FortifySkillsReborn

FortifySkillsReborn is a fork of FortifySkillsRedux by Searica (itself a remake of the original FortifySkills mod), updated for Valheim 1.0 and maintained by dethkube. It changes how skills are lost on death. Rather than being punished for dying by losing a flat 5% of every skill, you are instead rewarded for staying alive for longer. This is achieved by adding a new fortified skill level for each skill that is used when you die to reset your skills to their fortified skill level. This means that no matter how many times you die, your skills will never drop below their fortified skill levels.

Server-Side Info: This mod does work as a client-side only mod and only needs to be installed on the server if you wish to enforce configuration settings.

Supported Game Version

Updated for Valheim 1.0 (built and verified against 1.0.12, Deep North). Requires Jotunn 2.30.0 or newer.

Skills added by the game since the previous release (Polearms, Crossbows, Dodge and Ride) get their own configuration sections automatically.

Renamed from FortifySkillsRedux

This mod was renamed from FortifySkillsRedux to FortifySkillsReborn, which changes the plugin GUID and therefore the config file name:

• Old: BepInEx/config/Searica.Valheim.FortifySkillsRedux.cfg
• New: BepInEx/config/dethkube.Valheim.FortifySkillsReborn.cfg

If you are coming from FortifySkillsRedux, uninstall it first — running both at once means both will patch the same methods and your XP rates will be applied twice. Your existing settings are not carried over automatically; copy them into the new file if you want to keep them.

Note that the default XP values have changed in this fork (see Configuration below).

Installation

Via Mod Manager (Recommended)

• The best way to install the mod is using r2modman and installing it from Thunderstore.
• The next best way is to use Thunderstore Mod Manager.

Manual

• Download and install BepInEx Pack
• Download and install Jotunn
• Download this mod and move FortifySkillsReborn.dll into <GameLocation>/BepInEx/plugins

Mechanics

The Fortify skill level increases very slowly at first but if you get your active level significantly higher that your fortified level it will level a little quicker giving you an incentive not to die. Because of this your fortified level may fall a long way behind your active level if you stay alive for a long time and you can lose more than you would with the vanilla 5% penalty. By default your active skill XP is left at vanilla rates; if you want to offset that risk you can raise Active Skill XP Multiplier in the config.

There are two major gameplay advantages to this:

• A string of deaths won't destroy your skill level. No need to worry about the No Skill Drain buff ending just before you die.
• Less used skills won't wither away completely from the occasional death. If you use one weapon type a lot early game but then switch to something else, now a few deaths without training the original weapon skill won't completely reset it.

Your Fortify skill level will be displayed in parenthesis in your skill list next to your active skill level.

Configuration

Changes made to the configuration settings will be reflected in-game immediately (no restart required) and they will also sync to clients if the mod is on the server. The mod also has a built in file watcher so you can edit settings via an in-game configuration manager (changes applied upon closing the in-game configuration manager) or by changing values in the file via a text editor or mod manager.

Global Section

Verbosity

• Low will log basic information about the mod. Medium will log information that is useful for troubleshooting. High will log a lot of information, do not set it to this without good reason as it will slow down your game.
  • Acceptable values: Low, Medium, High
  • Default value: Low.

Keep All Items on Death [Synced with Server]

• Whether to keep all items on death.
  • Acceptable values: False, True
  • Default value: false.

Keep Equipped Items on Death [Synced with Server]

• Whether to keep your equiped items when you die."
  • Acceptable values: False, True
  • Default value: false.

Use Individual Settings [Synced with Server]

• If enabled, use the config settings for each individual Vanilla skill and the Modded skill config settings for all skills added by mods. If disabled use the config setting from the Mechanics section for all skills.
  • Acceptable values: False, True
  • Default value: false.

