Elite Creatures Reborn

Creatures spawn with mutations — named, visible traits that change how a fight goes. A Mad greydwarf comes at you twice as fast on half the health. A Bloated draugr takes twice the killing and then explodes in your face. A Devouring wolf eats the boars around it and grows on what it eats until it comes looking for you.

Rebuilt from scratch. This release covers mutations and stars; the rest returns over the next releases.

Mutations

Nine, one per creature by default, each with its own colour and its own name on the nameplate.

Stars

Beyond vanilla's two, counted in fives on the nameplate: a small star is one, a large star is five. A mutation on a large star is stronger. Star chances and mutation chances are set per biome, so the Meadows stay the Meadows.

Configuration

Two files, both written and documented on first run, both hot-reloaded while you play:

• BepInEx/config/gglasgow.elitecreaturesreborn.cfg — the settings: star chances, mutation chances and mutation strength per biome, colours, nameplate distance, and an off switch for everything.
• BepInEx/config/creature_rules.yml — the rule file, for anything too structured for a flat settings file.

A server binds connected players to its own rules. Display preferences — colours, tint strength, nameplate distance, whether trait names show at all — stay with each player and are never locked.

Console commands

Install

With a mod manager, install it. By hand, drop EliteCreaturesReborn.dll into BepInEx/plugins. Requires BepInEx. On a server, install it on the server and on every client.

Multiplayer

Creature state travels in the world data the game already shares, so every player sees the same creature with the same traits. Install it on the dedicated server as well as the clients.

Files

• plugins/EliteCreaturesReborn.dll — the mod, a single merged assembly
• config/gglasgow.elitecreaturesreborn.cfg — settings
• config/creature_rules.yml — creature rules

Building

.NET SDK 8, with Valheim installed:

dotnet build EliteCreaturesReborn/EliteCreaturesReborn.csproj -c Release

Override -p:GamePath=..., -p:BepInExCore=... or -p:ModLibsPath=... if your layout differs. The build merges the shared libraries into one DLL and writes it to dist/.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0). You are free to use, study, share and modify it, and anything you distribute that is built from it must carry the same freedoms and be released under the same licence, with source. See the LICENSE file for the full terms.

Changelog

3.13.4

• A new install's rule file has short comments; the full reference is linked at its top.
• Shorter store page; the reference (mutations, aspects, rule fields, commands) is on GitHub.

3.13.3

• Warding no longer draws particles: a reflect is marked by sound alone, the Staff of Protection's shield at 30% volume.
• The Reflective boss aspect's tell changes the same way.
• Devouring no longer draws a burst when it eats; the sound is unchanged.

3.13.2

• The world tier boxes show only with PackPanel; without it the inventory and HUD stay as the game draws them.

3.13.1

• Fixed: the inventory broke with Jewelcrafting, CurrencyPocket, OttoPay, TrashItems or Quick Stack Store Sort Trash Restock installed.
• Those mods' boxes join the stat column; TrashItems' trash can takes dragged stacks there.
• OpenKeep 1.8.0 to 1.9.0 and PackPanel 0.1.0 to 0.2.0 have the same column: update them too.

3.13.0

• Devouring eats only creatures with at most 125% of its current health (max prey health, 0 lifts the limit).
• Devouring eats one creature per star, at least one (min meals), then is sated and acts like its kind.
• A devourer's nameplate shows what it ate (Show devoured creatures, Devoured creature icon size); so does elite inspect.
• The devour flash is a fifth of its size, and its screen shake is felt only close by.
• Bloated's fuse is 1.7 seconds; an older creature_rules.yml keeps its own delay: 2.0.

3.12.0

• New box with the world tier under the minimap (Show world tier under minimap).
• The tier reads as one number ("3"); hovering it shows the total.
• The inventory's stat plates are square boxes in a column.
• Thieving steals only with melee hits, never on a parry or dodge, and with PackPanel never from its slots.
• On a grid wider than eight, thieves no longer spare the top-row cells right of the hotbar.
• Elite Creatures Pack: a sleeping mimic hides its traits; the kraken never rolls Twin or Phantom.
• Warding's max reflect now caps everything reflected to you per second, not per hit.
• Rule changes reach loaded creatures' mutations at once.

3.11.0

• elite purge 30 removes marked creatures within 30 m only; without a number it still removes every loaded one.

3.10.0

• With GrindstoneSkills 0.7.0 or later, Husbandry's "Better offspring" can give a newborn one more star.

3.9.1

• Starred creatures wear the game's own one-star and two-star looks again (a two-star Neck is purple).

