Tootsalot's Valhalla Overhaul
A 76-mod Valheim overhaul focused on expanded progression, new content, and quality of life — with hand-tuned configs for balanced gameplay that rewards skill investment without trivializing the experience. All gameplay configs are server-synced so the host's settings apply to all connected players.
What This Pack Does
Expanded Skill System — 16 new and reworked skills via the Smoothbrain suite (Vitality, Tenacity, Evasion, PackHorse, Cooking, Farming, Foraging, Ranching, Mining, Lumberjacking, Building, Blacksmithing, Exploration, Sailing, Backpacks, Endurance). SmartSkills ties them together with catch-up mechanics and death recovery. TargetPortal lets you teleport to any portal by name instead of needing matched tags.
New Weapons & Armor — The full Therzie suite (Warfare, Armory, Wizardry, WarfareFireAndIce) adds hundreds of new craftable weapons, shields, armor sets, and a magic system with crossbows, throwing axes, war pikes, bastard swords, and more across every tier from flint to flametal.
Archery & Combat — BowsBeforeHoes overhauls bow mechanics with quiver support, arrow recovery, and improved aiming. SaveCrossbowState remembers your crossbow's loaded state when swapping weapons. ReliableBlock fixes vanilla's inconsistent parry/block behavior so blocks always register when you have stamina. WieldEquipmentWhileSwimming lets you keep your gear out in the water.
New Creatures & Raids — Monstrum and MonstrumDeepNorth populate the world with new enemies. Custom Raids with Monstrum and Wizardry raid packs add event variety throughout progression.
Expanded World — RtDBiomes and RtDOcean rework biome generation. Foglands tweaks the Foglands biome.
Swimming & Diving — VikingsDoSwim adds underwater diving, swim speed scaling by skill level, and configurable stamina mechanics for a complete aquatic experience.
Cooking & Food — CookingAdditions adds 23 new foods, tomatoes, chili peppers, salt deposits, new cooking stations (griller, curing rack, crusher), and a food preparation table. Pairs with Smoothbrain Cooking skill for enhanced food crafting progression.
Mounts & Animals — Wild Bears, Wild Horses, Majestic Chickens, Magical Mounts, and Wagon add tameable animals and mounted combat/travel. Spawn rates are tuned so animals feel like meaningful finds without being impossible to locate.
Ships — OdinShip adds new ship types and naval content for ocean exploration and travel.
Lighting — GammaOfNightLights makes nights meaningfully darker. CircletExtended turns the dverger circlet into an upgradeable helmet with configurable light properties, built-in demister at higher tiers, and the ability to stun enemies with overloaded light.
Base Building & Automation — LazyVikings automates smelters, kilns, cooking stations, and more. Basements adds underground building. OdinArchitect expands building pieces. OdinBanners adds decorative banners. OdinCampsite adds portable camp structures. OdinTrainingPlace adds skill training dummies. FineWoodPieces adds fine wood building options and harvestable reeds. GlassPieces adds glass windows, doors, and a glass collector. PlantEverything expands plantable items. CraftyBoxes lets you craft from nearby containers. Quick Stack handles inventory sorting.
Storage — Smoothbrain Backpacks adds a craftable backpack with a dedicated equipment slot, auto-fill, and upgrade progression. Balanced with weight reduction and slot caps.
Quality of Life — Extended inventory, speedy paths, recycling, multi-user chests, map pins, return scrolls, loading screen art, Rich Discord Presence, and more.
Server Sync
All gameplay-affecting configs use ServerSync with Lock Configuration = On. When playing multiplayer, the host/server's config values override client settings. This means you only need to configure the server and all players will use the same balance settings automatically. Client-only settings (keybinds, UI preferences, camera controls) remain local.
Balanced Config Changes
All configs have been hand-tuned from their defaults.
Standardized Death Penalties
All skills lose 2-3% on death. Gathering skills lose 2%, combat and utility skills lose 3%. Swimming is exempt.
Toned-Down Scaling
- Resource yield multipliers (mining, farming, lumberjacking, foraging): 2x → 1.75x
- Mining/lumberjacking damage multipliers: 3x → 2.5x
- Cooking food bonuses (health, stamina): 1.3x → 1.2x
- Cooking eitr bonus: 1.3x → 1.15x
- Vitality base HP multiplier: 2x → 1.5x
- Endurance max stamina bonus: 75 → 50
- Endurance stamina regen: 10 → 7
- Exploration movement speed: 15% → 10%
- Sailing exploration radius: 5x → 3x
- Sailing ship HP: 2x → 1.5x
Progression Gates Adjusted
- Blacksmithing extra upgrade level: skill 80 → 90
- Building free materials: skill 50 → 70
- Farming ignore biome: skill 50 → 65
- Exploration cartography read: skill 40 → 25 (lowered for co-op)
- Exploration treasure multiplication: skill 50 → 60
- Cooking skill interval: 5 → 10 (prevents food inventory bloat)
SmartSkills Tuning
- Skill recovery bonus: 100% → 75%
- Weapon catch-up bonus: 50% → 30%
- Sneak bonus damage: 50% → 35%
Backpack Balancing (Smoothbrain Backpacks)
- Slot rows: 3,3,4,4,4 → 3,3,3,4,4 (slower early scaling)
- Slot columns: 5,6,5,6,7 → 4,5,5,5,6 (cap at 24 slots instead of 28)
- Item weight inside backpack: 100% → 75%
Creature Spawn Balancing
Wild Bears — Spawn chances reduced, intervals set to 1000s:
- Panda (Meadows): 20% → 8% | Black Bear (Meadows): 100% → 15%
- Brown Bear (Black Forest): 100% → 20% | Grizzly (Plains): 100% → 20%
- Spirit Bear (Mistlands): 100% → 15% | Polar Bear (Deep North): 100% → 25%
Majestic Chickens — Spawn chance: → 3%, intervals: → 1500s, group size: 1, max per area: 1.
