Valheim Ascended

A full RPG overhaul for Valheim.

Valheim Ascended is an attempt to build a complete RPG framework on top of Valheim. The goal is to bring everything you'd expect from a full RPG under one roof: a character equipment screen, social systems, classes and abilities, tooltips and UI enhancements, professions and crafting, quests, and a vanilla-friendly progression system. Instead of piecing together a dozen separate mods, this is one package trying to do all of it.

⚠️ Early Access

This is a solo passion project. Everything here is built and maintained by one person.

Features are still incomplete, nothing is balanced, and things will break between updates.

⚠️ Mod Compatibility — Read This First

Valheim Ascended is built to be a complete standalone package, not a piece you slot in alongside other overhauls. The mod touches an unusually wide surface of Valheim's systems: combat (bow reworks, crossbow states, melee animations, dual-wield), creature spawning and star levels, UI (nearly every panel and HUD element is custom), inventory management (loadout slots, sheath mechanic, quickslots), stats and attributes, talent and ability systems, progression, multiplayer sync, and more.

Most mods that touch any of these systems will conflict. That includes the obvious ones (combat overhauls, UI replacers, inventory tweaks, class mods) and the less obvious ones (anything that re-skins HUD elements, modifies spawn rates, changes ammo handling, hooks attack patches, or touches BepInEx config for areas VA covers).

My recommendation: see what VA already does before installing anything else alongside it. If a feature you want is already covered by VA, adding another mod for the same area is asking for trouble. If a mod is purely additive (new biomes, building pieces, cosmetic items) it'll usually be fine, but I haven't tested every case.

Compatibility with other mods has not been tested. Conflicts will not generally be considered bugs in VA but thats not saying I wont look into compatibility in the future. I just have a lot on my plate at the moment, balancing this mod, my job, and personal life, so don't expect any efforts in that area anytime soon.

Pick your class after defeating Eikthyr. You can preview all five talent trees before committing.

Each class branches into subclass paths through the talent tree. Once you commit to a branch the other side locks but stays partially accessible (first three keystone rows of the off-spec are unlockable). Respec is available for a coin cost.

6+ abilities per class, all with custom VFX and SFX.

• Pick any 3 from your unlocked pool. Mage gets 5 slots (includes LMB/RMB).
• Castbar system for windup abilities with hold-to-aim indicators
• All abilities are cooldown-based. Mage and Paladin abilities cost Eitr.
• 15 capstone abilities with unique mechanics like Siege Engine (magazine-fed crossbow), Wind Runner (momentum-based ranged buffs), Living Shadow (shadow clone), and more
• All ability VFX are visible in multiplayer, with a unified buff/aura tracker system showing partner buffs on their nameplates and your own state on your personal HUD

Around 50 nodes per class with subclass gates, multi-rank passives, keystones, and capstones.

• 207 total passives across all 5 classes
• 30 talent points earned from boss kills (Eikthyr 6, Elder 6, Bonemass 6, Moder 5, Yagluth 4, Queen 2, Fader 1)
• Abilities unlock at talent point thresholds (Tier 1 at 5 pts, Tier 2 at 10)
• You can browse all 5 trees read-only before picking a class
• Off-spec keystones in the first three rows of the unchosen subclass remain unlockable, so you can dip into the other side without fully committing

Combat has been reworked across multiple axes, not just balance numbers.

Bow & Archery

• Sweet-spot draw system — bows have three draw zones replacing vanilla's flat hold-to-shoot. Below ~80% of the bar fires for proportional damage at full stamina cost. The narrow sweet-spot band at ~80–85% does full damage at reduced stamina. Past that is overdraw — pointer pins at the top and stamina drains per second so you can hold a fully-charged shot to line up your aim.
• RMB draws, LMB fires — right-click holds the draw, left-click fires, releasing right-click cancels cleanly with no shot and no stamina cost. Auto-redraws while RMB is still held for rapid fire.
• Custom draw HUD — slim bar floats next to your character showing charge level, zone-tinted gradient, sweet-spot window markers, spark particles in overdraw, and an arrow-count + arrow-type icon with low-ammo warning color.

