Health

The health and damage system in Minecraft is based on a simple heart system. Each (full) heart contains two halves.

All player characters and hostile Mobs have 10 hearts at full health. Pigs, Sheep, and Cows all have five hearts, whilst Chickens have two.

Damage from attacks or natural causes will subtract hearts from this total. When the total reaches zero, you die. When a mob dies, it drops Items specific to that mob. Players will drop all their items when they die.

Armor will absorb damage and reduce the number of hearts subtracted from your character's health.

Hearts
Hearts make up the health meter for the player in the Survival modes. Each heart represents one hit point, for a total of 10 hit points. Hit points are lost in multiples of 0.5.

Hearts can be lost by taking fall damage, getting tackled by an enemy Mob, getting shot with an arrow, being on fire, standing in lava or beside a cactus, drowning underwater, suffocating inside a block, or getting caught in an explosion. When the meter has 2 or less hearts left, it will begin to shake to notify the player that they need to restore their health.

Hearts can be regained by eating food items: Pork, Grilled Pork, Apples, Mushroom Soup, Bread, Golden Apples, Fish and Grilled Fish. On Peaceful difficulty, the heart meter will refill over time.

Damage is split between the Hearts and Armor bars.

Dealing Damage
Players can do damage by hitting mobs or each other with items at close (melee) range. The large majority of items only do ½ a heart of damage, like bare fists, although Weapons can be crafted for the express purpose of dealing more. Swords are the main and simplest item to use and make. They still require melee range, but deal significantly more damage per hit. Axes, Picks, and Shovels also do more damage than bare fists, as detailed on the Weapons page.

Arrows (shot using right click with a Bow) are the only ranged weapon in the game.

Flint and Steel allows the player to light a block on Fire, which causes all players and mobs that walk over that block to be set alight. Players and mobs that are ignited stay alight for 15 hits or until they touch water. Likewise, contact with Lava (say poured from a Bucket) also catches enemies on fire.

Lastly, TNT is currently the only explosive weapon in Minecraft and is quite hard to obtain.

The below values detail the damage dealt per hit using various items.

Note that using items that aren't intended for combat as melee weapons may cause their durability to be reduced at an accelerated pace.

Damage Inflicted by Mobs
Unlike player character's damage, the damage Mobs do is affected by the difficulty the player is on. The below values represent the amount of hearts taken per hit. Values for the Creeper assume point-blank range.

Natural Damage
Besides mobs, players can take damage from several other events in Minecraft.

Fall Damage
In Alpha mode (and the obsolete indev and infdev modes), you receive damage when falling from certain heights. The amount of damage received depends on the total height of a drop, and it is possible for a player to die upon falling to the ground.

Fall damage can be calculated using this formula:

FD = (number of blocks - 3) / 2

Mobs (other than chickens and ghasts) suffer fall damage as well.

In some cases, it is possible to avoid falling or otherwise survive a fall. Falling damage is only dealt after a height of three blocks. Falls equal to or larger than 23 blocks result in an instant death under normal circumstances (23 x ½ - 1½ = 10).


 * Sneaking (default LSHIFT) will prevent you from falling off any ledge in most situations.
 * Having some amount of Armor may save your life from otherwise fatal falls.
 * Landing in Water deeper than two blocks will prevent all damage. If less, then you will still take full damage.
 * Moving into a Ladder's area of effect during freefall will reduce vertical velocity to normal ladder descent speed and no damage will be taken. Care must be taken to avoid landing on the narrow top surface of the ladder.
 * Moving into water during freefall will also reduce velocity.
 * Move neutral Mobs away to avoid an unpleasant push to your death.
 * Riding in a Minecart or Boat will allow you to leave the scene unhurt.
 * You might not sustain any fall damage while you're on Fire.
 * Jumping counts as falling for 1½ blocks, so keep this in mind when trying to avoid fall damage.
 * Do not mine directly downwards without knowing what is underneath. Empty caverns are randomly placed around the world, and it's quite possible to fall into them (perhaps from a great height, or even onto Lava!).
 * Don't attempt to jump gaps across long drops. Instead, sneak to the edge of your current platform, and you will be able to place a block beside it; in this way, bridges can be constructed safely.

Drowning
Once your air runs out underwater, you will take approximately ½ heart damage/sec. This does not commonly happen to mobs because they automatically float upwards.

While mining, consider keeping at least one placeable solid block ready somewhere on your toolbar (such as Dirt or Cobblestone) for quick access using your mousewheel. If you mine into a spring (or worse, the ocean), you should be able to place the brick in the hole and so prevent drowning.

