Tweakable XP Loss

A small server-side NeoForge mod that lets you configure the percentage of experience points a player keeps after death, overriding the default vanilla XP loss.

Players do not need this mod installed on their client — it runs entirely on the server.

Supported versions

The mod ships as three jars, each compiled against its era's Minecraft/NeoForge APIs. Pick the one that covers your Minecraft version:

The 26.2 jar is published as a beta version: Minecraft 26.2 is a stable release, but NeoForge for 26.2 is itself still beta-only at the time of writing (no stable 26.2.x build yet). The mod's GameRules API on 26.x is identical to 1.21.11's, so the mod code is unchanged — only the compile target and Java toolchain (25 vs 21) differ. It will flip to a release version once NeoForge 26.2 ships a stable build.

Why multiple jars? Minecraft 1.21.11 restructured the GameRules API (the keepInventory gamerule moved package, changed type, and changed its accessor), and MC 26.x is a new major on top of that. Rather than rely on runtime reflection, each jar calls its era's API directly — compile-checked and obviously correct. See docs/PORTING.md.

Config

On first launch the mod creates config/tweakable_xp_loss-common.toml:

#Master switch. If false, the mod does nothing (pure vanilla XP loss).
enabled = true

#Percentage of experience points a player keeps through death (0-100).
# 100 = keep all XP (no loss).
# 0   = vanilla behavior (lose all XP).
# Range: 0 ~ 100
keepPercentage = 100

#How the kept XP is returned to the player:
# INSTANT = granted directly to the player on respawn (no orbs).
# ORBS    = dropped as experience orbs at the death location (recoverable; gravestone/corpse mods may collect them).
#Allowed Values: INSTANT, ORBS
awardMethod = "INSTANT"

Edit the file and run /reload (or restart the server) to apply changes.

What "keepPercentage" means

It is a percentage of the player's total accumulated experience points (the raw XP behind the levels bar), not a percentage of levels. For example, keepPercentage = 50 means a player respawns with half of the XP points they had before dying.

How it works (under the hood)

1. When a player dies, vanilla normally scatters a small amount of XP as orbs at the death point (min(level * 7, 100) points) and resets the player's XP to 0 on respawn.
2. This mod:
   • suppresses that small vanilla orb drop (via LivingExperienceDropEvent) so retained XP isn't double-counted, only when active;
   • returns the retained portion either directly on respawn (INSTANT, via PlayerEvent.Clone) or as orbs at the death location (ORBS, via LivingDeathEvent).

Compatibility with other death mods (CorPse, gravestones, …)

• This mod never touches item drops, so it is fully compatible out-of-the-box with corpse/gravestone mods that only handle items.
• When keepPercentage = 0 (or enabled = false), this mod performs no work at all and vanilla behavior is fully preserved, so any other mod's XP handling is untouched.
• If you use a mod that manages experience on death (it stores your full XP in a grave and refunds it later), set keepPercentage = 0 to avoid this mod double-awarding XP.

Notes

• The mod is a no-op when the keepInventory gamerule is enabled (vanilla already preserves XP then).
• Builds with no client-side code; drop the built jar into the server's mods/ folder.

Building

Build the jar for a specific era (defaults to legacy):

./gradlew build                # legacy jar  -> build/libs/tweakable_xp_loss-<ver>-mc1.21.1.jar
./gradlew build -Pera=modern   # modern jar  -> build/libs/tweakable_xp_loss-<ver>-mc1.21.11.jar
./gradlew build -Pera=next     # next jar    -> build/libs/tweakable_xp_loss-<ver>-mc26.2.jar (Java 25)

Java 21 is required for the 1.21.x eras and Java 25 for the 26.x era; Gradle auto-downloads the needed toolchain if it is not installed.

Continuous integration & publishing

• build workflow (.github/workflows/ci.yml) compiles the mod against every targeted Minecraft/NeoForge version on each push/PR — the cross-minor jobs act as a tripwire for API drift.
• release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) triggers on a v* git tag: it builds all three jars, publishes each as a separate Modrinth version (via Minotaur), and attaches them to a GitHub Release. Requires a MODRINTH_TOKEN repository secret and an existing Modrinth project (slug tweakable-xp-loss).