Health

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

Hearts
Hearts make up the health meter for the player and mobs in the Survival, Hardcore (different texture), and Adventure modes. Each heart represents two hit points, for 20 hit points. Hit points are lost as a percentage of those hit points. As it appears on the health bar, you lose at a time.

Hit points can be lost by: If the health meter shows or less, it will begin to shake violently, warning that the player's demise is imminent if health is not restored.
 * Starving
 * Fall damage
 * Being attacked by a hostile mob (or another player if PvP is on)
 * Being shot with an arrow
 * Being on fire
 * Touching lava
 * Touching fire, a magma block or a cactus
 * Drowning underwater
 * Suffocating inside a block
 * Falling into The void
 * Taking poison damage or withering,
 * Getting caught in an explosion
 * Being struck by lightning
 * Typing in the chat bar if commands are enabled.

Health can be recovered through several means, both "naturally" and through status effects such as potions provide.
 * The "instant health" potion effect will restore health immediately, the amount depending on the source and effect level.
 * On Peaceful difficulty, the health meter will continuously refill over time.
 * On other difficulties, health regenerates slowly when the player's hunger is at or above.
 * The "regeneration" effect makes health regenerate fairly quickly. Aside from potions of regeneration, this is also provided by beacons and golden apples. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level II) only for 5 seconds, restoring a total of .  The "enchanted" golden apple provides it for longer (20 seconds) and in total restoring about . Visually the hearts will bounce, although this is in more of a structured wave than the erratic shaking of near-death empty hearts.
 * The "health boost" effect adds 4 per effect level to the players total health, 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 will not be recovered once lost to damage.  This effect can only be gained through "cheat" commands, prepared command blocks, or mods. At the maximum level of 255, the player has 522 hearts.
 * The "absorption" effect likewise adds for each effect level.   This special health cannot be healed or regenerated by normal means. Naturally, it will be removed when the effect expires. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level I) for 2 minutes, providing a total of . The "enchanted" golden apple provides it at higher level (level IV), providing a total of.

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 will turn live hearts a sickly green color and  black, respectively. On hardcore, they will turn if poisoned and  if withered.

In Creative and Spectator mode the player still has health, but it is hidden from the HUD, and the player is invulnerable to everything except falling into the Void or.

Death


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

The command will also instantly bring 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 their fallen body disappears, it will emit a puff of smoke, and drop experience at the location they disappeared. It is possible for the drops and the experience to appear in different places, if the dying body is in motion.

Player effects


For players, a "You died!" screen (or "Game over!" in Hardcore mode) appears that displays the player's score, and a death message (see below). The view of the world will be tinted red, and the camera-view will tilt as if falling over, shudder, and zoom in somewhat. In Pocket Edition, it will zoom in indefinitely. On that screen there are two options:
 * Respawn: either in the last bed the player slept in, or at their default spawn point (their first spawn point in the game), or at the spawn point set by commands.
 * In Hardcore mode, the player can only respawn in Spectator mode, and cannot continue progress because cheats are disabled.
 * Return to the title screen.
 * If the player is holding a totem of undying in the main hand or off hand, the player will resurrect upon death instead of the death screen will show up.

Any items and/or blocks that were in the player's inventory are dropped from their head, and scattered around the spot where the player died (unless is typed in if commands are enabled). Like any dropped item, these drops will decay once five minutes pass while that chunk is loaded.

The player will also lose any experience accumulated, reverting the level back to 0 (unless is typed in if commands are enabled) and will drop experience orbs with a total value of level * 7 (with a maximum of 100) to the ground. In Pocket Edition, when a player dies, they drop only $1/2$ of the experience.

Death messages
Death messages are broadcast to everyone upon the death of a player, and to the pet's owner on the death of a pet wolf, cat, or parrot. These messages communicate how the entity died, and some are intended to be humorous.


 * Arrows
 * [player] was shot by arrow
 * This message is caused by arrows shot from a dispenser or
 * [player] was shot by [player/mob]
 * Caused by mobs with projectile attacks or kills using a bow.
 * [player] was shot by [player/mob] using [bow name]
 * Caused by mobs or players with a renamed bow


 * Cactus
 * [player] was pricked to death
 * [player] hugged a cactus
 * [player] walked into a cactus while trying to escape [player/mob]
 * [player] was stabbed to death
 * Legacy Console Edition only


 * Drowning
 * [player] drowned
 * [player] drowned whilst trying to escape [player/mob]
 * Note: You can also type to disable drowning damage.


