So I think the Jester's Hat is very underrated for money making potential, particularly in Ancient Relics mode. I did a quick search and haven't found anyone else really talking about this or recommending it, so I'll go into how this item works, and how it may be the best way to make GP in Ancient Relics mode until late TotH content.


The hat is an item that is a unique drop from thieving the court jester. Wearing it gives -75 Stealth, and yes, it's a penalty that lowers the player's stealth value while thieving. This (rightfully) turns a lot of people away by making the item more of a liability than an asset, because you'd either want to use the golbin mask (+20 stealth) or the Chapeau Noir (+10% doubling in thieving). However, the Jester's Hat also says 'When you pickpocket a unique item gain flat GP equal to 0.5-3x its value'.

What's not immediately obvious is that the extra GP gained from the Jester's Hat ability is multiplied by the same increases to GP gained from thieving. So if you have the 50% mastery checkpoint (+100% GP gained from thieving) and are wearing the thieving skillcape (+100% GP gained from thieving), you get +200%, or 3x GP, so now the Jester's Hat gives flat GP equal to 1.5-9x an item's base value.


Another thing to note is that, as far as I can tell from testing, the extra GP from the hat only multiples the value by 1 item in a stack instead of the value of a stack. So, for instance, stealing from Bob the Farmer and getting 10x Basic Bags, the extra GP would be a multiple of the value of 1 Basic Bag (4,000 GP) and not the stack of bags (40,000 GP).

So the area with the most value unique area items is the Royal Castle (conveniently, the area the court jester is located), and this includes the Throne of Herald areas. The Antique Vase is 30,000 GP, the Chest of Gems is 19,200 GP, and the Ring of Wealth is 11,200 GP. The only other items in any area that are close are the Knight's Cape (9,950 GP), the Shipwheel (10,000 GP), and the Giant's Club (15,000 GP).


The base chance to receive an area unique item is 1/500, or 0.2%. The Hunter's Journal from Throne of the Herald increases this by 0.01%, or about a 5% increase. The better way is the 95% mastery checkpoint, which increases Area Unique drops by 200%, or 3x, to a drop chance of 0.6%.

However, in Ancient Relics mode, Relic 6 for Thieving, the one you get by finding all other relics, increases the Area Unique Item chance by 0.5%. Depending on the order of how this is added with the multiplier from the 95% checkpoint, this translates to a 1.1% or a 2.1% chance of a unique area item. Based on my testing, it seems like not only is the chance a 2.1% drop, but this is applied independently to EACH area item, meaning that for every 100 successful thieving attempts the player will get 2.1 of each area unique item, on average.


So assuming you have the followings:
- Ancient Relic mode
- 95% mastery checkpoint for thieving
- Enough skill level ups in thieving to reach the court jester (accessible at thieving level 79)
- Located all thieving ancient relics

With the above, you can really start to benefit from using the Jester's Hat. Here is an example of potential earnings, and understand that there's even more potential bonuses not included:
+50% - Court Jester (or Royal Court target) mastery level 50
+50% - Pet Snek
+50% - Thieving Relic 3
+100% - 50% thieving mastery checkpoint
+100% - Aorpheat's Ring
+10% - Thiever's Cape
+10% - Fine Coinpurse
+5% - Jeweled Necklace

+375% - TOTAL (or a 4.75x multiplier)

This means that the 0.5x-3x range for each area item found is further multiplied by 4.75. So here's the new range when finding an area item:
Antique Vase - 71,250 - 427,500 GP (249,375 GP on average)
Chest of Gems - 45,600 - 273,600 GP (159,600 GP on average)
Ring of Wealth - 26,600 - 159,600 GP (93,100 GP on average)

Total average earnings per set of 3 = 502,075 GP

On average the player will find one of each of these items about every 50 actions (2%). The starting interval is 3 seconds for thieving, here are some basic interval reductions:
- Court Jester (or Royal Court target) mastery level 50 (-0.2 seconds)
- Gloves of Silence (-0.1 seconds)
- 25% thieving mastery checkpoint (-0.2 seconds)

Like above, there are many other interval reductions to be found. But just these 3 bring the interval down to 2.5 seconds. This means that, on average, the player will receive 1 of each area item every 50 intervals, or every 125 seconds. So that is 502,075 GP/125 seconds, or 14.46 million GP/hour, just from the Jester's Hat alone. This value would then be reduced by the success rate, assuming the rate is anything less than 100%.