3.9.0

• New mutations: Gilded (rare, flees, pays triple loot), Blinking (reappears behind you), Relentless (follows you to 150 m).
• New boss aspects: Adaptive, Fixated, Stormbound, Gravitic and Colossal; one fight in five stays plain.
• Mutation rules per creature under creatures:; two entries for one creature merge.
• Cloaked shows at 10 m (was 6), at 15 m on trolls and lox, and never on drakes.
• Warding reflects only damage taken, at most max reflect (7.5%) of your health; smaller flashes.
• Bloated: a two-second fuse; the corpse vanishes in a smaller blast and drops its loot there.
• Thieving carries one item per star; max items is the minimum, 8 the most.
• Tamed Splintering creatures split into tamed copies.
• Boss damage board moved left; /damage shows it again; damage to Phantom copies counts.
• Fixed: smoke left after a Bloated blast, effects drawn twice, and stolen goods duplicated at dawn.
• Update the server and every player. An older rule file keeps its old numbers until you delete it.
• Gilded ignores mutation chance: stop it with mutations enabled or mutation chances.

3.8.0

• Phantom splits off one copy per player online at 66% and 33% health (split at, per player, health per tier).
• An older rule file's Phantom copies and health are ignored; replace that line to tune it.
• Fixed: Bloated, Warding, Devouring, Thieving, Summoner and Phantom effects drew nothing; Bloated's blast has a sound (blast sound).
• World tier plate in the inventory under the weight (Show world tier).
• Update the server and every player.

3.7.1

• Fixed: with mods that raise creature health (such as Path of Valheim), creatures spawned with 10-15% health.

3.7.0

• Boss damage board: when a boss dies, everyone sees who hurt it and how much.
• Boss damage board and Boss damage board seconds in the .cfg.
• Update the server and every player.

3.6.1

• Fixed: admins on a dedicated server's adminlist.txt were refused the elite admin commands.
• A refusal names the ID to add to adminlist.txt, which is read again within 10 seconds.
• A mistyped elite subcommand lists the subcommands.
• Update the server and every player.

3.6.0

• World tiers: each boss's first defeat makes stars and mutations more common; bosses are unaffected.
• A world that defeated bosses before starts at that tier. elite tier shows it to any player.
• Breeding: young take a parent's mutation and up to the stronger parent's stars, and keep them when grown.
• Eggs keep their traits, say what they will hatch, and stack only with eggs of the same stars.
• elite inspect shows the tier a creature rolled at.
• New world tiers: and breeding: blocks; an older rule file takes their defaults.

3.5.0

• Boss aspects: Reflective, Shielded, Mending, Summoner, Elementalist, Enraged, Twin or Phantom, or a plain fight.
• Hover the altar's offering bowl to see the aspect; it shifts every in-game hour.
• Harder aspects multiply the boss's loot, in Vanilla loot mode too.
• Boss stars show under the boss health bar.
• New aspects: block under bosses:; stars: false now turns off only boss stars.
• elite spawn Bonemass 2 Twin spawns a boss with an aspect; elite inspect reports it.

3.4.0

• Loot modes in a new loot: block: Vanilla, Scaled, Rolled (default) or Curated.
• extra roll chance, max extra rolls, global multiplier and boss multiplier.
• Trophies are multiplied only with multiply trophies.
• Loot rules per creature under creatures:: drops, drop overrides and extra drops.
• elite reference writes creature_reference.yml: every creature with its drop table.
• Drops added by other loot mods pass through untouched.

3.3.0

• Devouring toned down: devour cooldown 60 (was 10), absorb health 50 and absorb damage 25 (were 100).
• New Devouring move field: its base speed.
• An older rule file keeps the old Devouring numbers; edit that line or delete it.
• Fixed: joining a busy server no longer refuses a correct client.

3.2.0

• New mutation, Thieving: it steals an unequipped stack when it hits and drops everything when it dies.
• A message names what was stolen, and its nameplate shows it.
• Stolen items are never multiplied or destroyed; elite purge drops them too.
• max items sets how many it carries (1 by default, 8 at most).

3.1.0

• New mutations enabled switch turns any mutation off everywhere.
• Shorter rule file comments; the mutation power field reference moved to the README.
• Leeching weaker: regen 0.5% (was 2%), pausing after damage (combat cooldown), capped by regen cap; lifesteal 10% (was 30%).
• Plated's armour is now a damage reduction percent, capped by max reduction; revisit a custom value.
• large star power defaults to 1 (was 2), and five-star health is lower.
• Fewer 4 and 5 star creatures in the Ash Lands and Deep North.
• Fixed: starred and Mad creatures' attacks sped up out of control.

3.0.0

• Rebuilt from scratch: not an update to earlier versions, and none of the old code remains.
• Nine mutations: Mad, Bloated, Cloaked, Splintering, Leeching, Warding, Plated, Miasmic and Devouring.
• Stars beyond vanilla's two, counted in fives on the nameplate.
• A settings file and a YAML rule file, both hot reloaded; chances and strength set per biome.
• Servers can bind connected players to their rules; every player sees the same creature.
• Console: elite spawn, elite inspect, elite purge, elite effects.