🛡️ ODINBET – FORGE OF POTENTIAL

Gamble on your gear. Or lose it.
💬 Join the Discord

What this mod does

Forge of Potential turns the Refinement Forge into a real gambling table. In vanilla Valheim, refining is a button that sometimes works, and you control almost none of it. With this mod, you set every number: the odds, what happens when you lose, what it costs, how long it takes, how far it can go, and what the whole server gets to hear about it.

Eleven systems, each one switchable on its own:

💡 Out of the box, nothing fails. UpgradeSuccessChance defaults to 100, so refinements always succeed until you lower it. See the ready-made presets near the end for setups that actually gamble.

Multiplayer: with the mod installed on a dedicated server, the server enforces its config values on every client that connects (in memory — nobody's local .cfg is overwritten on disk). The server also makes sure every player who has the mod runs the same version (see Version lock). Without the mod on the server, every player just uses their own .cfg.

⚠️ Read this before installing

• A large part of the code was reviewed with AI assistance, including validating every patch target against the metadata and IL of the game's assembly_valheim.dll. That caught real bugs, but it is not a substitute for real testing by real players.
• In other words: there may be bugs. If you hit one, please report it.
• 🐛 Report bugs on Discord: https://discord.gg/aMkN89Cuas
• When reporting, it helps a lot to include your .cfg, the BepInEx LogOutput.log, and what you expected to happen. If you can, turn on VerboseLogging = true (the Debug section) before reproducing it — it writes exactly what the mod did on every refinement.

Installation

With a mod manager (recommended): install through Thunderstore Mod Manager, r2modman or Gale. BepInEx comes along as a dependency.

Manually:

1. Install BepInExPack Valheim.
2. Copy OdinBet_ForgeOfPotential.dll and the Translations folder into BepInEx/plugins/ (side by side — the Translations folder is what drives the per-player message language, see below).
3. Run the game once. BepInEx/config/OdinBet.ForgeOfPotential.cfg is generated with every option commented.
4. Edit it and restart.

Dedicated server: same DLL, same BepInEx/plugins/ folder. Installing on both sides is recommended — that way the server enforces the config and nobody plays with different numbers.

Updating from 1.2.1: just update and play. Update the server and every player together (the version lock keeps a 1.2.1 player out of a 1.3.0 server). Keep your .cfg: it updates itself on the first start and keeps your values. Items keep their Infusions and the Hall of Fame keeps every record. Details in the changelog.

How the game resolves a refinement (and where the mod steps in)

Worth understanding, because the settings make far more sense afterwards.

target = item's current level + 1
roll   = random number between 0 and 1

if (idol's upgrade chance >= roll)        -> SUCCESS: item comes back at the target level
else if (idol's break chance >= 1 - roll) -> BROKE:   item is gone, some ingredients come back
else                                       -> FAILED:  item comes back one level LOWER

Note this: losing a level is already what a normal failure does in Valheim. "Destroying the item" is a separate, rarer branch. The mod does not rewrite that logic — it writes your configured numbers into the right fields before the craft and restores them afterwards. That is the safest possible approach: no game code is rewritten.

📖 Every setting

File: BepInEx/config/OdinBet.ForgeOfPotential.cfg

Everything is server-synced except the settings marked local (VerboseLogging, EnableInfusionEffects, EnableThunderNightMessage, EnableThor, EnableOdinScene) and the two server-only Multiplayer options.

The file only holds switches and numbers. Every text the mod shows (messages, chat lines, tooltip lines) lives in the Translations/ folder, in 15 languages — see 🌍 Multi-language messages.

🔌 Feature Toggles section

Master switches. Turn a whole system off here if you only want the others.

🎲 Upgrade Settings section — the gamble

This whole section only applies while EnableUpgradeChanceAndCostTweaks = true.

The odds

⚠️ FailureBreaksItemChance is a share of the failures, not of all attempts. With UpgradeSuccessChance = 80 and FailureBreaksItemChance = 50, the real outcome is: 80% success, 10% destroyed, 10% level lost.

What a failure does

What happens when an item is destroyed

💡 Why you probably want BreakReturnsItemAtLevel1 = true: refunded materials are metals and ores, and those cannot go through a portal. A player who fails a refinement far from home is stranded with a pile of metal and no way back. Handing the finished item back at level 1 keeps the loss real while letting them portal home.

📝 Useful combination: FailureAtMinimumLevelBreaksItem = true + BreakReturnsItemAtLevel1 = true → a level 1 item can never be lost outright; it just comes back at level 1 and the idol is gone.

