Creature Level and Loot Control (CLLC), by Smoothbrain, is the mod groups reach for when vanilla Valheim gets easy: it lets creatures spawn with up to five stars instead of two, ties how often they level up to a difficulty setting plus days passed, distance from the start or bosses killed, gives starred creatures extra effects and elemental infusions, gives bosses affixes such as Reflective, Shielded and Twin, and scales the loot to match. It must be installed on the server and on every player's PC; the server pushes its settings to clients. Before you build a world around it, know one thing: the package is marked deprecated on Thunderstore, and its last release is 4.6.4. It still has a large user base and integrations with other mods, but check that the current version loads on your game version, and consider the alternatives in this guide.
This post covers how stars work in vanilla, what CLLC changes, installing it on a dedicated server, building a harder world for a strong group, the loot side, and what to do if it stops working.
How stars work in vanilla#
A creature's level is a number. Level 1 has no stars, level 2 shows one star, level 3 shows two. Vanilla stops at two stars for normal spawns, apart from special cases. When a spawner creates a creature, it rolls a level-up chance - 10% per roll is the usual default for world spawners - starting from the spawner's minimum level, rolling again for each level gained up to its maximum. Some spawners only allow higher levels beyond a minimum distance from the world centre.
Stars matter on both sides of the fight. Higher-level creatures have much more health and hit harder (the Valheim wiki gives roughly double health for one star and triple for two, with damage rising by about half per star), and their drops scale with level for items set to scale. A two-star troll is a different fight and a better reward.
Vanilla has one more scaling system that CLLC's own description refers to: creatures and bosses get tougher with the number of players near them. Enemy scaling with player count covers that mechanism; CLLC adds its own per-player health and damage option on top, and you should decide deliberately whether you want both.
What Creature Level and Loot Control changes#
CLLC rebuilds how levels are decided and adds layers on top. From its own feature list:
| Area | What you can configure |
|---|---|
| Level-up chance | A difficulty preset that raises the chance, or a custom difficulty you define |
| Second factor | Days passed in the world, distance from the spawn point, or bosses killed - or none |
| Level control | A fixed creature level, or level-ups switched off |
| Star cap | Up to 5 stars on creatures; no maximum with a custom difficulty |
| Bosses | Any star level, with minimum and maximum settings |
| Extra creatures | Level-ups for creatures that normally cannot level, such as Serpents, Deathsquitos, Lox, Drakes and Wraiths |
| Extra effects | Quick, Aggressive, Regenerating, Curious, Splitting, Armored - each shown by a star colour |
| Infusions | Fire, Frost, Lightning, Spirit, Poison and Chaos |
| Boss affixes | Reflective, Shielded, Mending, Summoner, Elementalist, Enraged, Twin |
| Loot | Extra loot chance per level, a multiplier on all drops, multiple trophies, more boss loot |
| World | Respawnable camps and dungeons, a bonus level for killing many creatures in one place quickly |
| Multiplayer | Per-player health and damage increase |
The second factor is the part that shapes a world. With distance, the outer map becomes dangerous while the Meadows stay gentle. With days passed, the whole world hardens over time regardless of progress, which punishes slow groups. With bosses killed, difficulty follows the group's progression: the world gets harder each time you take a trophy to the altar, which is the most natural fit for a shared server because boss kills are server-wide. Boss progression on shared servers explains why one kill counts for everyone.
The extra effects, infusions and affixes turn individual fights into puzzles. A Shielded boss or a Splitting creature changes how a group plays the encounter; Reflective punishes a group that simply piles on damage. The config describes each one; read those descriptions before turning them all on at once.
Installing CLLC on a server and clients#
CLLC depends only on BepInExPack. The rule from its page: install it on the server, where it synchronises configuration to clients in real time, and have everyone in the group install it too. If a player does not have it, whoever controls a spawn decides the creature's level - so a player without CLLC simulating a zone produces vanilla-level creatures in a CLLC world.
- Install BepInEx on the server if it is not there yet - Valheim mods with BepInEx on a server covers it - and take a backup of the world.
- Upload the CLLC
.dllintoBepInEx/plugins. - Start the server once to create the config file in
BepInEx/config(named after the mod's plugin ID; look forcreaturelevelcontrolin the file name), then stop it. - Edit the config on the server. That is the copy that counts.
- Install the same CLLC version on every player's PC, ideally from a shared mod manager profile (r2modman for groups).
BepInEx/ plugins/ (the CLLC .dll from the package) config/ (the CLLC .cfg) edit this copy, on the serverThe server's settings are pushed to connected clients, so edits players make to their own config do not apply on your server. ServerSync and config enforcement explains how that sync works and why a stale client config sometimes seems to win.
On RE:NODE you do this with the file manager or SFTP: upload the plugin, restart from the console, open the generated .cfg in the browser editor. There is no mod installer or list of approved mods - CLLC runs because you put it there.
Making a world harder for a strong group#
A group that has beaten vanilla once does not want "everything has five stars". It wants a world where the next biome is a real step up and the old ones stay fair for the newer players. A setup that works for many groups:
- Base difficulty one step above normal. Enough that one-star creatures are common in the Black Forest and two-star ones are expected in the Swamp.
- Second factor: bosses killed. Difficulty rises with progression, so the group never outgrows it, and nobody is punished for taking a week off.
- Star cap 3 or 4 for normal creatures. Five-star Plains creatures are a wipe for most groups; leave the top stars to bosses.
- Boss levels 2 to 3 with affixes on. One random affix per boss fight makes every boss memorable without making it a gear check.
- Infusions and extra effects on, but read them. Splitting and Regenerating are the ones that turn long fights into very long fights; consider leaving one off.
- Per-player scaling off if vanilla's is enough. Two systems both scaling with player count can make a full ten-player group's fights much harder than a four-player group's.
- Loot multiplier modest. More enemies with more health need more reward, but multiplying everything by three empties the reason to explore.
Pair it with the vanilla world modifiers rather than replacing them. -modifier combat hard raises damage across the board, -modifier deathpenalty controls what death costs, and -setkey playerevents makes raids follow each player's progress. World modifiers and presets has the values. A harder world with the casual death penalty plays very differently from the same world on hardcore.
The loot side: scaling, trophies and balance#
Higher stars already mean more loot in vanilla for drops that scale with level. CLLC adds a chance of extra loot per level, a multiplier on everything dropped, and multiple trophies for enemies and bosses. Two effects to keep in mind:
- Level scaling compounds. A five-star creature whose drops scale with level drops far more than a two-star one. With a loot multiplier on top, piles of meat and hides add up quickly, and item clutter is a load the server carries. Dropped items and world cleanup covers that cost.
- Trophies change progression. Extra trophies mean faster crafting of trophy-based items and more boss summons. Decide whether that is a reward or a shortcut for your group.
For loot tables of particular creatures - adding a drop, removing one, limiting a stack - use Drop That instead. It has CLLC-specific conditions, so a drop can depend on the creature's CLLC state, and its ScaleByLevel switch turns level scaling off for one item:
[Troll.0]PrefabName = TrophyFrostTrollScaleByLevel = falseChanceToDrop = 10That and Spawn That, which can assign CLLC infusions per spawn template, are in Spawn That, Drop That and Custom Raids. Epic Loot also lists CLLC compatibility; Epic Loot on a server covers balancing the two.
