PvP No Skill Loss

Preserve skill levels and progress when another player causes your death. The winner receives Victor's Momentum: +25% skill XP for five minutes, with a gold trophy icon and countdown in Valheim's normal status-effect HUD.

Features

• Direct weapon and projectile kills by another player prevent skill loss.
• Player-inflicted poison, fire and spirit damage also qualify, with source tracking for ongoing effects.
• Mixed player/creature/environmental burning conservatively keeps the normal death penalty.
• Death, tombstones, equipment drops, respawning and other death effects still run normally.
• Protection also prevents the skill reset on PvP death in worlds configured to reset skills on death.
• Further PvP kills refresh Victor's Momentum to its full duration without stacking the bonus or adding another icon.
• The skill XP bonus applies to normal skill training, including the game's direct dodge training calls.
• The buff expires naturally and is removed on the winner's death or logout.
• No Groups or voice-chat dependencies.

Installation

In Gale, choose Install local mod and select this ZIP directly. BepInEx must be enabled in the profile. Restart Valheim.

Manual install: place PvpNoSkillLoss.dll under BepInEx/plugins/HotheadPvpNoSkillLoss.

Install 0.2.0 or newer on both the winner and victim for victory rewards. Install on each player's client that should have skill protection. Replace the older package rather than installing a duplicate DLL. A dedicated-server installation is unnecessary and cannot protect clients that lack the mod. Settings are local, not server enforced.

Configuration

Launch once to create BepInEx/config/com.hothead.pvpnoskillloss.cfg.

[General]
Enabled = true

[Victory Buff]
Enabled = true
SkillXpBonusPercent = 25
DurationSeconds = 300

General.Enabled controls skill protection; Victory Buff.Enabled independently controls awarding and receiving the buff. Disable the latter to remove an active buff. Bonus and duration are local settings. Duration changes apply on the next kill/refresh; bonus changes apply immediately.

Compatibility and limits

Experimental 0.2.0. Compiled with BepInEx 5 and HarmonyX. Patch targets verified against the supplied Valheim 1.0.17 game assembly. Compilation, 66 API/policy checks and 40 tests with simulated engine objects passed. Actual HUD rendering and multiplayer delivery still require in-game testing.

BepInExPack_Valheim is required; Hexium assumes it, so the manifest has no additional dependencies. The package contains no game DLL or other authors' plugin DLLs.

Indirect kills from falls, drowning, trees, traps, player-owned summons or environmental objects are not classified as PvP. Death is attributed to the lethal hit, not a recent combat timer. Status effects already active before installing/loading the mod lack tracked sources. Damage sources added by other mods may need dedicated integration. Mixed burning contributions from different players still protect the victim if all contributors are players, but do not award a winner when attribution is ambiguous.

Victory notifications use the game's routed RPC system. The victim reports the kill to the winner. This is a cooperative client-side feature, not server-enforced anti-cheat. A winner who has already died before the notice arrives does not receive a buff.

Mods replacing death handling or skill routines may conflict. If the game methods change, initialization removes this mod's patches and logs an error.

In-game test

Use test characters or back up your character before testing.

1. Verify the startup log contains PvP skill protection and Victor's Momentum ready.
2. Record a skill's level and progress. Allow another player to kill you with a direct hit. Both should remain unchanged; the tombstone should appear as usual.
3. Repeat with a player-inflicted poison or fire effect delivering the lethal damage.
4. Test a creature kill and environmental death. Normal world skill penalties should apply. Wait out the game's existing no-skill-drain grace period before testing these cases.
5. On the winner's screen, check for Victor's Momentum, a gold trophy and a countdown in the normal status-effect area. Perform a repeatable skill action: XP gained should be 1.25 times normal at the default setting.
6. Kill again while the buff is active: there should still be one icon, the countdown should restart at five minutes, and the bonus should remain +25%.
7. For a quicker expiry test, set DurationSeconds = 15, get another kill and verify the icon disappears and normal XP returns after 15 seconds.
8. Disable Victory Buff.Enabled and confirm the icon and bonus disappear. Disable General.Enabled separately to restore normal PvP skill loss.

Credits

Gameplay concept: CJ / Hothead Collective. Built for your Valheim setup.

Original plugin source is included in source/. Proprietary game files are not included.