SkillsReworked

SkillsReworked completely reworks Valheim’s progression system and turns it into a more classic RPG-style experience:

• A new Level skill with its own XP bar
• Skill points you can freely spend on your active skills
• Rebirth to fully respec your character
• Prestige with permanent bonus points
• Dynamic XP and skill caps based on your world progress
• Optional group XP sharing (with the Groups mod)
• A clean, convenient skills UI directly in-game

Everything is designed to be intuitive – you don’t need to touch config files or understand modding internals to play.

1. What does the mod do?

Instead of active skills (Swords, Bows, etc.) leveling “on their own”, there is now a central Level system for them. Passive skills (like Jump or Pickaxes) still level through use as in vanilla Valheim:

1. You gain Level XP when you kill enemies.
2. When you level up, you receive skill points.
3. You decide which skills to invest those points into.
4. Later, you can use Rebirth or Prestige to reset and rebuild an even stronger character.

This gives Valheim a more RPG-like character progression: you choose where your power comes from – not random actions.

2. The new Level system

Level skill & XP bar

• There is a new skill called “Level”.
• Every kill grants Level XP (amount depends on the enemy’s max HP and a server multiplier).
• Under your health bar you’ll see a new XP bar:
  • The bar shows your progress towards the next Level.
  • The number displays your current Level.

If you are Level 0 and have no XP yet, the bar hides itself to keep the HUD clean.

3. Skill points & the new skills window

Gaining skill points

• Each time you gain a Level, you receive skill points.
• How many points you:
  • start with at Level 0, and
  • gain per Level
    is controlled by the server configuration.

Active and Passive skills

Skills are split into two categories:

• Active skills – skills you level up by spending points (e.g. Swords, Bows, Blocking).
• Passive skills – skills that level up through use as in vanilla Valheim (e.g. Jump, Pickaxes).

At the top left of the skills window you’ll find two small tab buttons:

• A – shows your Active skills
• P – shows your Passive skills

The tab buttons are only visible if both categories have at least one skill.

Spending points

Open the Skills window and switch to the Active tab (A):

• Top right:
  ”Available points: X” – how many unspent skill points you have.
• For every active skill:
  • Two buttons: ”+” and ”–“
  • A small number showing how many points you have assigned to that skill in this session.

How it works:

1. Use ”+” to assign points to a skill.
2. Use ”–“ to remove points again (as long as you haven’t applied them).
3. Changes only become permanent when you click ”Apply”.

Buttons in the skills window

These buttons are only shown in the Active tab:

• Apply
  Permanently applies all points you assigned in this session.

• Reset
  Resets only the points assigned in this session (no permanent loss, just a local undo).

• Rebirth
  Opens the Rebirth dialog (see below).

• Prestige
  Opens the Prestige dialog (see below, if Prestige is enabled on the server).

4. Skill caps based on boss progression

Skills cannot be pushed to max from the very start. Instead, skill caps depend on which bosses have been defeated in the world.

Examples (default values, server can change them):

• Before Eikthyr: max skill level 30
• After Eikthyr: max 40
• After The Elder: max 50
• After Bonemass, Moder, Yagluth, The Queen, The Fader: caps keep increasing

This means:

• You can’t max out everything before actually progressing the game.
• Skill growth feels more natural and in line with the world’s difficulty.

5. Rebirth – full character respec

Rebirth is your big “start over, but smarter” button:

• All active skills (except Level) are reset. Passive skills are not affected.
• All previously spent skill points are refunded.
• You can rebuild your character from scratch with all your accumulated knowledge.

Depending on server settings, Rebirth can have costs:

• You might lose X Levels in the Level skill.
• You might need a specific item (for example Coins or a trophy).
• Both can be combined.
• Or Rebirth can be completely free if the server owner prefers that.

If you don’t meet the requirements (not enough Level or items), the dialog will tell you why Rebirth is not available.

6. Prestige – long-term progression

Once you’ve reached a certain Level, you can Prestige.

What is Prestige?

When you Prestige:

• You gain a Prestige rank (Prestige 1, 2, 3, …).
• Your Level is reset back to 0.
• All active skills are reset like with Rebirth. Passive skills are not affected.
• Your spent skill points are reset and recalculated.

The important part:
Each Prestige rank gives you permanent extra skill points per Level.

Simplified example:

• Normal: 5 points per Level
• Prestige rank 1: 6 points per Level
• Prestige rank 2: 7 points per Level
• …and so on (exact values are configurable).

Prestige item cost (optional)

Server owners can also require an item for Prestige:

• You must have X × a specific item to Prestige.
• That item will be consumed when you Prestige.
• If you don’t have enough, you’ll receive a message and Prestige won’t go through.

Prestige display in the UI

• At the top left of the skills window you’ll see a star with a number inside:
  that number is your Prestige rank.
• If Prestige is disabled on the server, the star and button are hidden automatically.