 * Elytra
 * [player] experienced kinetic energy
 * [player] removed an elytra while flying


 * Explosions
 * [player] blew up
 * Shows up if TNT is activated by redstone mechanisms, fire, dispensed out from a dispenser or if an end crystal killing the player
 * [player] was blown up by [player/mob]
 * This message shows up only when TNT is activated by a creeper, skeleton (only if it shoot flaming arrows), a creeper killing the player or by a player using flint and steel, fire charges or an arrow shot from a bow enchanted with Flame


 * Falling
 * [player] hit the ground too hard
 * Only caused if the player is killed by a short fall, ender pearl damage, or riding an entity that died due to fall damage. Always show up if the player dies by fall damage in Legacy Console Edition.
 * [player] fell from a high place. (Java Edition only).
 * Caused by a fall greater than 5 blocks.
 * [player] fell off a ladder
 * [player] fell off some vines
 * [player] fell out of the water
 * [player] fell into a patch of fire
 * [player] fell into a patch of cacti
 * [player] was doomed to fall by [mob/player]
 * [player] was shot off some vines by [mob/player]
 * [player] was shot off a ladder by [mob/player]
 * [player] was blown from a high place by [mob/player]
 * Only caused if knockback from a creeper explosion, a ghast fireball, or player-lit TNT causes the player to fall to their death.
 * Type to disable fall damage.


 * Falling blocks
 * [player] was squashed by a falling anvil
 * [player] was squashed by a falling block
 * This message appears if the player is killed by a custom falling block other than an anvil that is modified to inflict damage


 * Fire
 * [player] went up in flames
 * This message appears if the player died while in the source of the fire (unless the game rule  has been set to  ).
 * [player] burned to death
 * This message appears if the player died while on fire, but not in the source (unless the game rule  has been set to  ).
 * [player] was burnt to a crisp whilst fighting [player/mob]
 * [player] walked into a fire whilst fighting [player/mob]


 * Firework rockets
 * [player] went off with a bang


 * Lava
 * [player] tried to swim in lava
 * [player] tried to swim in lava while trying to escape [player/mob]


 * Lightning
 * [player] was struck by lightning


 * Magma Block
 * [player] discovered floor was lava


 * Players and mobs
 * [player] was slain by [player/mob]
 * [player] was slain by [player/mob] using [weapon]
 * Caused by kills using a renamed weapon.
 * [player] got finished off by [player/mob]
 * [player] got finished off by [player/mob] using [weapon]
 * Caused by kills using a renamed weapon.
 * [player] was fireballed by [mob]
 * Only caused by blazes and ghasts


 * Potions of Harming
 * [player] was killed by magic
 * Happens when the potion is shot from a dispenser, by drinking it, or with
 * [player] was killed by [player/mob] using magic
 * Caused by witches, guardians, evokers and kills using a splash potion


 * Starving
 * [player] starved to death
 * Caused if the difficulty is Hard or Hardcore


 * Suffocation
 * [player] suffocated in a wall
 * Happens if the player took suffocation damage from their head being in a block.
 * [player] was squished too much
 * Happens if the player took suffocation damage from the  gamerule.


 * Thorns enchantment
 * [player] was killed while trying to hurt [player/mob]
 * Can be caused by a mob if it is able to wear armor, and can also occur while fighting guardians


 * Void
 * [player] fell out of the world
 * Also shown if the player is killed by the command
 * [player] fell from a high place and fell out of the world


 * Wither effect
 * [player] withered away

Other
 * [victim] was pummeled by [killer]
 * This message would appear when killed by a snowball, an egg, a wither skull or an ender pearl
 * This message is unused in the case of snowballs, chicken eggs, and ender pearls, because they do not cause damage to players hit by them.
 * This message is currently only shown when the wither kills a player with a wither skull's impact.
 * [player] died
 * Pocket Edition only, used in some cases.