Level cap

Valheim deliberately skips its own max-quality check when the station is an upgrader, so without this mod there is no ceiling at all at the Refinement Forge.

⚠️ Honest caveat: the craft button in the UI stays enabled. The block happens on the click — nothing is consumed, but the button is not greyed out. Greying it out would mean patching the game's crafting UI, which breaks far more easily on a game update.

Ingredient cost scaling

The idol cost can grow as the item gets higher.

The cost can never go below 0, whatever is in the config.

Example with the defaults (starts at 6, +1 every 2 levels): levels 1–5 cost 1 · levels 6–7 cost 2 · levels 8–9 cost 3 · and so on.

Craft duration

🔨 Crafting section

🚫 How the blacklist works: it is checked first, before MaxUpgradeLevel or any other setting gets a chance to allow the attempt. If an item's prefab name is on the list, the craft is blocked outright and nothing is consumed. The player sees a message in the middle of their screen (key ItemBlacklistedMessage in the Translations/ files). Example:

BlacklistedItems = SwordBronze,ArmorIronChest

📜 Recipes section — the 16 Idols

The 16 Idols (Upgrader0Armor … Upgrader7Weapon) already exist in Valheim 1.0. This mod only adds craft recipes for them.

Format for each recipe: PrefabName:Amount, comma-separated.

That is 16 entries in the .cfg, one per idol: Wooden Protection Idol, Wooden Battle Idol, Bronze Protection Idol, and so on through Bloodgold Battle Idol.

🎯 Every tier requires the boss trophy. That is on purpose: refining gear of a given tier should mean you beat the boss of that tier.

⚠️ About tier 7: Valheim 1.0 ships no head trophy for the Deep North boss (Kall). What he drops reliably is FrozenKingDrop (Sacrificial Blood), and that is what went into the recipe. If a future update adds a TrophyFrozenKing, just swap it in the .cfg.

💡 Two practical notes:

• Boss trophies also unlock powers at the Sacrificial Stones. Spending one on an idol consumes it — but bosses can be summoned again and trophies stack to 20.
• If a prefab name does not exist in your build, the mod logs a warning and builds the recipe without that ingredient instead of cancelling the whole recipe. Worth checking the BepInEx log the first time you run it.

🏗️ Refinement Forge Area section

How the exemption works, and why it is safe: it is not based on the location's name. The mod checks whether a crafting station flagged as an upgrader exists within the radius of the spot being built on. That is exactly the Refinement Forge and never a boss altar. Altars, crypts and every other protected location keep their protection.

⚠️ Two honest caveats:

• This also allows terrain modification in that area (the game uses the same check for both).
• If the Refinement Forge can be built by players, a large radius turns into a portable "build anywhere" bubble. That is why the default is 32, not 200.

🚫 Turning the forge off

Want to close the Refinement Forge — for an event, for a while, or for good? Set EnableRefinementForge = false (in the Feature Toggles section).

• Nobody can open the forge, refine, or repair there. The craft buttons are greyed out, and a player who tries to use it sees a message in the middle of the screen (key ForgeDisabledMessage in the Translations/ files).
• Changed in-game (for example with Configuration Manager) or received from the server, it applies right away, even for someone who already has the forge window open. If you edit the .cfg file by hand, restart the game to be safe.
• Only the Refinement Forge is affected. Other crafting stations work as usual, and so do the lightning storm, building near the forge, and crafting the Idols.
• On a server with the mod, the server's choice applies to everyone connected.

⚠️ Three honest caveats:

• The lock is applied by each player's own game, so it only works on players who have the mod installed. Anyone without it can still use the forge.
• Players running a different version of the mod are disconnected by the version lock (on by default) — except versions older than 1.1.0, which cannot be detected (see Version lock).
• Hovering over the forge still shows the usual "use" hint. The message appears when the player presses the key.

⚡ Thunder Night and Elemental Infusions

An optional reward layer on top of the Refinement Forge. It never changes the refinement itself: the success chance, the cost, failures, levels lost, destruction, resets, the blacklist and the messages all work exactly as you configured them. A Thunder Night only looks at a refinement that has already succeeded and, sometimes, adds an Infusion to the item.

