VanillaSkills
VanillaSkills adds real progression on top of vanilla: a 15-lane skill tree you buy with shards earned from advancements, five tiers of craftable gear that pick up where netherite leaves off (topping out at a Dragon tier with an Elytra-fused chestplate and deepslate-insta-mining tools), plus a loop of quests, a shop and optional feats. It runs on Fabric and NeoForge, and the custom textures reach vanilla clients through an automatically pushed resource pack — nobody installs anything by hand.
Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”- Minecraft 26.2
- Fabric (with Fabric API) or NeoForge
- Install on the server. Vanilla clients are fully supported (they receive the texture pack on join); a client install is optional.
Download
Section titled “Download”Playing via the VSP modpack
Section titled “Playing via the VSP modpack”VanillaSkills is the centerpiece of VanillaSkillsPlus (VSP), a ready-to-play modpack that bundles it with the rest of the server’s mods. It comes as two separate CurseForge downloads:
- VSP - Player Pack — for anyone joining the server. Install it through the CurseForge app; it pulls VanillaSkills and every other mod automatically. Launch it and connect to the server’s address — nothing to configure.
- VSP - Server Pack — for whoever hosts the server. Download it, unzip it on your host machine (or upload it to your hosting panel), open
eula.txtand seteula=true, then run the included start script (start.baton Windows,start.shon Linux). It boots a Fabric server with all the server-side mods already in place. Once it’s up, share your server’s IP with players so they can connect using the Player Pack.
You don’t need both — players only need the Player Pack, and a host only needs the Server Pack.
How you earn shards
Section titled “How you earn shards”There are two currencies:
- Skill Shards — earned by completing advancements (both vanilla Minecraft and VanillaSkills’ own). They pay for most of the skill tree. Only real advancements count — datapack advancements (e.g. VanillaTweaks) do not.
- Quest Shards — earned from the Bounty Board quests. They pay for the gear-unlock lanes (Armorsmith and Toolsmith) and the Quest Shop.
Open the tree and stats screens from the VanillaSkills menu; refund a node to get its shards back (refunds cascade to anything that depended on it).
The skill tree
Section titled “The skill tree”Fifteen lanes. Every node’s effect is a live, stacking modifier — respec any time.
| Lane | Nodes | Per node | At max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vitality | 10 | +2 hearts (+4 HP) | +40 HP (double health) |
| Fleet Foot | 15 | +2% movement speed | +30% movement speed |
| Prospector | 5 | +2/+2/+2/+3/+3 mining efficiency | +12 (instamine stone with an Efficiency V diamond pickaxe) |
| Fortune Finder | 10 | +0.5 luck | +5 luck |
| Warrior | 10 | +0.5 flat and +3% weapon damage | +5 flat and +30% (scales with your weapon) |
| Guardian | 10 | +1 armor | +10 armor |
| Reach | 5 | +0.5 block & entity reach | +2.5 blocks reach |
| Mountaineer | 3 | step height (+0.2/+0.2/+0.1) | step up 1.1-block ledges (sneak to walk normally) |
| Aquatic | 9 | +breath ×3, then Dolphin’s Grace (I→III, stacks with Depth Strider), then underwater mining | full swim speed + full underwater mining |
| Armorsmith | 10 | unlocks crafting each armor tier | Hardwood → Dragon armor |
| Toolsmith | 10 | unlocks crafting each tool tier | Hardwood → Dragon tools |
| Brewmaster | 5 | +10% beneficial-potion duration | +50% duration |
| Evasion | 10 | +2% chance to dodge arrows | +20% dodge chance |
| Cultivator | 5 | +20% chance for bonus crops | 100% (always bonus) |
| Night Vision | 1 | permanent Night Vision | — |
The Warrior lane deliberately combines a flat bonus with a percentage so slow, heavy weapons still out-DPS a fast fist. Mountaineer’s step-up and Night Vision can be toggled per player (/skill toggle stepup, /skill toggle nightvision).
Gear tiers
Section titled “Gear tiers”Five craftable tiers extend the vanilla ladder. Each is built on a vanilla base item (so it inherits that base’s behaviour) but with its own stats, durability and colour. Crafting a tier is gated behind the matching Armorsmith / Toolsmith node unless you disable that in the config.
| Tier | Armor (total) | Toughness | Knockback resist | Durability (H/C/L/B) | Full-set bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardwood | 9 | 0 | 0 | 99 / 144 / 135 / 117 | +10% movement speed |
| Rose Gold | 13 | 0 | 0 | 143 / 208 / 195 / 169 | Immune to all negative status effects |
| Steel | 18 | 0 | 0 | 330 / 481 / 451 / 390 | (heavy: −4% movement) |
| Crystalline | 20 | 2.5 | 0.05 / piece | 385 / 560 / 490 / 455 | Reflect 25% of melee damage back at attackers |
| Dragon | 24 | 4 | 0.15 / piece | 555 / 796 / 722 / 650 | Fire/lava/dragon’s-breath immunity + a sneak dive-dash |
Set bonuses are checked live — take off one piece and the bonus reverts instantly. For reference, Crystalline sits between diamond and netherite; Dragon is clearly above netherite (24 armor vs 20, toughness 4 vs 3).
