Bestiary

A boss is a powerful, usually unique monster that is fought to accomplish an objective, be it the advancement or completion of a quest or minigame, or as part of a team player-versus-monster event. Many quests feature boss fights at their climaxes; such bosses are often the main antagonists of the quests or quest series, or are somehow related to the main antagonist(s). Some monsters that are commonly referred to as bosses are very powerful monsters that reside in multi-combat areas; these monsters are commonly fought by teams of players in search of highly valuable drops. Many bosses have extremely high combat levels, and most of the strongest monsters in the game are bosses. With the exception of Bryophyta and Obor, bosses are exclusive to members.

Dwarf multicannons often cannot be set up in the areas of many bosses, and many are immune or resistant to other effects, such as freeze and poison. Others may have different restrictions; for example, Prayer cannot be used during the fights with the final bosses of Recipe for Disaster. Most bosses (e.g. bosses like the Corporeal Beast) also reside in a multi-way area; very few reside in single-way areas or instances.

Excluding minigame and quest bosses, each boss has its own hiscore table, tracking the players with the most kills, or raid completions in the case of raid bosses. Each of these bosses (or raids) also has its own set of combat achievements and, with the exception of the Deranged archaeologist, each one also has unique drops in the collection log. Most bosses will generate a message upon kill telling the player what drop(s) they have obtained. For example, if players are at General Graardor and kill him (and drops Bandos tassets), a message will appear in the game box saying "Player name received item: Bandos tassets".