Melee & Loadouts

• Sheath mechanic — mainhand and offhand panel slots are persistent loadout slots. Weapons stay in their slots whether drawn or sheathed instead of getting kicked back to the inventory grid. Q-sheathes both hands, drawing brings them back.
• Tools sheathe the loadout, don't replace it — hammer/hoe/cultivator sheathes your weapons transiently and stows back to bring the loadout back. Tools never claim a panel slot.
• 2H weapons claim both slots, spears block dual-wield — 2H equips displace both hands to inventory; spears equipped over a 1H+1H pair do the same; spears still pair fine with a shield or torch.
• Dual-wield survives save/load — vanilla has no concept of a 1H weapon in the offhand, so dual-wield used to lose its offhand on every load. Now restored on launch and on world load.
• Titan's Grip 2H+2H dual-wield — capstone talent that lets you wield two 2H weapons.
• Hunter 1H+bow combo — Hunter-only, lets you equip a 1H weapon in the mainhand and a bow in the offhand. LMB swings melee, RMB pulls the bow off your back and starts a draw, fire returns you to melee stance.
• 2H sledges swing like battleaxes — Stagbreaker, Iron Sledge, and Demolisher now use the 2H battleaxe's chop/cleave instead of vanilla's awkward ground-slam animation with the dirt shockwave. Hit geometry follows the battleaxe; damage and skill type unchanged.

Star spawn rework, phase 1 of a multi-phase difficulty overhaul.

VA adds a lot of player power, and vanilla mob difficulty hasn't kept up. Instead of just cranking HP and damage (which turns combat into a stat check and balances different classes very differently), the plan is to reuse vanilla's star system and actually flesh it out.

• Star cap raised to 4 (from vanilla's 2), with adjusted spawn rates (55% no-star, 25% 1-star, 10% 2-star, 7% 3-star, 3% 4-star)
• You control when the world ramps up — the star cap is gated by which boss trophies you've hung on the sacrificial stones at the starting spawn circle. No trophies hung keeps the cap at 2 (vanilla-like). Hang Eikthyr and 2-stars become common. Elder unlocks 3-stars. Bonemass unlocks 4-stars.
• Covers dungeons and pre-placed locations too — Burial Chambers, Troll Caves, Sunken Crypts, Frost Caves, Tar Pits, Drake Nests, Infested Mines, etc. Vanilla had those at flat 0-star, but if you're rolling around at world-tier 4 and a Frost Cave still has 0-star Cultists, that feels off. Designed encounter floors (like Sunken Crypt Draugr's vanilla 2-star minimum) still hold; the cap just lets them roll higher.
• All of this is configurable in valheimascended.difficulty.cfg.

Phase 2 (per-star stat scaling tuned to leave room for passives) and phase 3 (per-star passive affixes pulled from biome and creature-specific pools, so a 4-star wolf and a 4-star draugr aren't the same fight) are planned for future patches.

Three professions, each with a dedicated UI panel and its own crafting mechanics.

Enchanting

A discovery-based mixing system. Combine trophies with base materials to create enchantments.

• Each trophy has 2 hidden tags, and which tag is active depends on the slot you put it in
• 16 trophy tags across 256 combos, each with an Offensive and Defensive variant, for 512 total enchantments
• Research panel to reveal hidden tags, or just discover them by experimenting
• 2 enchant slots per item with reroll and remove buttons
• 15 affix effects wired up (Lifesteal, Execute, Thorns, Berserker, Fortify, Undying, etc.)
• Enchanted items display combo names like [Enchant 1] Iron Sword of [Enchant 2]

Smithing

Component-based gear customization with stat tradeoff sliders.

• Component slots (Head, Shaft, Blade, etc.) with 3 modification choices each
• Every mod is a dual-axis slider: Brutality vs Impact, Force vs Resilience, Lethality vs Fortitude
• Set Forging lets you assign armor to set templates with 2-piece and 4-piece bonuses
  • Set bonuses are not wired up yet and are flagged for revision.

