Balrond Extra Skills

Balrond Extra Skills 0.4.0 expands Valheim's progression system with eight persistent custom skills, upgrades selected vanilla skills, adds a unified Total Level, and provides compatibility layers for several major skill/progression mods.

The goal is not to replace Valheim's skill system with a separate RPG framework. BES keeps the normal use-based Valheim progression model, improves weak or exploitable parts of it, and adds new skills only where there is a clear gameplay role.

Main features

• Eight persistent custom skills with fixed save-safe IDs.
• Total Level / Total Progress calculated across the full active skill set.
• Lightweight movable and scalable Total Level HUD.
• Global and per-skill XP multipliers.
• Optional permanent Skill Floors and Mastery protection.
• Signed skill effects when Balrond Negative Skills is installed.
• Soft integration with SkillsReworked without locking to one specific external-mod version.
• Runeforging skill recognition.
• Small weapon-specific combat identities without replacing vanilla combat-skill effects.
• Pickaxes, Wood Cutting, Farming/Foraging and Sneak extensions.
• Safer Crafting extra-yield behavior.
• Optional Material Mastery.
• Kitchen Mastery for Cooking.
• Configurable Health, Stamina and Eitr regeneration bonuses.
• Taming progression with taming, breeding, tamed-loot and offspring bonuses.
• ServerSync-backed gameplay configuration.
• ConfigurationManager-friendly Basic/Advanced config layout.
• Built-in diagnostic commands for testing and compatibility work.

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What's new in 0.4.0

• Added Taming as custom skill 15008.
• Added configurable Health, Stamina and Eitr regeneration scaling to Vitality, Endurance and Arcana.
• Expanded Sailing with optional top-speed scaling, collision/water-impact damage reduction and configurable headwind assistance.
• Expanded Farming with configurable harvest bonuses, Foraging AOE, crop growth information and wild-pickable respawn information.
• Added optional Wood Cutting seed return for sustainable replanting.
• Custom-skill Enabled now means a complete gameplay disable while preserving saved progression for later re-enable.
• Updated SkillsReworked compatibility so SkillsReworked remains authoritative for managed progression while BES keeps its gameplay effects.

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Custom BES skills

BES uses fixed numeric IDs so existing character progression can survive updates.

Skill	ID	Default effect at skill 100	Main XP sources
Vitality	15001	+10 maximum health, +10% health regeneration	Health food and real sleep/wake cycles
Arcana	15002	+10 maximum Eitr, +10% Eitr regeneration	Eitr food and Eitr actually spent
Endurance	15003	+20 maximum stamina, +10% stamina regeneration	Complete exertion cycles
Exploration	15004	+5 minimap pixel rings	New map pixels, biomes and named locations
Fortitude	15005	+10 armor	Real post-mitigation HP loss
Hauling	15006	+50 carry weight	On-foot travel while heavily loaded
Sailing	15007	+10% steering response, +5% acceleration, ship-safety/headwind bonuses	Real ship travel while controlling the helm
Taming	15008	Faster taming plus configurable tamed-creature bonuses	Completing taming and successful breeding

The listed values are the default level-100 effects before changing config multipliers.

Vitality

Vitality increases maximum health.

Default XP sources:

• successful consumption of food with health value,
• completing a real sleep/wake transition.

Default level-100 effects:

+10 maximum health
+10% health regeneration

The regeneration bonus scales linearly from 0% at Vitality 0 to the configured Health Regen Bonus % At 100 value.

Arcana

Arcana represents general Eitr capacity rather than a specific magic school.

Default XP sources:

• Eitr food,
• Eitr that was actually spent by the player.

Free casts or events that do not consume Eitr do not train Arcana.

Default level-100 effects:

+10 maximum Eitr
+10% Eitr regeneration

The regeneration bonus scales linearly from 0% at Arcana 0 to the configured Eitr Regen Bonus % At 100 value.

Endurance

Endurance increases maximum stamina and is trained through complete exertion cycles rather than every small stamina event.

