Health

This article is about health in the base game. For health in Minecraft Earth, see Health (Minecraft Earth).

The health gauge and monitor in Minecraft is usually based on a single row of 10 heart icons. Each full heart contains two halves, one hit point each (the player has normally 20 maximum hit points).

Hearts

The healthbar.

The healthbar on hardcore.

Hearts make up the health meter for the player in the Survival, Hardcore (different texture), and Adventure modes, also for mobs. Each heart represents two hit points. Hit points are lost when players (or mobs) take damage, which can be a percentage of those hearts. However, damage less than 1 isn't visible on the health bar.

If the health meter shows or less, it begins to shake violently, warning that the player is low on health.

Health can be recovered through several means, both "naturally" and through status effects.

• The Instant Health effect restores health immediately, the amount depending on the source and effect level.
• On Peaceful difficulty, the health meter continuously refills over time.
• On other difficulties, health regenerates slowly when the player's hunger is at or above 18 ().
• The Regeneration effect makes health regenerate fairly quickly, and the hearts of the health meter bounce in a wave. Aside from potions of Regeneration, this is also provided by beacons and golden apples. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level II) for 5 seconds, restoring a total of 4. The "enchanted" golden apple provides it for longer (20 seconds) and in total restoring about 16 × 8.
• The Health Boost effect adds 4 () per effect level to the player's total health that can be healed or regenerated by normal means, which is removed when the effect expires. After the effect expires, the player's health may remain above the normal maximum, but the extra health is not recovered once lost to damage. This effect can be gained only through commands or mods. At the levels of 252-256 (with amplifiers 251 to 255), the player has 512 hearts (1024 health points, the "red health" limit for entities).
• The Absorption effect likewise adds 4 for each effect level. Different from the Health Boost effect, this special health cannot be healed or regenerated by normal means. Naturally, it is removed when the effect expires. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level I) for 2 minutes, providing a total of 4. The "enchanted" golden apple provides it at higher level (level IV), providing a total of 16 × 8.

Damage is split between the health and armor bars. Each full armor point takes 8% of damage, to a maximum of 80%, rounded up.

On Hardcore mode, hearts have a different texture ().

The Poison and Wither effects turn hearts a sickly green color and black, respectively. On Hardcore, they turn when poisoned and when withered.

In Creative mode and Spectator mode, the player still has health, but it is hidden from the HUD, and the player is immune to all damage except the Void or /kill. In Bedrock Edition, the player is invincible in Creative mode as well.

The player's health bar is invisible while holding or wearing an item that gives negative health points that exceed the player's current health points. For example, the player's default health is 20, and if holding an item with the attribute −21 health, the player can take two hits before dying; it doesn't matter how much damage these hits inflict. The first one deals enough damage to reduce health to 1, and the second one kills the player. If the player uses a modified item to reduce health, sometimes the death screen appears. After clicking respawn, the player would shake in the death position and this can be fixed by ceasing to use the modified item.

Wolves and iron golems are the only mobs that show their remaining health visually. Horses, donkeys, mules, llamas and the wither are the only mobs that regenerate health naturally over time.

Death

"Death" redirects here. For the music track, see Minecraft - Volume Alpha.

Mobs leaving red corpses and fire (because of daylight and player-made lightning) in multiplayer.

Death occurs when all of a player or mob's hit points are depleted.

The /kill command also instantly brings about death, and a parrot can be instantly killed by feeding it a cookie.

Mobs and players fall to their left side to the ground when killed, dropping any drops at the location they were when they took the fatal damage. Once a fallen body disappears, it turns to dust and drops experience at the disappearance location. It is possible for the drops and the experience to appear in different places if death occurred while the body was in motion.

Player effects

Example of score in Hardcore.

Shaking hearts when player is killed.

For players, a "You died!" screen (or "Game over!" in Hardcore mode) appears, displaying the player's score,‌^{[Java Edition only]} and a death message (see below). The view of the world is tinted red, and the camera-view slowly tilts as if falling over, shudders, and zooms in somewhat. In Bedrock Edition, it zooms in indefinitely. Two options appear on that screen:

• Respawn: either in the last bed the player slept in, at their default spawn point (their first spawn point in the game), their respawn anchor, crying obsidian, or at the spawn point set by commands. In Hardcore mode, the player can respawn only in Spectator mode, and cannot continue because cheats are disabled.
• Return to the title screen.

The death screen is not shown upon death if:

• The player holds a Totem of Undying in the main hand or off-hand and died without falling into the void, in which case the player resurrects upon death. Resurrection does not happen if the player fell into the void.
• Instant respawn enabled, in which case the player instantly respawns upon death without the death screen appearing, but still showing death message.

Any items and/or blocks that were in the player's inventory (except items enchanted with curse enchantments) are dropped from their head, and scattered around the spot where the player died (unless /gamerule keepInventory true is typed in if commands are enabled). Like any dropped item, these drops decay after five minutes while that chunk is loaded.

The player also loses any experience accumulated, reverting the level back to 0 (unless /gamerule keepInventory true is typed in if commands are enabled) and drops experience orbs with a precise total value of player last level × 7 experience points (with a maximum of 100). After reaching between levels 7 and 8, the player always drops only 100 experience points regardless of level.

Despite the fact that dead players disappear like all other mobs, it is still possible for the player to see their own hand while in the first-person mode.

Death messages

Main article: Death messages

Death messages are messages shown upon a player's death that describe its cause.