Working with Spawn That, Drop That and Custom Raids#
The ASharpPen mods integrate with CLLC rather than competing with it. Spawn That adds a sub-section per world spawner template:
[WorldSpawner.321]Name = Fire wolvesPrefabName = WolfBiomes = MountainLevelMin = 2LevelMax = 3[WorldSpawner.321.CreatureLevelAndLootControl]ConditionWorldLevelMin = 3SetInfusion = FireUseDefaultLevels = trueThe sub-section accepts SetInfusion, SetExtraEffect and SetBossAffix (the same names as the tables above), ConditionWorldLevelMin and ConditionWorldLevelMax to tie a spawn to CLLC's world level, and UseDefaultLevels. That last one is the setting people miss. Spawn That's documentation says that when CLLC is installed it generally takes over level management, so the LevelMin and LevelMax you wrote are ignored unless UseDefaultLevels = true is set for that template. The same options exist for local spawners ([Runestone_Boars.Boar.CreatureLevelAndLootControl]) and spawn-area spawners.
Custom Raids supports CLLC for raid spawns, and Drop That can condition drops on CLLC states. When you combine them, decide which mod is the source of truth for levels, and test in a copy of the world.
Deprecated: what that means and the alternatives#
On Thunderstore, CLLC's package is marked deprecated with the notice that it may no longer be maintained, and its latest version is 4.6.4. That does not make it stop working. It means:
- Each Valheim update is a risk. If a patch changes something CLLC patches, it may break, and nobody may fix it.
- Compatibility forks appear. Translations and compatibility packs depend on it, and some newer ones are also maintained by other people. Read their pages before trusting one.
- New worlds should consider the alternatives.
The alternatives, depending on what you used CLLC for:
| Need | Option |
|---|---|
| Star levels by distance, biome or bosses defeated, loot control, creature modifiers | Star Level System by MidnightMods, which is actively updated and uses YAML config files; it requires Jotunn and YamlDotNet |
| Level ranges for particular creatures or biomes | Spawn That's LevelMin, LevelMax and LevelUpChance per spawner |
| Harder fights overall | The vanilla combat world modifier |
Drop That's changelog also mentions compatibility work for Star Level System. Do not run two level systems at once on the same world. If you switch, do it on a new world or with a backup, because creatures already spawned keep their levels.
For an existing CLLC world on a server you depend on, the practical policy is the one for any older mod: do not update the server on patch day, wait for confirmation that CLLC 4.6.4 still loads on the new version, and test on a copy first. After a game patch walks through that routine.
Troubleshooting#
Creatures never have more than two stars. CLLC is not loaded on the server or on the player simulating that zone. Check the BepInEx log for the plugin loading line and confirm every player has it - BepInEx log troubleshooting shows where to look.
Settings changed on a PC do nothing on the server. The server's config is synced to clients. Edit the file on the server.
Players see different levels on the same creature. Someone lacks the mod or runs a different version. Match versions across the group.
The server will not start after a Valheim update. A deprecated mod failing against a new game version usually shows as errors in BepInEx/LogOutput.log. Remove CLLC to confirm, then roll the server back or wait.
Everything is too hard after the third boss. Bosses-killed scaling plus a high base difficulty. Lower one step; existing creatures keep their levels, new spawns follow the new settings.
FAQ#
Is Creature Level and Loot Control server-side only?
No. It must run on the server to sync settings, and on every client so that levels are decided consistently and the extra stars are visible. Players without it see wrong levels and produce vanilla spawns in zones they own.
Can Xbox players join a CLLC server?
They can only play on servers where they need no mods, and this mod is needed on every client. Treat a CLLC world as PC-only, even with crossplay switched on.
Does CLLC make the server use more resources?
Somewhat, through more and tougher creatures and more loot on the ground. The logic itself is light. Higher spawn counts from other mods and item clutter cost more than the levels do.
Can I add CLLC to a world we already play on?
Yes. It changes how new creatures are levelled, not the terrain. Creatures already in the world keep their level until they die or despawn. Back up first, as with any mod.
Should I still use it now that it is deprecated?
For an existing world where it works, there is no reason to rip it out. For a new long-term world, compare it with Star Level System and with Spawn That's level settings, and choose one that is still maintained.
