Better hardcore

Better Hardcore is built for players who already use hardcore mode and want the challenge raised further. Zombies and skeletons are much more likely to spawn with armor and high-level enchantments, and zombies, skeletons and endermen can spawn with lasting effects. Health regenerates more slowly, phantoms bite through armor and inflict poison, and a sleeper who goes to bed at critically low health wakes with blindness.

The mod also reworks several item and economy rules: a Totem of Undying has a full in-game day of cooldown after use, a bed resets that cooldown when slept in, the price of an enchanted book is locked at 16 emeralds, and enchanting consumes more experience levels. Killed iron golems leave iron nuggets only when a non-player entity made the kill, and silverfish drop less experience. The mod works only on the hard difficulty.

It requires Forge and is published for 1.20.1 only, with the 0.1 build dated 2026-06-05. Only the server has to run Better Hardcore, so a player who joins without it can still play, though clients should install it so their rules match. Dedicated servers need it installed. The code is not open source; the mod is released under All rights reserved.