolts. | Level 37 wilderness, guarded by Moss giants. |
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Nature rune | Required for alchemy spells. | Level 45 wilderness, you need to use telekinetic grab to get them. |
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Death rune | Required for blasts. | South of Yanille, in the area with all the ogres. |
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Law rune | Required for teleport spells. | - |
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Blood rune | Required for waves. | Wilderness at the poison spiders south of Greaters. |
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Soul rune | Required for high level curse spells. | Can only be bought from the magic guild or from fellow players. |
There's three shops in Runescape that sell runes, you could also try runecrafting them or buy them from fellow players. A lot of NPC's also drop a good amount of runes when you kill them, try searching in the monster database, look for fire runes for example. But one of the best ways is, like I said, buying runes from one of the stores. One of them is Aubury in Varrock, a bit behind the east bank. And the other one is Betty in Port Sarim. Here's a list that'll show you the different prices in the 2 shops:
Note: The rune prices depend on how many runes the owner has in stock. The more runes s/he has, the less they cost.
Rune Prices | ||||
Pic | Name | Aubury in Varrock | Betty in Port Sarim | Mage Arena shop |
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Fire Rune | 4-24gp | 4-24gp | 7-27gp |
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Air rune | 4-24gp | 4-24gp | 7-27gp |
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Earth rune | 4-24gp | 4-24gp | 7-27gp |
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Water rune | 4-24gp | 4-24gp | 7-27gp |
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Body rune | 4-18gp | 4-18gp | upto 20gp |
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Mind rune | 4-18gp | 4-18gp | upto 20gp |
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Cosmic rune | - | - | 28-58gp |
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Chaos rune | 60-90gp | 4-90gp | upto 73gp |
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Death rune | 60-180gp | 4-180gp | upto 117gp |
Also there's a third shop that sells runes, but that one is members only and is inside the magic guild.
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The spells
Now that we know where to get our runes, we need to know what we can do with them. Here's a list of all the spells in Runescape, with their effect and the amount of runes they cost;
The spells | ||||
Pic | Level | Name | Description | Runes required |
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1 | Wind Strike | A basic Air missile | 1 Air, 1 Mind |
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3 | Confuse | Reduces your opponents attack by 5% | 3 Water, 2 Earth, 1 Body |
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5 | Water Strike | A basic Water missile | 1 Water, 1 Air, 1 Mind |
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7 | Enchant Level 1 Jewelry | Enchants your sapphire amulets and rings | 1 Water, 1 Cosmic |
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9 | Earth Strike | A basic Earth missile | 2 Earth, 1 Air, 1 Mind |
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11 | Weaken | Reduces your opponents strength by 5% | 3 Water, 2 Earth, 1 Body |
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13 | Fire Strike | A basic Fire missile | 2 Air, 3 Fire, 1 Mind |
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15 | Bones to Bananas | Changes all held bones into bananas | 2 Earth, 2 Water, 1 Nature |
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17 | Wind Bolt | A low level Air missile | 2 Air, 1 Chaos |
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19 | Curse | Reduces your opponents defence by 5% | 2 Water, 3 Earth, 1 Body |
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20 | Bind | Makes your opponent be unable to move for 5 seconds | 3 Earth, 3 Water, 2 Nature |
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21 | Low Level Alchemy | Converts an item into gold | 3 Fire, 1 Nature |
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23 | Water Bolt | A low level Water missile | 2 Air, 2 Water, 1 Chaos |
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25 | Varrock Teleport | Teleports you to Varrock | 3 Air, 1 Fire, 1 Law |
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27 | Enchant Level 2 Jewelry | Enchants your emerald amulets and rings | 3 Air, 1 Cosmic |
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29 | Earth Bolt | A low level Earth missile | 2 Air, 3 Earth, 1 Chaos |
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31 | Lumbridge Teleport | Teleports you to Lumbridge | 3 Air, 1 Earth, 1 Law |
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33 | Telekinetic grab | Take an item, you can see but can't reach | 1 Air, 1 Law |
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35 | Fire Bolt | A low level Fire missile | 3 Air, 4 Fire, 1 Chaos |
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37 | Falador Teleport | Teleports you to Falador | 3 Air, 1 Water, 1 Law |
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39 | Crumble Undead | Hits skeletons, ghosts & zombies hard | 2 Air, 2 Earth, 1 Chaos |
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41 | Wind Blast | A medium level Air missile | 3 Air, 1 Death |
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43 | Superheat Item | Smelt 1 ore without furnace | 4 Fire, 1 Nature |
