Skuld

Death no longer erases your skills — it puts them in debt.

Skuld is a Valheim BepInEx mod that replaces vanilla hard-death skill loss with repayable per-skill debt. When you die on a hard death, the skill levels you would have lost become debt instead. Your actual skill levels stay where they are. While debt remains, earned XP is split between normal leveling and paying that debt down. Once a skill's debt reaches zero, it earns XP at full speed again.

Named after Skuld, the Norn who weaves the future — your fate is not erased on death, only deferred.

Support & feedback

Bug reports, feature requests, and questions:

• Team Extreme Discord — setup help, testing, and updates
• GitHub — Skuld — source code and issues

When reporting a problem, include your mod version, single-player or multiplayer, and any other skill or death-related mods.

Features

• Debt instead of loss — Hard-death skill reduction becomes per-skill debt; levels are not lowered
• XP split paydown — While debt exists, earned XP is shared between leveling and debt repayment
• Focus paydown — Voluntary 100% paydown on chosen skills via /focus (your choice, per character)
• Skill panel display — Maroon debt segment on the gold level bar plus red -X debt label
• Configurable visuals — Bar color, text color, and text size ([Visual], client-only)
• Hover progress — Skill row tooltip shows remaining debt and paid-off progress
• Chat commands — Debt overview, lifetime stats, and focus status
• Debt cap — Optional per-skill maximum debt (scales with your level at death)
• Soft-death clarity — Message when a soft death occurs (no debt added)
• Debt cleared feedback — Optional halo + sound when a skill's debt hits zero
• Server config sync — Gameplay tuning from server/host while connected (see Multiplayer)
• Character persistence — Debt survives death, respawn, and save/load
• Private to you — Debt is stored in your character save data, not synced to other players

How the debt system works

Hard death only

Skuld only applies on hard deaths — the same deaths that trigger vanilla skill loss (roughly one hard death every 10 minutes of real time). Soft deaths do not add debt and do not trigger vanilla skill loss. On a soft death you see: "Soft death — no skill debt".

What happens on a hard death

For each skill with a level above zero, Skuld calculates the vanilla loss amount:

rawDebt = skillLevel × deathFactor

That amount is not subtracted from your skill level. Instead:

1. Current debt increases by the raw amount (subject to cap — see below)
2. Lifetime debt increases by the full raw amount (never decreases)
3. Paid-off baseline resets to the new current debt (paid-off progress starts over for this death cycle)

You also get a short summary message listing which skills gained debt.

Paying debt down

Whenever you earn XP in a skill that has debt, Skuld splits the gain:

• A configurable share goes toward debt paydown (server rule in multiplayer)
• The rest goes toward normal leveling

If the paydown share would exceed your remaining debt, only enough XP is used to zero the debt — the leftover goes to leveling (no XP is wasted).

Default split: 50% paydown / 50% leveling (DebtPaydownShare = 0.5).

Focus paydown (player choice)

Use /focus to voluntarily send 100% of earned XP in a skill toward debt until that debt clears:

/focus woodcutting
/focus all
/focus off
/show focus

Focus is stored on your character (not server config). It clears automatically when debt for that skill reaches zero. Focus does not affect other players.

Three tracked values per skill

Paid-off progress (shown in tooltips and /show debt):

paidOff = baseline − currentDebt

Lifetime repaid (shown on /show debt lifetime <skill>):

lifetimeRepaid = lifetimeIncurred − currentDebt

Debt cap (MaxDebtPerSkill)

By default, current debt per skill is capped at 3× the raw debt from the most recent death. The cap floats with your level — higher-level skills allow more total debt before the cap bites.

• MaxDebtPerSkill = 3 (default) — cap is 3 × rawDebtThisDeath
• MaxDebtPerSkill = 0 — uncapped
• Lifetime debt always records the full uncapped raw amount, even when current debt is clamped

In-game display

Skill panel (Tab → Skills)

Skills with debt show:

• A maroon segment on the trailing portion of the gold level bar (debt in skill levels)
• A red -X label at the left edge of the bar (rounded whole number)

Vanilla blue +X set bonuses are unchanged. Skuld does not modify SEMan skill modifiers.

Hover tooltip

Hover a skill row with debt to see exact progress appended below the vanilla skill description:

-1.2500  (1.2500 paid off)  [focused 100%]

Post-death message

After a hard death, a top-left message summarizes debt added (e.g. Debt: Wood Cutting +2.5, Run +1.1).

Debt cleared (optional)

When a skill's debt reaches zero, you get the usual center message ("{Skill} debt repaid"). If EnableDebtClearedSound = true, a short halo + sound plays (client-only).

Chat commands

Type these in chat (leading / is optional).

Skill names are flexible — woodcutting, Wood Cutting, and WoodCutting all work.

Configuration

Config file: BepInEx/config/com.cdjensen99.skuld.cfg

[General] — gameplay

Server synced means: when you join a multiplayer server, the server sends these three values for your session. Your local cfg file is not modified. On disconnect, your local settings apply again.

[Visual] — client-only (not server synced)

[Dev] — server/host only (not server synced)

Tuning tips

• DebtPaydownShare = 0.5 — Balanced; half your XP levels the skill, half pays debt
• DebtPaydownShare = 1.0 — All XP goes to debt until cleared; skills won't level until debt is zero
• MaxDebtPerSkill = 3 — Prevents runaway debt stacks on repeated deaths at high levels
• MaxDebtPerSkill = 0 — Debt can grow without cap

Dev commands (testing only)

When EnableDevCommands = true on the server/host cfg:

These are registered as Valheim cheat commands (isCheat: true), require devcommands, and mark your character as having used cheats. Leave EnableDevCommands at false for normal play.