_{Thunder over the Refinement Forge. The lightning storm is the show of a Thunder Night.}

⚠️ On by default. A server that updates to this version starts having Thunder Nights with Infusions on its own. Set EnableInfusions = false (Thunder Night section) to opt out of the Infusions. A Thunder Night has two parts, each with its own switch — the Infusions (EnableInfusions) and the lightning storm (EnableStorm) — and with both off, Thunder Nights do nothing at all.

How it works

1. Every night is its own draw. When night falls there is a ThunderNightChance (default 20%) that it is a Thunder Night. Each night is independent — 20% does not mean "one night in five". The answer is the same for everybody in the world, is not stored anywhere, and does not change when the server restarts; a player who joins in the middle of a Thunder Night sees the same night as everyone else. Players in the world get a message when one begins (ThunderNightMessage); EnableThunderNightMessage = false hides it.
2. Refine as usual. The forge decides success or failure with your normal settings — vanilla odds or any configuration of this mod.
3. A failure gets nothing. No Infusion, and the failure is handled exactly as before (levels lost, destroyed, back at level 1…). A Thunder Night can never save an item, undo a level loss or change a failure.
4. A success on a Thunder Night gets a second roll. ThunderNightInfusionChance (default 30%) that the item receives an Infusion. This is a separate roll made after the success; it neither raises nor lowers the chance to succeed.

There is no other hidden chance, luck bonus or pity system.

What an Infusion is

An item can carry one Infusion: an element (Fire, Frost, Lightning, Poison or Spirit) and an Infusion level.

• First Infusion: the element is picked at random from the five (capes: from Fire, Frost and Poison), and the Infusion level is the item's new refinement level. A weapon that already deals an element of its own (Frostner, for one) keeps that element instead of drawing a new one.
• Item already infused: the element never changes and is never joined by a second one. The Infusion level grows: new Infusion level = current Infusion level + the item's new refinement level.

If the roll does not succeed, the item keeps its Infusion exactly as it was (Lightning 9 stays Lightning 9 while the item goes from level 9 to 10). The Infusion level has no cap; it is a progression counter, not the bonus itself.

What an Infusion does

Other item types (tools, torches, capes with no armour…) are never infused.

Element effects on armour, capes and shields

All of this lives in the new [Infusion Effects] config section and is synced by the server. Everything grows with the Infusion level on the same flattening curve as the main bonus (InfusionHalfLevel) and never passes its cap.

Resistance (armour and capes). Fire → fire, Frost → frost, Poison → poison, Spirit → spirit, Lightning → lightning. Resistant below ArmorResistanceLevelForVeryResistant (default 5), Very Resistant from it on. Two pieces with the same element don't add up — the best one counts. A piece that is already weak to that type is never turned resistant by its own Infusion. Immune is off by default: set ImmuneMinInfusionLevel above 0 and a Tier 6 armour piece (base Armor 19 or more) whose Infusion level reaches it makes you immune to its element.

Good to know: in vanilla Valheim any frost resistance removes both Freezing and Cold in the Mountains and the Deep North. So a single Frost-infused piece keeps you warm there, the way wolf armour does.

Secondary bonus (helmet, chest, legs; not capes).

Cape biome bonus. Frost: faster in the Mountains and the Deep North. Poison: faster in the Swamp. Fire: faster in the Ashlands and less lava damage (up to FireCapeLavaDamageReductionMaxPercent, default 55%, hard limit 95% — lava always hurts). Speed: walking and running up to CapeBiomeSpeedBonusPercent faster (default 10%). It is pure speed: the stamina cost of running, jumping and dodging is not touched.

Shield procs. When you block, the shield hits the attacker with its element: Fire burns, Frost slows it for 2–4 seconds (3–6 on a parry), Poison poisons, Lightning staggers on the spot, Spirit burns it with spirit fire (Undead only — a Spirit shield also gets its Block Power bonus twice against the Undead). A monster that resists frost is not slowed, as in the base game. A parry with a shield that can parry always triggers it; any other block rolls ShieldBlockProcChance (default 25%, growing towards 50% with the level). Strength = Block Power × the shield's Infusion bonus, with the same small minimums as weapons. The same element can't hit the same attacker again for 5 seconds.

Frost smoke. When a Frost Infusion takes hold on a monster — a hit of your Frost weapon or the strike-back of your Frost shield — a white, icy smoke pours off its body and sinks to the ground for as long as the chill lasts. Only the player who hit sees it, and EnableInfusionEffects = false turns it off with the rest.

Every infused armour piece, cape and shield shows a "Bonus: …" line under the Infusion line in its tooltip (translated; the InfusionSecondaryTooltip_* keys of the Translations/ files).

Infusion Effects section (synced by the server; every setting takes effect immediately):

The thirteen "Bonus: …" texts are not in the .cfg: they live in the Translations/ files (InfusionSecondaryTooltip_* keys).

🔄 Coming from 1.2.1: this section is new and is added to your .cfg with the defaults above. Armour and capes that were infused in 1.2.1 start giving their resistance and bonus right away — worth knowing for your server's balance.

The real bonus is calculated separately from the level:

bonus = item stat × InfusionMaxBonusPercent × level ÷ (level + InfusionHalfLevel)

It rises quickly at first and then flattens out towards InfusionMaxBonusPercent, however high the level goes — so an uncapped level does not become an uncapped bonus. With the defaults (12% and 30):

The damage, Armor and Block Power numbers in the item's tooltip already include the bonus, and a line at the bottom (key InfusionTooltip in the Translations/ files) names the element and level.

Every item gets the same percentage; a stronger item still gets a larger absolute bonus, because the percentage applies to a larger stat.

Tier. Valheim has no Tier field, so the mod works one out from the item's own base stat before any refinement (estimates for vanilla gear): armour is Tier 6 from 19 base Armor. It only matters for immunity (ImmuneMinInfusionLevel).

Infusion effects

An Infused weapon or shield shows its element's own effect over the whole item — in your hands, put away on your back, and lying on the ground:

▶ Watch the new Infusion effects (GIF)

_{The new infusion effects on a club and a wooden shield.}

• Only the element effect. The item's own material is never recoloured and nothing pulses. Armour and capes have no visual at all — their Infusion shows in the tooltip and works through the element effects above.
• Made by the mod itself from plain particles and lines (plus the game's fire and soft glow), emitted from the item itself, no external assets. If an effect cannot be built on your game version, that item shows flames in its element's colour instead.
• On the ground. An Infused weapon or shield that is dropped (or spills out of a broken container) keeps its effect while you are within 40 m.
• Cheap by design. At most 24 Infused items worn around you (your own always count) and 24 on the ground; other players and ground items farther than 40 m are skipped. The Fire and Lightning lights cast no shadows (at most 8 Fire and 6 Lightning lights at once).
• Other players who have the mod see your effects too. Purely visual: it never changes the bonus.
• One setting in the Infusion section, local (never synced from the server, so each player chooses for themselves):

It stays with the item

• The Infusion is stored on the item itself, in the per-item data the game already saves. It survives closing the game, restarting the server, chests, dropping and picking the item up, equipping and unequipping. The mod keeps no separate save file or database for Infusions.
• Refining again keeps it: the mod carries it over to the item the game creates. A failed refinement that only costs levels keeps it too.
• It is lost only when the item is destroyed, or when BreakReturnsItemAtLevel1 hands back a new level-1 item.
• Two identical items can carry different Infusions.
• EnableInfusions = false stops new Infusions only. Existing ones keep working.
• Without the mod, the item behaves as a normal vanilla item and the Infusion sits unused on it; with the mod back, it works again.

Settings

Thunder Night section:

With both switches false, Thunder Nights do nothing at all: no show, no Infusions, no message. A Thunder Night only exists at night (18:00 to 06:00), so hours outside the night never take effect; use, for example, 22 and 4 to limit both the show and the Infusion draw to the deep night.

Infusion section:

A new Infusion always draws from all five elements (capes: Fire, Frost or Poison), and a weapon that already deals an element keeps its own. The Thunder Night and Infusion texts live in the Translations/ files (see 🌍 Multi-language messages); their on/off switches are in the Notifications section. Every setting here takes effect immediately and is enforced by the server on every player who has the mod (except the ones marked local).

Known limitations

• The Infusion is decided on the player's own game, like the rest of the refinement, and written on the item there. The server enforces the numbers (chances, bonus formula) but cannot verify an item, so a player running a modified game could give themselves an Infusion — exactly as they could already edit any item. This is how Valheim is built.
• Only players with the mod get the bonus. It is calculated by the mod on each player's own game: weapon damage by the attacker's game, Armor, Block Power, resistances and the other armour / cape / shield effects by the defender's.
• Other mods that also change the damage, Armor or Block Power the game reports for an item can stack with or override an Infusion. The mod only touches its own three OdinBet_* entries in the item's data and no one else's.
• The night is judged when the refinement finishes, not when it starts.
• Nothing to migrate: items refined before this version simply have no Infusion.
• The Lightning storm is the show of Thunder Night and is limited by the same night and hours, but it has its own switch: you can keep either, both or none.

🏆 Hall of Fame

Turns the eight standing statues around the Refinement Forge into guardians of eight server-wide rankings. Look at one and, if the feature is on, [E] Consult the Hall of Fame appears — press it to open that ranking's panel.

_{One of the eight statues around the Refinement Forge, and the panel it opens.}

The panel: the ranking's name, an italic tag line, a boxed description of what it measures, and always ten rows (unclaimed ones show as —). Click a player's name to see their Steam profile link — it's copied to the clipboard right away, and a separate "Open profile" button opens it in the browser (clicking a name never opens anything by itself). One OK button closes the panel; so do Esc, pressing E again, walking away from the statue, or EnableHallOfFame being switched to false while it's open.

The Forge Master and The Relic of the Forge share the same underlying records — one per player and item type, the best level that combination ever reached — but rank them differently, so they no longer show near-identical lists:

• The Forge Master lists every record, highest item level first. This is the ranking of pure refinement skill: it can (and usually does) show the same player more than once, once per item type they refined far.
• The Relic of the Forge only lists records that carry an Infusion, ranked by the strongest Infusion first — not by item level. It is empty until someone's item is infused on a Thunder Night, and stays a normal, unclaimed — row until then, the same as any other ranking with no entries yet.

Both rankings show a line ending with the Infusion the item carried when its record was set, for example Iron Sword - level 20 (Lightning Infusion 45). Only an Infusion this mod gave the item is shown: a Frostner that was refined but never infused stays a plain Frostner - level 13, however much frost damage it has from the game itself, and simply never appears in The Relic of the Forge. If the item later reaches a higher level, or its Infusion grows, the record is replaced, so an older, weaker version never stays in the list. "The same item" means the same item type of the same player (the game gives items no unique id): two different Iron Swords of one player are one record, the best of them. The element name comes from the game's own text, so it appears in each player's language. Records made before 1.2.0 simply have no Infusion, so they can only ever show up in The Forge Master. Players updating from 1.1.0 keep every record they already had — nothing is migrated or reset, only how the two panels sort and filter it.

Tracked by Steam ID, not by character. The same person keeps the same record across characters, and across worlds hosted on the same server. A player on a platform without a Steam ID is still tracked (so they still show up and still get credit), just without a profile link.

The database is never the thing that gets switched off. EnableHallOfFame (Feature Toggles section, on by default) only controls the statues: with false they go silent — no hover text, no panel. Every refinement keeps being recorded underneath regardless, so switching the Hall off for a while (an event, a break from the feature) never loses data; set it back to true and the rankings are complete again immediately.

🔒 Security detail, same principle as the rest of this mod's networking: a client only ever asks the server for the ten rows of the ranking currently open, over the same authenticated per-connection channel the server config uses — never a broadcast. The server checks the request before answering, and refuses outright while the feature is off, so a modified client cannot get rankings that way either. Every name and item that reaches the panel is cleaned first (no formatting tags, capped length). On a single-player game, or the game hosting the world, there is no network round-trip: the database is read directly.

Fully translated, the same way every other message in this mod is: the panel's text lives in the Translations/*.json files (not the .cfg — around forty strings for wording alone would have meant that many new synced settings) and shows up in each player's own Valheim language automatically.

⚠️ Two honest caveats:

• The panel is built for a mouse. With a gamepad, Esc / B still closes it, but a row's name and the profile-link button cannot be selected.
• Which statue guards which ranking is fixed — matched to the ring around the Forge itself, not to any particular world, so it holds on every save, but it is not currently configurable from the .cfg.

⛈️ Lightning storm

The show of a Thunder Night. While one is under way, the sky above the Refinement Forge comes alive: lightning strikes again and again, joined by a mix of other effects in the air, all within about 70 metres of the forge.

_{The Lightning storm show over the Refinement Forge on a Thunder Night.}

_{Thor flies by over the Refinement Forge during the show.}

• Purely visual. Everything happens high above the ground, so buildings, players and creatures around the forge are never damaged.
• Nothing to download. It only uses effects that already exist in Valheim.
• Only on a Thunder Night. It plays when the night has been drawn as a Thunder Night (ThunderNightChance) and the clock is inside ThunderNightStartHour – ThunderNightEndHour (the whole night by default).
• Its own switch. EnableStorm (Thunder Night section) turns only the show off; Infusions keep working. Applies right away when changed in-game or by the server; after editing the .cfg by hand, restart the game.
• Starts when you get close. The show plays while you are within about 200 metres of the Refinement Forge.
• Independent of the forge switch. It keeps running whether or not the forge is disabled.

