Tortoise - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

Two of these tortoises and one Tortoise (Level 92) with gnome riders can be found in a pen in the northern part of the Gnome Stronghold. To get there easily, use a ring of duelling to teleport to Al-Kharid and run west to the gnome glider; take it to the Grand Tree. Go down two levels and use the bank there.

When ready to fight, go down and exit the Grand Tree and run northwest. The tortoises are just north of the swamp.

Equipment

You can fight these using any method, but melee is fastest. Wear standard gear for meleeing, and regular maging or ranging equipment to fight them from safespots.

Supplies

Use super sets as always, but at high levels you do not need food because they drop plenty of them. Mid-level players will probably need some added healing, but cheap food like salmon is probably fine.

Familiar

The tortoises are near a bank but have valuable unstackable drops -- notably the tortoise shells -- so I recommend bringing a beast of burden.

Combat Notes

The level 79 tortoises are straight-forward melee monsters that do not hit very hard. The level 92 tortoises have gnome riders, and the mage and range will pepper you with weak attacks while you fight the tortoise. After the beast is slain the gnomes will jump off and attack you. They are very, very weak, however, and can essentially be ignored. The only issue with the gnomes is that they slow you down because you have to kill them. The level 92 also has more life points.

Since the two tortoise types have identical drops, I recommend sticking to the level 79 monsters if you aren't so high level that you kill them faster than they respawn. If you are, do a level 92 tortoise while waiting for the level 79 ones to return.

Note that you do not always need to kill all three of the gnomes when they jump off the level 92 tortoise; only bother with the ones that attack you.

If you want to make more money, bank the big bones to resell them; this does mean more frequent banking.

Drop Notes

These are very good drop monsters that some players kill specifically for drop value. Their most important drop is tortoise shells and perfect shells; the former are worth a lot of money because they are the secondary ingredient in very useful war tortoise familiars; the latter can be traded to Barlak in Dorgesh-Kaan for 500 Crafting XP plus 600 gold. Tortoises are a good source of wergali seeds, which were added as a special drop when that herb was added to the game. Tortoises also provide various other drops, including logs, arrows, the occasional herb and lots of noted cabbage... for those that are into that sort of thing. :)

Tortoises occasionally drop two items at once, especially when one of the items is an herb.