So, starting off, as soon as you enter the Old School Runescape world as a Free to Play player, you should start off by working your account up to Dragon Slayer, which allows you to use the Rune Plate Body, along with the Green Dragon Hide body.
Dragon Slayer requires at least level 32 quest points, which means you’re going to need to do quite a few Free to Play Quests before you can do the actual Dragon Slayer Quest. Doing this before you become a member means you’re one step closer to the 175 Quest Point requirement for the Grand Master Recipe for Disaster Quest.
Now, once you get off tutorial Island, this is what I recommend doing. So, firstly, you should head straight to cows and get yourself base 10 in combat levels. While you are doing this, you should pick up about 10-15 of the cow meat and then go cook it on a fire.
Once you have these, head over to Varrock, bank all your stuff except for the cooked cow meat, and go complete the Stronghold of Security for the free 10 000 coins. So then, with this 10 000, go straight to the Grand Exchange and buy yourself a steel scimitar and a metal scimitar for training. Also get yourself 6 normal clay, full copper ores, 2 iron ores, and 3 goblin mails. You can kill goblins for these, but it will save you some time just buying them on the Grand Exchange. You’ll also need to buy a bottle of orange dye, and a bottle of blue dye. So, then grab all of the items you just bought, except for the scimitars, out of the bank, and then head over to Doric.
Doric is located just outside of the entrance to Taverley. Speak to him to start the Doric’s Quest, and then hand him the ores and he will give you 1300 mining XP instantly. So, this will get you all the way to 10 Mining, which is actually a requirement for This Knight’s Sword Quest, which you should definitely do once you get a little bit of a higher combat level. Then after you complete Doric’s Quest, head North a bit into Goblin Village, and then really quickly complete the Goblin Diplomacy Quest, and that will give you 5 Quest Points. Now, from here, you can start knocking out all of the other super easy Quests, which have no requirements like Ernest the chicken, Romeo and Juliet, Sheep Shearer, Rune Mysteries, Restless Ghost, Cook’s Assistant, Witch’s Potion.
So, in between doing these quests, I’d recommend training at cows, and then heading over to the hill giants for a little bit of money form their Nature Rune and Limpwurt Root drops. Once you base about 20 in your combat stats, you’ll easily be able to do Vampire Slayer, which will shoot you from 20 Attack all the way up to 28 Attack. Now, from here, you’re pretty much set to train your combat stats all the way to base 40’s, but I’d recommend getting only 28 Range, and stopping there, since Member gain access to the Dorgeshuun Crossbow at this level, and it’s far better, far faster and far cheaper for range training. You should also stop at level 33 Magic in Free to Play, since that’s the highest you’ll ever really need to get most of the teleports and 33 Magic is a way to save yourself 10 000 coins in the Dragon Slayer Quest. You should train your Magic at the Lesser Demon on top of the Wizards Tower. Its usually kind of crowded, so I guess you could go kill cows, or even Hill Giants and safe spot them for Magic XP.
Now, once you’re done at 40 Attack, Strength and Defence, you’d have a very, very good chance of being able to kill Elvarg, the boss in the Dragon Slayer Quest. A rune scimitar, which you can hopefully afford from training at the Hill Giants for a while, is probably your best bet against Elvarg, but a cheaper alternative is to get a Rune Sword on stab. But, that’s only about 2000 coins cheaper anyway.
Now, with most of the Quests and Dragon Slayer complete, I’d consider your account almost ready to become a member. Before becoming members, there are a few more stats I’d recommend going for. First is level 40 Fishing for lobsters, which can be super conveniently fished at Catherby once you’re a member for some pretty decent starter money. The next one is 45-50 Woodcutting, since the XP rates are the same on Free to Play and Pay to Play since you would probably be getting the best XP from cutting Willows, which you can do almost anywhere in Free to Play. Lighting the logs you cut will get you up to around 50 Firemaking, provided you get around 40 Woodcutting. This is highly recommended before becoming a member, because this will give you access to the Wintertodt Minigame, which is great money, and great Firemaking XP, as well as some pretty good Woodcutting XP, and sometimes Fletching XP.Getting base 30’s or 40’s in all Free to Play skills would not even be a bad idea, since there aren’t really any other methods that would be beneficial as a member, compared to Free to Play in those skills. Don’t worry about training your Prayer though, as you will get about 13 Prayer from the Restless Ghost Quest. But, Prayer has the fastest methods in Pay to Play, and really not fast in Free to Play, so I’d recommend waiting until you have access to a Gilded Altar before getting up to about 43 Prayer.
Getting at least level 50 Defence and 50 Attack by the end of your Free to Play period will give you the absolute most out of your first period of membership, since you’ll be able to wear your first pieces of members only armour. Even 60 Attack would be really useful, along with 36 Woodcutting and 31 Crafting, because this is the requirement for the Lost City Quest, and to wear Dragon. The Lost City Quest unlocks the Dragon Longsword and the Dragon Dagger. Those are the first steps you should take as a member in Old School Runescape. With these base 50 or 60 combat stats, you’ll be set to go kill Green Dragons for some pretty good money in members, so you’ll be able to easily make your money back to be able to buy a bond and basically continue your membership for free, almost.