BossGatedSkills

BossGatedSkills adds boss-gated safety floors to Valheim's skill loss on death.

You still lose skill levels when you die, but a skill cannot fall below a checkpoint you have earned. Checkpoints require both boss progress and skill progress: defeating a boss unlocks another checkpoint, and each skill must reach that checkpoint before it is protected.

How it works

At the default setting of 10 levels per boss, defeating three bosses unlocks checkpoints at levels 10, 20, and 30:

• A skill at level 8 has not earned a checkpoint yet, so it has no floor.
• A skill at level 24 has passed 10 and 20, so its floor is 20.
• A skill at level 31 has passed all three unlocked checkpoints, so its floor is 30.
• A skill at level 80 stays at 80 until normal skill loss lowers it, but it can never fall below 30 while those three checkpoints are unlocked.

BossGatedSkills does not change XP gain or Valheim's configured skill-loss percentage. It only stops the final loss from crossing the earned floor.

Features

• Earned checkpoints: low or untrained skills are never raised to a boss-unlocked level.
• Locally configurable checkpoints, or server-controlled settings synchronized and locked through Jötunn when the server has the mod.
• Supports vanilla skills and custom skills, including mods that apply their own loss before temporarily removing the skill from Valheim's death-loss pass.
• No character-file data and no inventory, equipment, or tombstone changes.

Installation

Install with a mod manager, or place BossGatedSkills.dll in BepInEx/plugins/BossGatedSkills/.

• Solo: install BossGatedSkills and Jötunn on the client. The local configuration applies.
• Unmodded server: BossGatedSkills may be installed client-side only, together with Jötunn. That client's local configuration applies; other clients do not need the mod.
• Server with BossGatedSkills: install BossGatedSkills and Jötunn on the server and every connecting client. The server requires the mod on clients; installation is still performed separately on each machine.

Configuration

BossGatedSkills has two settings:

• Levels per defeated boss — sets the distance between checkpoints, from 1 to 100. The default is 10.
• Require mounted boss trophy — when false (default), defeating a boss unlocks its checkpoint. When true, the checkpoint unlocks only after that boss's trophy is mounted at the Sacrificial Stones.

Changing Levels per defeated boss affects both the checkpoints a skill can earn and the highest floor unlocked by boss progress.

With three bosses defeated:

• 5 levels per boss unlocks floors at 5, 10, and 15. A skill at level 17 has earned all three, so its floor is 15. A skill above 17 can keep leveling normally, but its death-protection floor is still 15 until another boss is defeated.
• 15 levels per boss unlocks floors at 15, 30, and 45. A skill at level 34 has only reached the first two, so its floor is 30. A skill at level 70 has reached all three, so its floor is 45.

In solo play or on an unmodded server, the client's local settings apply. When the server has BossGatedSkills, its settings are synchronized to clients and locked there. Values that do not divide evenly into 100 stop at the highest complete checkpoint; at 15 levels per boss, the highest possible floor is 90.

Valheim 1.0.15 has seven Sacrificial Stones. The Frozen King has a defeat key but no mountable boss stone, so trophy mode can currently unlock at most seven checkpoints.

The built-in Valheim 1.0 progression is:

1. Eikthyr — defeated_eikthyr
2. The Elder — defeated_gdking
3. Bonemass — defeated_bonemass
4. Moder — defeated_dragon
5. Yagluth — defeated_goblinking
6. The Queen — defeated_queen
7. Fader — defeated_fader
8. The Frozen King — defeated_frozenking

Progression is read from the world's public global keys. The boss sequence is intentionally not configurable. Removing the mod simply restores normal Valheim skill loss.

Compatibility

• Patches Skills.OnDeath and Skills.LowerAllSkills.
• Works with vanilla and modded skills stored in Valheim's normal skill dictionary, including Smoothbrain's Sailing, Mining, Exploration, and Farming skills.
• Does not patch Player.CreateTombStone, inventory code, equipment code, or XP gain.
• Mods that also rewrite or clamp Skills.OnDeath or Skills.LowerAllSkills should be reviewed together.

Version 0.1.4 is compiled against Valheim 1.0.15 and Jötunn 2.30.1.