Runic Skills
by otectus
Runic Skills is a Forge progression mod for 1.20.1 that layers ten levelable skills over normal play, with XP from mining, fighting and smelting.
What it does
Experience earned through ordinary play, such as mining, fighting and smelting, is spent in the Skills screen, opened with the Y key. Each skill opens a branch of its own with abilities, perks and stat upgrades, and a skill's cost rises as it gets higher, so no player can max everything and two players rarely end up with the same character. A second XP bar is not needed.
The mod covers permanent stat upgrades, 39 passives that raise values such as Max Health, Attack Damage and Movement Speed, along with 471 perks that can be toggled off freely, 75 Powers as deep magic specialisations, and titles other players can see. Players work with the game's normal attribute system, so the bonuses stack correctly with gear and with other mods. The mod is designed for the Runecraft modpack, and its install steps are a Minecraft Forge 47.3.0 or newer build for 1.20.1 with the jar placed in the mods folder.
Runic Skills is released under the Apache License 2.0 and is open source, with public source code and an issue tracker. The server and every player need the mod installed. Files exist for Forge only, for the single version 1.20.1, with 2.0.5 as the latest file, published 2026-09-04.
Key features
Ten levelable skills
Ten skills can each be raised, and their costs grow with level, so progress stays a matter of choice.
Cascading vein mining
Vein Miner breaks a connected ore vein in a single action rather than one block at a time.
Perk selection
Perks appear at skill breakpoints and can be switched off at any time from the Skills screen, with a limited number of active slots.
Area and utility abilities
Cleave damages a crowd around a target, Wormhole Storage opens the ender chest from anywhere, and Haggler lowers villager prices.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
How it compares
More Skills is client and server, released under the MIT License and not open source, and targets 1.20.1 on Forge. Advanced Skills: Remastered is client and server, open source under the MIT License, and covers 1.20 – 1.20.1 on Fabric and Forge, so it reaches Fabric players that Runic Skills does not. RPG Skills is server required with client optional, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0, and also loads on Fabric and Quilt.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runic Skills | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2026-09-04 |
| More Skills | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2025-11-11 |
| Advanced Skills: Remastered | Fabric and Forge | 1.20 – 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2025-02-11 |
| RPG Skills | Fabric, Forge and Quilt | 1.20.1 | Server required, client optional | 2024-08-08 |
Questions
Which loader does Runic Skills need?
Does the server need Runic Skills?
Can a player turn off a perk they no longer want?
In the catalog
Runic Skills is one of 7,216 Magic mods on ModsFinder, and one of 3,927 Magic mods for Forge. 34,764 mods support Minecraft 1.20.1.
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What the author says
Turn your XP bar into a character build. Runic Skills adds a full RPG progression layer to Minecraft: spend the experience you already earn on ten skills, then cash those skills in for abilities, permanent stat upgrades and titles that other players can see. You collect XP the normal way — mining, fighting, smelting…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/runic-skills
- Owner
- otectus
- Published
- 2026-06-18
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-09-04
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15