Sick of thieving Vikings coming into your place and taking things that don’t belong to them? Maybe you play on a community server and don’t want other people coming to your place looting and destroying it. luckily, there is a feature in Valheim that allows the player to protect their home and lock all doors and chests that they have placed in a certain area.
How to Lock Doors in Valheim
To lock your doors and protect your Valheim base you will need to build an object known as a ward. This ward will lock all doors that the player has placed within a certain radius. This means that any other player will not be able to get through these doors. When your enemies attempt to open a door they will be greeted with a message that says “No access”.
Not only will your doors be locked and inaccessible by other players and characters, any chests within the ward’s radius will also be locked. This can be toggled on and off by interacting with the ward after it has been placed down.
How to Build a Ward
To be able to unlock and access building the ward, the player will have to first collect the necessary items required to build it. The ward is built by first crafting a hammer and going to the section titled ‘Misc’. Once the player has found the items they will find the ward here. You will not need to be within range of a workbench in order to place the ward down.
The materials required to build the ward are:
- 5 Fine Wood
- 5 Greydwarf Eyes
- 1 Surtling Core
Once the ward has been placed the player will have to interact with it in order to activate it. This is done with the ‘Use’ key which is by default the ‘E’ key on your keyboard. Once interacted with, the ward will glow and a barrier will be put up in a certain radius around the area it is placed. Multiple wards can be placed throughout the map in Valheim, there is no limit to how many wards are placed by each player.
By placing a ward inside a home with no windows, there is effectively no way that another player can damage the house or destroy the ward. Along with locking the doors it will also lock any and all chests that have been placed by the player within its radius. This makes the 3rd chest item the ‘Personal Chest’ almost useless as it does the same as the other chests with the use of a ward, but has less space to store items.
Although other players cannot gain entrance into your building or chests to take things, they can still damage and destroy your base. Also, other creatures apart of Valheim like trolls and greydrawfs will still be able to damage and destroy your buildings. Players will not be able to break down your buildings using the hammer’s dismantle function.
If a player was to gain entry into your base, then destroy your ward, they would be able to access all of your chests. With this in mind, it is best practice to hide the ward somewhere in your base. This could include burying it underground so no looters can find it and thus, not access any of your items.
How to Permit Others Using the Ward
When you first interact with the ward you can see that there is another information tab at the bottom showing the permitted characters that have access to the items that the ward is protecting. By using the ward you can allow other players to access your base and chests. This is helpful if you are in a small clan on a community server or playing with friends publicly.
To add friends to the ‘permitted’ characters on a ward, deactivate the ward and have them come over ant press the ‘Use’ key on the ward. Once they have interacted with the ward, their name will be under the ‘Permitted’ users for the ward, meaning they will be able to access all of the doors and chests which you have within this ward’s radius. If you have multiple wards, they will have to be permitted access through each ward individually.
Now, your friends and people you trust can access your doors and chests, whilst having the base remain locked and secure to the rest of the server.
Summary
Wards can be used in order to lock doors, lock chests and keep your building from being torn down easily. You can allow friends access to the ward area by having them interact with the ward while it is deactivated. Don’t forget to reactivate the ward after they have been allowed into the permitted list though.
I hope this guide has helped you understand how to lock doors and chests on public and community servers. (Or if you want to keep your friends out of your things on private servers).
Related: Valheim in First Person! | How to Defeat Trolls – Valheim