OSRS F2P Prayer Training: Chaos Temple vs Boneyard for Alts

Game screenshots and facts are cited from the Old School RuneScape Wiki (strategy, equipment, drops, and related pages). Writing is original editorial, not a copy of the wiki article.

Free-to-play Prayer is the skill that separates patient alt owners from everyone else. There are no gilded altars, no POH incense burners, and no ensouled heads. Instead, you are either clicking on scattered bones in the Wilderness or grinding giant frogs for big bones while watching your run energy bar. For an alt that just needs Protect from Melee at 43, the difference between a smart plan and an “I’ll bury whatever I see” approach can be dozens of hours of wasted time.

This guide covers the honest F2P methods—the Boneyard loop, big bone combat training, and even the members-only Chaos Temple altar shortcut for those willing to buy a bond. We’ll break down requirements, compare attention levels, give realistic time-to-goal estimates, and show where buying gold or a training service is the pragmatic choice.

F2P Prayer: Why It Feels Like an Ironman Grind

Prayer is widely regarded as the hardest free-to-play skill to level. The core problem is threefold: bones are expensive to buy in bulk, burying gives tiny XP per click, and the only “fast” method still involves running around the Wilderness for hours. Unlike combat skills that train passively while you kill monsters, Prayer demands constant interaction with remains. For an alt whose main job is to bank stand or buy from shops, that interaction cost is real.

Before you commit, know your target. Level 43 for Protect from Melee is the single most important milestone for any melee alt. Level 99 Prayer in F2P is a marathon that most players never finish—and that’s okay. This guide will help you set a realistic goal and pick the method that respects your time.

Requirements and Early Unlocks for Your Alt

Starting a fresh account? You can skip the first headache with one quest. The Restless Ghost awards 1,125 Prayer XP, enough to go from level 1 to level 9 instantly. It has no requirements and takes a few minutes, making it the single best early-game Prayer action in any account type.

For melee-focused alts that will use protection prayers, you want the highest prayer bonus possible. The best-in-slot F2P prayer gear includes holy symbols, monk robes, and rune maces—all of which have their own skill requirements. However, you do not need BIS prayer gear to train Prayer efficiently. Training methods care more about your inventory space and run energy than your defensive bonuses.

Boneyard Method: The F2P Zero-Gold Baseline

The Boneyard in the Wilderness is the classic no-cost prayer training spot. The idea is simple: run around collecting bones that spawn on the ground, bury them, and repeat. Because the area is infested with skeletons, you must manage aggression. After standing in the same loaded area for 10 minutes, nearby monsters become tolerant and stop attacking you. If you make one full collection loop before waiting, the tolerance will cover your intended route.

Once the skeletons are tolerant, you can expect roughly 6,000 Prayer XP per hour from burying regular bones. That sounds low because it is. At that rate, going from 1 to 43 Prayer would take about 8 hours after the quest XP, assuming you never leave, never bank, and never run out of energy. For a zero-gold alt, it is the baseline against which every other method is compared.

Big Bones vs Fiendish Ashes: Choosing Your F2P Monster Source

If you have some combat stats, killing monsters that drop big bones is far more XP per hour than the Boneyard—though it requires supplies and attention. The free-to-play monsters that drop big bones include:

• Giant frogs in Lumbridge Swamp
• Hill giants in Edgeville Dungeon or Giants' Plateau
• Moss giants in Varrock Sewers or Crandor
• Ice giants in Asgarnian Ice Dungeon
• Ogresses in Corsair Cove Dungeon

Among these, giant frogs are the fastest because of their low hitpoints and defence. You can kill them rapidly, pick up big bones, and bury them on the spot. Lesser demons and greater demons also drop ashes (vile ashes) but the prayer XP from those is not as strong as big bones. If you want profit from rune drops, lesser demons can earn gp, but your prayer XP per hour will drop.

Another oddity: after completing The Ides of Milk, you can fight the boss Brutus in the Lumbridge cow pen. He drops bull bones worth 40 Prayer XP per kill. That is not a method for mass training, but it is a fun one-off for early levels.

For a low-level alt, the best practical path is to train combat on cows, chickens, or goblins near lumbridge and bury the regular bones they drop. Imp ashes scatter for 10 XP each, but scattering is even slower than burying. Use these only while you are already killing for other resources.

