Experience and levels¶

Area levels, item levels, where experience comes from, how it falls off, and what each character level costs.

Numbers are the defaults of the Normal difficulty; servers can change them. Every formula here is checked against the mod's code with each patch.

Area levels¶

Every biome has a fixed level. A creature's level is the level of the biome it stands in (stars don't change it): it sets the creature's accuracy and the item level of its loot, and a chest takes the level of its biome. It doesn't scale health or damage, except for the monolith bosses. With the Raid level scaling setting (off by default, on in Merciless), raiders take the level of the biome the raid comes from, and scale with it. Each biome also has a recommended player level: up to the next biome's, it gives full experience; past it, experience falls off.

Item level¶

A dropped item takes the level of the creature that drops it, or of the chest's biome (area levels).

A crafted item's level is the highest level among its materials, by the biome they come from (upgrade materials and molds count as the Deep North); each item base shows its own. It is the level used when runes add properties to the item.

Item level decides which properties and tiers can roll (each tier has a level range), how rare drops are, and which uniques can drop.

Experience¶

Only combat raises your character level: kills, and the hits of your fighting skills. Everything peaceful (gathering, building, crafting, exploring, travelling) goes to craft experience instead, and the experience fall-off never cuts it.

Experience from a kill:

Base health is the Valheim health of its kind. It is shared between the players alive within 40 m (2.5× that for bosses). At night, every experience gain is +50%. Creatures of a runic event give 10%.

Experience fall-off¶

Past a biome's recommended range, the combat experience you gain there fades. The ranges follow the recommended player levels (a server setting, by default the biomes' levels). The level that counts is yours; the biome is where the creature dies (for kills) or where you stand (for hits). Being below a biome's level costs nothing.

Experience fades to 5% at 10 levels past the range, and never lower:

Character level¶

Combat experience raises your character level, up to 200. Each level needs:

Each level gives 1 passive point; points also come from other sources.

On death you lose 10% of a level's experience (experience lost on death), never going below the start of your level. Passives can lower the loss.

Data from Path of Valheiman 5.1.1, extracted 2026-10-20.