Installation

Requirements:

• BepInEx Pack for Valheim

Install via r2modman, Thunderstore Mod Manager, or manually:

1. Install BepInEx Pack for Valheim
2. Install Skuld
3. Launch the game

No Jotunn or other framework dependencies.

Multiplayer

• All players need Skuld installed for debt mechanics and UI on their own character.
• Gameplay rules (EnableMod, DebtPaydownShare, MaxDebtPerSkill) come from the server/host while connected. Clients receive a short join message with the active rules.
• Focus paydown, visual settings, and debt-cleared sound stay per player — not synced.
• Debt is stored in Player.m_customData (your character save), not on the networked player ZDO. Other players cannot read your debt values.

Compatibility notes

• Replaces vanilla Skills.OnDeath skill loss on hard death — incompatible with mods that also patch hard-death skill reduction differently.
• XP paydown hooks Player.RaiseSkill — may interact with mods that alter skill gain rates.
• Skill panel display patches SkillsDialog.Setup — cosmetic only; does not affect SEMan bonus display.
• Skill-cap mods (best-effort): The debt bar scale follows the skills panel level bar. Tested on vanilla only. Compatibility with skill-cap mods (e.g. SkillLimitExtender) is not author-tested — please report issues on Discord or GitHub.

Credits

Skuld by Hardwire99 / cdjensen99

Named after Skuld, one of the Norns of Norse mythology who weave the threads of fate.

Changelog

0.3.4

• Debt-cleared feedback reliability — Attach halo to the player head bone (vanilla skill-up path), use crafting-bonus pop with fallbacks, and log clearly if EnableDebtClearedSound is still off. Default for that setting is now true (existing configs must be set to true once).

0.3.3

• Fix Dodge (and similar) debt paydown — Debt XP split now hooks Skills.RaiseSkill. Dodge awards XP by calling that method directly and never went through Player.RaiseSkill, so debt stayed stuck while the skill still leveled.
• Debt-cleared feedback — When enabled, uses a red-tinted skill-levelup halo plus the vanilla crafting-bonus pop (InventoryGui.m_craftBonusEffect).

0.3.2

• Fix server config sync crash — Removed ambiguous ZNet.GetPeer reflection lookup (two overloads exist); peers are resolved via GetPeers() instead.

0.3.1

• Fix startup crash — Server config sync patched ZNet.Stop, which does not exist in Valheim; now correctly hooks ZNet.Shutdown to clear the session overlay on disconnect.

0.3.0

• Server gameplay config sync — EnableMod, DebtPaydownShare, and MaxDebtPerSkill are pushed from server/host to joining clients for the session (in-memory only; local cfg unchanged). Join message shows server rules; mismatch warning if local EnableMod differs.
• [Visual] config section — global DebtBarColor, DebtTextColor, DebtTextSize (client-only, not server synced).
• Maroon debt bar — debt segment on the gold skill level bar, with configurable colors.
• Debt cleared feedback — optional client-side halo + sound (EnableDebtClearedSound, default off).
• Soft-death clarity — top-left message: "Soft death — no skill debt".
• Lifetime repaid — /show debt lifetime <skill> shows lifetime incurred and lifetime repaid together.
• Focus paydown — /focus <skill|all|off> and /show focus for voluntary 100% paydown until debt clears (per-character, not server synced).
• Skill-cap mod compatibility (best-effort) — debt bar scale follows the skills panel level bar; not author-tested with skill-cap mods — please report issues.
• Dev commands — EnableDevCommands is server/host only (not server synced); still requires Valheim devcommands and admin rights.

0.2.0

• Paid-off baseline tracking — paidOff = baseline − currentDebt (replaces lifetime-based progress display)
• MaxDebtPerSkill config — cap current debt per skill (0 = uncapped, default 3)
• Paydown overshoot fix — leftover paydown XP routes to leveling when debt would be exceeded
• DebtPaydownShare range — now 0.5–1.0 (default still 0.5)
• Lifetime commands — /show debt lifetime <skill> and /show debt lifetime all
• Privacy confirmation — debt stored in Player.m_customData (character save), not player ZDO
• Thunderstore release package with icon and documentation

0.1.9

• Remove F8 / ShowDebtKey hotkey surface.
• Add /show debt all for a readable multi-line rounded debt overview.

0.1.8

• Fix skill-panel debt hover by appending progress to the existing row UITooltip (same system as vanilla skill descriptions).
• Make F8 print a readable one-skill-per-line rounded overview to chat; exact decimals remain on /show debt <skill>.

0.1.7

• Track lifetime debt incurred per skill and show remaining + paid-off progress (4 decimals) on F8, /show debt <skill>, and skill-panel hover tooltip.
• Skip CP-06 exp-estimate approach in favor of this progress display.

0.1.6

• Show red -X debt text on the vanilla skill panel via SkillsDialog.Setup postfix (sibling of bonustext, does not touch SEMan).

0.1.5

• Persist debt in Player.m_customData (character save) instead of ephemeral player ZDO floats that die on respawn.
• Expand F8 debt-check diagnostics to log player identity, storage path, and per-skill keys.

0.1.2

• Add dev-only console commands gated by EnableDevCommands (default false).

0.1.1

• Add unconditional runtime diagnostics for death and skill patch entry.
• Add patch-registration startup logging for key Harmony targets.
• Bump version to avoid stale duplicate-plugin resolution.

0.1.0

• Initial scaffold and MVP debt mechanic implementation.