And that brings us to the player's stealth and success rate. It's very likely that when the court jester is first unlocked, the player will not have enough sources of stealth to reach 100% success with the court jester. Another advantage of the Ancient Relic mode is Thieving Relic 5, which prevents all damage in thieving (and relic 4 which is +150 Stealth). This makes the court jester free to steal from without needing food, although it does lower the overall income by the success rate percentage. The calculation here is a bit complicated, because a failure in thieving causes a stun which increases the overall average interval time, so a 90% success rate would be less than 90% of the income calculation above. And then Thieving Relic 2 prevents the stun 30% of the time. For anyone interested, I believe this is the correct formula for an effective thieving interval per success:

Effective Interval = [Success Interval] + [Failure Interval] + [Stun Interval]
where:
Success Interval = Interval
Failure Interval = ( (1/success chance) - 1) * (Interval)
Stun Interval = ( (1/success chance) - 1) * (Stun Duration) * (Stun Interval Chance)
where:
Effective Interval => How long to get 1 successful attempt, on average
Interval => Listed interval for an action in thieving
Failure Interval => Adjustment for time spent on failed attempts
Success Chance => Likelihood of success, where 100% = 1 and 90% = 0.9, etc
Stun Interval => Adjustment for time spent stunned
Stun Duration => Length of stun, default is 3 seconds
Stun Interval Chance => Chance that a stun occurs, default is 1, this is reduced by Relic 2 to 0.7, but other items can also reduce this.


To try and summarize the above, higher success chances are better because it means less time spent on failed attempts and being stunned. An interval of 3 seconds with a 90% success rate has a new effective interval of 3.66 seconds, an interval of 2.5 seconds with an 80% success rate will have an effective interval of 3.875 seconds, and so on.

Anecdotally, I was using thieving in Ancient Relics to earn money, and had managed to find all the thieving relics long before reaching level 99 in thieving. I was stealing from the miner/squire to the tune of about 3-4 million/hour. This jumped to 15-18 million/hour thieving the court jester while wearing the jester's hat with basically no other changes (and about an 80% success rate on the court jester). This jumped up again once the court jester reached level 99 mastery, to about 22 million/hour, because the extra stealth pushed the success rate to like 95%. Then once I hit thieving level 99 and got the skillcape, earnings went to 40-45 million/hour. Considering this was without a number of potential increases like Ko constellation in Astrology, I think this is better GP/hr than any other base game GP making strategy I'm aware of.


Q/ Why do this?
If you're in Ancient Relic mode and looking for a good mid-game money making strategy, this is the best one. It has low requirements to access compared to many other money making strategies, only requiring 5 level-ups to thieving to reach the court jester, and no other skill level requirements. However, it does also require finding all of the ancient relics for thieving.

Q/ Doesn't X/Y/Z earn more GP?
Yes, eventually this will be outpaced by other money making options, but those tend to be later in Throne of the Herald content and require high levels in many different skills. This is not a guide for how to maximize earnings, and is instead pointing out that I think the Jester's Hat item synergizes uniquely well with Ancient Relics mode, and that no other GP making methods I am aware of generates anywhere near this amount of GP for this point in the game.

Q/ Can I do this in Standard/Hardcore/Adventure Mode?
Yes, but the income potential is much lower (~25% what you get in Ancient Relics mode, at best).

Q/ What if I don't have all the thieving relics?
As above, income potential is much lower. This really depends on both the 95% mastery checkpoint AND thieving relic 6 to boost unique area item chance as high as possible.



If you're playing Ancient Relic mode and looking for a way to make GP, try out the Jester's Hat. All you need is enough level ups in thieving to reach court jester, and to find all the thieving ancient relics. Once you do, equip the Jester's Hat, go back to steal from the court jester, and watch the money pour in.