Valheim "No skill drain": what it means, and what controls skill loss on a server
"No skill drain" is a status effect, not a setting. After you die, Valheim shows it under your health for 10 minutes, with the tooltip "If you die you won't lose any skill points." Die again before it runs out and the death costs no skill: the game shows "The Gods are merciful" instead of "Skills lowered". The status then starts again from 10 minutes, so several deaths in a row only ever cost skill once.
How much a normal death costs is set by the Death penalty world modifier, and on a dedicated server the server's world decides it. What you picked for your own worlds in the main menu does not travel with you when you join someone else's server.
How "No skill drain" works
Read from the Valheim 1.0.17 game files:
- Every death checks how long it has been since your previous death. More than 600 seconds: your skills are lowered. Less: they are not, and you see "The Gods are merciful".
- While you are inside those 600 seconds, the game shows the No skill drain status so you know you are covered.
- The clock only runs while you are in the game. It is saved with your character, so logging out pauses it rather than ending it.
- A lowered skill loses a share of its current level and all progress towards the next level, on every skill at once. With no modifier that share is 5%.
- On Hardcore none of this applies: every death resets all skills to zero.
Patch 1.0.21 (28 October 2026) fixed a bug where the No skill drain status could come back after its timer had run out. In the 1.0.21 game files the status counts down the time actually left on the death clock, and the clock, not the status, still decides whether a death costs skill.
What each Death penalty setting does
These are the game's own descriptions from its world modifier menu, checked against the current dedicated server build:
| Setting | Server value | Skill loss per death | What the game says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | casual | 0.75% of each skill | "You do not drop equipped gear, and skills are reduced a lot less than on normal mode." |
| Very Easy | veryeasy | 0.75% of each skill | "You drop all items, and skills are reduced a lot less than on normal mode." |
| Easy | easy | 2.5% of each skill | "You drop all items, and skills are reduced less than on normal mode." |
| Normal | no modifier | 5% of each skill | "You drop all items, and skills are reduced normally." |
| Hard | hard | 7.5% of each skill | "Equipped items are dropped, the rest of your inventory is lost permanently, and skills are reduced faster." |
| Hardcore | hardcore | All skills reset to 0 | "You lose all carried items and skills permanently." |
The percentages come from the game itself: a death takes 5% of each skill's level, multiplied by the world's skill reduction rate, which these settings put at 15% (Casual, Very Easy), 50% (Easy) or 150% (Hard). So no menu setting stops skill loss completely. Casual and Very Easy come closest, and Casual is the only one that also keeps your equipped gear. That is the likely reason a group decides "no skill drain" is not working: on Casual, a death still costs a little skill, unless it falls inside the 10-minute No skill drain window.
Turning skill loss off completely
There is exactly one way in vanilla, and it has a price. The skill reduction rate is a world key, skillreductionrate, and the dedicated server's -setkey launch option writes whatever you give it. We started a Valheim 1.0.17 dedicated server with -setkey "skillreductionrate 0" and the game applied a reduction rate of 0, so deaths cost no skill at all. The key is stored in the world, so it stays until you start the server once with -resetmodifiers and your usual -preset and -modifier options.
The price: 0 is not a value the World Modifiers menu offers, so the game counts that world as cheated, and nobody earns achievements in it while the key is there. The details are on the achievements cheat flag page. The console's setkey will not apply the same value; it answers "Did not apply key." with the cheat warning.
Check what your server is using
- The start line. The setting is a launch option,
-modifier deathpenalty casual. The official dedicated server manual listscasual,veryeasy,easy,hardandhardcoreas the values. If the line also has a-preset, the-modifierhas to come after it, because a preset overwrites earlier modifiers. - Not from your console. On a dedicated server,
listkeysruns on the server, so its list never comes back to the player who typed it. Read the start line instead, or on a Supercraft server the Config tab. - Admin rights. Add your Platform User ID to
adminlist.txt, one per line, in the format[Platform]_[User ID], for exampleSteam_76561198.... It is case sensitive, and the F2 panel in game shows yours.
Change it
On a Supercraft server
Open the Config tab, pick a value for the DeathPenalty modifier in the game settings (Casual, Very Easy, Easy, Hard or Hardcore), save, and restart the server. The panel adds the matching -modifier to the start line for you.
Anywhere else
- Start line: stop the server, add
-modifier deathpenalty casualto its start line (after any-preset) and start it again. - Console, no restart: as an admin, press F5 and run
setworldmodifier deathpenalty casual. The command runs on the server and writes the setting into the world, so it stays after a restart. A-modifierin the start line is applied again at every start, so keep the two in agreement.
Restoring skill levels already lost
A new setting only changes future deaths, and on a dedicated server vanilla Valheim has no command that gives levels back. raiseskill is a cheat command, and cheat commands only run where the game itself is the server: in single player, or for the player hosting a world from the game. On a dedicated server even an admin gets "'raiseskill' is not valid in the current context."
Characters are saved with the player, not on the server, so a player can restore their own levels offline: load the character into a single-player world, turn on devcommands, run raiseskill with the game's own skill names (for example raiseskill jump 5, raiseskill sneak 10 or raiseskill all 5), then rejoin the server. The game itself warns that using dev commands is not recommended and is done at your own risk, and raiseskill is one the game classes as a cheat: after confirmcheats the character is marked for good and will not earn achievements again (see the achievements cheat flag page).
The skill names raiseskill accepts: Swords, Knives, Clubs, Polearms, Spears, Blocking, Axes, Bows, ElementalMagic, BloodMagic, Unarmed, Pickaxes, WoodCutting, Crossbows, Jump, Sneak, Run, Swim, Fishing, Cooking, Farming, Crafting, Dodge and Ride. A name the game does not know, such as jumping, does nothing.
Other settings that follow the server, not your menu
The same rule applies to every world setting: on a dedicated server, the server's world is what counts.
- Combat, Resources, Raids and Portals are
-modifiervalues on the server, like the death penalty. - No map, player events, passive mobs and no build cost are
-setkeyvalues on the server:nomap,playerevents,passivemobsandnobuildcost.
If a setting "isn't working" on a dedicated server, check the server's start line first, or on a Supercraft server the Config tab.
Related articles
- World Modifiers reference
- Hardcore no-map no-portal server setup
- Granting admin permissions on a dedicated server
- Using devcommands for admin tasks
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