7. XP scaling by biome & Level

To discourage farming only very weak areas, the mod scales your XP based on:

• your current Level, and
• the biome the enemy spawned in.

Core idea:

• If you are at or below the “optimal Level” for that biome → full XP.
• The more you outlevel the biome, the less XP you get, down to a configurable minimum (for example 5%).
• Each biome (Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, etc.) has its own optimal Level value.

Important:
The biome is remembered when the enemy spawns, not when it dies.
You can’t drag enemies into easier biomes to trick the system.

8. Group XP (optional, with Groups mod)

If your server uses the Groups mod, this mod can award group XP:

• The killer gets their normal, scaled XP as usual.
• Group members within a certain radius of the kill receive a fraction of those XP (for example 30%).
• The killer does not receive additional group XP on top – only the nearby group members do.
• Group XP is also affected by Level/biome scaling.

The radius and XP share percentage are configurable by the server owner.

9. Custom skills support

SkillsReworked is compatible with mods that add new skills via the normal Valheim skill system (e.g. SkillManager-based skills).

• Custom skills appear in the skills window like vanilla skills
• They receive + / – buttons and can use your Level points
• If classified as active, they receive + / – buttons, are affected by skill caps, and are reset on Rebirth and Prestige like other active skills
• If classified as passive, they level through use as in vanilla and are not reset on Rebirth or Prestige

Custom skills that are not added to m_skills dictionary will not show up in the UI(exception is blaxxun's SkillManager-based skills). Most custom skills add their Skill to the dictionary when performing actions usually used to level up the skill.

10. Death & XP loss

This mod replaces Valheim’s default death penalty system:

• Normal skills are not reduced across the board.
• Instead, you lose a configurable percentage of one Level of XP in the Level skill.

Example:

• XP loss is set to 25% of a Level.
• You are Level 25 with 12% progress to Level 26.
• You die → you drop to:
  • Level 24 with 87% progress.

The exact percentage (0–100% of one Level) is configured by the server.

11. Server & admin information (non-technical overview)

Almost everything is tweakable on the server:

• Starting skill points and points per Level
• XP multiplier
• Biome optimal Levels & XP scaling behavior
• Skill caps per boss
• Rebirth costs (Level loss and/or item requirements)
• Prestige system (enabled/disabled, required Level, max rank, bonus per rank, item costs)
• Which skills are active (skill point system) and which are passive (vanilla training)
• Optional: which passive skills also grant Level XP when used, and how much

Players automatically receive the active settings when they join the server.

Admin console command (Prestige)

For server admins there is an in-game console command:

sr_setprestige <rank> [player name]

• Directly sets a player’s Prestige rank.
• If no name is given, it affects the local player.

Examples:

sr_setprestige 3
sr_setprestige 2 Alice
sr_setprestige 5 "My Character"

Contact

I am very thankful for any suggestions or feedback. You can message me on my Discord.

Changelog

2.0.0

PREAMBLE

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS VERSION WILL MODIFY YOUR PLAYER SAVE DATA. TO AVOID UNWANTED MODIFICATION THERE WILL BE A MIGRATION DIALOG WHEN YOU LOG IN IN WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO CONFIRM. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO PLAY WITH THE NEW VERSION OF SKILLS REWORKED YOU CAN STICK TO THE LAST PATCH. I will release a legacy version if the demand is high enough for it.

Attributes replace skill points on single skills

A full rework: instead of raising skills one by one, you now spend your points on four attributes.

• Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Endurance — a skill always has the level of its attribute (40 Strength = Clubs, Axes, Polearms, ... all at 40). The Skills window shows every attribute with its skills listed below it
• no more "active" and "passive" skills, and skills no longer level through use — everything comes from your attributes
• 1 point per Level, plus 2 more every 10 Levels, no starting points: a first run to Level 100 gives 120 points. Skill caps per boss are gone: an attribute can always go up to 100
• Prestige now makes every 10-Level milestone worth 4 more points per rank: 160 points at Level 100 with rank 1, 400 with rank 7 (all four attributes at 100). The maximum rank is now 7
• Rebirth now costs 2 Levels by default (was 5)
• which skills belong to which attribute is configurable (section "4 - Attributes"), including skills from other mods; unassigned skills follow Endurance
• mining and chopping wood grant a little Level XP, so non-fighters keep up (configurable: which skills and how much)
• boss XP goes to everyone who was there (everyone who receives the defeat key), no party needed — before, only the last hit got it in full and party members 30%
• fixed Level and attributes being lost for good after logging in once without the mod; they are restored the next time you join with it

Joining with an existing character

The first time a character meets the new system, a dialog explains what happens — nothing is changed until you confirm, and you can log out instead.