Wild Horses — Spawn chance: 100% → 12%, max per area: 3 → 1, intervals: → 1000s.
Mount Stamina
All mounts (bears, horses, magical mounts) now drain stamina when jumping and attacking.
Portal System (TargetPortal)
- Portal name length: 10 → 25 | Default mode: Private → Public
Container & Crafting Range
- CraftyBoxes range: 20m → 15m
- PetPantry feed cooldown: 10s → 30s
- Basement max nesting: 5 → 3
Recycling
- Recycle return rate: 100% → 50%
QoL Buffs
- LazyVikings automation radius: 5m → 8m
- LazyVikings kiln threshold: 0 → 100
- Mining explosion chance: 1% → 3%
- Cooking bonus craft chance: 0% → 15%
- Farming random rotation: Off → On
Biome Identity
- SpeedyPaths stone/marble/iron speed: 1.4x → 1.3x
- Swamp: 0.9x speed, 1.15x stamina drain
- Mistlands: 0.95x speed, 1.1x stamina drain
Load Order
Mods are ordered in the manifest by boot priority. Key ordering rules:
- BepInEx → Jotunn → YamlDotNet load first as frameworks
- UI and inventory mods load before content mods
- Vitality loads immediately before VitalityFix
- All Smoothbrain skills load before SmartSkills
- Smoothbrain Backpacks and TargetPortal load after SmartSkills
- Therzie Warfare before WarfareFireAndIce, Monstrum before MonstrumDeepNorth
- Custom_Raids before raid content packs
- RtDBiomes before RtDOcean
- Animal mods before MagicalMounts
- CookingAdditions loads near Endurance (both by blacks7ar, cooking content tier)
- BowsBeforeHoes before SaveCrossbowState
- VikingsDoSwim near WieldEquipmentWhileSwimming (same author)
- CircletExtended before GammaOfNightLights
- Building mods load together (OdinPlus + blacks7ar pieces)
- PlantEverything loads late (modifies many prefabs)
- Intermission before OfficialArtLoadingScreens
Installation
- Install r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager
- Create a new Valheim profile
- Import the modpack or install mods in the order listed in
manifest.json
- Extract
config.zip into your profile's BepInEx/ folder, overwriting existing configs
- Launch the game through the mod manager
- For servers: Install the same mods and extract
config.zip on the server. All ServerSync configs will push to clients automatically.
Known Conflicts & Notes
SmarterContainers vs AzuCraftyBoxes vs Quick_Stack — All three touch container interactions. If you get double-deposits, disable SmarterContainers first.
Smoothbrain Cooking + CookingAdditions — Both add cooking content. Smoothbrain Cooking handles skill-based food stat scaling; CookingAdditions adds new food items and stations. They complement each other. The Cooking skill bonuses apply to CookingAdditions foods.
Farming (Smoothbrain) vs PlantEverything — Both modify plant behavior. They coexist but check PlantEverything's grid settings if spacing looks off.
BowsBeforeHoes + Warfare — Both add ranged content. If you see duplicate quiver slots, check BowsBeforeHoes' quiver settings.
VikingsDoSwim + WieldEquipmentWhileSwimming — Both by blacks7ar, designed to coexist.
CircletExtended + GammaOfNightLights — Companion mods by shudnal. Load CircletExtended first.
PackHorse + Smoothbrain Backpacks — Both increase carry capacity. Backpack weight is set to 75% (not free) specifically because PackHorse already boosts carry weight.
Config Regeneration Note — Some configs get regenerated to defaults when the game boots with new mod versions. Always re-extract the config.zip after updating mods.
Changelog
v1.2.0
- Added BowsBeforeHoes, SaveCrossbowState, ReliableBlock, VikingsDoSwim, TargetPortal, CircletExtended, GammaOfNightLights
- Added Smoothbrain Backpacks with balanced slot progression and 75% weight reduction
- Added CookingAdditions (23 new foods, salt deposits, cooking stations)
- Added FineWoodPieces, GlassPieces, RichDiscordPresence
- Removed BetterArchery (replaced by BowsBeforeHoes)
- Removed UnderTheSea (replaced by VikingsDoSwim)
- Removed Adventure Backpacks (redundant with Smoothbrain Backpacks)
- Removed LongshipUpgrades
- Cleaned all orphaned configs
- Full config rebalance audit with standardized death penalties, reduced damage multipliers, balanced backpacks, creature spawn tuning, mount stamina drain, biome debuffs, and server sync verification
- All gameplay configs verified server-synced with Lock Configuration = On
v1.1.0
- Added WieldEquipmentWhileSwimming, OdinArchitect, OdinTrainingPlace, OdinBanners, OdinCampsite, OdinShip
v1.0.0
- Initial release with 61 mods and full Smoothbrain skill balancing
Usage & Sharing
This modpack and all its configs are public on purpose. I want people to have access to a balanced, well-ordered Valheim setup without having to spend hours tweaking everything themselves. Feel free to use, modify, or build on any of the configs and load order here. All I ask is that you credit Tootsalot as the original source if you redistribute or reference the configs in your own pack.
Credits
Built with mods by Azumatt, Smoothbrain, Therzie, CookieMilk, blacks7ar, Advize, JewelHeim, ASharpPen, Soloredis, shudnal, MSchmoecker, Goldenrevolver, Roses, Nextek, OdinPlus, VitByr, Marlthon, KGvalheim, TheOllix, ComfyMods, baxhax, JereKuusela, do_the_dew, Korppis, and the Valheim modding community.