Shipwright

Build and maintain ships using raw materials instead of pre-built upgrades.

🚧 Shipwright UI is under construction. Screenshots coming soon.

• Exploded diagram UI where you click parts to inspect and modify them
• 18 materials across 5 categories, each with different effectiveness and weight
• Heavier ships sit deeper in the water but are tougher
• Parts degrade while sailing. Sealant slows decay, and you can hammer-repair at sea.
• Materials map directly to Valheim's actual ship physics (sail force, rudder speed, stability, wind angle)

The entire UI is custom. Every panel is draggable, scalable, and has a hotkey.

• Custom health, stamina, and eitr bars with delayed damage/use trails
• Equipment panel with 3D character preview, doubles as your loadout management for sheathe/dual-wield
• 44-stat detail panel with collapsible per-source breakdowns
• Custom enemy HP bars and partner nameplates with HP / stamina / eitr / buff icons / status effects
• Unified buff and status tracker — every ability buff, capstone, passive condition, and timed proc shows up consistently on your bottom-left tracker AND on partner nameplates with countdown sweeps and expiry blinks
• Alt-key quickslots for food and mead (Alt+Z/X/C/Q/E) with draggable HUD bar
• Target lock with nameplate outline highlighting, weapon sheathe indicator
• In-game settings panel with 6 UI scale sliders, font scaling, color customization, and full hotkey rebinding for both mod and vanilla actions
• Toast notifications for milestones and level-ups, welcome guide, snap-to-grid for panel placement
• All HUD elements hide cleanly when the fullscreen map is open

Progression & Milestones

A renown-based leveling system separate from vanilla skill levels. Earn renown by completing milestones across multiple tracks.

• Kill milestones — grouped by mob family (all Greydwarf variants count toward Greydwarfs, etc.) with three thresholds scaled to encounter rate. Covers every biome plus Bears, Vile, Hildir camps, Mistlands creatures, and Fallen Valkyries.
• Weapon mastery — every combat skill (Swords, Knives, Clubs, Spears, Polearms, Axes, Bows, Crossbows, Blocking, Fists, Elemental, Blood) has milestones at skill levels 25 / 50 / 75.
• Profession milestones — Enchanting and Smithing milestones for first-time achievements and tiered counters (enchants applied, trophies researched, combos discovered, gear mods applied, items salvaged, sets forged).
• Gathering, Exploration, Events — biome-appropriate gathering milestones, vanilla random events tracked, ruins and locations.
• Tier names appear above each card: Hunter / Veteran / Slayer for kill counts, Apprentice / Expert / Master for weapons, Apprentice / Adept / Archmage for magic.

Multiplayer

Most VA systems are multiplayer-aware. The mod has been built and tested as a co-op experience, not a solo-only experience.

• All ability VFX sync to partners — sticking arrows, spell impacts, weapon glows, persistent zones, channel auras
• Partner HP / stamina / eitr / class all visible on nameplates and in the party panel
• Unified buff tracker — your active buffs render on partner nameplates so allies can see what you're benefiting from
• Party system with map sharing, ping markers (green-tinted for party members), and a Social panel
• Partner-applied auras propagate correctly — Paladin Seal of Light / Ward of Faith / Sanctuary, Warrior War Cry, Radiant Aura all show on receivers' personal trackers when they're in range
• Castaway NPC system — encounter and rescue stranded NPCs for permanent buffs

Installation

Requires: Valheim (0.221.12) + BepInEx 5

Install via r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager (recommended). The mod manager handles everything automatically.

For manual installs, copy the entire ValheimAscended folder (DLL, assets, and config files) into BepInEx/plugins/. The DLL alone won't work.

Hotkeys

All hotkeys are rebindable in the in-game Settings panel.

Feedback & Bugs

This is a one-person project. Feedback is welcome and it genuinely shapes what gets worked on next.