Dismemberment

What it does: creatures carry the wounds of the fight. Slash a creature with a sword, axe or knife and it keeps the cut on its skin. From half health down, every new cut is a deep gash that drips blood on the ground. Land the blow that takes it under 15 % and it dies on the spot. A sword or axe usually cuts it in two along the line of your swing: across the waist, through the chest, from a shoulder down to the hip, or a slanted beheading. Otherwise an arm, a leg or the head comes off. Big creatures only bleed; blunt weapons, arrows and magic leave no wounds at all.

The creature's body is the health bar.

Fits well with Crimson Blood. Dismemberment is made to go with the Crimson Blood mod: Crimson Blood paints the blood of every hit, the trails and the splats on the ground, Dismemberment adds the wounds, the severed limbs and the bodies cut in two, and the two never both put a wound on the same hit. Install both for the full effect (each also works on its own).

Version 0.2.0. Bodies cut in two along the swing, on the life-sized creatures of every biome.

New in 0.2.0

• Body cuts. A killing sword or axe blow can cut the creature in two. The cut follows your blade: a sideways slash cuts straight across, a diagonal or overhead swing cuts at a slant (up to 60 degrees). The two halves fall apart, each with a cut face of flesh, with a burst of blood and a spurt from each half. Seven in ten severing blows cut across the body (BodyCutChance); the rest still take a limb or the head.
• Cut halves and severed limbs roll for a moment, then come to rest instead of rolling on down every slope.
• Works on every creature with a ragdoll, including the ones whose meshes the game keeps off-limits to mods (draugr, ulv, dverger, asksvin). The Charred have no ragdoll and keep the limb severs.

Features

• Cuts and deep cuts sit on the creature's skin, move with its bones and are copied onto its corpse (except greydwarfs and greylings, whose corpse rig differs). Up to 8 per creature; the oldest is reused, so a long fight costs nothing extra.
• Wounds bleed slowly. Drops fall from every wound for a while and stain the ground where they land, so a wounded creature leaves a trail and a pool where it stood. Deep cuts bleed longer.
• Weapons matter. Swords, axes and knives cut and sever; swords and axes also cut bodies in two (knives only take limbs). Maces, spears, atgeirs, arrows, bolts and magic leave no wound at all. Wolf bites, fenring claws and bear swipes can tear other creatures apart.
• Severs and body cuts are always fatal and immediate, resolved by whoever owns the creature exactly like any other killing blow: kill credit, loot and ragdoll are vanilla's. Every player sees the same cut (the Charred have no ragdoll, so their severed limb is seen only by the player whose game runs them).
• A body cut is the creature's own mesh, sliced where the blade went and filled with flesh. The two halves lie where they fell and come back the same way when you leave and return.
• The severed limb is the creature's own mesh, flung by the blow in a burst of blood. It stays for up to ten minutes (with The Dead Remain, until the body is down to bones) while you are within 150 m of it; at most 12 are kept, the oldest going first.
• Big creatures only bleed. Trolls, lox, seekers, bears and the like get deep cuts but are never cut apart.
• Skipped entirely: skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, abominations, blobs, bosses, tiny fast creatures, and players. Everything is a config edit, not a rebuild.

Works with

• Crimson Blood: made to work together. Crimson Blood draws the hit blood and the trails, Dismemberment draws the wounds, the severs and the body cuts, and the two never both put a wound on the same hit.
• The Dead Remain: a body cut in two stays as one carcass in two pieces (scavengers can feed on either half), and a severed limb stays beside its carcass until the carcass is down to bones, while you are within 150 m of it.

Both are optional; Dismemberment runs on its own.

Console (F5)

The severable bones live in BepInEx/config/marc.valheim.dismemberment.bones.txt (PrefabName | BoneName | MinDamage | Weight | RagdollBone), written with defaults on first run.

Config

BepInEx/config/marc.valheim.dismemberment.cfg, also live in Configuration Manager (F1): wound and sever thresholds, the creature lists, which weapons cut, limb lifetime and caps, wound bleeding and drip stains. Body cuts: BodyCuts, BodyCutChance (0.7), BodyCutMaxTilt (60 degrees), BodyCutImpulse, BodyCutCaps, GutsPerBodyCut and BodyCutSkills (Swords, Axes).

Multiplayer

Install on every client. Cuts are local to each player; severs and body cuts are synced through the corpse, so every player sees the same limb come off and the same body cut in two. Not yet tested with two players.

Install

Install with r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager, or drop Dismemberment.dll into BepInEx/plugins/Dismemberment/.

Changelog

0.3.0

• Pick up severed limbs: once a limb lies still, E (or the new PickUpKey, P) picks it up with a reach. It hangs from your hand by its far end, stump down, in the torch stance; limbs 1.1 m or longer are carried in both arms.
• Attack throws it; E on nothing, P, R or taking out a weapon drops it. It also drops when you die, swim, sit, steer a ship, build or use a portal. R then draws your weapons again.
• A limb dropped or thrown onto a ship's deck or into a cart stays there and travels with it. A limb that lies on a floor, a rock or dug ground falls when that goes.
• Other players with the mod see the limb in your hand, the throw and the drop. The server needs nothing.
• With The Dead Remain: a carried limb no longer goes with its carcass, and you cannot pick up a limb while dragging a body (or drag one while carrying a limb).
• New console commands dm_pickup, dm_drop, dm_throw.
• New config section 8 - Carrying: EnableCarrying, PickUpKey, ThrowSpeed, CarryHeavyLimbsTwoHanded.
• Thrown limbs do not hurt creatures yet.

0.2.0

• Body cuts: a killing sword or axe blow can cut the creature in two along the line of the swing (straight across, slanted up to 60 degrees, from the hips to a slanted beheading). The cut follows the blade's real movement; each half gets a flesh cut face, a burst and a spurt of blood. 7 in 10 severing blows by default (BodyCutChance); the rest still take a limb or the head.
• Works on every creature with a ragdoll, including those whose meshes are not readable by mods.
• Cut halves and severed limbs roll for a moment, then come to rest.
• New console command dm_cut [slant] [turn] [height].
• New config: BodyCuts, BodyCutChance, BodyCutMaxTilt, BodyCutImpulse, BodyCutCaps, GutsPerBodyCut, BodyCutSkills.

0.1.0

First release.

• Cuts above half health, deep cuts below it, a fatal sever below 15 % (slashing weapons, plus wolf, fenring and bear attacks).
• Severed limbs built from the creature's own mesh, synced through the corpse so every player sees them.
• Wounds drip blood that stains the ground.
• Creature-on-creature wounds and severs (wolves, fenrings, bears and the like).
• Works with Crimson Blood and The Dead Remain.