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45 | Camelot Teleport | Teleports you to Camelot | 5 Air, 1 Law |
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47 | Water Blast | A medium level Water missile | 3 Air, 3 Water, 1 Death |
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49 | Enchant Level 3 Jewelry | Enchants your ruby amulets and rings | 5 Fire, 1 Cosmic |
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50 | Iban Blast | Missile attack that can do up to 25 damage | 5 fire, 1 Death, Iban staff |
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50 | Snare | Makes your opponent be unable to move for 10 seconds | 4 Earth, 4 Water, 3 Nature |
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50 | Magic Dart | A magic dart of slaying | Slayer Staff, 1 Death, 4 Mind |
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51 | Ardougne teleport | Teleports you to Ardougne (must do the Plague City quest first) | 2 Water, 2 Law |
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53 | Earth Blast | A medium level Earth missile | 3 Air, 4 Earth, 1 Death |
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55 | High Level Alchemy | Convert an item into more gold | 5 Fire, 1 Nature |
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56 | Charge Water Orb | Needs to be cast on a water Obelisk | 30 water, 3 cosmic, 1 Glass Orb |
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57 | Enchant Level 4 Jewelry | Enchants your diamond amulets and rings | 10 Earth, 1 Cosmic |
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58 | Watchtower Teleport | Teleports you to the watchtower | 3 earth, 2 law |
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59 | Fire Blast | A medium level Fire missile | 4 Air, 5 Fire, 1 Death |
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60 | Charge Earth Orb | Needs to be cast on Earth Obelisk | 30 Earth, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb |
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60 | Claws of Guthix | Summons the power of Guthix | 4 Air, 1 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Guthix |
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60 | Saradomin Strike | Summons the power of Saradomin | 4 Air, 2 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Saradomin |
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60 | Flames of Zamorak | Summons the power of Zamorak | 1 Air, 4 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Zamorak |
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61 | Trollheim Teleport | Teleports you to Trollheim | 2 Fire, 2 Law |
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62 | Wind Wave | A high level Air missile | 5 Air, 1 Blood |
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63 | Charge Fire Orb | Needs to be cast on Fire Obelisk | 30 Fire, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb |
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65 | Water Wave | A high level Water missile | 7 Water, 5 Air, 1 Blood |
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66 | Charge Air Orb | Needs to be cast on Air Obelisk | 30 Air, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb |
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66 | Vulnerability | Reduces your opponents defence by 10% | 5 Earth, 5 Water, 1 Soul |
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68 | Enchant Level 5 Jewelry | Enchants your dragonstone amulets and rings | 15 Earth, 15 Water, 1 Cosmic |
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70 | Earth Wave | A high level Earth missile | 7 Earth, 5 Air, 1 Blood |
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73 | Enfeeble | Reduces your opponents strength by 10% | 8 Earth, 8 Water, 1 Soul |
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74 | Teleother Lumbridge | Teleports Target to Lumbridge | 1 Soul, 1 Law, 1 Earth |
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75 | Fire Wave | A high level Fire missile | 7 Fire, 5 Air, 1 Blood |
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79 | Entangle | Makes your opponent be unable to move for 15 seconds | 5 Earth, 5 Water, 4 Nature |
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80 | Stun | Reduces your opponents attack by 10% | 12 Earth, 12 Water, 1 Soul |
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80 | Charge | Temporarily increases the power of the three arena spells | 3 Air, 3 Fire, 3 Blood |
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82 | Teleother Falador | Teleports target to Falador | 1 Soul, 1 Law, 1 Water |
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85 | Tele Block | Stops your target from teleporting | 1 Law, 1 Chaos, 1 Death |
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90 | Teleother Camelot | Teleports target to Camelot | 2 Soul, 1 Law, |
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Experience points
Each spell will earn you a certain number of experience points towards your Magic skill when cast. These are displayed below. However, with Strikes, Bolst, Blasts and Waves it isn't as simple as that, because you can also inflict damage. There is a base amount of xp you will always recieve when you cast the spell, even if you fail it and see a splash, and this is the value quoted in the table below. But you also receive extra Magic xp and Hits xp depending on how much damage you inflict.
- For every damage point you hit your opponent, you recieve 2 Magic xp.
- You also recieve 1.33 Hits xp for every damage point you inflict.
For these spells, there is also a maximum on how much damage you can inflict - and this number is in brackets after the spell name.
