Rist
A character level beside the skills, carved into runestones you choose and deepen.
About this mod Author’s original text
Rist
Rist adds a character level beside Valheim's skills. Every level gives you a pick, and a pick
carves one more rank into a runestone you choose. Vanilla skills are read and never written,
rescaled or reskinned.
Built against Valheim 1.0.7, Unity 6000.0.75, BepInEx 5.4.23.5, Harmony 2.9. One DLL plus one
text file, no asset bundle.
Features
- A character level with its own curve, fed by skill level-ups.
- One pick per level. Picks bank; nothing expires.
- Runestones raise a stat by a fixed amount per rank, to rank 5 by default. Every fifth rank
grants a capstone, a second and different effect.
- No runestone carries a drawback.
- A panel on the compendium bar showing every runestone, what it is worth now, what the next
rank adds, and which character level bought each rank.
- An experience bar on the HUD, cloned from one of the game's own bars, that flashes while a
pick is unspent.
- A line above other players' heads: level, total XP, days since their last death.
- Dying no longer costs skill progress. On by default, and switchable.
- The catalogue is a plain text file. Adding a runestone is one line and no rebuild.
- On a server, progress is kept in the server's own ledger rather than in the character file.
How it works
XP and levels
XP comes from skill level-ups and from nothing else. Almost everything in Valheim raises some
skill, so building, sneaking, sailing, cooking and fishing all pay in without Rist keeping a
list of what counts.
A level-up is worth the skill level it reached, not a flat amount, multiplied by that skill's
weight. Vanilla's own skill cost curve is pow(level+1, 1.5), so early levels are nearly free;
a flat rate would hand out runestones in the first hours and dry up when the deep ranks start
to matter.
The weight is what stops one activity carrying the level. On the live server, a character at
Rist level 12 held 1346 XP of which WoodCutting alone was 666, against 293 for everything
earned in a fight. Default weights:
| Weight | Skills |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | Swords, Knives, Clubs, Polearms, Spears, Axes, Bows, Crossbows, Unarmed, Blocking, ElementalMagic, BloodMagic |
| 0.5 | Dodge, Sneak, Swim |
| 0.25 | WoodCutting, Pickaxes, Crafting, Farming, Cooking, Fishing, Run, Jump, Ride |
Full price for a skill raised by something that can kill you, a fraction for repetition that
cannot. The same character comes out at level 6 under this table, with over half of it earned
fighting. SkillWeights is meant to be edited, and on a server the host's table applies to
everyone.
Cumulative XP for level N is LevelBaseXp N^LevelExponent, which is 40 N^1.4 by default.
Changing the weights affects new XP only. To re-price characters that already exist, change
WeightGeneration to any different text: every character is then recomputed once, on its next
login, from the skill levels the server has watched it reach. Runestones already taken are
kept, so a character re-priced from level 12 to level 6 still holds all twelve ranks and earns
no new pick until it passes level 12 again.
Spending picks
The panel is a fifth tab on the compendium bar, beside the raven and the trophy. There is no
keybind; the tab is the only way in.
With a controller the panel has a pointer of its own, because the game's own windows are walked
by focus and this one has none to walk. Push the left stick and a gold cross appears; A carves the
stone under it and B closes the page. Moving the mouse or a trackpad hands the page straight back
to the cursor.
Each runestone carries its own outline, rock and runes, seeded off its id, so it looks the same
in every session and on every machine. A rank cuts one more rune into the rim. The column beside
the field follows the cursor and says what the stone is worth now, what the next rank would make
it, what sits at the bottom of its track, and the character level that bought each rank.
The stones stand in five ættir, Combat, Survival, Endurance, Stealth and Utility: towers two
stones wide and up to f
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.
Install these first, or the mod will not work: