Valheim PvP server: toggle, raiding rules and mods

Vanilla Valheim has PvP, but it is opt-in per player and nothing more. Each player flips a toggle on their inventory screen; two players can hurt each other only when both have it on. There is no server switch to force it, no teams, no protection for a base beyond the ward, and no record of who killed whom. That is fine for a group of friends who fancy the odd duel. A server that is meant to be about PvP - raiding, territory, factions - is built out of rules you write down and mods you install, and this guide covers both, plus the things about Valheim's networking that make PvP feel different from games built for it.

How PvP works in vanilla#

The PvP toggle is on the inventory screen, next to your character, and it belongs to each player, not to the world. The rules are short:

• Both must be flagged. A player with PvP on cannot damage a player with it off, and the reverse. Flagging yourself only makes you a valid target for other flagged players.
• Flagged means everyone. There are no teams or parties. Two flagged friends hit each other as readily as strangers, which matters most with area attacks - a frost staff or a poorly aimed atgeir sweep.
• No switching mid-fight. The toggle is unavailable for a few seconds after you have been in combat, so you cannot drop the flag the moment a fight turns against you.
• No server setting forces it. The vanilla server has no launch argument or world modifier that turns PvP on for everyone, as of the versions this guide was written against. Forcing it needs a mod, covered below.

Whether a player appears on the map is a separate choice: the map screen has a toggle for sharing your position, and on PvP servers most people turn it off. If you would rather nobody had a map at all, -setkey nomap removes it for the whole world, which makes PvP worlds more about knowing the land - global keys and setkey lists the switches.

What dying costs in PvP#

PvP in Valheim is full loot by default, because death is. When a player dies, everything they carry goes into a tombstone where they fell, and tombstones are not locked to their owner. Whoever killed you can open it and take what they like. Wards do not protect tombstones.

Death also drains skills, and how hard depends on the world's death penalty. The deathpenalty modifier changes what you keep and lose, from casual to hardcore, and on a PvP server it is the single setting that decides how punishing a lost fight is. World modifiers and presets lists the values. Many PvP servers soften it, because a server where every death costs a full inventory and a chunk of skills tends to lose its weaker players fast.

Put together, a casual PvP world's start line looks like this. On a panel host the same settings are set on the Startup tab instead.

./valheim_server.x86_64 -nographics -batchmode -name "Fjord Wars" \    -port 2456 -world "FjordWars" -password "longaxe-raven-77" \    -modifier deathpenalty easy -modifier resources more \    -modifier raids less -saveinterval 600

Bases, wards and raiding#

A Valheim base under player attack is protected by exactly what protects it from creatures: walls, height, a moat. The ward helps less than people assume. It blocks other players from building inside its radius, removing pieces with the hammer and opening doors and chests - but it does not stop damage. Anyone can break a warded wall with a weapon or a pickaxe, and once the wall is down they can walk in. The doors and chests stay locked until the ward itself is broken, and the ward is a piece with health like any other. Valheim wards and griefing has the full table of what a ward blocks.

That gives vanilla raiding its shape:

1. Break through the walls, or dig under them with a pickaxe, since terrain digging is not blocked by a ward either.
2. Find and destroy the ward or wards covering the base.
3. With the wards gone, open the doors and empty the chests.

Building against it follows from the same facts. Hide the ward deep inside, behind more than one wall. Use stone, iron and black marble, which take far longer to break than wood. Build on raised ground, with a moat, so there is no easy trench. Spread storage across several warded areas so one broken ward does not open everything.

The Ashlands update added siege tools - the battering ram and the catapult - aimed at the fortresses in that biome. They break structures far faster than hand weapons, and on a PvP server they will be pointed at player bases sooner or later. If your rules do not mention them, add a line before somebody rolls one up to the main hall.

Raiding rules worth writing down#

The game enforces almost nothing, so the server's rules are the PvP design. Rules that are not written somewhere visible get argued about after the fact, every time. Put them in the server description, a Discord channel and a sign at the spawn stones.

These are the ones that cause most disputes when missing:

• Offline raiding. Whether bases may be attacked while their owners are offline. Allowing it makes PvP brutal for players in other time zones. Many servers forbid it outright or allow it only during set raid windows.
• Raid windows. Set days and hours when raiding is allowed - a weekend evening, for example. Outside the window, bases are off limits. Admins can check complaints against the server log's connection times.
• Spawn protection. No killing at the sacrificial stones, where fresh characters and respawning players arrive with nothing. Without this rule, new players leave on their first evening.
• Portals. No camping the far side of a portal, and no tag games that send people into traps. Portals are the main travel network on most servers.
• Ward placement. No wards near spawn, boss altars or shared portal hubs, so nobody can claim a chokepoint.
• Siege tools. Allowed, allowed only during raid windows, or banned.
• Tombstones. Whether looting a victim's tombstone is fair game, and whether bodies must be left alone for a time.
• Bosses. Whether attacking players during a boss fight is allowed. Somebody always tries it.

What the admin can enforce is limited by what the server knows. The vanilla log records connections with player IDs, and nothing about combat, deaths or destroyed pieces. Screenshots, video and witnesses do most of the work. Penalties are the vanilla admin tools - kick and ban - plus whatever rollback the backups allow, and rolling back a PvP world undoes everyone's fights, not just the one under dispute. The admin console commands reference lists what an admin has.

Teams and friendly fire#

Vanilla has no teams, so on a flagged server friends hit friends. Groups manage this in one of three ways.

• Leave it vanilla. Teammates are careful with area attacks and accept the occasional accident. Workable for small groups.
• A party mod. Groups (by Smoothbrain) adds parties with a group chat, map markers and a setting for friendly fire between members. It is the usual answer for a team-based PvP server.
• A guild mod. Guilds (by Smoothbrain) adds persistent player organisations - closer to clans than to a party for an evening.

Both are installed on the server and every client. Check each mod's page for which settings exist in the current version before you promise your players a feature.

Fair play: the problem with client-side characters#

The hardest problem on a Valheim PvP server is not the PvP. It is where the characters live. A character is a file on the player's own PC, and the server accepts whatever the client brings. A player can create a character in single player, use devcommands to spawn the best gear and raise every skill, and log into your PvP server with it. The vanilla server cannot tell.

Valheim's networking adds to this. Much of the simulation is done by clients - each zone is run by the first player who entered it, and combat hits are largely decided on the attacker's side - so a modified client has more room than in games where the server checks everything. Valheim server lag and zone ownership explains the model.

What a serious PvP server does about it:

• Server-side characters. ServerCharacters (by Smoothbrain) stores characters on the server, so players cannot bring one in from outside. It is the single most effective step for fairness. It must be installed on server and clients.
• A required mod list. Most mods built on Jotunn or ServerSync check that client and server have the same versions and kick players who do not. That does not stop a determined cheater, but it stops casual mismatch. Mod version mismatch kicks covers how those checks behave.
• A ward mod with damage protection. WardIsLove (by Azumatt) can make wards resist damage, set PvP or PvE behaviour per ward area, and give admins control over wards. Many PvP servers use it to make protected zones such as a safe trading hub.
• Trusted admins with tools. ServerDevcommands gives admins god, ghost and the rest of the devcommands kit on a dedicated server, for investigating reports without being killed during it. See the ServerDevcommands guide.

Every one of these requires client installs, so a PvP server that uses them is PC only. Xbox and Game Pass console players cannot install mods; a crossplay flag on a modded server does not change that. Smaller mods exist that force the PvP flag on everywhere or by area; search Thunderstore for them and prefer ones updated since the last game patch, because unmaintained mods are what breaks a modded server on patch day.

Latency, and why fights feel uneven#

PvP in Valheim was not designed for low-latency duels, and it shows when players are far apart. A hit lands according to what the attacker's game saw, so a player with high latency can be hit by something they had already dodged on their own screen. Zone ownership adds a second layer: creatures and objects in a fight are simulated by whoever owns that zone, and if that is a player on a weak connection, everyone in the fight sees the delay.

Two practical consequences. First, a PvP community does better on a server close to most of its players; a group spread across continents will argue about hit registration whatever host it uses. Second, the server itself matters less than people think - it relays and stores, and a modest plan handles ten players. Sizing is covered in how much RAM a Valheim server needs; for PvP, a modded server with ServerCharacters and a ward mod sits at the modded end of that table.

Running the server day to day#

A few operational habits matter more on a PvP world than on a friendly one:

• Backups on a schedule, kept off the server. You will be asked to roll back a raid. Usually the answer should be no, but when a cheater wrecks the map you want the option. Keep several, from several days.
• Publish the rollback policy. State when you will and will not restore, before you are asked. "Only for cheating or server faults, never for a lost raid" saves arguments.
• Update deliberately. A modded PvP server breaks on every Valheim patch until the mods catch up. Hold the server back until they do, and tell players to hold their clients back too.
• Restart cleanly. A forced stop loses everything since the last save, which on a PvP server can mean a raid that half happened. Use a clean stop and a sensible -saveinterval.

On RE:NODE, backups run on demand or on the Schedules tab, restore with a button and can be locked so the copy you need for a dispute is not rotated out. Mods are uploaded through the file manager or SFTP with no whitelist of allowed mods, so the PvP stack above installs as on any BepInEx server - Valheim mods with BepInEx covers the install.

Troubleshooting#

I cannot damage another player. One of you is not flagged. Both need PvP on.

The PvP toggle is greyed out. You were in combat moments ago. Wait a few seconds out of combat and try again.

We keep hitting each other in group fights. Vanilla has no friendly fire setting. Use a party mod such as Groups, or turn PvP off while fighting bosses.

Players are kicked on connecting after we added PvP mods. Their mod set does not match the server's. Share an exact profile and check versions.

Someone arrived with endgame gear on day one. They brought a character from elsewhere. Without server-side characters, the vanilla server cannot prevent it.

FAQ#

Can I force PvP on for everyone on a vanilla server?

No. In vanilla the flag is a per-player choice. Forcing it, or making areas PvP or PvE by location, needs a mod installed on the server and every client.

Can other players loot my body in PvP?

Yes. Your tombstone holds everything you carried and anyone can open it. Wards do not protect it, so recovering it quickly is your only defence.

Do wards make a base safe from other players?

They keep doors and chests locked, but not the walls. Players can break through structure, destroy the ward, and then loot. A ward mod can make wards resist damage.

Can Xbox players join a PvP server?

On a vanilla crossplay server, yes, and the PvP toggle works the same for them. On a server that relies on mods for teams, wards or server-side characters, no, because console players cannot install mods.

How many players can a Valheim PvP server have?

Ten in vanilla, the same as any server. Mods can raise it, but the game's networking was not built for large fights, and PvP with many players is where it struggles most.