Experience gained from Spells | ||||
Level | Name | Exp gained | max hit | |
1 | Wind Strike | 5.5 + | 2 | |
3 | Confuse | 13 | None | |
5 | Water Strike | 7.5 + | 4 | |
7 | Enchant Level 1 Jewelry | 17.5 | None | |
9 | Earth Strike | 9.5 + | 6 | |
11 | Weaken | 20.5 | None | |
13 | Fire Strike | 11.5 + | 8 | |
15 | Bones to Bananas | 25 | None | |
17 | Wind Bolt | 13.5 + | 9 | |
19 | Curse | 29 | None | |
20 | Bind | 30 | None | |
21 | Low Level Alchemy | 31 | None | |
23 | Water Bolt | 16.5 + | 10 | |
25 | Varrock Teleport | 35 | None | |
27 | Enchant Level 2 Jewelry | 37 | None | |
29 | Earth Bolt | 19.5 + | 11 | |
31 | Lumbridge Teleport | 41 | None | |
33 | Telekinetic grab | 43 | None | |
35 | Fire Bolt | 22.5 + | 12 | |
37 | Falador Teleport | 47 | None | |
39 | Crumble Undead | 49 | 15 | |
41 | Wind Blast | 25.5 + | 13 | |
43 | Superheat Item | 53 | None | |
45 | Camelot Teleport | 55.5 | None | |
47 | Water Blast | 28.5 + | 14 | |
49 | Enchant Level 3 Jewelry | 59 | None | |
50 | Iban Blast | 42.5 + | 25 | |
50 | Snare | 60.5 | None | |
50 | Magic Dart | ? | 18 | |
51 | Ardougne teleport | 61 | None | |
53 | Earth Blast | 31.5 + | 15 | |
55 | High Level Alchemy | 65 | None | |
56 | Charge Water Orb | 66 | None | |
57 | Enchant Level 4 Jewelry | 67 | None | |
58 | Watchtower Teleport | 68 | None | |
59 | Fire Blast | 34.5 + | 16 | |
60 | Charge Earth Orb | 70 | None | |
60 | Claws of Guthix | 35+ | 30 | |
60 | Saradomin Strike | 35+ | 30 | |
60 | Flames of Zamorak | 35+ | 30 | |
61 | Trollheim Teleport | 68 | None | |
62 | Wind Wave | 36 + | 17 | |
63 | Charge Fire Orb | 73 | None | |
65 | Water Wave | 37.5 + | 18 | |
66 | Charge Air Orb | 76 | None | |
66 | Vulnerability | 76 | None | |
68 | Enchant Level 5 Jewelry | 78 | None | |
70 | Earth Wave | 40 + | 19 | |
73 | Enfeeble | 83 | None | |
74 | Teleother Lumbridge | 84 | None | |
75 | Fire Wave | 42.5 + | 20 | |
79 | Entangle | 91 | None | |
80 | Stun | 90 | None | |
80 | Charge | 180 | None | |
82 | Teleother Falador | 92 | None | |
85 | Tele Block | 80 | None | |
90 | Teleother Camelot | 100 | None |
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High Alchemy Spell
This spell can be cast once you have achieved level 55 magic and plays an important role in the RuneScape economy. Players often use this spell with valuable objects to convert it to gold (aka gp) to make significant profits. The best examples would be smithers high alching their final products (usually steel plate mail) and fletchers high alching Magic Bows. The strategy to use with idea is - if you can make an item cheaper than it's High Alch value then you will make a profit.

The most efficient system would be to make items from scratch yourself. Taking th example of Magic Bows - you would pick and spin the flax yourself, then chop a tree and fletch the log yourself, and finally runecraft the nature runes to use to High Alch the bow. Ofcourse this analagy can be used for other items which you can smith, craft and so on. Some players will buy some of the resources in order to save time and yet still make a profit, in our example the player might buy the nature runes instead of crafting them himself. Use our High Alchemy Calculator to help you out and see a list of High Alch values.
Top Tip: You can withdraw large amounts of an item as notes and alch them one by one while you don't have to be in a bank all the time.
Following on from the tip given above, below are some ideas for what to do while you are high alching away:
- Mine ores from slow spawning ores, such as Runite in the Heros' guild.
- Watch the duels in the duelling Arena and throw the occasional tomato.
- Thieve from slow spawning stalls and chests. Its' especially useful to steal from a nature stall.
- Buy stock that slowly spawns in certain shops. For example, buying runes in the Magic Guild store, or purchasing arrow heads in the Catherby archery store.
- Hang around in crowded merchanting hot spots and look out for good deals.
