Death Tweaks

Configurable death behaviour for Valheim 1.0: decide which items are kept, dropped or destroyed, keep your food, tune or disable skill loss, and choose where you respawn.

A from-scratch reimplementation of aedenthorn's DeathTweaks for the current game version. The feature set and the config keys are the same, so an existing aedenthorn.DeathTweaks.cfg can be reused by renaming it to muindor.DeathTweaks.cfg.

Client-side: install it on every player's game that should use it. Nothing is needed on the server, and players without the mod can play on the same server.

Source, issues and releases: github.com/egor-muindor/ValheimMods.

Features

• Keep, drop or destroy items by item type or prefab name.
• Keep equipped items, hotbar items, teleportable items, or everything.
• Keep items in EquipmentAndQuickSlots quick slots (3.x, through its public API).
• Drop items on the ground instead of into a tombstone.
• Keep active food after respawn.
• Disable death effects.
• Change the skill loss fraction, disable skill loss, or remove the skill-loss protection after a recent death.
• Respawn at the start location or at fixed coordinates.

Kept equipped items stay equipped after respawn.

Installation

Requires BepInEx 5.

• With a mod manager (r2modman, Thunderstore Mod Manager): install as usual.
• By hand: unzip the release and copy the plugins/DeathTweaks folder into BepInEx/plugins, so the mod ends up at BepInEx/plugins/DeathTweaks/DeathTweaks.dll.

The config file BepInEx/config/muindor.DeathTweaks.cfg is created on first launch.

Configuration

General

Toggles

ItemLists

All lists are comma-separated. Type names are the ItemDrop.ItemData.ItemType values (Material, Consumable, OneHandedWeapon, Bow, Shield, Helmet, Chest, Ammo, Customization, Legs, Hands, Trophy, TwoHandedWeapon, Torch, Misc, Shoulder, Utility, Tool, Attach_Atgeir, Fish, TwoHandedWeaponLeft, AmmoNonEquipable, Trinket). Item names are prefab names such as Iron, CopperOre, TrophyBoar; the $item_* name token is accepted too. Matching is case-insensitive.

Rule precedence

For every item, the first matching rule decides:

1. World modifier Keep inventory on death or KeepAllItems: keep.
2. Quest item: keep.
3. Equipped and world modifier Keep equipment on death: keep.
4. DestroyAllItems: destroy.
5. KeepEquippedItems, KeepHotbarItems, KeepQuickSlotItems: keep.
6. Destroy lists: destroy.
7. Keep lists: keep.
8. Drop lists: drop.
9. KeepTeleportableItems: keep.
10. Otherwise: drop.

The world modifiers Delete items on death and Delete unequipped items on death then turn drops into destroys, as in vanilla. Items the mod keeps are never affected by them.

Skills

Spawn

Logging in and skipping the intro always use the vanilla spawn logic; only respawns after a death are affected.

Console command

deathtweaks status   # show whether the mod is enabled and the active item rules
deathtweaks reload   # re-read the config file

Compatibility

• EquipmentAndQuickSlots 3.x is fully supported. Its own Don't drop quick slots / equipment on death settings are applied first; KeepQuickSlotItems only matters for quick slot items that EquipmentAndQuickSlots would drop. Tombstone size and item positions are handled by that mod's own patches.
• World modifiers for death are honoured, see the rule precedence above.
• Upgradeable pockets (extra inventory rows) need no special handling.
• Mods that replace Player.OnDeath or Player.CreateTombStone outright will bypass this mod.

How it works

The vanilla death sequence is left intact. Each feature patches the smallest vanilla method that owns the behaviour:

If a patch throws, it logs the error and lets vanilla run.

License

MIT

Changelog

1.1.0 - 2026-09-16

• Optional server configuration. A server that also runs DeathTweaks and turns the new Server.ConfigPriority on decides every setting except IsDebug for the players who have the mod, so a death means the same thing for everyone on it. The settings that travel are marked [synced] in the config file.
• The mod stays optional on both sides: it is not part of the game's version check, players without it are unaffected, and it keeps working on servers that do not have it or that leave ConfigPriority off.
• The client's config file is never written to. The server's values live in memory for as long as the connection lasts and are dropped when it ends; a setting changed on a running server is sent to the connected players right away.
• deathtweaks status and deathtweaks reload say where the active settings come from.

1.0.2 - 2026-09-12

• Quick slot detection is now based on the item's grid position through the slot mods' public APIs instead of their cached slot contents, which could report empty slots during death.
• With Extra Slots, KeepQuickSlotItems now covers quick, food, ammo and misc slots (everything except equipment slots), matching what players expect to keep.
• The slot mod API is resolved at startup and reported in the log; the debug log shows each item's grid position.

1.0.1 - 2026-09-12

• KeepQuickSlotItems now also works with Extra Slots (shudnal.ExtraSlots), not only EquipmentAndQuickSlots.
• A warning is logged at startup and on death when KeepQuickSlotItems is on but no supported quick slot mod is loaded; previously quick slot items were silently dropped.
• The debug log marks quick slot and hotbar items per item.

1.0.0 - 2026-09-12

First release, built against the Valheim 1.0.12 assemblies.

• Keep, drop or destroy items by item type or prefab name.
• Keep equipped, hotbar, teleportable or all items; keep EquipmentAndQuickSlots 3.x quick slot items through its public API.
• Drop items on the ground instead of into a tombstone.
• Keep active food after respawn.
• Disable death effects.
• Change or disable skill loss, disable the skill-loss protection after a recent death.
• Respawn at the start location or at fixed coordinates.
• Vanilla death world modifiers are honoured.
• Config keys match aedenthorn's DeathTweaks; rename the old .cfg to muindor.DeathTweaks.cfg to reuse it.
• Console command deathtweaks reload|status.