Mob health

Mobs	Health
Playable	Player 20 × 10
Passive	Bat 6	Cat 10	Chicken 4	Cod 3	Cow 10	Donkey 15 × 7.5 to 30 × 15
	Fox 10‌[JE only] 20 × 10‌[BE only]	Horse 15 × 7.5 to 30 × 15	Mooshroom 10	Mule 15 × 7.5 to 30 × 15	Ocelot 10	Parrot 6
	Pig 10	Pufferfish 3	Rabbit 3	Salmon 3	Sheep 8	Skeleton Horse 15 × 7.5
	Snow Golem 4	Squid 10	Strider 20 × 10 ‌[upcoming: JE 1.16] 15 × 7.5 ‌[upcoming: BE 1.16.0]	Tropical Fish 3	Turtle 30 × 15	Villager 20 × 10
	Wandering Trader 20 × 10
Neutral	Bee 10	Cave Spider 12 × 6	Dolphin 10	Enderman 40 × 20	Iron Golem 100 × 50	Llama 15 × 7.5 to 30 × 15
	Panda 20 × 10 (Weak panda) 10	Polar Bear 30 × 15	Piglin 16 × 8‌[upcoming: JE 1.16 & BE 1.16.0]	Spider 16 × 8	Trader Llama 15 × 7.5 to 30 × 15	Wolf (untamed) 8 (tamed) 20 × 10
	Zombie Pigman 20 × 10
Hostile	Blaze 20 × 10	Creeper 20 × 10	Drowned 20 × 10	Elder Guardian 80 × 40	Endermite 8	Evoker 24 × 12
	Ghast 10	Guardian 30 × 15	Hoglin 40 × 20‌[upcoming: JE 1.16 & BE 1.16.0]	Husk 20 × 10	Magma Cube (big) 16 × 8 (small) 4 (tiny) 1	Phantom 20 × 10
	Pillager 24 × 12	Ravager 100 × 50	Shulker 30 × 15	Silverfish 8	Skeleton 20 × 10	Slime (big) 16 × 8 (small) 4 (tiny) 1
	Stray 20 × 10	Vex 14 × 7	Vindicator 24 × 12	Witch 26 × 13	Wither Skeleton 20 × 10	Zoglin 40 × 20 ‌[upcoming: JE 1.16 & BE 1.16.0]
	Zombie 20 × 10	Zombie Villager 20 × 10
Bosses	Ender Dragon 200 × 100	Wither 300 × 150‌[JE only] 600 × 300‌[BE only]
Unused	Giant‌[JE only] 100 × 50	Illusioner‌[JE only] 32 × 16	Old Villager‌[BE only] 20 × 10	Old Zombie Villager‌[BE only] 20 × 10	Zombie Horse 15 × 7.5
Removed	Beast Boy 5	Black Steve 5	Human 20 × 10	Rana 13 × 6.5	Steve 5
Education Edition	Agent ∞ Unlimited	NPC 20 × 10

Achievements

Main article: Achievement

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
	Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30G	Bronze
	Cheating Death	Use the Totem of Undying to cheat death	Have the Totem of Undying in your hand when you die.	30G	Silver

Advancements

Main article: Advancement

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Namespaced ID
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration, and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	adventure/root
	Postmortal	Use a Totem of Undying to cheat death	Monster Hunter	Activate a totem of undying by taking fatal damage.	adventure/totem_of_undying

History

Java Edition Classic
August 18, 2009					Health bar and fall damage teased.
August 20, 2009					Health bar blinking when damaged, damage invulnerability, and health bar shaking teased.
0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST					Added all of the above.
					Mushrooms now regain health.
					Enemies now fall over when killed.
Java Edition Indev
?					Dead mobs would fall on their left side instead of other random directions. Before suffocation was implemented, players that were covered by blocks could see through dirt and stone. Suffocation was added after Notch discovered that players were abusing this exploit to find underground caves and hollowed carvings. The patch added suffocation damage and making the player unable to see anything when experiencing it. However, this glitch is not completely fixed and is still possible to be done even in the existing version of the game.
					In Survival mode, eating a red mushroom would deal the player 3 of damage because they were poisonous.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.4					Players no longer suffocate when riding in a minecart.
Java Edition Beta
1.5					Fist damage is increased from 1 to 2.
1.8		Pre-release			Added death messages
		release			Fist damage is decreased from 2 to 1.
					Regeneration effect added, increasing health.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2			Mobs can now have armor points.
					Hearts now look different in Hardcore mode.
		RC1			The sound of the player taking damage is changed from a man's grunt to be more gender-neutral.
1.3.1		12w25a			Removed the downward knockback while drowning, which essentially trapped drowning players in multiplayer underwater.
1.5		13w02a			Added additional death messages based on the cause of death.
1.8		14w32a			The health bar has a new animation for damage that shows how many hearts are lost.
1.9		15w31a			Death messages are now displayed on the death screen as well as in the chat.
1.11		16w39a			Added Totem of Undying, which can save a player from death.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.2.0					Health bar added.
0.11.0		build 1			Added death messages.
0.12.1		build 1			Regeneration effect is added that increases health.
					The sound of the player taking damage is changed from a man's grunt to be more gender-neutral.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Added the Totem of Undying, which can save a player from death.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added the health bar.
TU5					Added death Messages.

Gallery

• 

  A preview of the health system seen on Notch's blog. Note how the sprite for the half-heart has a thick, black line in the middle.

References

Gameplay

View at: Template:Gameplay/content [edit]