This guide explains what happens when your character dies on Apex, including which items are protected, when other players can receive your loot, and what happens to perked or charged items.

Quick answer: normal deaths outside the Wilderness and PvP zones are safe. Dangerous deaths use the Items Kept on Death rules.

Safe deaths

If you die outside the Wilderness, outside a PvP attack zone, and you were not killed by another player, your death is treated as safe.

You respawn at home.
Your inventory and equipment are kept.
Your skull is cleared after death.
Your stats, prayer and health are restored as part of the normal respawn flow.
A bones item is spawned at the death location, but your gear is not dropped.

Safe deaths are the normal result for most PvM and skilling mistakes. The dangerous rules below are mainly for Wilderness and PvP situations.

Dangerous deaths

A death becomes dangerous when it happens in the Wilderness, in a PvP attack zone, or when another player is your killer. Dangerous deaths run through the Items Kept on Death system.

Situation	What happens
Unskulled	You keep your 3 highest protect-value items.
Unskulled with Protect Item	You keep your 4 highest protect-value items.
Skulled	You keep 0 items.
Skulled with Protect Item	You keep 1 item.
Ultimate Ironman	You keep 0 items, even if the normal rules would keep more.
High-risk skull	Protect Item is disabled, so do not rely on the +1 protected item.

Protected items are chosen by protect value, not by Grand Exchange price or personal preference. You can preview the current result from the equipment tab's Items Kept on Death button before risking gear.

If a player kills you

When another player kills you, tradeable lost items go to the killer unless a Wilderness key captures the loot. Untradeable lost items are handled separately and are generally spawned for you instead of handed to the killer.

If the killer is a normal account, tradeable lost items can appear for the killer at your death tile.
If the killer is an Ironman, tradeable loot is not handed to them in the same way.
If a Wilderness key is created, the lost items are stored inside that key instead of dropping item-by-item.
A regular bones item also appears at the death location.

Players using the hide-free-items setting will not receive items marked as free.

If something else kills you in the Wilderness

If you die dangerously without a player killer, such as to an NPC in the Wilderness, lost items are spawned for you at the death tile for a short time. You must return quickly if you want to recover them.

Do not treat Wilderness PvM as safe just because an NPC landed the final hit. The death is still dangerous because it happened in the Wilderness.

Untradeables, pets and special items

Not every item simply drops as-is. Apex has special handling for several item families:

Pets are kept on death.
Untradeable items are usually kept unless Wilderness or PvP rules convert, delete or downgrade them.
Breakable items are kept outside Wilderness/PvP. In Wilderness/PvP they may become their broken version, and a player killer may receive the repair-cost coin value.
Upgradeable items are kept outside Wilderness/PvP. In Wilderness/PvP they may downgrade to their regular item, or add part of the upgrade cost to the killer's loot.
Combined items can split back into their components when lost.
Rune pouch and divine rune pouch contents are emptied into the lost-items list.
Looting bag contents are dumped into the lost-items list when the bag is lost.

Charged and degraded gear

Some charged or upgraded equipment converts before it is dropped. Common examples include toxic weapons, crystal equipment, Wilderness weapons, nightmare staves, dragonfire shields and tomes.

Item type	Death behavior
Toxic blowpipe	Darts and scales are separated, then the blowpipe becomes uncharged.
Serpentine helm or toxic staff	Scales are separated and the item becomes its uncharged form.
Viggora's chainmace, Craw's bow, Thammaron's sceptre	Ether is separated and the item becomes its uncharged base form.
Crystal armour	Converts into crystal armour seeds in Wilderness/PvP deaths.
Bowfa or Blade of saeldor variants	Can convert into crystal shards in Wilderness/PvP deaths.
Nightmare staves	Split into the base nightmare staff plus the matching orb.
Dragonfire shield, wyvern shield, dragonfire ward	Lose charges and convert to their uncharged versions.
Degraded items marked `(deg)`	Convert into 5,000,000 coins when lost in Wilderness/PvP.

Perked items

Perked gear keeps its attached perks only if the item itself is protected or otherwise kept by the death system.

If a perked item is one of your protected items, its attributes are copied and kept.
If a perked item is lost and dropped, its custom attributes are cleared before it appears on the ground.
If a perked item downgrades or converts during a dangerous death, expect the perk attachment to be lost unless that converted item is explicitly kept by the death rules.
The pet perk named Keep Bonus Death Items currently does not add extra protected items.

In plain terms: do not risk perked gear unless you are comfortable losing the perk. Check the Items Kept on Death interface first.

Risk Protection

Risk Protection is a PvP quality-of-life setting that helps prevent low-risk players from attacking players looking for equal-risk fights. It does not make your items safe after death.

Tier	Risk protected
Tier 1	10,000+ coins risk
Tier 2	25,000+ coins risk
Tier 3	50,000+ coins risk

You cannot toggle Risk Protection while inside the Wilderness.
If your current risk is too low, the system lowers your protection tier automatically.
If you attack someone below your protection value, your protection is forfeited for 10 minutes.

Best habits

Use the Items Kept on Death interface before bringing expensive gear into the Wilderness.
Remember that skull status changes everything: 3 protected items becomes 0.
Protect Item matters only when it is active and not disabled by a high-risk skull.
Assume perked gear can lose its perk if it is not protected.
Bank rune pouch contents, looting bag contents and charged items before risky trips if you do not want them converted or dropped.