SkillTalentTrees

Meaningful talent choices for Valheim's skills. Early test build — currently includes Woodcutting only. Additional trees will be added to this same mod. Mining is not included in this version.

Open your tree

Open Valheim's Skills panel and click the > arrow beside Woodcutting. A compact wooden side panel shows four connected talent nodes. Select a node, read its effect, and invest a point. Woodcutting appears at level zero without granting XP. Other skills have disabled arrows reserved for future trees.

Lucky Chop can reward repeated hits on the same tree or log. One swing gets at most one roll per target. It uses the hitter's talent, and the physical wood drop can be collected by anyone. The target's normal tree/log drop chain determines eligible wood types. Tools must be strong enough to damage the target. Buildings, creatures, collision damage, and destructibles outside the TreeBase/TreeLog systems do not receive bonus wood.

Stamina and durability bonuses apply to axe melee swings, including combat. Timber Haul changes your inventory's total weight, not item tooltips or container weights.

Progression

• One talent point per five Woodcutting levels, plus five extra at level 100.
• Five ranks per talent; spend five points in the two foundation talents to unlock the second tier.
• Earned points survive skill loss. Regaining lost levels does not duplicate points.
• Allocations save with your character. Resets are free in this test build.
• These four talents cost 20 points to max out; five points remain unused at level 100 until more branches are added.

Woodcutting and Axes are distinct base-game skills. This tree's points come from Woodcutting.

Installation and co-op

Install SkillTalentTrees through r2modman or another Thunderstore-compatible manager. Its manifest declares BepInExPack Valheim and Jötunn as dependencies. Everyone playing together must use the same SkillTalentTrees version; a dedicated server needs it too. Jötunn checks this requirement.

If you used the earlier private prototypes: close the game and remove or disable MiningTalents.dll and WoodcuttingTalents.dll before installing this package. This one-time switch is required to avoid loading duplicate effects. Old manually copied plugins are not removed by a mod manager update. The mod intentionally refuses to load alongside those prototypes.

Existing Woodcutting Talents allocations are read as a fallback when no new SkillTalentTrees woodcutting save entry exists, then saved under the new mod's skill-specific key. The old entry is preserved. Mining prototype data is untouched. Future releases will keep the SkillTalentTrees identity.

For manual installation, place the included plugins/SkillTalentTrees directory inside the active profile's BepInEx/plugins directory.

Practice mode

Use a test character and world. Open the tree and enable temporary practice points, then max Steady Swing and Lucky Chop. A stone axe and an ordinary beech tree are enough to start testing. Extra wood should sometimes appear before the tree falls; continue testing on the fallen logs.

Practice allocations disappear when disabled or when you leave the character. They do not change actual skill levels or overwrite your normal allocations. Mined/chopped items and changes to the world remain. An on-screen reminder marks practice mode.

Test status and known limits

This package compiles against the development installation of Valheim, and 241 progression/balance checks pass. The new Woodcutting effects, Skills-panel integration, prototype-save migration, and multiplayer behavior still need in-game verification. The earlier mining prototype's menu was successfully opened in-game; that does not verify this version.

Controller navigation and compatibility with other UI, axe, tree-damage, or inventory-weight mods are not yet verified. Use a test world for the first playtest. Logs are in your mod profile's BepInEx/LogOutput.log.

This is an unofficial community mod, not affiliated with Iron Gate.

Changelog

0.3.0

• Expanded Woodcutting to eight talents in a 1-2-3-2 layout.
• A connected parent at 5/5 unlocks the next node; either parent works where paths meet.
• Clicking a talent now invests one point directly. Hover or focus to read effects and requirements. Removed the separate investment button.
• Added Kindling, Seasoned Cutter, Woodland Porter, and Resin Tapper.
• Retained the 25-point maximum and five ranks per talent.
• Old four-talent allocations are refunded once; highest recorded level and earned points are preserved.
• Kept Valheim's wooden panels, fonts, and gold styling.
• Compiled successfully; progression, branching, save migration, and balance tests pass. New effects and UI changes await in-game validation.

0.2.0

• Established SkillTalentTrees as the permanent package, plugin, and assembly name.
• Included the Woodcutting prototype: four talents and a compact native Skills-panel tree.
• Added fallback migration from the earlier Woodcutting Talents character data.
• Prevented loading alongside the old Mining Talents or Woodcutting Talents prototypes.
• Added Thunderstore package metadata and dependency declarations.
• Mining remains archived separately and is not part of this release.

Early testing release; live Woodcutting gameplay and multiplayer validation are pending.