A default cycle:

1. rearms after recovering to roughly 70% stamina,
2. tracks real stamina expenditure,
3. completes when the player falls to roughly 10% stamina,
4. requires at least 25 stamina to have been spent,
5. awards XP from the accumulated expenditure with a per-cycle cap.

Default level-100 effects:

+20 maximum stamina
+10% stamina regeneration

The regeneration bonus scales linearly from 0% at Endurance 0 to the configured Stamina Regen Bonus % At 100 value.

Exploration

Exploration improves minimap reveal range using visible pixel-ring milestones.

XP can come from:

• newly revealed minimap pixels,
• discovering a new biome,
• discovering a new named location.

The pixel reward is capped per exploration pass so a larger reveal radius does not produce uncontrolled XP.

Default level-100 effect:

+5 minimap pixel rings

Fortitude

Fortitude increases armor and rewards surviving actual damage after mitigation.

The skill can distinguish between several damage contexts. By default, deliberate self/fall farming is disabled and environmental/elemental sources are worth less than normal hostile damage.

Default level-100 effect:

+10 armor

Hauling

Hauling increases carry capacity and trains from real on-foot travel while heavily loaded.

Default behavior:

• training begins at 75% of effective carry capacity,
• XP is distance-based,
• heavier loads can increase the training multiplier up to a cap,
• mounted movement is ignored,
• ship movement is ignored,
• teleport-sized position changes are ignored.

Default level-100 effect:

+50 carry weight

Sailing

Sailing improves ship handling for the player currently controlling the helm. Only the active helmsman receives Sailing XP, and only that player's Sailing skill modifies the ship.

Default behavior:

XP: 0.02 per valid meter, awarded in 25 m batches
Skill 100: +10% steering response
Skill 100: +5% acceleration/propulsion response
Top Speed Bonus At 100: 0% by default
Collision Damage Reduction At 100: 20%
Headwind Assist: enabled
Level 100 Dead Zone Start: 0.92
Level 100 Dead Zone End: 0.97

The top-speed layer is deliberately 0% by default so existing balance does not change unless the server owner opts in. Headwind Assist gradually narrows the dead-headwind zone as Sailing rises, making difficult wind angles more usable at higher skill levels.

Taming

Taming is the eighth custom BES skill and uses fixed ID 15008.

Default XP sources:

• completing the taming of a nearby creature,
• successful breeding/pregnancy events for nearby tame creatures.

Default progression bonuses include:

• up to 30% lower taming time at skill 100,
• up to 25% chance at skill 100 to add the configured bonus amount to generated tamed-creature drop stacks,
• hunger information unlocked at Taming 20,
• pregnancy information unlocked at Taming 40,
• better-offspring star rolls starting at Taming 75,
• configurable offspring star chance and star cap.

The default influence radius used to associate taming, breeding and tamed-loot events with a player is 30 m.

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Total Level

BES adds an overall progression value so every skill contributes to one visible character-progress number.

Native Valheim progression

Without SkillsReworked, Total Level is the continuous arithmetic average of all eligible skills:

skill contribution = current level + progress toward the next level
Total Level = sum of all contributions / number of eligible skills

Important rules:

• level-0 skills count,
• disabled BES custom skills do not count,
• explicitly excluded skill IDs do not count,
• external registered skills can count,
• negative values count when Negative Skills is active,
• every fractional skill gain can move the Total Level progress bar.

A Total Level of 100 therefore means the complete eligible skill set has reached 100.

SkillsReworked mode

When SkillsReworked is detected and Progression Provider = Auto, BES uses SkillsReworked Character Level/XP as the primary HUD progress because SkillsReworked owns skill progression.

BES can additionally show the effective Skill Average as a secondary value.

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Total Level HUD

The Total Level HUD is lightweight and client-local.

Default controls:

Shift + Left Mouse Drag = move HUD
Ctrl  + Left Mouse Drag = scale HUD

Position, scale and display options are stored locally and are not synchronized by the server.

The custom prefab can be replaced or visually edited without changing BES logic as long as the required named child objects are preserved.

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Skill Floors and Mastery

Skill Floors are optional and disabled by default.