- Pick up and bury bones that spawn in the wilderness (death gorge - lvl 20 wild)
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Special spells
There are a few special spells that you need certain staves for, you might've seen them already in the list above. Let's start with the spell called Iban Blast; Not only do you need level 50 magic for it, but you also need to complete the Underground Pass quest before you can cast this spell. When you've done that quest you'll get a special staff, called the Iban staff. This staff will last for 20 spells and then you'll need to recharge it at the Underground Pass, you can do this by using it at on the Flames of Zamorak (the big bowl right after paladins). It's not a very effective spell to train your magic with obviously, but you could use it to duel other players.
If you lose your Staff of Iban, you'll have to kill one of the Zamorak disciples in the underground pass cave, get the broken staff they drop, and then go to Lucien (located in West Ardougne) who will fix it for 200,000gp.
Then there are 3 other staffs, all from the same mini-game, called the Mage Arena. You have to finish this game before you can choose one of these staves. Once you've completed the game you can pick either the staff of Guthix, Saradomin or Zamorak. Each spell costs different types of runes and have different effects on other players. Before you can use these staffs and the spells outside that Mage Arena you need to cast the spell that belongs with your staff 100 times in the Arena. This will cost you 200 bloods runes + the other runes involved, if you don't have the money, don't bother.
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Staves
There's actually two kinds of staves, the staves that everyone can use and the staves that are members only, which are called Mystic Staves. The staves that everyone can buy can be bought in Varrock, from Zaff's staff shop.
Zaff's Superior Staffs! | ||
Picture | Name | Price |
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Battlestaff | 7140gp |
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Staff | 15gp |
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Magic Staff | 200gp |
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Staff of Air | 1500gp |
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Staff of Water | 1500gp |
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Staff of Earth | 1500gp |
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Staff of Fire | 1500gp |
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Lava Battle Staff | See note below |
As you can see, there's several kinds of staffs; First of all there's the battlestaff, that's not of
any interest to non-members. I'll tell more about battlestaffs in a sec.
Then there's the staff, for only 15gp, it doesn't
add anything to your magic skill, pretty useless. Then the magical staff, it boosts your magic a bit and that's it, not really
of our interest. Then, the staffs of air, water, earth and fire. That's what we need. Each of these staffs boosts your magic
and when you wield them, they'll serve as an unlimited supply of of that certain rune. So a fire staff will let you use spells
where you need fire runes for, without having the fire runes! And the same goes for the other staffs.
Then there's also battlestaffs, which are members only and cannot be bought in their full glory here anyway. Battlestaffs need to be made with a certain crafting skill, read more about that in the Crafting guide. When battle staffs are made and enchanted, they become; Mystic fire/earth/water/air staff. Also they will have the same fighting stats as a rune long sword and will also do the same the other staffs; It lets you use fire/earth/water/air runes unlimited, depending on what battle staff you have. As I said, battlestaffs can't be bought from a store, you have to buy them from players or get them from NPC's.
The lava battle staff can be obtained by killing the Kalphite Queen, Abberant Specters and Infernal Mages; for more information about them, visit our monsters database. The lava battle staff gives you unlimited earth and fire runes. It gets enchanted just like normal battle staves, see above for more information about this.
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Magical armour
Apart from staves, there's also another thing that you help to increase you magic ability. That thing is magical armour, there's 3 good magical armour types. Every magical armour type is called a robe. So there's 3 kind of robes that boost your magic in a good way. To keep it simple; blue wizard robes, dark wizard robes and for the members; red wizard robes, which are also called Robes of Zamorak. But that's not it, you can also wear several amulets which will boost your magic, for the non members, the best amulet is a amulet of magic (made from a sapphire). And for the members, use the amulet of glory (made from a dragonstone.) In the following table you can what the stat bonuses are.
The robes & amulets | |||
Pic | Name | Magic attack bonus | Magic defence bonus |
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Blue Wizard Robe | +3 | +3 |
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Blue Wizard Hat | +2 | +2 |
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Dark Wizard Robe | +3 | +3 |
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Dark Wizard Hat | +1 | +2 |
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Robe of Zamorak (top) | +2 | +3 |
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Robe of Zamorak (bottom) | +2 | +3 |
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Wizard's Boots | +4 | +4 |
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Gnomes' Hat | +3 | +3 |
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God Capes | +10 | - |
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Amulet of Magic | +10 | - |
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Amulet of Glory | +10 | +3 |
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Elemental Shield | - | +6 |
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Archer Helm | -5 | +6 |
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Farseer Helm | +6 | +6 |
So the best combination for non-members is a blue wizard robe, with the blue wizard hat and the amulet of magic. For members to get the best magic attack value, you could use the Robe of Zamorak (bottom) with the blue wizard robe and gnomes' hat, then wear an amulet of glory too. Don't forget your staff and god cape.
