Better Rowing

Hold Shift at the helm to paddle faster into a headwind, even on a solo voyage. With friends aboard, take a seat and pull on the drumbeat. Moving strokes train your Rowing skill, giving you more power for less stamina.

Tested in Windows multiplayer with our crew on a dedicated Valheim server.

Row with your friends!

Watch the 50-second BetterRowing gameplay trailer on YouTube

Watch four rowers hit the same drumbeat for a 30% crew bonus, then see a solo helmsman earn a Rowing level while paddling into a headwind. Filmed in Valheim with a locally staged crew.

More full-resolution screenshots

The captain hears the drum when a passenger is seated to row. A lone passenger also hears the cue. Chain consecutive Perfect strokes for up to 1.5× Rowing XP. BetterRowing is an unofficial Valheim mod.

What it adds

• A Rowing skill: successful moving strokes improve the skill. Higher skill gives more rowing power and lower stamina costs.
• Perfect combos: consecutive Perfect strokes earn 1.0×, 1.1×, 1.2×, 1.3×, 1.4×, then 1.5× XP on the sixth and following Perfects. Good, Miss, a skipped beat, leaving/changing seats, paused rowing or a new boat rhythm resets the chain. Each rower has their own combo; the gold Perfect label shows its multiplier. This bonus affects XP only, before the game's normal XP modifiers.
• Captain boosting: hold Shift while using forward paddle speed or backward paddling. The boat's selected direction decides the boost direction; the captain keeps the native steering oar.
• Crew rowing: sit in a supported passenger seat and tap Shift on the beat to follow the captain's paddle direction. Ctrl + Shift rows opposite that direction: forward while the captain reverses, backward while the captain paddles forward. With no captain, Shift rows forward and Ctrl + Shift back-rows.
• A shared three-second drum beat: a compact panel below the minimap shows an animated drum, crew timing and coordinated bonuses. Perfect is gold, Good green, and Miss red.
• Coordinated strokes: two or more accurate strokes on the same beat and in the same direction earn a bonus, up to 30%. Uneven port/starboard rowing adds a turning pull; balanced crews help keep the boat straight.
• Visible crew oars: fitted hull ports, weathered wood matched to the boat, overhand grips, torso movement, water splashes, ripples and sounds synchronized to accepted strokes.

The karve, longship and Drakkar have fitted crew visuals. The raft supports captain boosting without added passenger oars. Drakkar rowing uses eight main-deck side boxes; raised benches and the captain-side station are excluded.

Controls

Role	Action
Captain	Select forward paddle speed or backward paddling, then hold Shift
Seated crew	Tap Shift on the drum to follow the captain's reverse paddle setting; otherwise row forward
Seated crew	Tap Ctrl + Shift on the drum to oppose the captain's paddle direction; with an empty helm, back-row

Crew can row with the helm empty and sails raised, or at forward/backward paddle speed when someone is steering. The rhythm panel appears with any seated passenger rower. The captain hears the drum only while another player is seated to row; standing passengers do not count. Solo passenger rowers keep the cue. Captain reverse boosting and crew assistance do not require Ctrl. Sailing settings do not enable rowing boosts.

Install and play together

1. Open your Valheim profile in Thunderstore Mod Manager or r2modman. Install CwewMods-BetterRowing with its dependencies, then choose Start modded.
2. For multiplayer, install the same BetterRowing version and balance configuration on every player's client and on the dedicated server, if you use one. A player can also host a world using Start Server.
3. Raise the sail and select paddle speed at the helm. Hold Shift to boost. Passengers can sit down and tap Shift on the drum. The crew panel appears as soon as one passenger sits down to row.

To row without a captain, raise the sails, leave the helm empty and sit in a passenger seat. Tap Shift on the drum for forward strokes or Ctrl + Shift to back-row. Normal stamina costs, movement-based skill gains and team bonuses apply; F8/F9 are not required. A single side rower will turn the boat. With someone at the helm, select forward paddling (speed 1) or backward paddling for crew rowing. Taking a stopped helm pauses crew strokes until the captain selects a paddle setting.

Dependencies are BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351 and Jotunn 2.30.2. For manual installation, install those dependencies first, then copy this package's BepInEx contents into the installation's BepInEx folder. Avoid duplicate copies of BetterRowing.dll.

The drum defaults to Audio.BeatVolume = 0.9 and follows game master/SFX volume. The mix now delivers 2× the previous RMS output at the same volume setting, with stereo-linked peak protection. This also works with an existing saved volume setting. Layered acoustic bass and frame drums provide one strong rowing cue every three seconds, preceded by two quieter preparation taps. Row on the main hit. Lower the volume to taste; zero mutes the cue. Recorded takes alternate using the shared beat index and retain their natural tail.

Drum recordings: Versilian Community Sample Library, Versilian Studios / Sam Gossner, CC0 1.0. The recordings are pitched, equalized, layered and arranged for rowing. See the included third-party notices. No audio from the Drums of Drakkar reference track is bundled.

Balance included in this package

The package includes BepInEx/config/curti.valheim.betterrowing.cfg so fresh installations match the playtested balance. Keep it consistent on the server and all clients because boat ownership can move between players. Timing and stamina settings are shared by the boat owner; all force settings are not centrally locked.

Setting	Default
Stroke / drum cycle	3 seconds
Successful crew stroke cost	40 stamina at skill 0, 32 at skill 50, 24 at skill 100
Captain boost cost	9 stamina/second at skill 0; skill 100 costs 40% less
Karve forward rowing cutoff	3 m/s
Longship forward rowing cutoff	4.5 m/s
Drakkar forward rowing cutoff	4.8 m/s

These cutoffs taper rowing thrust; they do not clamp velocity or erase wind/wave momentum. Rested, food and world modifiers affect endurance. Installing or updating the package can replace its bundled configuration, so preserve any custom edits first. The development F8/F9 solo modes are off in the shared configuration and cannot run in multiplayer.

Compatibility and current limits

• Built with Valheim 1.0.20, Unity 6000.0.75f1, on Windows. Linux/macOS clients and Steam Deck visuals are not validated; the rendering bundle targets Windows. Consoles are unsupported.
• The Drakkar keeps its existing seats and compact outer ports. Rough-wave adaptation is intentionally restricted to avoid hull clipping; blades can miss the surface or remain submerged during recovery in rough water.
• Client settings let you disable the animated body, oars, wave adaptation, water effects, drum audio or HUD. Other mods that alter boat meshes, seats, player animation or rowing physics may conflict.
• Characters carry their own Rowing skill progress. Back up your character before switching to an unmodded profile if you want to keep that progress.
• This download contains the mod and its configuration. It does not contain a world save, Valheim assemblies, native boat meshes or third-party dependency DLLs.

Updating or disabling

Update CwewMods / BetterRowing in your Valheim profile with the game closed. For multiplayer, update the clients and the server together, then restart them. To play vanilla, close Valheim and start it from your vanilla profile.

For a normal server, fully exit the game and use Start vanilla. If a server running Jotunn 2.30.2 previously rejected your modded client, it can retain that old mod list in memory. A graceful server restart clears the stale list. Alternatively, try one connection using Start modded with only BepInEx and Jotunn enabled, and BetterRowing disabled, to send a fresh list. This does not require deleting character or world files.

Credits and license

Better Rowing by CwewMods. MIT-licensed mod code and original mod assets. Uses BepInEx and Jotunn as separately installed dependencies. Oar wood artwork and the package icon were created with AI image-generation assistance; boat/character fitting references remain local and are not redistributed.