Every tier covers pickaxe, axe, shovel, hoe, sword and spear.
| Tier | Harvest tier | Mining speed | Extra attack damage | Durability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardwood | stone | 4 | — | 160 |
| Rose Gold | gold | 12 (fastest miner) | +1.5 | 220 |
| Steel | iron | 6 | +0.5 | 800 |
| Crystalline | diamond | 8 | +0.5 | 1800 |
| Dragon | netherite | 9, plus +18 mining efficiency | +1.5 | 3500 |
Rose Gold is the “fast but low harvest tier” pick — it mines quickly but, like gold, can’t harvest the hardest blocks. Steel and up can mine deepslate (see below).
The Dragon tier
Section titled “The Dragon tier”The top tier is a small end-game quest chain:
- Dragon Scales drop from The Ender Dragon (8x) — the tier’s crafting and repair material.
- A Dragon Ingot is forged by surrounding a Netherite Ingot with eight Dragon Scales.
- Dragon gear is made at a smithing table from netherite gear + Dragon Ingots + A Dragon Template
- Fully repair with 1 Dragon Ingots and 20 levels (this fully fixes one piece of gear)
Two signature perks:
- Dragon + Elytra fusion — combine an Elytra into the Dragon chestplate and it gains gliding while keeping full Dragon armor. The elytra is stored inside the item, so you can split them apart later with both items’ enchantments intact — they’re never merged.
- Deepslate insta-mine — the Dragon pickaxe carries +18 mining efficiency. With Efficiency V + Haste II + a fully-leveled Prospector lane, it instantly breaks deepslate.
Mining, gates and Fortune
Section titled “Mining, gates and Fortune”- Deepslate gate (optional, on by default) — deepslate and its ores require a Steel-tier-or-better pickaxe (vanilla diamond/netherite also qualify). Try to mine it with a weaker pick and you’re told why. Creative bypasses it.
- Fortune boost (optional, on by default) — Fortune IV and V grant extra base ore drops beyond what vanilla gives (one extra roll per level above III), on all the common ores. Fortune V additionally has a 0.5% chance to drop a bonus Ancient Debris, which vanilla Fortune normally ignores entirely.
Quests, shop and feats
Section titled “Quests, shop and feats”- Bounty Board — quests rotate on a board and reward Quest Shards (used for the gear-unlock lanes and the shop).
- Quest Shop — spends Quest Shards on useful items, with a rotating daily stock.
- Feats — optional long-run challenges. Off by default; enable them in the config.
Advancements
Section titled “Advancements”VanillaSkills adds its own advancement tree (crafting each alloy and set, forging Dragon Ingots, fusing the armored elytra, unlocking the whole skill tree, and more) — and since Skill Shards come from advancements, these directly feed your progression.
Textures on vanilla clients
Section titled “Textures on vanilla clients”On join, the server pushes a resource pack so the custom gear and item names render even for players with no mod installed. The same textures are available on their own as VS - Textures. Pack pushing can be turned off in the config if you host your own.
Configuration
Section titled “Configuration”Per-world file at <world>/vanillaskills/gameplay.json:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
toolCraftingRequirements / armorCraftingRequirements |
Gate gear crafting behind the skill lanes. Set false to ungate — which also hides that lane from the tree. |
deepslateGate |
Require a Steel-tier-or-better pickaxe for deepslate. |
fortuneBoost |
Enable the Fortune IV/V bonus drops and the Ancient Debris chance. |
questsPerRotation (1–6) |
How many quests are active on the board at once. |
questShopSlots |
How many shop offers refresh daily. |
feats |
Turn the feat system on (off by default). |
starterQuests |
Give new players starter quests (or graduate them immediately). |
| resource-pack push, anvil cost cap, dragon repair cost, and more | Fine-tuning toggles. |
Reload it live with /skill reload.
Commands
Section titled “Commands”/skill reload— reload the world config and language files./skill regen fresh— re-apply the default tree layout after an update changes node effects (unlocked nodes are preserved by id)./skill toggle stepup//skill toggle nightvision— per-player toggles for the Mountaineer step-up and permanent Night Vision.
Translations
Section titled “Translations”Every menu, message, item name and advancement is translatable per player, from the language their client reports. English and Traditional Chinese (zh_tw) ship complete (612 keys). To add a language, start from en_us.json in the repo, translate the values only, and it can be bundled into both the mod and the pushed texture pack.
Add-ons
Section titled “Add-ons”- Casino — adds a casino to the skill screen: slots, blackjack and video poker, all played with your Quest Shards.