Mechanics

Active Skill XP Multiplier [Synced with Server]

• Controls XP gained for the active skill level. 1 = base game XP, 1.5 = 50% bonus XP, 0.8 = 20% less XP.
  • Default value: 1.0

Max Fortify Skill XP Rate [Synced with Server]

• Controls maximum rate of XP earned for the fortified skill as a percentage of vanilla XP rates. Values below 1 mean that fortified skills will always increase slower than vanilla skills. Values above 1 mean that fortified skills can increase faster than vanilla skills if your active skill level is high enough.
  • Default value: 0.5

Fortify Skill XP Per Level [Synced with Server]

• Controls XP gained for the fortified skill. For every level the active skill is above the fortified skill increase the percentage of XP gained for the fortified skill by this amount up to Max Fortify Skill XP Rate.
  • Default value: 0.1

IndividualSkills Section

There is a section with the same config settigns for each skill in the Vanilla game and one additional section for all skills added by mods. These settings are only used if Use Individual Settings is Enabled and they allow you to customize the XP gains for each individual skill.

Building from Source

The project targets net48 and builds with the .NET SDK on Linux, macOS and Windows:

dotnet build -c Release

A Release build also assembles the Nexus and Thunderstore packages under Publish/. A Debug build instead copies the plugin straight into your BepInEx plugins folder.

Two things have to be found on disk: your Valheim install (for the game assemblies, which are publicized at build time) and a BepInEx install (for BepInEx.dll and 0Harmony.dll). Both are auto-detected, including Steam's default Linux/macOS/Windows locations and r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager profiles. If detection picks the wrong place, override it without editing anything:

dotnet build -c Release \
  -p:VALHEIM_INSTALL="$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Valheim" \
  -p:BEPINEX_PATH="$HOME/.config/r2modmanPlus-local/Valheim/profiles/Default/BepInEx"

Use -p:R2ModManProfile=MyProfile to point at a mod manager profile other than Default, and -p:MOD_DEPLOYPATH=... to change where Debug builds deploy. See environment.props for the full list.

Note: Jotunn ships its own assembly publicizer, but it is a .NET Framework MSBuild task that dotnet build cannot load, so it is bypassed in favour of the cross-platform BepInEx.AssemblyPublicizer.MSBuild. This is why no Windows-only prebuild step is needed.

Compatibility

All skill mods by Smoothbrain

• The XP multiplier settings in this mod stacks multiplicatively with the XP multiplier in Smoothbrain's skill mods.
• If you set EnableIndividualSettings to True and keep ModdedSkillXPMult set to 1.0 it will not impact the XP gain rates of Smoothbrain's skill mods while still letting you customize the skill gain rates for Vanilla skills via the IndividualSkills XP multiplier settings.

Incompatibilities

• May have issues with anything that changes the SkillsDialog text in-game.

Notes

• If you want to be extra cautious you can back up your character files, as this mod changes how those files are written. They live in:
  • Windows: %appdata%\..\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\characters
  • Linux (native build): ~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/characters
  • Linux (Proton): ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/892970/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/LocalLow/IronGate/Valheim/characters
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/unity.IronGate.Valheim/characters
• Your Fortify skill level will be set to 95% of your current skill level when you first install it so dying immediately will have the same effect as the base game.
• If you remove this mod your character will be fine, the fortify skill level will disappear and the current skill level will stay the same (including levels gained due to the faster leveling from this mod).

Source Code

Source code is available on Github.

Github Repository:	FortifySkillsReborn

Contributions

If you would like to provide suggestions, make feature requests, or reports bugs and compatibility issues please open an issue on the Github repository.

Credits

This mod is based on the original one made by Merlyn42 and the patched version was made by Remeil. This mod is a complete rewrite of the original though as the original stopped working several game updates back and has no license. My thanks to Merlyn42 for the original idea though! Also, many thanks to the developers of Jotunn for all their work making the library. Also many thanks to Searica for all their work, happy I could update this for the 1.0 release!

Credits and License

• Original FortifySkills mod: Merlyn42, with a later patched version by Remeil.
• FortifySkillsRedux, which this mod is forked from: Searica.
• This fork (FortifySkillsReborn): dethkube, https://github.com/dethkube/FortifySkillsReborn

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE. This is a modified version of FortifySkillsRedux; changes made in 2026 include updating the mod for Valheim 1.0, cross-platform build support, and new default XP values.