Attrition

Vanilla Minecraft forgives. You die, you walk back. You dig down, you find the same zombies. You travel ten thousand blocks, and the world out there is identical.

Attrition changes one thing: the price of every decision you make.

The world scales against you

Mobs get stronger the further you travel from spawn and the deeper you dig. Each threat tier is +26% health, +19% damage, +8% armour, faster movement and a wider aggro radius, up to eighteen tiers. The Nether adds three. The End adds five. Night adds two. Killing the Dragon raises the floor permanently, for everyone.

From tier 3 some mobs become elites. From tier 4 zombies break doors. From tier 6 skeletons shoot Power III with Punch and Flame.

Your body keeps score

Bleeding, infection, fractures, body temperature, carry load, sanity, thirst, stamina, noise, wetness and insomnia all run at once. Each has thresholds, each has a cure, and each of them can kill you alone.

Every death takes 6% of your maximum health permanently — up to nine scars. Only the rite of mending gives one back, and it charges you for it.

It tells you what is killing you

A hard pack that hides its rules is just an unfair pack. Attrition names the problem and names the cure, on the action bar, in the moment it matters:

Bleeding — craft a Bandage Hold still and SNEAK to bind the wound

Bleeding clots faster if you stand still and slower if you sprint. Thirst drains from effort, not from existing. Every survival meter — thirst, stamina, temperature, bleeding, fracture — is on the HUD, and every one of them has an item that fixes it.

A nine-page Field Manual book is handed to you the first time you join.

The world remembers

• Curses and boons. Eight curses, six boons, rolled against you by the world.
• Diseases. Three of them, each with its own cure.
• Nemesis. Die, and something rises wearing your death.
• Echoes. Your own ghost, walking your last route.
• Grudges. Kill enough, and the living start hunting you back.
• Adaptation. Wipe out a species and the survivors learn, then send an elder.
• The Reckoning. Survive long enough and the world comes collecting.

Rebuilt bosses

The Wither has 600 HP, armour, four phases, escorts and an aura. The Dragon has three phases and rains fire. The Warden hunts you by teleport. Elder Guardian, Ravager and Evoker were rebuilt too. Beat them all and the Hollow King — 400 HP, three phases — comes for what is left.

Twenty-seven craftable items

Bandages, splints, ashen bandages, bone needles, surgery kits, purified water, emberglass, gloom tonic, ward charms, everburning torches, tinder bundles, salt rations, ash cloaks, bloodroot, bone charms, cairn stones, ration tins, gloom lanterns, grudge tokens, pact tokens and field stills. All craftable from vanilla materials, all with custom 16×16 textures in the resource pack.

Hold one and sneak to use it. No mod, no client install — the pack does it with recipe triggers and item components. Every recipe is unlocked in your recipe book the moment you first join, so nothing has to be guessed.

Cairns

The only safe ground in the game — and you have to build it. Inside a cairn ward your noise drops, your sanity recovers, the Gloom recedes and nearby mobs weaken.

Presets

Switch any time from the menu. Every mob in the world is recalculated instantly.

Menu: /trigger atr.menu — works for non-op players on any server.

Tuning: 79 scoreboard keys. Turn off any single system you do not want:

/scoreboard players set SCALE_PER atr.cfg 1500
/scoreboard players set THIRST_ON atr.cfg 0

Compatibility

✅ Does not touch world generation — Terralith, Incendium, Nullscape, Structory and Dungeons and Taverns all work. ✅ Compatible with Stellarity and Harder Difficulty.

⚠️ Overrides 12 vanilla recipes (planks, sticks, torches). Load Attrition last (replace the file name with the version you installed):

/datapack enable "file/Attrition-<version>.zip" last

⚠️ Changes gamerules players_sleeping_percentage, natural_health_regeneration, spawn_phantoms and difficulty to Hard. Disable with /scoreboard players set RULES atr.cfg 0.

⚠️ Custom damage types do not reload correctly with /reload (MC-260660). After the first install, leave the world and re-enter once.

Install

1. The datapack zip (Attrition-<version>.zip) → <world>/datapacks/
2. The resource pack zip (Attrition-RP-<version>.zip) → resourcepacks/, enable it — strongly recommended
3. Enter the world, then leave and re-enter once
4. /trigger atr.menu

Step 3 is not optional. Custom damage types do not register on the first load (MC-260660), and until you re-enter, deaths from bleeding show an empty message.

Start a new world. In an existing one the first death will throw you a long way from your base.

FAQ

Does this need a mod or a client install? No. Vanilla server or single player, 1.21.11. The resource pack needs no mod either — it is a normal resource pack.

What languages is it in? All 69 Minecraft Java locales, translated by hand — not machine output. The pack follows whatever language you picked in the game options.

Is it multiplayer safe? Yes. Every mechanic is per-player, and the menu runs entirely through triggers, so players without operator rights can use all of it.

Can I turn off the parts I do not like? Yes — 79 scoreboard keys, or three presets from the menu. Thirst, bleeding, sanity, bosses and the world events are all independently switchable.

Is it too hard? The default preset is meant to be. Start on Harsh if you want to finish the game.

Can I use this in my modpack? Modrinth-hosted modpacks — yes. Anywhere else, please ask first.

Can I make videos of it? Yes, monetised or not, no permission needed.

Can I make an add-on for it? Yes, and please do. Ship your own pack that sits alongside Attrition and link back here — just do not bundle Attrition's files inside your download.

Can I reupload it / post a modified version? No. Attrition is All Rights Reserved. Link to this page instead, or publish your changes as an add-on. See the LICENSE file for the full list.

I found a bug. Where do I report it? Use the Issues link in the sidebar. Include your Minecraft version, the pack version, the output of /function attrition:core/selftest and the relevant part of logs/latest.log — that is usually enough to find it.