PK Mode
PK Mode
PK Mode on Project Ragnarok Online: opt-in player killing at level 60, what turning red costs, the bounty on a red player and how to clear your name.
PK Mode
PK Mode lets you attack other players on ordinary maps. Nobody is forced into it, and killing a player who did nothing to you is expensive.
| Switching it on | From the PK Mode row in the Assist Mode window (the AUTO / PK button at the top right), at base level 60 or higher. Your attacks on players start 10 seconds later. |
|---|---|
| Who you can hit | Any player of level 60 or higher, outside towns. Players in PK Mode can hit you the same way. A character under level 60 can neither hit nor be hit. |
| Never | Your own party, your guild or an allied guild. PK Mode does nothing on PvP, GvG and battleground maps, which keep their own rules. |
| The one exception | On a field their guild holds after a Field Conquest, guild members may attack level 60+ players without PK Mode and without turning red. A holder who strikes first is marked for 60 seconds like anyone else, so the victim may fight back. |
| Switching it off | After 60 seconds without fighting a player. A red player cannot switch it off. |
| Assist Mode | PK Mode and Assist Mode never run together. Switching PK on stops a running bot, and the bot will not start while PK is on. |
| How to tell | A player in PK Mode wears a white aura and a status badge. A red player wears a gold aura, and their own badge shows their tier. |
The 60-second mark
A PK player who damages or debuffs someone who is not red is marked for 60 seconds.
| Hitting back | Any level 60+ player may attack a marked player, PK on or not, and the mark follows them into town. |
|---|---|
| Self-defence | Killing a marked player costs you nothing: no red time and no bounty. |
| No clean exits | If the player they hit dies to anything else inside that time, a monster included, it counts as their kill. |
Turning red
Kill a player who is not red and not marked, and you turn red.
| Red time | 4 hours per kill, up to 3 kills (12 hours). Only time spent online counts, and logging out pauses the clock. It also stands still on PvP, GvG, castle, battleground and instance maps. |
|---|---|
| Past the limit | Another kill at 3 puts the clock back to the full 12 hours and blocks your chat, skills and items until the red time ends. |
| Blood price | Each kill takes 10% of your account's Zeny, never less than 1,000,000, and puts it on your head as a bounty. Zeny in the bank and on your other characters counts, and what cannot be taken at once is owed. Each further kill at the limit raises the minimum by another 1,000,000. |
| Anyone may kill you | Any level 60+ player, anywhere, towns included. |
| NPCs | Every NPC refuses you: the Kafra, shops, refiners, quest desks. Queues and instances refuse you too, including Emperium Defense, the MVP Arena and duels. |
| Hunting | 50% less EXP and drops from monsters. |
| Everyone knows | Every murder is announced to the server, and so is where a red player is, every 10 minutes. |
| Dying | A 30% chance that one piece you are wearing breaks, and 5% of a level more EXP lost. |
Clearing your name
| Serve the time | Stay online until the red time runs out. |
|---|---|
| Work it off | Kill 10,000 monsters fewer than 10 levels from your own to remove one 4-hour block. |
Bounty hunters
| The bounty | Whoever kills a red player takes the Zeny on their head, less the 30% Zeny tax. No payout when hunter and red player are on the same PC or network. A bounty nobody claims is destroyed when the red time ends; it is not returned. |
|---|---|
| Hunter points | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 points for a red player of tier 1, 2, 3 or muted, once per pair per day. |
| Bounty Hunter of the week | The week's top hunter is announced to the server and wears a hunter's aura until the next weekly reset. They also get a Bounty Hunter's Box by mail. |
| The board | In the PK Mode menu, under Bounty Hunter board. |
Assist Mode and PK
An Assist Mode bot only ever targets monsters. It does not fight back against a player, and outside towns it has no protection from a PK player if its character is level 60 or higher. A death to a player counts toward the bot's death limit like any other.
Figures on this page are read from the live server. Last checked 2 October 2026. Back to the wiki