Once a milestone has been reached for a specific skill, its unlocked floor is permanent:

Highest milestone reached	Minimum protected level
25	0
50	25
75	50
100	75

This is especially useful with Balrond Negative Skills: a skill that has never reached 25 can still fall below zero, while trained skills can permanently secure milestones.

Protect Mastered Skills At 100 is a separate option. When enabled, a skill that unlocked the 100 milestone is protected at 100 instead of using the normal 75 floor.

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Vanilla skill upgrades

BES does not replace the normal effects of vanilla skills. It adds a small identity layer and improves selected systems around them.

Combat identities

The default extra identity budget is approximately 4% at skill 100.

Skill	Additional BES identity at 100
Swords	+4% damage against already-staggering targets
Clubs	+4% stagger
Axes	+2% damage and +2% stagger
Knives	+4% damage for backstab-qualified hits
Spears	+2% throw projectile velocity and ~2% lower secondary stamina cost
Polearms	+2% secondary stagger and +2% secondary knockback
Fists	+4% stagger resistance while using a Fists/unarmed weapon
Bows	small aim/spread correction up to the shared budget
Crossbows	+4% projectile velocity
Blocking	up to 4% lower block stamina drain

Elemental Magic and Blood Magic do not receive an artificial extra 4% damage bonus. Their vanilla identities remain intact; BES focuses on progression/compatibility around them.

Pickaxes

BES retains several optional Pickaxes features:

• additional pickaxe damage,
• additional pickaxe stamina efficiency,
• Improvised Mining.

Improvised Mining gives qualifying physical non-pickaxe attacks a small skill-scaled chance to add a tiny pickaxe-damage component to mineable objects.

It does not generate ore, stone or additional drops. The target's existing destruction/drop logic remains authoritative.

Wood Cutting

BES retains:

• additional chop damage,
• optional tree-only Virtual Chop,
• optional additional seed return for plantable trees.

Virtual Chop can convert a small part of qualifying physical damage into chop damage against tree targets. It does not modify world-resource drop tables.

Additional Seed Return is enabled by default. The extra-seed chance scales with Wood Cutting and reaches 100% at skill 100 by default, with a default maximum of 1 additional seed. BES attempts to discover the matching seed automatically from plant/cultivator data, and server owners can add manual maturePrefab:seedPrefab mappings through Tree Seed Overrides for modded trees.

Farming & Foraging

BES extends the existing vanilla Farming skill instead of creating a separate Foraging skill. Disabling Farming Enhancements disables only the BES additions; the vanilla Farming skill remains available.

Default additions:

• Bonus Harvest Chance At 100 = 25%,
• Bonus Harvest Amount = +1,
• Foraging AOE unlocks at Farming 25,
• AOE radius grows from 2 m at unlock to 5 m at Farming 100,
• up to 8 additional nearby eligible Pickables at Farming 100,
• by default AOE harvesting only affects respawning Pickables,
• plant growth-time information unlocks at Farming 12,
• respawn information for unavailable respawning Pickables unlocks at Farming 30.

The AOE helper uses the target's normal interaction path instead of creating replacement loot.

Sneak

Sneak retains a configurable crouching movement-speed identity.

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Crafting

Safe Extra Yield

BES constrains Crafting extra output to avoid extreme 1 -> 2 duplication on unique or bundle-like recipes.

A recipe is eligible only when:

recipe.m_amount >= 2
and
output maxStackSize > 1

When bonus output succeeds, the extra amount is always:

+1 item

Examples:

Arrow x20 -> can become x21
Bundle x1 -> always remains x1
Sword x1  -> always remains x1

Material Mastery

Material Mastery is optional and disabled by default.

When enabled, Crafting can very rarely preserve some of the largest bulk material requirement:

• only one material is considered,
• the highest required quantity is preferred,
• ties are resolved by larger stack size,
• unresolved equal ties do not trigger the feature,
• the default minimum requirement is 10,
• chance scales with Crafting skill and quantity,
• default maximum chance is 5%,
• saved quantity is capped.

This system changes material consumption, not crafted output.

