Skill-Based Gear Limiter

EM10 Change

As of EliteMobs 10, the old guild tier loot limiter has been replaced by the skill-based gear restriction system. Guild tiers no longer exist. Instead, players level individual weapon and armor skills by killing elite mobs, and their skill levels determine what gear they can equip.

How It Works

In EliteMobs 10, each player has independent skill levels for every weapon type and armor:

• Armor (1/3 XP multiplier)
• Swords
• Axes
• Bows
• Crossbows
• Tridents
• Hoes
• Maces
• Spears
• Staves
• Wands

When skillBasedGearRestriction is enabled in AdventurersGuild.yml (enabled by default), recognized EliteMobs gear is checked against the relevant skill level. For example, a level 30 EliteMobs sword requires Swords level 30. Armor pieces are checked against the Armor skill. Non-EliteMobs items and items without a recognized skill type are not restricted by this check.

If a player equips gear above their skill level, the equipment update drops the rejected item at their location and sends a message indicating the required skill level. Warnings are limited to one per player every 40 ticks. The check waits for player data to finish loading after login.

This setting is separate from skillSystemEnabled in skills.yml; disabling skill XP does not disable gear restrictions. The Soulbind bypass permission does not bypass this skill check.

Note: Items at level 20 or below can be equipped by anyone without any skill restrictions. This allows new players to use early-game gear freely before the skill-based gating takes effect.

Loot Drops and Gear Restrictions

The skill-based restriction controls equipping gear, rather than applying the old guild-tier loot downgrade. Separate reward protections still apply: natural elite loot can be capped by combat level or blocked by the kill-count cap described below. Receiving an item does not mean you can equip it; items above level 20 still require the corresponding skill level when gear restrictions are enabled.

How Skills Level Up

Players earn skill XP by killing elite mobs. XP is awarded based on:

• Weapon XP: Uses the weapon skill recorded when each hit lands or each projectile is launched. Switching weapons before the mob dies does not transfer XP; using several weapon types splits the award according to their recorded damage contributions.
• Armor XP: Applies a 1/3 multiplier to your damage-proportional XP allocation, subject to kill eligibility and the Armor skill's level gate. It is not guaranteed on every kill. Armor can exceed an individual weapon skill when you use several weapon types.
• Damage contribution: In group kills, XP is distributed proportionally based on each player's damage contribution.

Base mob XP is the square of the effective reward level: level 50 gives 2,500 base XP and level 100 gives 10,000 base XP. These values are before boss multipliers and damage-contribution shares; reward-level caps and individual skill eligibility still apply.

XP-to-Next-Level Formula

The XP required to advance from one skill level to the next follows a cubic progression:

• Levels 1-100: XP to next level = 8.5 * L^3 (where L is the current level)
• Levels above 100 (soft cap): XP to next level = 8.5 * L^3 * (1 + ((L - 100)^2 / 100))

The soft cap multiplier is continuous at level 100 (1.0x) and grows quadratically beyond it, making progress increasingly difficult. For example, at level 150 the multiplier reaches approximately 26x, making further progression nearly impossible.

Boss kills also receive an XP multiplier based on the boss's health and damage multipliers. The health component is sublinear (hpMultiplier^0.6) and the damage component is heavily dampened (1 + (dmgMultiplier - 1) * 0.15), so a 10x HP boss gives roughly 4x XP and a 25x HP boss gives roughly 7x XP (at normal damage). Reinforcement mobs and mounts award no skill XP at all.

Combat Level

A player's overall combat level is calculated as: (highest weapon skill + second highest weapon skill + armor skill) / 3, rounded down.

This combat level determines what natural elite mobs spawn near the player, replacing the old guild-tier-based mob level cap.

Health Bonus

Armor skill level provides a max health bonus: +1 heart (2 HP) per armor skill level above 1. For example, a player with Armor level 50 receives 49 bonus hearts (98 bonus HP) on top of the vanilla 20 HP.

This bonus depends on armorSkillHealthBonusEnabled in skills.yml and does not apply in skillWorldExclusions. With the Advanced Combat System enabled, it applies only in managed combat worlds. The optional scalePlayerHealthDisplayToVanilla setting changes the displayed hearts, not the actual health bonus.

Level Difference Protections

The first three protections below are disabled when enableFarmingProtection is false in AntiExploit.yml. The separate currency-shower cutoff in ItemSettings.yml is not controlled by that toggle.

• High-level cap. Skill XP uses an effective reward level capped at combatLevel + farmingProtectionLevelDifference (AntiExploit.yml, default 15). The same cap applies to natural elite loot; custom-boss loot does not use this farming-protection level cap.
• Low-level skill gate. Each weapon or Armor skill earns no XP from a kill unless the mob's reward level is at least skillLevel - farmingProtectionLevelDifference. This check applies to fixed-level mobs only; it is skipped for mobs using scaled combat.
• Kill-count cap. The skill-XP handler counts eligible natural elite kills in a rolling window. Exceeding farmingProtectionKills (default 20) within farmingProtectionMinutes (default 30) starts a lockout lasting one full window from that moment. The triggering kill and later natural elite kills receive no rewards through the capped paths. The reset notice is sent if the player is online when the scheduled reset runs. Custom bosses are exempt, and disabling the skill system stops new kills from entering this counter.
• Currency-shower cutoff. lootLevelDifferenceLockout in ItemSettings.yml (default 10) blocks the level-based coin reward when the absolute difference between the reward level passed to the shower and your combat level exceeds the setting. At combat level 50, reward levels 39 and 61 both fail the default check. This does not itself block item drops.

Procedural Item Tiers

Procedurally generated items receive a visual skin tier based on their item level. These tiers affect the item's 3D model and worn texture appearance via the resource pack. The tiers are:

Tier	Minimum Level	Description
Bronze	20	First custom skin tier; level 20 gear remains exempt from skill restrictions
Palladium	40	Mid-progression tier
Corrupted	60	Advanced tier with corrupted visual theme
Living	80	High-level tier with organic visual effects
Ultimatium	100	Endgame tier, the highest visual tier

Items below level 20 use the default vanilla material appearance with no custom skin applied.

Powerleveling Prevention

Combined with the soulbind enchantment and the skill-based gear restriction, powerleveling is naturally prevented. Even if a player obtains high-level loot through group play, they cannot equip it until their skill levels are high enough. When Soulbind is enabled, procedurally generated items bind to their recipient, restricting gear trading.