Indirect Aggro

Mobs blame you for damage you caused but did not deal. Pour lava on a pillager, light a fire under a zombie, plant a cactus in a farm, or mine the block under a creeper — in vanilla none of that is your fault. Indirect Aggro closes that gap, and only when a specific player can actually be named.

Install on the server (and in singleplayer). Clients do not need it; a client-only install is harmless but does nothing.

Dependencies: Fabric & NeoForge require Architectury API. Forge requires no additional dependencies.

Free to use in any modpack — public or private, no permission needed.

What it does

• Four causes, each with its own switch — lava you poured (including flow connected to it), fire you lit with flint and steel or a fire charge, cactus you placed (including blocks it grew afterwards), and fall damage after you broke the block the mob was standing on.
• Same reaction as a hit — the mob targets you, you are recorded as its last attacker (so piglins, bees, and wolves bring friends), and mobs with persistent anger stay angry after losing sight of you.
• Only when that damage actually lands — a zombified piglin answers for cactus or a fall, never for fire or lava it cannot take.
• No aggro without attribution — natural lava lakes, lightning fires, and ravine falls blame nobody. The mod never picks the nearest player.

Configuration

config/indirectaggro.json, written on first launch with a comment above every key. Edit and save — the mod reloads within about five seconds. No restart and no command. Datapack tag changes still need /reload.

Defaults that matter most:

• enabled true / debugLogging false — master switch; debug prints one line per indirect hit (cause, player, verdict), including every reason a mob was left alone
• causes.lava / fire / cactus / fallAfterBlockRemoved — all true; turn any off independently
• attribution.claimLifetimeTicks 24000 — how long a hazard stays yours (one Minecraft day); claims are memory-only and vanish on restart
• attribution.maxTrackedBlocksPerLevel 4096 — per-dimension claim cap (oldest dropped first)
• attribution.lavaFlowSearchRadius 8 / fireSpreadSearchRadius 2 / cactusGrowthSearchRadius 3 — how far connected lava / fire / cactus is walked back to your claim (0 = exact block only)
• attribution.maxBlocksVisitedPerSearch 512 — hard ceiling on that walk
• attribution.fallBlameWindowTicks 100 — how long after you break a block a fall still counts as yours
• attribution.blameWhileStillBurning true + stillBurningBlameWindowTicks 200 — keep blaming after the mob leaves your fire/lava while still on fire
• attribution.extraFireStarterItems — extra item ids for modded lighters (flint and steel / fire charges always count)
• targets — #indirectaggro:blamed / #indirectaggro:never_blamed (deny always wins), onlyBlameTaggedMobs, and toggles for hostile / neutral / passive / owned pets (blameOwnedPets defaults false)
• aggro.retargetCooldownTicks 40 / persistentAngerDurationTicks 600 / setLastHurtByPlayer true / maxPlayerDistance 64.0 (0 = no distance limit)

Out-of-range numbers are clamped; a broken file is logged and replaced with defaults.

Details

• Fire-immune mobs never react to lava or fire — no damage tick means nothing to attribute. Cactus and falls still work on them.
• Claims do not survive a restart. Scooping lava with a bucket clears the claim with it.
• Fire that spread on its own is followed only within fireSpreadSearchRadius (default 2). Diagonal fire jumps are not followed.
• Falls: the mob must have been standing on the block you broke; a fall that ends above that block is not yours. Pistons, scaffolding two blocks away, and water removals are out of scope.
• Only vanilla lava, fire, soul_fire, and cactus are recognized as hazard blocks. The mod never changes how much damage anything deals — it only sets a target.
• Tag folder name: entity_types on 1.19.2 / 1.20.1; entity_type on 1.21+.

Feedback

Please report any bugs, errors, or feature suggestions on Discord: https://discord.gg/HTkn94BXmA

More mods by Nikrecs: Swing Through Grass · DeathCompass

My other mods that I recommend.