⚠️ One caveat: each player's own game draws the show, so only players who have the mod installed see it. On a server with the mod, the server's values apply to everyone connected.

⚠️ Flashing lights: the show has bright, rapid flashes. If you or your players are sensitive to flashing light, set EnableStorm = false — and remember that a server's setting applies to everyone connected, who can't switch it off individually.

Coming from 1.1.0? The old Forge Storm section (Enabled, StartHour, EndHour) no longer exists. If it was Enabled = false (the default), the update keeps EnableStorm off for you too. To get back the old every-night behaviour between 22:00 and 04:00, see the last presets below.

👁️ Odin's visit

_{Odin and Thor clash over who is worthy of the forge during a Thunder Night.}

On a Thunder Night, the gods come to the forge. Each time you arrive within about 100 metres of the Refinement Forge and no other player is standing at the forge itself, the camera leaves you for about 25 seconds. It starts the moment you arrive — also right after coming through a portal next to the forge:

1. The camera glides to the forge; the HUD hides, black cinema bars slide in, the screen edges darken and the music and wind drop.
2. Odin is already there, standing beside the forge — the game's own Odin, just as you know him, in a soft cold light — and his two ravens land at his sides.
3. Odin calls the storm: a column of light rises from him into the sky, sparks climb it, and the sky answers with flashes and thunder.
4. He vanishes in his smoke, the ravens fly up and away, and in the silence the camera turns to the sky…
5. Thor's chariot rushes over your head, hurling bolts at the ground, and a huge bolt strikes the forge: a blinding flash, thunder, the camera shakes, and the forge smokes and glows.
6. The camera returns to you.

• You are safe while it plays. It uses the game's own cutscene mode (the one of the arrival intro): you cannot act and you cannot be hurt.
• Esc skips it. It also ends by itself if an enemy comes close, and it never starts with enemies around, in a menu, in a dungeon, in bed, on a seat or boat, in the water or in build mode.
• When it plays again. After the scene, it waits until you have been more than 200 metres away from the forge and come back — or until the next Thunder Night.
• Odin and Thor talk. A short, subtitled exchange about who is worthy of the forge, shown in the bottom cinema bar in your language.
• A calm sky. A snowstorm or blizzard would hide everything, so the weather is clear while the scene plays and goes back to what it was afterwards (only on your screen).
• The storm steps aside. While the scene plays, the Thunder Night show pauses, so nothing gets lost among its bolts and only one chariot crosses the sky.
• Everyone sees their own. Each player's own game plays it when that player arrives; players who arrive together, or who are there when a Thunder Night begins, see it at about the same moment. Nothing is sent over the network and nothing in the world changes.
• Light on the game. Outside a Thunder Night the scene and the lightning show are switched off completely; the mod only glances at the clock at nightfall and once per in-game hour to see whether one begins. During a Thunder Night it checks every 2 seconds, and 4 times a second only when you are close to a forge, so the scene starts right as you arrive.
• Outdoors only. The mod looks for a camera spot with a clear view of the forge; if the forge is closed inside a building, the scene simply does not play.
• Its own local switch: EnableOdinScene (Thunder Night section, default true). It also needs EnableStorm, since the scene has bright flashes too.
• Nothing to download. Odin, the ravens, Thor, the smoke and the thunder are the game's own; the column of light, the glow and the bolt are drawn by the mod.

⚠️ Flashing lights: the strike has a bright flash. EnableOdinScene = false turns the scene off for you.

Testing it: with devcommands on, type odinbet_odin in the console (F5) near a Refinement Forge to play it right away, whatever the night.

🔒 Multiplayer section — version lock

Server and players must run the same version of the mod, or they would play by different rules. On a server that has the mod, the version lock makes sure of it. Both settings only matter on the server, live in the server's own .cfg, and are not synced.

How it works: when a player with the mod joins, their game tells the server which mod version it runs. The server compares it with its own; if they differ, the player is disconnected and the reason (the player and both versions) is written to the server log.

