Valheim food and gear planner: check armour and health before a boss

The loadout and food planner adds up the armour, health and stamina of gear and food you have not crafted yet, and shows your weapon's damage against the creature you pick. In the game you see these numbers only for the set you already wear and the food you already ate. Three bronze pieces upgraded to quality 4 give 42 armour, the same as a first set of iron at quality 1.

What the game already shows

The inventory screen shows the armour of the pieces you wear, and the health and stamina bars grow with the food you have eaten. Each item's tooltip shows that one item. A creature's weaknesses show only after you hit it: a yellow damage number means weak, a grey one means resistant. Nothing in the game adds up a set you have not made or tells you how a weapon fares before the fight.

Plan your three foods

You start with 25 health and 50 stamina, and each of the three food slots adds its own values while the food lasts. Sausages give 55 health and 18 stamina, Black Soup 50 and 17, Turnip Stew 18 and 55. Together they give 148 health and 140 stamina. Swap Turnip Stew for Deer Stew, at 45 health and 15 stamina, and the total becomes 175 health and 100 stamina: more room for a boss's hits, less for running and blocking.

Upgrade bronze or move to iron

Each bronze piece starts at 8 armour and gains 2 per quality level up to quality 4, so a full bronze set reaches 42. Each iron piece starts at 14. If Scrap Iron is still far away, upgrading bronze gives the armour of a first iron set; once iron arrives, each quality level adds 2 more per piece. Put both sets into the planner in turn and compare the numbers before you spend the bars.

Pick a target

Choose the creature you are going to fight and the weapon panel applies its damage modifiers. Draugr take normal damage from blunt weapons, resist fire and are immune to poison, so the Iron Mace keeps its whole blunt damage: 13.75 to 30.25 per hit at Clubs level 0, rising as the skill grows. Try a poison weapon against them and the planner shows the loss before you craft it.

The planner keeps your last loadout in this browser, and the address bar holds the whole plan, so you can send it to a friend as a link.