Grappling

Aim. Hook. Swing. Find your next foothold.

Turn Valheim's grappling hook into a companion for climbing, swinging between trees and reaching your next rooftop. Keep the original item and recipe, with gravity, momentum and ordinary body collisions shaping your movement.

French / English

🎯 Line up your next anchor

Hold right mouse to shoulder the crossbow and aim. A green distance shows a reachable surface at your crosshair; aiming gives you 30% more range. Release aim to lower the weapon.

Left mouse fires immediately when ready. The hook reloads automatically in one second.

🪝 Keep moving between anchors

• Swing under gravity. Slack rope lets you fall; a taut rope limits your distance from the anchor while preserving your swing.
• Transfer while attached. Fire at another surface without releasing your current anchor. A successful hit changes the attachment; a missed shot keeps the old one.
• Stay connected on landing. Touching the ground, passing above the anchor or bringing the cable against an obstacle keeps your attachment.
• Build momentum. Departure assistance helps you leave the ground toward a higher anchor. Hold Space after a jump to pull toward it, with assistance for nearby ledges.
• Release when you choose. Middle mouse detaches the rope and keeps your momentum. Ordinary fall damage applies after release.

🧗 Climb and rappel

Hold Space to climb. Hold E to descend. Release the key to stop changing the rope length. Gravity and swinging continue while the length is locked.

A short E press pays out 20% of the player-to-anchor distance measured when you attached. That reference stays fixed for the current anchor, so repeated taps add equal steps. Landing stops descent and keeps you attached.

A short Space press keeps the ordinary jump. Holding both E and Space pauses the winch. Menus pause rope movement; release held controls before resuming.

🎮 Main controls

Equip your grappling hook. These defaults follow Valheim's remappable actions.

E keeps ordinary interaction while unattached. While attached, the rope command takes priority. Climbing or continuous descent begins after a 0.25-second hold.

⚙️ Make it your own

The configuration file is created on first launch at BepInEx/config/Zephyrfit.Grappling.cfg. Restart Valheim after editing it.

You can adjust the hold threshold, range bonus, movement assistance, stamina costs and rope speeds. Commands can follow a game action or use a separate keyboard or mouse shortcut. Departure and ledge assistance can be disabled.

📦 Installation

With a mod manager

1. Open Gale, r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager and select Valheim.
2. Install Grappling by Zephyrfit. Allow the manager to install BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351 if needed.
3. Disable other mods that change grappling behaviour in that profile.
4. Launch Valheim through your manager and equip your grappling hook.

Manual installation

1. Install BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351.
2. Extract this package's BepInEx folder into your Valheim installation. The plugin belongs at BepInEx/plugins/Zephyrfit-Grappling/ZephyrfitGrappling.dll.
3. Start Valheim and equip your grappling hook.

To uninstall, remove ZephyrfitGrappling.dll from that folder. The original item and recipe remain available.

Created by Zephyrfit.

Changelog

0.1.8

• Double the default rope payout speed from 3 to 6 m/s for both short E rappel steps and held E descent.
• Migrate the previous 3 m/s default once; preserve other custom values and subsequent edits. Keep the fixed 20% rappel distance and native gravity.
• Restore the author signature, Discord contact, support information and project link in the public presentation.

0.1.7

• Attach the visible chain outlet to the rendered crossbow using the native outlet offset, instead of leaving it in the wrist frame during shoulder aiming.
• Refresh the chain after final weapon posing, retaining cable bends and the native projectile-side attachment offset.
• Preserve the aiming posture and existing control bindings from 0.1.6.
• Increase the departure and jump-climb defaults to 5 m/s, with an 8 m/s inward assistance ceiling. Migrate the previous 2.5 m/s defaults once while retaining other custom values.
• Take up slack on deliberate held ascent and use a separate 50 m/s² active pull limit; retain 35 m/s² passive tension.
• Pause rope shortening at body contacts without disarming the held climb, allowing bounded upward pull along the surface and automatic resumption when clear.
• Add an optional, stamina-costed jump assist near reachable ledges after checking upward clearance and standing room. Keep gravity, body collisions, carried momentum and the current anchor.

