Treasure Trails/Rewards

This page is about the mechanics of how a Treasure Trail's rewards are determined, and calculations from this to determine drop chances of each reward.

Most clues operate on a series of drop tables with associated chances to access. They start with an initial table which contains all the rewards common to all levels of trails - sweets, meerkats, god pages, etc - and a chance to enter the clue's rare table, containing all of the clue's specific rewards (some of which may be on subtables within the rare table).

The vocabulary used here can be confusing, so here are a number of definitions of terms used on this page: A list of things that can be dropped and their associated chances. Can contain another droptable. One of the things on the droptable. This may be an item or another droptable. A place on the clue reward interface which can contain an item. A clue generates at least 2 of these per reward. Each tier of clue has a minimum number of reward spots it will create, and then it will add 0-2 extra spots randomly. If the same item is generated for multiple spots, they will combine into one stack (commonly occurs with runes), which may make a clue appear to generate less than it should. The value given in the column is the x value in the 1/x. So a value of 15 in the column means the chance is 1/15, or 1-in-15. The value in the column has been rounded to x. Generate a random number in order to choose a droptable slot, or other number needing to be generated randomly. Each number is equally likely to occur, giving rolls a uniform distribution.
 * Droptable
 * (Droptable) slot
 * Reward spot
 * 1/x
 * x SF
 * Roll
 * Any text with a has hover text with further explanation.

In order to calculate the per-clue chances, one needs to use a, taking the number of trials n to be the average number of reward spots of that clue tier, and p to be the per-spot chance of getting the items, then calculating the probability of receiving greater than zero of the item. In statistics notation:

$$X \sim Bin(average\ reward\ spots,per-spot\ chance)$$ $$\text{Find } P(X > 0)$$ $$= 1 - P(X = 0)$$

Luckily, most spreadsheet programs can do this natively. One can verify these values using a query, such as this for barrows dye from a hard clue; in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, this is performed using   (see documentation: Excel, Sheets).

General mechanism
Each clue tier, when completed, first decides how many rewards are given. This is the minimum amount (2 for easy, 3 for medium, 4 for hard and elite), with the result of a 0-2 roll added. Since it is equally likely to be 0, 1, or 2, the average is 1, so the average number of rewards the clue will give is the minimum plus one.

Once the number of rewards are chosen, the rewards are generated. This is usually a series of rolls:
 * The first roll is against the common reward table
 * Most of the slots contain the 'common' rewards of the clue (runes, normal staves, normal gear, materials, etc); none of these are clue-specific rewards
 * One slot leads to the global table, which contains god pages, meerkats, sweets, etc
 * One slot leads to the rare table for that clue
 * If the global or rare table is obtained, another roll is performed
 * Depending on the result of the second roll, a third (or more) roll may be performed to determine precise rewards

Global table

 * Full data not provided

The table that all clues can pull rewards from (which includes god pages, meerkat pouches and scrolls, purple sweets, etc) is positioned in the top level droptable for each clue tier. This means each clue tier has a different chance to access it.

In addition to accessing it normally, if the clue doesn't generate a reward by the time it reaches its last reward spot, it will give an item from this table.

Biscuits have a cap of 200 - once this cap is met, further biscuit rewards are replaced by purple sweets.

Easy

 * Full data not provided

Easy clues generate a minimum of 2 reward spots and a maximum of 4, giving an average of 3 rewards.

Medium

 * Full data not provided

Medium clues generate a minimum of 3 reward spots and a maximum of 5, giving an average of 4 rewards.

The chance of getting each medium-clue-specific item is "around 1/250 per clue". In addition, the 5 animal masks share one droptable slot, as do the male/female variants of elegant clothing (2 per slot) and main-/off-hand briefcases. The pith helmet appears multiple times in the table.

If medium clues behave similarly to the others, one can deduce that there's around 70 slots in the rare table (by counting the rewards) and around 15 in the common table (by using '1/250 per clue' and rounding). However, as the mechanics were not expanded upon in the same way as hards and elites, further analysis will not be done.

Hard
Hard clue rewards begin with a droptable with 16 slots. One of these enters the hard-clue-specific droptable containing 96 slots; this table is documented below. Of the top level droptable, some of the remaining slots leads to the all clues table, and the remaining 14 are assigned to general reward items (mahogany planks, rune equipment, etc). (Technically the top level table is much larger than 16, but simplifies to very close to 1/16 to access the rare table.)