Suffocation
Suffocation is when a player or a mob is unable to breathe due to his upper half being inside of a block. They will lose half a heart every 0.5 seconds. Due to sand and gravel falling, it can easily cover the player. In first person mode, the player's screen will be blackened when suffering from this condition thus disabling them to see what is happening. In third person mode, the player can clearly be seen being inside the blocks.

When inside a block, the player can easily step out of it as the blocks do not block their movement.

The usual ways to get one's head inside a block are:


 * Sand or Gravel falling into the space the player or mob occupies.
 * Riding a Boat or Minecart into a one-block-high space.
 * Riding a pig into a two- or one-block-high space.
 * Standing where a tree just grew from a sapling.
 * If you save near bedrock, and then reload, its possible that you spawn inside the bedrock, killing you since you can't move or dig the bedrock out.

History
In Indev before suffocation was implemented, players that were covered by blocks could see through dirt and stone. Suffocation was added after Notch discovered that players were abusing this exploit to find underground caves and hollowed carvings. The patch added suffocation damage and making the player unable to see anything when experiencing it. However, this glitch is not completely fixed and is still possible to be done even in the existing version of the game.

Patches

 * After the July 9th update, players no longer suffocate when riding in a minecart.
 * After the November 10th update (version 1.2.2) players no longer suffocate when they get out of the minecart while inside a two-block-high tunnel. The same applies when disembarking a boat.

Glitches
Although the screen is blackened in first person mode, players can still see through gravel or sand blocks to locate caves using third person by adjusting the camera angle correctly.

Now The Void can be seen and caverns can be easily located. It is more beneficial to do this during the day because The Void will emit light and caves will be more visible against it. This glitch is best performed on Peaceful Difficulty so that the health that you lose from the suffocation can be regained.

This video demonstrates a player suffocating. By changing the view into the third person it is possible to see through the blocks.

It is also possible to use this glitch without getting suffocation damage in first person mode, however. This is done by, backing out of the blocks just enough that the character is still technically in the blocks but not enough to be suffocating. Then move slowly toward the blocks until the near clipping plane of the view is inside the gravel or sand. Sneaking works rather well here.

Cacti
Touching Cacti will cause a player/mob to take a ½ heart damage, and rapidly continue taking damage if they continue to stand next to/on it.

Lava
By far the most dangerous natural occurrence, players and mobs will take damage from contact with Lava extremely fast (5 points per hit), and stay on fire even if they exit it (½ a point per hit for 15 hits or until extinguished with water). If players do not have a water source available they will die quickly.

While mining, consider keeping at least one placeable solid block ready somewhere on your toolbar (such as Dirt or Cobblestone) for quick access using your mousewheel. If you mine into a lava pool, you may be able to place the brick in the hole and so prevent burning.

It is inadvisable to work near lava while carrying valuable items, as they will be destroyed nearly instantly if you are killed by the lava. (Dying causes all your items to be thrown randomly about the area.)

Damage Immunity
After sustaining damage from any source, a Mob will turn red in color for a short period of time. During this period, any other incoming damage will not be counted against the mob's total health. For instance, if you attack a mob with a Bow without letting go of the mouse button, the bow's rate of fire will exceed the mob's allowable rate of incoming damage, and several of the shots will not damage the mob even if they land. Arrows that don't deal damage to a mob are reflected off of it onto the ground, and possibly, from a close range, back at the player (resulting in damage}. However, if a mob or player is recovering from damage and then receives higher damage, it gets counted. Players are also subject to damage immunity.

Death
Death occurs when all of a player's hearts are depleted. A "Game Over" screen will appear, and the player is shown their score and has the option to respawn at the spawn point or return to the title Menu. Any items and/or blocks that were in the player's inventory are dropped and scattered around the spot where the player died. If they come in contact with dangerous blocks, like lava, they will be destroyed. Otherwise, according to Notch, "they decay after five minutes, except if the chunk is unloaded, in which case they last forever". (source)

Trivia

 * A bucket of lava is arguably the most efficient weapon in the game, as it doesn't use up durability, does very fast damage, and slows enemies in their tracks. The only downside is that a large amount of the time the mob's dropped loot will be disintegrated in the lava.
 * If the worst happens and you take enough damage to cause your death, your items will be thrown randomly around the area. Those that touch lava, fire, or cactus blocks will be near-instantly destroyed. You have five minutes to retrieve other dropped items before they disappear.
 * In early versions, Notch drops an Apple upon his death.
 * In early Survival mode, eating a Red Mushroom will deal the player 1.5 hearts of damage because they are poisonous.
 * Steps will not cause suffocation. As a result, placing a step above a minecart track can be used to make a barrier through which carts can be ridden without allowing mobs (other than 1 block high chickens) to wander in.