⚠️ Honest limits:

• A disconnected player sees the game's normal disconnect screen, with no text about the mod. Tell your players: disconnected right after joining = the mod version differs from the server's.
• Versions older than 1.1.0 cannot answer the check, so the server cannot tell them apart from players who have no mod. RequireModToJoin keeps them out — and everyone without the mod too. It's on by default for that reason; turn it off only if you're fine with some players playing by different rules.
• Without the mod on the server, nothing is checked.

📢 Notifications section

Everything the mod tells players: the line in every player's chat, the message in the middle of the screen of the player who refined, and the Thunder Night message. Only switches live here — the texts themselves are in the Translations/ folder, in each player's own language (see 🌍 Multi-language messages).

NotifyOnSuccess, NotifyOnFailure, NotifyOnBreak and MinimumLevelToNotify only filter the chat. The Infusion announcements follow EnableGlobalNotifications alone. The messages that explain why an attempt was blocked (maximum level reached, blacklisted item, forge disabled) are always shown to the player who tried.

Why EnableLocalNotifications is worth leaving on, even if you like the game's wording:

1. Some Valheim 1.0 builds ship without a translation for those tokens and show a raw [msg_upgrader_failed] on screen instead of a sentence.
2. The game writes its text before the mod has finished deciding the outcome. With BreakReturnsItemAtLevel1 or a LevelsLostOnFailure other than 1, the game's wording no longer matches the item the player actually received. The mod's text does.

💬 Heads-up: each announcement also opens the chat window for every player, so nobody misses it. On a busy server, raise MinimumLevelToNotify or turn EnableGlobalNotifications off if that gets noisy.

🔒 Security detail: what travels over the network is structured data only (player name, item token, levels, outcome) — never a finished sentence. Every client renders the text locally. That means two good things: the text and the item name show up in each player's own language, and nobody can broadcast arbitrary text by editing their own files.

🔄 Coming from 1.2.1 or older: the old Local Messages and Global Notifications sections are merged into this one on the first start, together with EnableThunderNightMessage from Thunder Night. Your switches, MinimumLevelToNotify and the prefix are carried over (ReplaceGameUpgradeMessages → EnableLocalNotifications, EnableGlobalUpgradeNotifications → EnableGlobalNotifications, GlobalNotificationPrefix → NotificationPrefix), and the old text lines are removed from the file. A wording you had customized in the .cfg is not carried over — change it in the Translations/ files instead.

🌍 Multi-language messages

Every text the mod shows — the centre-screen messages, the chat lines, the tooltip lines, the Hall of Fame panel and the dialogue of Odin's visit — lives in the Translations/ folder and shows up in each player's own language, automatically. None of it is in the .cfg: that file only holds the switches.

How it picks the text, for each message: the file of the player's game language → English.json → the English text built into the mod. A missing key or file never leaves a message blank and never crashes anything.

Included out of the box (15 languages): English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Europe), Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Swedish.

Where it lives: BepInEx/plugins/.../Translations/<LanguageName>.json — one flat file per language. File names match Valheim's own internal language names exactly (Portuguese_Brazilian, Portuguese_European, etc.) — that's how the mod knows which file belongs to a player's game language. The keys:

• Chat: SuccessMessage, FailedMessage, BrokenMessage, ResetMessage, InfusionMessage, InfusionStrengthenedMessage.
• Centre of the screen: LocalSuccessMessage, LocalFailedMessage, LocalBrokenMessage, LocalResetMessage, LocalInfusionMessage, LocalInfusionStrengthenedMessage, MaxLevelReachedMessage, ItemBlacklistedMessage, ForgeDisabledMessage, ThunderNightMessage.
• Tooltips: InfusionTooltip and the thirteen InfusionSecondaryTooltip_* "Bonus: …" lines.
• Hall of Fame: the Hall_… keys. Odin's visit: the OdinScene_… keys.

Placeholders (they are filled in by the mod; keep them as they are):

• Chat lines: {Prefix} (the NotificationPrefix setting), {PlayerName}, {ItemName}, {Level} (attempted level), {ResultLevel} (final level). The two Infusion lines take {Prefix}, {PlayerName}, {ItemName}, {Element} and {InfusionLevel} instead.
• Centre-screen results: {ItemName}, {Level}, {PreviousLevel}, {ResultLevel}. The two Infusion messages: {ItemName}, {Element}, {InfusionLevel}, {Level} (the item's new refinement level). MaxLevelReachedMessage: {ItemName}, {Level} (current level), {MaxLevel}. ItemBlacklistedMessage: {ItemName}.
• InfusionTooltip: {Element}, {InfusionLevel}.