Hard clues generate a minimum of 4 reward spots and a maximum of 6, giving an average of 5 rewards.


 * Notes
 * All of the following items occupy one droptable slot on the rare table directly; a third roll is not performed
 * The items grouped together are grouped for comparison only, they are not grouped in the table itself

The remaining 6 droptable slots each lead to a different subtable. These are discussed here and then the chances of each item follow in another table.

The animal mask droptable contains 3 slots, each assigned to an available animal mask (fox, unicorn, black unicorn). The dragon mask droptable contains 3 slots, each assigned to an available dragon mask (green, blue, red). The sack of effigies droptable has 30 slots; one of these is the sack of effigies, and the remaining 29 slots are unknown. The backstab droptable has 15 slots; one of these is the backstab cape, and the remaining 14 slots are coins (around 5,000). The dyes table has 10 slots; one of these is shadow dye, and the remaining 9 lead to another droptable. This table has 5 slots; one is barrows dye and the remaining 4 are coins (around 10,000) The 'mega rare' table contains 11 slots.
 * 1) Animal masks
 * 1) Dragon masks
 * 1) Sack of effigies
 * 1) *It is likely that the 29 lead to another droptable, with a the prismatic star and the explosive barrel contained somewhere within (as those are the only unspecified items and this is the only unspecified space)
 * 2) Backstab table
 * 1) Dyes
 * 1) Mega-rare
 * 1) * The parts of the gilded rune set take 1 slot each (5 total)
 * 2) * 4 slots are used by each potion set (1 slot each for 15 super energy, 15 super restore, 15 antifire, and 5 super 'sets' [attack, strength, defence])
 * 3) * 1 slot is a starved ancient effigy (or 2,500 coins if 5 effigies are already owned)
 * 4) * The final slot leads to another table. This final table has 12 slots, each occupied by a part of third age armour (mage, ranger, warrior sets).


 * All of the following items are part of one of the above subtables and are not directly on the rare table; a third (and sometimes fourth) roll is performed to obtain them
 * Notes

Elite
Elite clue rewards begin with a droptable with 14 slots. One of these enters the clue-specific droptable containing 52 slots; this table is documented below. Of the top level droptable, some of the remaining slots leads to the all clues table, and the remaining 12 are assigned to general reward items (mahogany planks, royal dragonhide, etc). (Technically the top level table is much larger than 14, but simplifies to very close to 1/14 to access the rare table.)

Elite clues generate a minimum of 4 reward spots and a maximum of 6, giving an average of 5 rewards.


 * Notes
 * All of the following items occupy one droptable slot on the rare table directly; a third roll is not performed
 * The items grouped together are grouped for comparison only, they are not grouped in the table itself

The remaining 5 droptable slots each lead to a subtable. These are discussed here and then the chances of each item follow in another table.

The dragon mask droptable contains 6 slots, each assigned to an available dragon mask (black, frost, bronze, iron, steel, mithril). The effigy droptable has 5 slots; one of these is an effigy, and the remaining 4 slots are coins (around 20,000). The star droptable has 20 slots; one of these is a prismatic star, and the remaining 19 slots are coins (around 20,000). The 'hard dyes' table (so named as it contains the two dyes also available in hard clues) has 22 slots; one of these is shadow dye, and the remaining 21 lead to another droptable. This table has 11 slots; one is barrows dye and the remaining 10 are coins (around 10,000) The third-age dye table has 70 slots; one is third-age dye, and the remaining 69 lead to another droptable. This table has 40 slots; 1 is the sack of effigies, and the remaining 39 lead to yet another droptable. This final table has 20 slots; one is the backstab cape and the remaining 19 is a triskelion piece. The 'mega rare' table contains 51 slots.
 * 1) Dragon masks
 * 1) Effigy
 * 1) Prismatic star
 * 1) Hard dyes
 * 1) Third-age dye
 * 1) Mega-rare
 * 1) * One of these slots leads to a second table containing the 5 slots, each assigned to one of the 5 parts third-age druidic
 * 2) * The remaining 50 slots also lead to another table; this one contains 3 slots, each assigned to one of the 3 god bows


 * All of the following items are part of one of the above subtables and are not directly on the rare table; a third (and sometimes fourth) roll is performed to obtain them


 * Notes