Dark wizards robes and hats can be gotten from killing Dark wizards, blue wizard robes and hats from Wizards. The robes of Zamorak can be gotten from killing Necromancers or from the Underground pass quest. You can buy the Gnomes' Hats from Rometti in the Grand Tree. You can obtain any one of the God capes after completing Mage Arena.
Mystic Robes
The best mage armour out there can be bought in the magic guild, if you go to the Robe Salesman on the first floor, you can buy your very own set of Mystic armour. It's
quite expensive though. It will cost you a total of 235.000 gp, but it will give you +45 magic defence and attack.
Mystic Robes | ||||
Pic | Name | Magic attack bonus | Magic defence bonus | Price |
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Mystic Hat | +4 | +4 | 15,000 gp |
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Mystic Robe Top | +20 | +20 | 120,000 gp |
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Mystic Robe Bottom | +15 | +15 | 80,000 gp |
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Mystic Gloves | +3 | +3 | 10,000 gp |
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Mystic Boots | +3 | +3 | 10,000 gp |
Splitbark armour
Some more effective mage armour, which has other than magic bonuses, is
splitbark armour. This is a bit hard to make, so if you want more information about this, please visit our Shades & Splitbark guide.
Training magic
When Jagex created the new Runescape they wanted magic to be a more independent skill, much more like ranging is and has been, and not something that just was used as an extra in melee combat. This change is reflected in the combat level change and, like ranging, you can no-longer cast magic and fight at the same time. Magic also has been changed so that it no-longer "fails", it now only misses like ranged attacks. When you miss with a spell it will be shown as a "splash" animation. Magic attacks will normally only give you magic and hitpoint experience, however if you use a staff defensively you will also get a small amount of defence experience. So all of you who only wanted to play as a pure-mage, your wish has been granted and you will be just as effective as any other combat-type.
If you play it smart, you can train your magic without levelling your combat, so you're the ideal pk-er;
- If strength, attack or defence is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is based on your strength + attack + defence + prayer + hitpoints.
- If your ranged level is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is instead based on your ranged + defence + prayer + hitpoints.
- If your magic level is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is based on your magic + defence + prayer + hitpoints.

Jagex also created a so called combat triangle, so that every kind of combat-type, so a mage, a ranger or a warrior, are very effective against one other type and not very effective against the other. The triangle looks something like the picture above, where the red lines means it's not very effective against the other and the green line means it's very effective.
You get magic experience points for what you hit, so it doesn't matter if you kill a monster or not. But of course if you pick a monster that's too strong, you will hit very low and the higher you hit, the more experience points you get. I reccomend attacking a monster that has a combat level about equal to your magic level and is in a place where he can't attack you, (behind a fence, gate or table). You could start off with killing chickens, then when you think you're ready you could move on to men or giant rats. Then monks, barbarians or guards. When you've reached around level 45 you could start on hobgoblins and black knights, when you've reached about level 60 you could start with the lesser demon in the Wizard tower (near Draynor village).
Note: The wizard mind bomb in the Falador bar will temporarily raise your magic 2 or 3 levels so you can practise with higher level spells and get faster experience points.
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Player Killing
Now that you've trained your magic to your desired level, it's time to try it out on your fellow players, in the wilderness. When you go pk-ing you can pick choose out of two things, pk-ing with a weapon + runes or pk-ing with runes + staff. But you have to remember that you can't attack and use magic anymore, so make a choice on what you want to do.
If you're going to pk with a weapon + runes, you fight in melee with your fellow player and as soon as he starts to run, you can use spells like bind, snare and entangle to make him freeze so you can attack him either with your weapon or with powerful spells.

But if you want to attack with magic only, there's an easier option. Jagex made an option that you can automatically attack with spells, so that you don't have to press the spell over and over again. But that option is only possible when you're holding a staff, but since you were going to take that already, because else you use a lot more runes, it's no problem. However, it's only the strike, bolt, blast and wave spells you can use this way.
This is what you have to do;
- Click the button with the green square around it and the 1 next to, and select the spell that you want to be casted automatically (see picture above).
- Then click the button with the green square around it and the 2 above it, and it will turn red (see picture above).
Now, when you press attack on someone, you will automatically keep attacking him with the spell you selected. Which is very handy when you're already watching your prayer level or when you're also trying to use bind, snare or entangle on him. On the picture above you can see what I meant.
Note: Snare and entangle are members-only spells, bind on the other hand can be used by everyone.
Note: Please be aware that, although items are stacked, each item in the stack counts as one item. Due to this, stacked items are often lost as they are of very small value. However, if you have a stack of items where the individual items are the most valuable in your inventory, you will keep three of the items in that stack.