Cave Crawlers OSRS Guide – One of the Best Monsters for Beginners

Cave Crawlers are one of those forgotten Old School monsters. They are for low levels that are just starting training slayer and are the first monster that drops armored boots. They drop the bronze ones. 

What very few people know about these monsters is how weird they are. Every game tick that you do not hit the cave crawler with no damage, it is going to heal 1 hp. A game tick is 0.6 seconds, so that is pretty fast, and often new players can not kill them faster than they heal. 

They are also a great monster for herblore training. Almost as good as chaos druids, but without the risks of getting killed in the wilderness. They have a very weird drop table that makes it seem like they were designed for people to train herblore on them. In my opinion, these monsters are more than worth it to have a beginner guide written about them! 

Here is where to find cave crawlers

There are 3 places where you can find these. In order from best to worse for new players or players who want to train herblore on them, these are my picks:

Lumbridge Swamp caves:

For low levels, this is going to be the best place to train and fight with them. It is very close to the bank, and you do not need to do any quests or go very far. Tip: Bring a light source! 

Dorgesh-Kaan South Dungeon:

A decent spot and nice enough if you have all the requirements. It is not worth it to do everything needed to go to this spot as you will only do cave crawlers a few times in your RuneScape career. 

Fremennik Slayer Dungeon:

When you are at a higher level this is the best place by far. However, for new players, it just does not make any sense to go to this spot, and stronger players will not go to slayer masters that give this task. 

What you need to know before killing cave crawlers

If you do not have a high level of defense you should use range or magic to kill them. Try to use a good safe spot and you will be fine when fighting them. If you are going to the Lumbridge swamp to kill them, you should bring a lightning source with you. However, if you take a candle or anything else that is not a lantern, it could explode and deal massive damage. 

You should also bring an anti-poison. The cave crawlers can hit you and poison you. If you have the herblore levels, you can get the drops to make your anti-poison. However, I do advise you to bring one, just to be sure. 

Tip: Cave Crawlers do not count as lizards on a slayer task! 

Cave crawler drops: herblore time

Bronze boots – This is the unique drop the cave crawlers drop. There isn’t any other monster in the old-school Runescape world that drops this. So if you need bronze boots, there is only one place to go, the Cave crawlers. 

Nature and fire runes – if you are an ironman, they drop quite some nature runes. They drop them 3 to 4 at a time, with a one in 21 on average drop rate. Fire runes are also dropped by them, so you can do low alch or high alch if you are the level. Unfortunately, they do not even drop anything that can be alched. 

For the next part, I am going to discuss the drops in pairs, as they can be used that way to make a potion with the herblore skill. 

The basics

• A vial of water: They drop the vial of water with a 1 in 10 drop rate. You can use this to make potions. Just combine a clean herb and the fitting ingredient and you will make a 3 dose potion. 
• Grimy Guam leaf and eye of newt: The cave crawler drops these two. Clean the grimy guam leaf and add it to your vial of water. Then add the eye of newt. Unfortunately, they drop the Guam leaf much more often than the eye of a newt. You need to have a level 3 herblore to do this. You will have made an attack potion now. 
• Grimy marrentill and unicorn horn dust: If you have level 5 herblore you can clean the marrentill and put it in the vial of water. Add the unicorn horn dust to the unfinished potion you just made. You have now made an anti-poison! You can use it to heal your poison status if you have one due to the cave crawlers.
• Grimy tarromin and limpwurt root: At level 12 herblore you can make these two ingredients into strength potions. All you need to do is clean the tarromin and add it to the vial of water, now put in the limpwurt root, and tada! You have a strength potion. 
• Harralander and red spider eggs: At level 22 you are going to get access to restore potions. These are pretty niche, and there are not a lot of uses for them. They do give some pretty decent experience. 

The drops continued!

If you have over 22 herblore, I am going to assume you are pretty high combat and know-how this skill works. So I am going to discuss the rest of the herb drops in a more abbreviated version.

• Grimy Ranarr Weed: They also drop the most useful herb for lower and mid-level accounts. Since they drop both white berries and snape grass you can make two kinds of potions. The defense potion is at level 30 and the prayer potion is at level 38.
• Grimy Irit leaf: Cave Crawlers also drop the irit leaf, these are useful to make super attacks at level 45 and super antipoison at herblore level 48. To make these, you will need an eye of newt for the super attack and unicorn horn dust for the super anti potion. 
• Grimy Avantoe: Since they drop both avantoe and snape grass, you can make fishing potions at level 50 herblore. 
• Grimy Kwuarm: At level 55, you can make super-strength potions with herblore skill. You will need a limpwurt root too to make the potion. 
• Grimy Cadantine: The humble cave crawler also drops the ingredients for the level 66 herblore potion, super defense. You will need cadantine and white berries to make the potion.
• Grimy Lantadyme: About one in 250 will drop this herb. They do not drop the ingredients needed to make a potion with it, but it is a good herb to pick up as it is worth a bit of money. 
• Grimy Dwarf Weed: this is another herb they drop on average once in 250 kills. However, you can not make a potion with it as they do not drop any ingredients to make the ranging potion. 
• Snape grass seed: They only drop one kind of seed that is useful for ironmen. This is the snape grass seed, however, they only drop it once in 630 kills on average. So it is pretty rare.  

The stats of a cave crawler 

Cave crawlers are a pretty low-level monster. Since it is available at level 10 slayer, it is a monster mostly intended for beginning players. You should not underestimate it. It has some pretty annoying mechanics and can deal quite some damage. Even if they already come easy to you, it is useful to know their weaknesses so you can kill them more effectively. 

• Combat level: Their combat level is 23, which means they are a lower-level monster, but still one of the strongest that you can find in Lumbridge. 
• Hitpoints: The monsters have 22 hitpoints. However, this is kind of misleading, since they heal very fast. Every tick – or 0.6 seconds – that you do not do damage to them they heal one hitpoint. So if your damage per second (DPS) is low, it is possible that you wo not be able to beat them at all! 
• Max hit: The cave crawlers hit a maximum of 3. They are also poisonous for 4 damage. This can be pretty dangerous for new players not being careful and on low hitpoints. The damage can stack and you can be hit for a 7 (3 normal plus 4 poison) at once. 
• Weaknesses: Cave crawlers have two weaknesses. They only have a +5 defense against crush and a +5 defense against magic attacks. Against stab, slash, and range they all have +10 defensive stats. This is pretty tanky and combined with the +1 hitpoint every non-damage game tick they can be very hard and annoying to kill. 

Frequently asked questions about Cave Crawlers

Conclusion: A great alternative to chaos druids for beginners

Looking at the drop table, it is pretty clear what the designers of these monsters had in mind. Give new players a possibility to train their herblore and explore potions while training the slayer. You can make all the beginning potions and get some decent herblore experience. The herbs they drop stay useful all the way to the higher levels in the game. 

Combat-wise these monsters should not be underestimated. While I do not think a level 30 would have any problems with this monster – as long as they have something against the potion –  and kill them pretty quickly. A level 10 to 20 might have more trouble getting through their defense and their hitpoint mechanic. 

While these monsters are pretty good for ironmen to get herblore levels and herbs, they are horrible money makers at any level. Do not go here if you want to make money quickly and reliably. 

Recommended Reads:

Dragon Defender OSRS Guide

Giant Mole OSRS Guide

Animal Magnetism OSRS Guide

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Tom Goemaere

Tom is a content writer with SEO experience and an avid DND fan. He has been playing DND for more than a decade now. He also manages a dnd/fantasy Instagram fan page (@thyriankingdom).

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