0.1.6 - TEST

• Cache weapon-to-barrel and wrist-to-weapon calibration before posing, preventing aim IK from feeding its modified rotations back into the next frame.
• Align the model after normal camera/animation updates using that fixed calibration, and restore its original local rotation on exit.
• Set aimed roll to zero for the native model's horizontal limbs. Migrate the previous 90-degree default once; preserve other custom values and subsequent adjustments.
• Add a small one-time departure boost toward a higher first anchor from the ground and a held-Space climb boost shortly after a jump.
• Bound the boosts, preserve faster existing momentum, and prevent stacking through continuous holds or rapid presses. Keep gravity, collisions and passive swinging active.
• Expose GroundDepartureBoost and JumpClimbBoost, both defaulting to 2.5 m/s and independently disableable.

0.1.5 - TEST

• Make held E pay out rope until release, opposite to held Space reeling in. Keep short E for fixed rappel steps.
• Pause winching when both opposing holds are active.
• Remove fixed-height suspension and the global counter-gravity motor. Use bounded inward tension only, leaving gravity and tangential motion active.
• Lock rope length on release without shortening slack or freezing the character's altitude.
• Add numeric pendulum and slack-rope free-fall regression checks.
• Replace legacy suspension damping with optional SwingDamping, defaulting to zero; preserve existing configuration files.
• Add a 90-degree aimed weapon roll and enforce the actual equipment orientation after animation, restoring its original local rotation on release.
• Label the passive attached state as Attached rather than Suspended.

0.1.4 - TEST

• Add held Jump/Space as a second ascent control while attached, alongside E.
• Keep short Space presses for native jumping only; rappel steps remain on short E presses.
• Preserve the Space hold timer across a native ground jump and require a fresh press after an anchor transfer or ascent stop.
• Add the configurable JumpHoldClimbs option, enabled by default.

0.1.3 - TEST

• Move rope commands to E/Use: hold to climb and tap for a rappel step. Preserve ordinary Space jumping and dodge inputs.
• Let a native jump follow its normal arc while the rope is slack, without suspension immediately braking the jump.
• Migrate the previous default Jump rope binding once; preserve custom shortcuts and game actions.
• Prioritize rope commands over interaction while attached; keep ordinary interaction when unattached.
• Use the native HUD crosshair position and launch queued shots after the camera's LateUpdate.
• Remove the extra crosshair and the red invalid-target dash. Keep only a green distance for reachable surfaces.
• Compensate empty-reticle shots toward a reachable point along the reticle ray while preserving projectile gravity.
• Calibrate the aiming wrist against the actual left-hand crossbow model axis.

0.1.2 - TEST

• Hide the idle Ready label and show only the target distance in green while aiming at a reachable surface.
• Add a blended two-hand shoulder aiming pose with hand position and wrist orientation control.
• Align shots with the camera crosshair using launch-angle compensation for native fixed-step projectile gravity.
• Place anchors at the actual surface impact instead of the native one-metre spawn offset.
• Keep anchors attached on ground contact, above-anchor crossings, cable obstructions and temporary rope-length overshoot.
• Add cable contact bends that redirect tension without bypassing character collisions.
• Commit a transfer only after the new native anchor is active and owned; retain the previous anchor on activation failure.
• Keep right mouse for aiming, left mouse for firing and middle mouse for release. Transfers use the ordinary shot stamina cost.

0.1.1 - TEST

• Use the supplied Nordic grappling crossbow artwork as the package icon.
• Add an animated aiming posture while holding right mouse.
• Make left mouse fire in both free and attached states, preserving the active anchor until a replacement connects.
• Make middle mouse release the anchor and cancel the projectile in flight.
• Change Jump to hold-to-climb, with suspension on release.
• Change short Jump presses to rappel steps of 20% of the distance measured at attachment. Repeated presses add equal steps, bounded by the rope limit.
• Add configurable rappel step size and reference distance, plus separate release bindings.

0.1.0 - TEST

• Add immediate firing with a separate automatic reload and projectile flight cycle.
• Add tap-to-climb, hold-to-descend and stationary suspension controls.
• Add held aim with a frozen 30% range bonus and ballistic target preview.
• Add impact-validated anchor transfers and cancellation of pending shots.
• Add configurable controls, stamina, rope movement and English/French HUD text.
• Add local authority checks, lifecycle cleanup and grappling conflict diagnostics.

Zephyrfit