Valheim Ascended

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A comprehensive RPG overhaul mod for Valheim, built with BepInEx and Harmony. Adds classes, talent trees, abilities, three professions (enchanting, smithing, shipwright), a milestone-based progression system, and a fully custom UI layer.

Work in Progress — Features are incomplete and nothing is balanced yet. Expect frequent changes.

Features

Classes

Five playable classes, each with unique resource mechanics and playstyles:

• Class selection unlocks after defeating Eikthyr
• Each class branches into 2–3 subclasses via the talent tree
• Respec available for a coin cost

Attributes

Five attributes that scale combat stats:

• STR — Physical damage, carry weight, combat stamina reduction, knockback, armor penetration
• AGI — Movement speed, dodge stamina reduction, run stamina reduction
• INT — Magic damage, healing output, eitr pool, eitr regen
• END — Max health, armor, stamina pool, healing received, blunt damage
• DEX — Crit chance, crit damage, backstab bonus, slash damage

Each level-up grants +2 primary, +1 secondary (class-determined), and 1 free point to spend on any attribute.

Talent Trees

Per-class talent trees with ~50 nodes each:

• Node types: Start (free), Shared, Subclass Gate, Subclass Exclusive, Subclass Shared, Capstone
• Custom node art — per-subclass colored diamonds (selected/deselected), capstone art, gate art
• Bidirectional connections — not linear prerequisite chains
• Subclass unlock — requires 6–9 talent points spent (locked behind Elder kills)
• Right-click refund with BFS connectivity check to prevent orphaned nodes
• 216+ total passives wired across all 5 classes
• Talent points earned from boss kills (20 total across all 7 bosses)
• Scrollable tooltips with fade edges and scroll indicators

Abilities

6+ abilities per class, unlocked via talent point thresholds:

• Tier-based unlock — Tier 1 at 5 points spent, Tier 2 at 10 points spent
• Pick any 3 — choose from your available abilities, right-click to unlearn
• Ability drawer — icon grid with custom art, click to assign to slots
• 3 ability slots with hotkeys G / H / B
• Mage: 5 slots including LMB/RMB for spell casting, with Arcane Bolt as a base ability
  • Bolt transforms into subclass-specific variant after choosing a subclass
  • Empower — enhance up to 2 abilities for -20% cooldown (placeholder)
• Per-class ability bar art — unique bar skins per subclass + generic fallback
• Castbar system for windup abilities
• Cooldown display on the ability bar
• Abilities cost class resources (Rage, Focus, Combo, or Eitr)

Implemented: Warrior 6/6, Rogue 6/6, Hunter 6/6, Mage 11/11, Paladin 11/11

Capstone Abilities

End-of-tree ultimate talents with unique mechanics and pip-based UI:

• Warrior: Titan's Grip, Colossus (arc VFX), Gladiator (dodge trail VFX)
• Rogue: Living Shadow (clone), Reaver's Stance (spear glow), Executioner (2H execute)
• Mage: Spellblade (melee bolt proc), Enchanter (resonance stacking), Overcharge (hold-to-charge)
• Paladin: Divine Arsenal (bonus holy strikes), Radiant Judgement (judgment marks), Zealot's Conviction (zeal stacking)

Enchanting (Mixing System)

Craft enchantments by combining materials and trophies:

• Mixing mechanic — combine a base material (sets tier) with 1-2 trophies (determines enchant)
• 16 trophy tags — each trophy has 2 hidden tags (e.g. Beast / Swift), slot position determines which is active
• 512 unique enchantments — 256 tag combos × 2 variants (Offensive / Defensive)
• Discovery system — trophy tags hidden as ??? until researched or discovered through enchanting
• Trophy Research panel — pay tier-scaled materials to reveal hidden tags
• 2 enchantment slots per item with per-slot tier gating
• Item naming — enchanted items display combo names: [Enchant 1] Item of [Enchant 2]
• All 15 affix effects wired — ElementalMastery, Berserker, Execute, Lifesteal, Vampiric, HealOnKill, SoulHarvest, Thorns, Swiftness, Fortify, ParryStaggerProc, Undying, and more
• Inline slot actions — Reroll (↻) and Remove (✕) buttons on filled enchant slots

Smithing & Modifications

Equipment customization system:

• Component slots (Head, Shaft, Blade, etc.) with 3 modification choices each
• Dual-axis sliders with stat trade-offs:
  • Brutality ↔ Impact (Damage % vs. Stagger)
  • Force ↔ Resilience (Knockback vs. Damage Reduction)
  • Lethality ↔ Fortitude (Armor Pen vs. Armor)
• Set Forging — assign armor to set templates with 4 type-locked slots (Head, Back, Body, Legs)
  • 2-piece and 4-piece tiered bonuses (class-specific and universal)
  • Class filter buttons for browsing sets
  • Set bonuses UI works but gameplay effects are not yet implemented
• Cost icons — material costs displayed with icons across all smithing tabs

Shipwright

Ship modification profession — upgrade and customize your vessels:

• 4 modification categories: Hull, Sail, Cargo, Armament
• Per-ship definitions — each ship type has unique mods with appropriate materials and effects:
  • Raft — Hull and Sail only (wood, resin)
  • Karve — Hull, Sail, Cargo (fine wood, bronze, deer hide)
  • Longship / Drakkar — All categories including Armament (iron, ancient bark, black metal)
• 12 mod types: Reinforced Hull, Streamlined Hull, Ironclad, Large Sail, Storm Sail, Auxiliary Oars, Extended Hold, Reinforced Crates, Quick Rigging, Ram Bow, Mounted Crossbow (coming soon), Harpoon Launcher (coming soon)
• Multi-tier upgrades — slider-based tier progression (up to 5 tiers per mod)
• Material costs scale with ship tier and upgrade level
• 50% salvage refund when removing installed mods
• Radar stat chart — visual overview of ship stats with yellow preview overlay before committing changes
• 3D ship preview with rotate and zoom
• Owner-only editing — only the ship owner can modify it in multiplayer

Progression (Renown System)

Milestone-based leveling:

• 90+ milestones across 7 categories: Boss Kills, Crafting, Gathering, Exploration, Stations, Events, Professions
• Renown earned from completing milestones → level-ups
• Max level 50 with configurable renown-per-level (default 100)
• Boss kills additionally award talent points

Custom UI

Complete RPG interface overlay:

• Navigation Bar — icon bar for accessing all panels (draggable, horizontal/vertical toggle, orientation saved per character)
• Health & Stamina bars — custom bars with delayed damage/use trails
• Food / Boss Power / Rested indicators — compact status row below health bars (vanilla indicators hidden)
• Resource bar — Rage/Focus/Combo pips or Eitr display per class
• Ability bar — bottom-center with per-subclass art, icon-grid drawer for ability assignment
• Castbar — draggable anchor (visible in inventory mode) for positioning the cast bar
• Equipment panel — paper doll slots, 3D preview, equipped items return to hotbar on unequip
• Stats detail panel — 44 stat rows in 7 categories with collapsible per-source breakdowns
• Talent panel — visual talent tree with custom node art, ability selection sub-panel, scrollable tooltips
• Quests/Milestones panel — card layout with filters, progress tracking, gathering tiers
• Enchanting panel — scrollable enchantment picker
• Smithing panel — modifications, set bonuses, refining
• Shipwright panel — ship modifications with 3D preview, radar chart, tier slider
• Social panel — player list, party invite, inspect
• Party HUD — health/status display for party members
• Floating text — proc notifications and persistent aura indicators
• Toast notifications — milestone completion and level-up slide-in banners
• Welcome guide — tabbed quick-start guide, dismissible, reopenable via console
• Target lock — press ` to lock onto a target
• Weapon sheathe — press Z to sheathe/unsheathe
• Scrollable tooltips — normalized design across all panels with max-height capping, mousewheel scroll, fade edges, and scroll indicators
• Snap-to-grid — 10px grid with 50px major lines, toggle button in navbar, hold Shift to bypass
• All panels are draggable with positions saved per character
• Class pick notification — top-of-screen prompt after killing Eikthyr until a class is chosen

Status Effects

Custom status effect system:

• SE_Chilled — 1–3 stacks, 10%/stack slow, 6s timeout, snowflake VFX
• SE_Frozen — 2s root + animation freeze + blue tint + 25% frost vulnerability

Installation

Requirements

• Valheim (version 0.221.12)
• BepInEx 5 for Valheim

Steps

1. Install BepInEx for Valheim
2. Build the mod or obtain ValheimAscended.dll
3. Copy ValheimAscended.dll to BepInEx/plugins/
4. Launch Valheim

Dependencies

• .NET Framework 4.8
• BepInEx 5.x
• Harmony 2.x (included with BepInEx)
• Valheim managed assemblies

Console Commands

Open the console with F5. All commands are prefixed with va_.

Hotkeys