Turn Minecraft XP into a full RPG character progression system.
Credit to TheWiggleDuck for the awesome Curseforge project icon!
Runic Skills adds a deep but flexible skill system to Minecraft. Instead of XP being useful only for enchanting and repairs, you can spend it to improve your character across 10 different skills, unlock hundreds of perks, invest in permanent passive bonuses, equip powerful abilities, earn titles, and qualify for better equipment.
The system is designed for both normal survival worlds and heavily modded RPG packs. Runic Skills works on its own, but also includes extensive optional compatibility with magic, combat, equipment, questing, food, firearm, and interface mods.
Earn experience normally by playing Minecraft, then open the Skills screen with Y and decide where to spend it.
Each skill becomes progressively more expensive to level, encouraging players to specialize instead of automatically becoming good at everything.
Your choices can unlock:
A configurable global level cap can also limit how far one character can progress across all ten skills.
| Skill | Focus |
|---|---|
| Strength | Melee combat, physical damage, heavy weapons, and offensive abilities |
| Constitution | Health, healing, food, survivability, and defensive bonuses |
| Dexterity | Ranged combat, accuracy, movement, critical hits, and evasion |
| Endurance | Defense, resistance, sustained combat, and environmental survival |
| Intelligence | Enchanting, crafting, alchemy, trading, and technical knowledge |
| Building | Mining, construction, harvesting, salvaging, and block-related abilities |
| Wisdom | Farming, experience, enchanting support, focus, and utility |
| Magic | Mana, spellcasting, magical damage, spell efficiency, and magic-mod integration |
| Fortune | Luck, loot, fishing, critical effects, gems, and rare rewards |
| Tinkering | Tools, smithing, repairing, durability, crafting, and equipment improvement |
Perks are the heart of building your character.
Each skill contains its own selection of unlockable abilities, ranging from straightforward bonuses to mechanics that can significantly change how you play.
Examples include:
Perks can be enabled, disabled, ranked, and limited according to the server or modpack's configuration.
Passives let you invest in permanent character statistics such as:
They use Minecraft's attribute system wherever possible, allowing them to interact naturally with equipment and other mods.
Runic Skills also includes a separate Power system with 75 abilities.
Powers use their own loadout instead of occupying perk slots and are divided into progressively stronger tiers:
Thirty Powers are designed around broader combat and utility concepts such as projectiles, mobility, summoning, channeling, weapon casting, and general spell behavior.
Another forty-five are tied to the nine magical schools from Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks, with five Powers available for each school when that mod is installed.
Powers have their own icons, HUD feedback, effects, sounds, accessibility settings, and configurable visual quality. The system also distinguishes between exact implementations and the small number of Powers that use documented alternative behavior when an upstream mod does not expose the mechanic needed for the original design.
Players can earn titles for meaningful accomplishments such as defeating major bosses, reaching progression milestones, or completing difficult challenges.
An earned title can be displayed as a prefix to the player's name.
Titles do not replace or modify the player's actual Minecraft name, making the system much friendlier with nickname, chat, team, and tab-list mods.
Title definitions and requirements are also datapack-driven, allowing modpack authors to customize them.
Runic Skills can require players to reach certain skill levels before using powerful equipment.
For example, acquiring an endgame weapon from a chest no longer necessarily means a brand-new character can immediately use it at full effectiveness.
Requirements appear directly in item tooltips so players can see what they need.
This system supports both vanilla and large amounts of modded equipment.
Do not want equipment restrictions? The entire system can be disabled with the enableItemLocks configuration option.
Individual items and individual integrations can also be excluded without disabling the whole feature.
All integrations are optional. You do not need any of these mods to use Runic Skills.
When supported mods are installed, Runic Skills can automatically add appropriate perks, passives, Powers, item requirements, events, or interface support.
Major integrations include:
Runic Skills also includes compatibility with inventory-tab mods and interfaces such as:
Unsupported or missing optional mods are simply ignored.
Runic Skills provides extensive control for pack authors and server owners.
You can configure:
The server is authoritative for gameplay configuration and synchronizes its rules to connected players.
Configuration files are stored primarily under:
config/RunicSkills/Most gameplay settings are contained in:
config/RunicSkills/runicskills.common.json5Equipment requirements use:
config/RunicSkills/runicskills.lockItems.json5Client-side display options use:
config/runicskills-client.tomlMany settings can be reloaded without restarting the server using:
/skillsreloadPack authors can customize several systems through datapacks, including:
Skill visuals can be replaced individually, allowing resource packs and modpacks to give the interface their own theme without modifying Runic Skills itself.
With FTB Quests installed, quest authors receive native Runic Skills task types for checking:
This allows progression packs to directly connect Runic Skills to quests without relying on scoreboard workarounds or manual commands.
Runic Skills supports:
The mod must be installed on both the server and connecting clients.
Gameplay rules are controlled by the server, including skill caps, disabled content, equipment requirements, and progression settings.
Player progression is stored with the player's world data.
YetAnotherConfigLib, or YACL, is optional.
Installing YACL provides an in-game configuration interface through:
Mods > Runic Skills > Config
Without YACL, Runic Skills still functions normally and its configuration files can be edited manually.
YACL is not required on dedicated servers.
Y: Opens the Skills screen by default and can be reboundInventory tabs automatically try to avoid overlapping the recipe book, potion effects, and interface elements added by other mods. Their position can also be adjusted by the player.
Runic Skills includes commands for server operators to manage progression, including:
/skills
/listskills
/respec
/titles
/registeritem
/globallimit
/skillsreload
/powersPlayers can also use:
/respecto reset their own character progression.
Runic Skills does not require a magic mod, quest mod, or other content mod to function.
Power presentation includes configurable accessibility options such as:
Screen shake and flash effects are disabled by default.
Runic Skills is open source under the Apache License 2.0.
It was originally forked from JustLevelingFork and has since been extensively reworked and expanded with new progression systems, UI, integrations, configuration, Powers, titles, content, and modpack support.
Bug reports, compatibility reports, suggestions, and contributions are welcome.
A Stoneborn compatibility resource pack for MCA: Quests, MCA: Conversations, MCA: Crime and MCA: Reputation.
A Stoneborn compatibility resource pack for MCA: Quests, MCA: Conversations, MCA: Crime and MCA: Reputation.
