User:User-12316399/Obtaining normally unobtainable items

This page shows how to obtain items which cannot be obtained in Survival mode through normal means. This only concerns "default" items; many other items which are NBT-based are described at the unobtainable features wiki. This also only concerns items which actually exist in the current version.

Quick overview: a roadmap to obtain all discontinued features
In order to have all of these items shown in the following sections obtained in a pure vanilla survival world, it is recommended that the player start a world in version Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3, or perhaps an earlier version on a vow to not venture out too far as to not generate any chunks that would otherwise house strongholds.

Once an end portal frame (or all 36 of them that generate in the world at this point, if you carefully make backups and make sure all of them are dropped by the explosions) is obtained, the player can upgrade to Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 and then use a silk touch pickaxe to obtain both as many spawners and monster eggs as desired. It is recommended that as many wooden slabs can be crafted on the journey as possibly can be.

Then, upgrade to a version between 12w49a and 15w47a inclusive and enchant as many shears as desired with Silk Touch. Enchanting them with Mending as well (which can only be done in a narrow window of snapshots) is also recommended.

Upon doing this, enchant as many bows as desirable with Mending and Infinity before 16w50a or a later version arrives.

The player then can obtain bedrock using whatever means are appropriate.

Then, upgrade to 18w11a and focus on obtaining tridents, with the intention of obtaining tridents enchanted with the incompatible Riptide/Loyalty and Riptide/Channelling combinations.

Upgrading to a version between 19w02a and 1.14.3 Pre-Release 2 inclusive can then be done, such that an impossibly protective suit of armor can be constructed. This video contains a guide that can be used to make obtaining an optimal set easier. Bringing a blacksmith villager from pre-1.8 with all diamond armor trades unlocked is highly recommended, as this gives a steady supply of free armor usable for enchanting.

Fundamental blocks and items
This refers to blocks and items which are effectively elementary, being either a standalone ID or a metadata value thereof, as opposed to a block "augmented" with for example a discontinued combination of enchantments.

Note: this page does not (yet) include those obtainable in Beta 1.6 Test Build 3 through chests.

End portal frames

 * From debug inventory (b1.9-pre3-1 only)

In the pre-reupload version of Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3, the player would spawn (upon world generation or despawning after death) with a debug inventory containing a multitude of then newly-introduced blocks. Among these is a stack of 64 end portal frames. The player can die over and over to obtain as many end portal frames as desired.

NOTE: Do NOT mouse over the end portal block (gray cube item) which also appears in the debug inventory, as this crashes the game.


 * From generated portals (b1.9-pre3-1 to b1.9-pre3-2)

Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3 introduced portal rooms to strongholds, containing the end portal frame blocks themselves.

In this version, while they could not be mined, they had a blast resistance of 0, allowing them to be dropped from an explosion. At this time, any block destroyed in an explosion would have a 33% chance of dropping itself, and as such end portal frames could be obtained as items like any other block.

The player can obtain up to 36 end portal frames if they are blown up carefully enough (one or two at a time, with several world backups, deleting the backups that did not drop all frames). This number can be increased to 48 with some clever manipulation to make four strongholds generate in one world - in prerelease 3 one stronghold will always spawn at 0,0, so generating this, updating to prerelease 4, going to the locations of the other three strongholds and reverting to prerelease 3 will generate four strongholds with 12 end portal blocks each to collect. (It may be advisable to complete at least one of these portals and leaving at least one portal block before destruction if access to the end before 1.9 is desired without using up collected end portal frame blocks.)

Infested blocks
Monster Eggs could be obtained by mining a monster egg block in Beta 1.9 preleases 4 and 5 with a Silk Touch pickaxe. These blocks form when a silverfish enters stone, stone bricks or cobblestone. However, all types of monster egg dropped the stone form.

Petrified oak slabs
When wooden slabs (ID-44:2) were first added in Beta 1.3, they shared the same block ID as the older stone slabs, so they have many of the same properties as stone slabs. This meant that to collect them the player had to use a pickaxe, and when placed they were fireproof. Starting from 12w17a, all newly crafted wooden slabs were given a separate block ID (125 and 126). However, all existing old slabs in the world still dropped the 44:2 type slab when mined.

It may still be possible to generate these using data value transmutation in versions such as 1.7.

Despite being wholly unused, and even losing their model throughout 1.9-1.12 as a result, from 1.13 onwards they were split into their own ID rather than being merged into conventional oak slabs, and as such remain usable in current versions to the same extent they were previously. However, despite this, they are still not legitimately obtainable in 1.13 and beyond, and as such the only way to have them in a world without cheating is to carry them over from old worlds as explained above.

These are sometimes erroneously referred to as "alpha slabs", despite the fact that they never even existed in the game until Beta 1.3.

Spawners
When spawners were first added, they could be obtained by mining with any pickaxe. This made the spawner drop as an item. As of Alpha v1.0.1, spawners could no longer drop themselves when mined, but in Beta 1.9 pre4, with the addition of the Silk Touch enchant, players could obtain spawners by mining it with a pickaxe enchanted with Silk Touch. This feature was removed in the next prerelease.