SkillsRPG

Eight skills, sixty abilities and a reason to specialise

SkillsRPG adds eight skills to Paper and Spigot servers (1.17 to 26.x) that level from 1 to 100 as players mine, fight, farm and fish. Levels give points to unlock and rank up abilities, which players fire from a three-slot ability bar using mana. Milestone challenges and cross-skill synergies unlock 40 more abilities along the way. It works on the first start with nothing to configure.

How it works in play

Skills: Swords, Axes, Archery and Defense for combat; Mining, Woodcutting, Farming and Fishing for gathering. Each one levels from 1 to 100.
Abilities: each skill has four abilities bought with points and ranked up to 5, and four more won in milestone challenges. 64 in total.
Ability bar: three slots, four from total level 200. Press F (swap hands) to switch the active ability and right-click with that skill's tool to fire it.
Mana: 50 plus 1 per total skill level, up to 500. It regenerates 5 per second out of combat and shows in a boss bar.
Milestones: a challenge at levels 25, 50, 75 and 100 of every skill, 32 in total. Completing one unlocks that tier's ability.

The eight synergies

Reach level 50 in two linked skills and a combined ability unlocks on its own:

Riposte (Swords + Defense): blocking returns part of the damage.
Battle Dance (Swords + Archery): switching between bow and sword stacks damage.
Stoneshield (Mining + Defense): mining builds shield charges.
Resource Surge (Mining + Woodcutting): a 5% chance of double drops in both.
Hunter's Patience (Archery + Farming): hits while standing still stack damage.
Berserker's Edge (Axes + Woodcutting): more damage the hungrier you are.
Provider (Farming + Fishing): regeneration for nearby allies.
Anchor (Defense + Fishing): less damage taken on water.

How to use it

Install: drop the jar into /plugins and restart once. English is the default; set language: es for Spanish.
Play: XP comes from breaking blocks, killing mobs, harvesting crops and fishing. Open /skills to spend points.
Balance it if you want: the XP curve (with per-skill overrides) is in xp-curves.yml, XP per block, mob, crop and fish in xp-sources.yml, and every ability rank in abilities.yml.
Network: switch storage.type to mysql so several servers share the same progress.

Fair XP

Blocks a player placed themselves give no XP, spawner mobs give 20% of the usual XP, and adventure mode gives none. All three are in config.yml.

Commands and permissions

Everyone: /skills (the hub), /skills bar, /skills challenges, /skills synergies, /skills respec, /skills top [skill] for the leaderboards, and /skill <skill> for one skill.
Respec: the first one is free, then each costs more through Vault (1,000 to start, times 1.5 each time).
Operators (skillsrpg.admin): reload, set a level, add XP, reset a player, unlock or lock an ability, and import levels from mcMMO or AuraSkills.

Placeholders

With PlaceholderAPI installed: %skillsrpg_level_<skill>%, %skillsrpg_xp_<skill>%, %skillsrpg_xp_pct_<skill>%, %skillsrpg_total_level%, %skillsrpg_mana%, %skillsrpg_synergies% and %skillsrpg_unspent%.

Requirements

Paper or Spigot from 1.17 to 26.x, forks like Purpur included, and Folia, on the Java version your server already uses.
Optional: Vault (paid respec), WorldGuard (respects no-PvP regions), PlaceholderAPI (placeholders) and MySQL (shared progress on a network).
With Geyser, Bedrock players on phones and consoles get the skill menus as native Bedrock forms instead of a chest.

None of them is required. Without Vault every respec is free. The plugin never refuses to start because an optional plugin is missing.

FAQ

Can I switch from mcMMO or AuraSkills without players losing their levels?
Yes. /skills admin import mcmmo (or auraskills) reads the old plugin's files, which don't need to be installed, and reports what it found. Add confirm to import. Levels only go up, each one brings its skill point, and divide 10 scales mcMMO's 1 to 1000 levels down. mcMMO's flatfile and AuraSkills' file storage are read; with MySQL, switch the old plugin to files first.

Do players have to open a menu to use abilities?
No. Once equipped on the bar, abilities are switched with F and fired with right-click during play.

Can players farm XP by placing and breaking the same block?
No. Blocks a player placed give no XP when broken.

Can I make one skill slower to level?
Yes. xp-curves.yml has a shared curve and an override per skill.

Can I translate the messages?
Yes. English and Spanish are included in lang/, in MiniMessage, and missing keys fall back to English.

Are there leaderboards?

Yes. /skills top and the Leaderboards button in /skills show the top players of each skill and of the total level, with your own position. They're worked out in the background every few minutes, and %skillsrpg_top_<board>_<n>_name% and %skillsrpg_rank_<board>% put them on holograms and scoreboards.

Can I reward players for reaching a level?

Yes. level-rewards in config.yml runs console commands and sends a message at a given level or every N levels, for one skill or for all of them. Each level pays once per player, even after a reset.

For questions or bug reports, use the discussion tab on this page or our Discord.