The element names (Fire, Frost, Lightning, Poison, Spirit) and the item names come from the game's own translations, so they always appear in each player's own language.

✏️ Changing a wording: edit that key in the file of your language (and in English.json for players whose language has no file). Each player reads their own files — on a server, share the edited file with everyone (in your modpack, for example) so they all see it.

🙈 Hiding a message: leave its text empty ("InfusionMessage": ""). The mod then shows nothing for it. That works for any message, chat line or tooltip line, in the language files where you empty it.

💡 Adding a language yourself: drop a new <LanguageName>.json in Translations/ with the same keys, matching the exact language name Valheim itself uses internally. No recompiling, no code changes. A key you leave out falls back to English.

🐞 Debug section

Turn this on if a result does not match what your .cfg says. The log shows:

Refine start: 'SwordIron' level 4 -> 5, upgraderResource=True, successChance=50%, ...
Refine result: 'SwordIron' 4 -> 3 (LevelLost) [game text replaced: "..."]

If the Refine result line does not appear, the mod's hooks are not running at all — the problem is the patch, not the config. Those two lines are the most useful thing you can attach to a bug report on Discord.

🧩 Ready-made config presets

Hardcore (a real gamble):

UpgradeSuccessChance = 50
FailureBreaksItemChance = 25
LevelsLostOnFailure = 1
BreakReturnsItemAtLevel1 = true
FailureAtMinimumLevelBreaksItem = true

Painless (only the cost matters):

UpgradeSuccessChance = 100
FailureBreaksItemChance = 0
LevelsLostOnFailure = 0

Risky, but I never lose the item:

UpgradeSuccessChance = 70
FailureBreaksItemChance = 0
LevelsLostOnFailure = 1
MinimumLevelOnFailure = 1

Forge closed (nobody can refine or repair):

EnableRefinementForge = false

Some items are off-limits, everything else refines normally:

BlacklistedItems = SwordBronze,ArmorIronChest

Thunder Night every night, every success infused (for testing):

ThunderNightChance = 100
ThunderNightInfusionChance = 100

Thunder Nights with the show, but no Infusions:

EnableInfusions = false

Thunder Nights with Infusions, but no lightning show (existing Infusions keep working either way):

EnableStorm = false

No Thunder Nights at all (existing Infusions keep working):

EnableStorm = false
EnableInfusions = false

Thunder Nights only from 22:00 to 04:00:

ThunderNightStartHour = 22
ThunderNightEndHour = 4

The 1.1.0 storm back: every night, 22:00 to 04:00 (this also makes every night a Thunder Night for Infusions, so add EnableInfusions = false if you only want the show):

ThunderNightChance = 100
ThunderNightStartHour = 22
ThunderNightEndHour = 4

Just the Idol recipes, nothing else touched:

EnableUpgradeChanceAndCostTweaks = false
EnableCraftDurationTweaks = false
EnableGlobalNotifications = false
EnableCustomRecipes = true

Compatibility and known limitations

• Valheim 1.0 with BepInEx 5.
• Client and server need the same mod version. On a server with the mod, the version lock (see Version lock) disconnects players who have a different version. Where it cannot act — the lock switched off, or a version older than 1.1.0 that cannot answer — a mismatched player is not disconnected: their game ignores the server's sync packet (with a log warning) and uses its own .cfg.
• MaxUpgradeLevel does not grey out the craft button; it blocks on the click.
• EnableRefinementForge = false only stops players who have the mod installed, and the forge's "use" hint still shows on hover — the message appears on the key press.
• The whole refinement is resolved on the client — that is how Valheim is built. Config sync makes the server enforce its values in memory, which covers someone editing their .cfg, but not someone running a modified DLL.
• Infusions (see ⚡ Thunder Night and Elemental Infusions) are decided on the player's own game and only give their bonus to players who have the mod.
• Cost scaling affects any recipe requirement flagged as an upgrader resource. In practice, only refinement recipes carry that flag.
• Without the mod on the server, none of this changes: every client just uses its own .cfg.

Inspiration

Inspired by ReforgedPotential by akuichi.

This mod adds a global announcement system with multi-language support, full percentage control over outcomes, a level cap, on-screen message replacement, forge-area build exemption, a lightning storm and Elemental Infusions on Thunder Nights, a switch to shut the forge down completely, and its own server-side configuration synchronization.

Found a bug? Got an idea? Want to show off a refinement that went horribly wrong?
💬 https://discord.gg/aMkN89Cuas