Bloated toad
| File:Bloated toad.png | |
| Release date | 18 May 2004 (Update) |
|---|---|
| Members? | Yes |
| Quest item? | Yes |
| Tradeable? | No |
| Equipable? | No |
| Stacks? | No |
| High Alch | 0 coins |
| Low Alch | 0 coins |
| Value | 1 coin |
| Destroy | Release |
| Store price | Not sold |
| Examine | An inflated toad. |
| Weight | 0.7 kg |
Bloated toads are used to catch chompy birds during and after the quest Big Chompy Bird Hunting. Their variant, coloured toads, are used in the quest Mourning's Ends Part I. They cannot be banked. If a player attempts to bank them, this message appears: "A magical force prevents you from banking this item!"
Use a ogre bellows which has been loaded with swamp gas on a swamp toad to get a bloated toad which is placed in the inventory. Only three toads may be obtained at one time. Attempting to get a fourth toad gives the message: "One of your bloated toads manage to escape. You manage to catch the toad and inflate it with the swamp gas."
Bloated toads may be dropped in the ogre area in Feldip hills (north of the hunter area). Players attempting to drop them elsewhere are told "You won't attract a chompy bird this far away from the ogre area". Once dropped, they have a chance of causing a chompy bird to land. They will eventually explode, and the blast used to cause minor injury to a player standing near the exploding toad.
Note that bloated toads cannot be used to create a Barker toad pouch for Summoning. The swamp toad item must be used.
As an anti-bot measure
Previously, several players using bloated toads could kill people (usually bots) cutting ivy south of Castlewars, as that was still within a chompy hunting area, by placing toads around someone so that they would explode and eventually drain them of health; currently a single person cannot kill someone using toads as damage will not be caused to someone past 50 life points but multiple toads exploding at once while just above 60 can combo them past. As such, killing a player using method involved at least two players working in tandem.
In June 2011, Jagex change the exploding toads in a hidden update such that they no longer cause damage to players on low health. In a forum post, a Jagex moderator claimed that this was done to prevent "legitimate players" from dying outside the Wilderness. In response, some players accused Jagex of deliberately making the game easier for bots, countering that any reasonable legitimate player would not easily die from such tricks.
Nevertheless, certain players still claimed to be able to kill other players this way until another hidden update in August 2011 removed the ability for exploding toads to do damage altogether.