• characters from 1.x: your Level, XP and Prestige rank are kept. Your spent points are refunded and all skills start at 0 — spend the points on the attributes
• characters that never used SkillsReworked (adding the mod mid-run): your trained skills are reset to 0 and converted into a starting Level. By default that is the average XP of all your trained skills; the server can pick another method or leave the choice to you (config section "9 - Character Migration": skill XP, highest skill, boss progress)
• either way the change is permanent — back up your character file first if you are unsure

Updating from 1.x

• set up a fresh config: many settings were replaced (points per Level, skill caps, skill categories, prestige bonus). Delete the old config file and let the mod create a new one — old entries that are left over are simply ignored
• the sr_addpoints command was removed; use raiseskill on the Level or an attribute instead

1.8.2

• fixed other players still seeing the old Prestige rank in supporting mods (e.g. Social System) after an admin set it back to 0 with the prestige command

1.8.1

• the XP bar can now be hidden, moved and resized (config "8 - HUD"); personal settings that apply instantly
• party XP now also works with Social System parties; Groups keeps working as before and the "3 - Groups" settings apply to both
• your Level and Prestige are now visible to other players in supporting mods like Social System (friend list, party frames)

1.8.0

• Updated for Valheim 1.0 — fixes in-game skill messages and the kill-reward VFX broadcast (both broken by internal Valheim changes in the 1.0 release)

1.7.0

• you can now click a skill's point counter and type a number instead of clicking + repeatedly
• maxed-out skills no longer show +/- buttons or a counter

1.6.0

• the "Available points" display is now a badge with just the number instead of a key-value label, and it blinks while you have unapplied allocations pending — matching the look of the TalentTree mod for a consistent style across both
• group XP now scales only with the receiving player's level; previously it was reduced by the killer's level as well, so helping out lower-level friends gave them very little
• added "Boss XP multiplier: first kill only" option (enabled by default): the boss XP bonus (default: 5x) now applies the first time you personally defeat a boss instead of on every repeat kill
• the boss XP multiplier now defaults to 5x instead of 1x, so your first win over each boss is a noticeable jump in progress. Existing config files keep whatever value they already have
• fixed kills by fire, poison and other damage-over-time effects granting no XP in multiplayer when the creature belonged to another player's machine
• fixed heavily poisoned creatures granting no XP when they died late: kill credit now lasts 30 seconds after your last hit instead of 10, which covers even the longest poison
• fixed XP and boss keys occasionally being lost when a creature died
• fixed skill points being lost when using the vanilla "resetskill" command
• reworked kill networking into a single message per death: less network traffic and more reliable XP and boss key delivery

1.5.0

• added "Use global boss keys" option for skill caps (server-wide instead of per-player)
• skill caps now also apply when a skill is raised via CheatRaiseSkill (e.g. Marketplace mod quests)
• refined russian translation

1.4.1

• added Russian localization
• fixed the Apply/Reset/Rebirth/Prestige button captions and widths not updating when switching language mid-session (previously required a restart)

1.4.0

• merged Rebirth and Reset into a single button (label switches based on pending allocations)
• merged Active/Passive tab buttons into a single toggle button
• Prestige button is now hidden when prestige requirements are not met
• reworked skill UI button layout and positions
• added blinking text effect to Prestige button
• prestige now plays a roar emote and spawns VFX/SFX
• added console commands: sr_addpoints, sr_setprestige
• changed all commands to require devcommands
• fixed modded skills not being resolvable in the "Active skill names" config
• skill names in the config now accept enum names, localized names in any language, and numeric IDs

1.3.1

• added events to RebirthFlow and PrestigeFlow for external mod integration
• fixed Level XP bar not updating when XP is gained through passive skills

1.3.0

• updated default active skills: added Sneak, Run, Dodge
• added optional passive skill XP: configurable list of passive skills can now also grant Level XP (disabled by default)
• fixed skill buttons persisting on rows after a skill switches from active to passive via config reload
• updated Jotunn dependency to 2.29.0

1.2.0

• added Active/Passive skill tab system (A/P buttons in the skill UI)
• passive skills are no longer reset on Rebirth or Prestige
• Apply, Reset and Available Points are hidden when viewing passive skills
• all action buttons (including Prestige) are hidden in the passive tab
• tab buttons are hidden automatically if only one category has skills

1.1.1

• fixed README images

1.1.0

• reworked internal structure and also changed XP gain maths to be processed on client instead of killers side(he published share factor before)
• some changes to XPBar to feel more natural
• some preparation for the upcoming TalentTree extension mod
• Updated Jotunn dependency to 2.28.0

1.0.6

• fix for xp gain when using aoe/effect weapons like sledges or staffs
• minor network improvements to use peerId instead of player names to be unique

1.0.5

• reworked OnDeath XP share logic. Now the XP should be shared more reliably
• added new RPC to share Death of characters

1.0.4

• attempt to fix xp not being shared when in group since OnDeath is only executed on owner. Now uses RPCs

1.0.3

• fixed player keys again(silly mistake on my side)

1.0.2

• fixed skill caps not increasing for all players nearby(thanks ZenDragon for help)

1.0.1

• reduced each skill cap by 10 to better match vanilla progression
• fixed custom Level icon not loading

1.0.0

• initial release