Chaos Temple Altar: The Members-Only Efficiency Spike

If your alt has membership—even temporarily—the Chaos Temple (church) in level 38 Wilderness is the single best prayer training location for any account that is willing to risk the wild. Free players can visit the temple, but only members can use the altar’s benefits.

The altar grants 3.5x Prayer experience per bone, the same as a gilded altar with two lit burners. However, every bone offered has a 50% chance to not be consumed, and that save can trigger repeatedly for the same bone. On average, each bone gives 7x the normal burying XP. For an F2P-trained alt, that means taking the big bones you would have buried in Edgeville and turning them into the equivalent of seven times the progress.

The temple also has an Elder Chaos druid who will unnote bones for 50 gp each, so you can bring noted big bones or dragon bones and use them without banking. This is essential for serious training trips. If you can afford Zealot’s robes, the save chance stacks to 52.5%, pushing effective XP to 7.37x normal burying experience.

Time to 43 and 99: Realistic Numbers for Planning

Let’s put the methods side by side. The exact big bone XP per hour depends on your combat level and kill speed, so the table uses the confirmed Boneyard rate and the 7x multiplier for the Chaos Altar. Always verify current rates on the wiki before committing to a long goal.

Using the Boneyard’s 6k XP/hour as a floor, level 43 (50,339 total XP) takes about 8 hours after The Restless Ghost. Level 99 requires 13,034,431 XP, which would be roughly 2,170 hours at 6k/hour—nearly three months of non-stop play. That’s why almost nobody gets 99 Prayer in F2P. Big bones methods cut that down significantly, and the Chaos Altar cuts it again by a factor of seven.

Gold, Bonds, and Boost Services: The Honest Shortcut

There is no shame in admitting that your alt’s time is better spent earning gold than clicking bones. If you are going to buy big bones from the Grand Exchange anyway, buying OSRS gold at a fair rate and using it for bones or a bond is a math problem, not a moral one. A bond unlocks the Chaos Altar method, which can turn a 100-hour F2P grind into a 15-hour members grind depending on your bone choice.

For accounts that still need combat stats to kill bone droppers, you might also pay for a melee training service first. This gets you to the point where you can farm giant frogs or hill giants without wasting time on chickens.

When you are ready to fund bones, bonds, or a dedicated prayer boost, check the live gold rates to see what your alt needs. Never share your account details; a reputable service will ask you to supply the bones and let the booster train on your account alone, but always read the terms.

Common Mistakes That Waste Hours

• Training Prayer before unlocking Protect from Melee at 43. You need 43 for most hard content. Everything between 31 and 43 should be done as fast as possible, not by burying cow bones while doing other tasks.
• Using regular bones at the Chaos Altar. Only big bones or better are worth the PK risk. Regular bones give 4.5 xp base, so even with 7x that’s 31.5 xp per click—barely better than burying big bones in F2P but with Wilderness danger.
• Forgetting the 10-minute aggression timer at the Boneyard. If you hop worlds or run too far, the skeletons re-agro and you lose the tolerant state. Do your one loop, then stay put.
• Bringing heavy armour to the Boneyard. Weight kills your run energy, and run energy is the entire method.
• Not using the Elder Chaos druid to unnote bones. If you bank every inventory at the Chaos Altar, you spend half your time running through multi-combat wilderness. Bring noted bones and 50 gp each.
• Training Prayer on a fresh alt before any combat stats. Big bone monsters require at least 20-30 combat levels. An alt with no stats is better off doing Boneyard or paying for a boost until it can fight.

Next Steps: Building a Prayer Alt That Lasts

Start with The Restless Ghost, decide whether you are an F2P purist or willing to buy a bond, and pick one method from the table. If you are broke and patient, do the Boneyard to 31 Prayer to access the Monastery, then reassess. If you can afford bones, kill giant frogs and bury big bones until 43. If you value your hours more than your gp, use the Chaos Altar with noted big bones and a burning amulet.

Whatever route you choose, remember that Prayer is a multiplier for your combat training. A melee alt with 43 Prayer and Protect from Melee can AFK many more hours than a prayerless account. For a deeper look at early melee setup, see our OSRS Ironman Melee 1-60 guide. And when the bone grind gets old, check the current gold rates to see if outsourcing the next 100k XP is cheaper than your real-life time.

Sources

• Free-to-play Prayer training – OSRS Wiki
• Chaos Temple (church) – OSRS Wiki