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Cooking and Kitchen Mastery

Cooking keeps its normal vanilla skill behavior. BES adds a small Kitchen Mastery layer instead of another food-yield roll.

Current Kitchen Mastery can modify compatible CookingStation timing fields to provide:

• a small cooking-speed improvement,
• a larger grace window before compatible food burns/overcooks.

Default level-100 targets:

+10% cooking speed
+20% burn grace

Fermenter modification is disabled by default and is intentionally not part of the main Kitchen Mastery path so BAO alchemy/production chains remain independent.

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Compatibility and integrations

SkillsReworked

BES has a soft compatibility layer and does not require one exact SkillsReworked version.

When SkillsReworked manages a skill:

• SkillsReworked remains the progression and attribute owner,
• BES keeps ownership of its gameplay effects,
• BES reads the effective managed skill/attribute level,
• BES activities use the normal skill-use progression route so SkillsReworked can decide whether that use grants Level XP,
• Total Level Auto mode uses SkillsReworked Character Level/XP as the primary progress source,
• BES Skill Average can still be displayed as secondary information.

For the BES Endurance custom skill, use BESEndurance or numeric ID 15003 when a config or command would otherwise be ambiguous with the SkillsReworked Endurance attribute.

Balrond Negative Skills

BES supports signed skill values when Negative Skills is present.

Custom BES effects can scale through zero into matching penalties, with safety clamps for gameplay-critical values.

Examples at -100 with default settings:

Vitality   -10 max health contribution and matching regeneration penalty
Arcana     -10 max Eitr contribution and matching regeneration penalty
Endurance  -20 max stamina contribution and matching regeneration penalty
Fortitude  -10 armor contribution
Hauling    -50 carry weight contribution

SkillsReworked takes priority over Negative Skills for any skill it manages.

Balrond Runeforging

BES recognizes the confirmed Runeforging skill ID:

16050

When Runeforging registers that skill normally, it can participate in BES systems such as Total Level without BES taking ownership of Runeforging progression.

Balrond Absolute Overhaul (BAO)

BES is designed to coexist with BAO without taking ownership of BAO content systems.

Important boundaries:

• BES does not add bonus world-resource drops.
• Improvised Mining adds only a small pickaxe-damage component; normal target/BAO drop logic remains responsible for the result.
• Kitchen Mastery keeps Fermenter integration disabled by default so BAO alchemy chains are not accelerated unintentionally.
• BES detects BAO for diagnostics but does not require BAO as a hard dependency.

Balrond Monster Mayhem

BES is designed to observe normal combat results rather than replace MonsterMayhem's creature systems.

MonsterMayhem remains responsible for creature behavior, creature progression and creature-drop ownership. BES does not require MonsterMayhem as a hard dependency.

ConfigurationManager

BES includes ConfigurationManager-compatible metadata for:

• ordered sections,
• Basic vs Advanced options,
• range controls,
• cleaner configuration presentation.

ConfigurationManager is optional.

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Configuration and multiplayer

Gameplay-affecting settings are synchronized through ServerSync when appropriate.

Important current configuration groups include:

• custom skill enable/disable state,
• global and per-skill XP multipliers,
• custom skill effect multipliers,
• Health Regen Bonus % At 100,
• Eitr Regen Bonus % At 100,
• Stamina Regen Bonus % At 100,
• Sailing steering, acceleration, optional top-speed, collision reduction and headwind settings,
• Taming time, XP, influence radius, tamed-loot and offspring settings,
• Wood Cutting seed-return settings,
• Farming/Foraging harvest, AOE and information settings,
• Skill Floors and Mastery protection,
• combat identity budget,
• Crafting rules,
• Kitchen Mastery.

Custom skill enable/disable behavior

For BES custom skills (15001-15008), Enabled = false removes the skill from game-facing skill lists, commands, XP gain and BES effects. Stored progression is preserved so the skill can be re-enabled later without deleting the player's saved level.

For vanilla skills such as Farming, Wood Cutting, Pickaxes or Sneak, BES feature toggles disable only the BES-added mechanics. They do not remove or disable the vanilla skill itself.

New 0.4.0 config highlights

Vitality

• Health Regen Bonus % At 100 — default 10.

Arcana

• Eitr Regen Bonus % At 100 — default 10.

Endurance

• Stamina Regen Bonus % At 100 — default 10.

Sailing

• Top Speed Bonus At 100 — default 0%.
• Collision Damage Reduction At 100 — default 20%.
• Headwind Assist — default true.
• Level 100 Dead Zone Start — default 0.92.
• Level 100 Dead Zone End — default 0.97.

Taming

• Taming Time Reduction At 100 — default 30%.
• Tame Completion XP — default 5.
• Successful Breeding XP — default 1.
• Influence Radius — default 30 m.
• Tamed Loot Bonus Chance At 100 — default 25%.
• Tamed Loot Bonus Amount — default +1.
• Hunger Info Unlock Level — default 20.
• Pregnancy Info Unlock Level — default 40.
• Better Offspring Unlock Level — default 75.
• Better Offspring Star Chance At 100 — default 15%.
• Offspring Star Cap — default 2 stars.

Wood Cutting

• Additional Seed Return — default true.
• Additional Seed Chance At 100 — default 100%.
• Maximum Additional Seeds — default 1.
• Tree Seed Overrides — optional mappings for modded trees.

Farming & Foraging

• Farming Enhancements — default true.
• Bonus Harvest Chance At 100 — default 25%.
• Bonus Harvest Amount — default +1.
• Foraging AOE Harvest — default true.
• Foraging AOE Unlock Level — default 25.
• Foraging AOE Radius At Unlock — default 2 m.
• Foraging AOE Radius At 100 — default 5 m.
• Foraging AOE Max Extra Pickables At 100 — default 8.
• Foraging AOE Respawning Pickables Only — default true.
• Growth Time Information — default true.
• Growth Time Info Unlock Level — default 12.
• Foraging Respawn Information — default true.
• Respawn Info Unlock Level — default 30.

Local-only options include:

• Total Level HUD position,
• Total Level HUD scale,
• HUD display options,
• debug display/logging options where applicable.

For multiplayer, use the same BES version on the server and clients.

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Translation files

Translation files are loaded from:

BepInEx/config/BalrondExtraSkills-translation/

Use the Valheim language name as the filename, for example:

English.json
Polish.json
German.json

English is seeded internally as a fallback for the core custom skill names/descriptions. External JSON can override or extend those values.

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Diagnostics

BES provides troubleshooting commands useful for checking progression and compatibility:

bes.totallevel
bes.skillinfo
bes.compat

These commands can be used to inspect Total Level calculation, skill state and detected compatibility providers.

For bug reports, include:

• Valheim version,
• BES version,
• full BepInEx LogOutput.log,
• mod list,
• current BES config,
• whether the issue occurs in single-player, host multiplayer or dedicated server,
• the skill or feature involved.

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Save compatibility

The original BES IDs remain fixed:

15001 Vitality
15002 Arcana
15003 Endurance
15004 Exploration
15005 Fortitude
15006 Hauling
15007 Sailing
15008 Taming

Do not change these IDs in custom builds unless you intentionally want to break stored character progression.

Disabling a BES custom skill does not erase its stored progression. The disabled skill is hidden/inactive until it is enabled again.

If BES detects that another mod already owns one of its fixed IDs, BES does not dynamically remap the ID. The conflicting BES skill module is disabled instead of risking save corruption.

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Installation

Mod manager

Install the release through a Thunderstore-compatible mod manager and allow it to install the dependencies declared by the release package.

Manual

1. Install BepInEx for Valheim.
2. Install the ServerSync dependency shipped/required by the release package.
3. Copy BalrondExtraSkills.dll and its release assets/dependencies into a folder under BepInEx/plugins/.
4. Start Valheim once to generate configuration and translation folders.
5. For multiplayer, install the same version on the server and all participating clients.

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Community and support

• Discord: Balrond's Den
• Balrond mods: Thunderstore author page
• Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/balrond1020