Set up LevelledMobs on your Minecraft server

LevelledMobs gives every mob a level, so a zombie far from spawn is tougher than one next to it. Levels come from rules you can change: distance from spawn, a weighted random roll, the strength of nearby players and more. It also adds level nametags and custom drops. It is a plugin for Paper or Purpur and installs from the Plugins tab.

Checked against LevelledMobs 4.5.3.2 (build 159), the latest release on its Modrinth page, which lists Paper 1.21.4 to 26.3, October 2026. Older 1.21.x versions are covered by an earlier build, and the Plugins tab picks the newest build that lists your server's Minecraft version.

What you need

• A Paper or Purpur server on Minecraft 1.21 or newer. The project's page lists compatible versions as 1.21 and 26.1 onward. Vanilla servers have no Plugins tab; switch software in JAR Manager first (see Change your Minecraft version or mod loader).
• Java 21 or newer, which the page states and our panel provides for these versions.
• Nothing else. Plugins such as MythicMobs, PlaceholderAPI and WorldGuard are optional integrations. The latest build marks itself as not supporting Folia, so use Paper or Purpur.

Install it

1. Open the Plugins tab and leave the Modrinth button selected. The same plugin is on Hangar under ArcanePlugins.
2. Search for LevelledMobs, then click Install on the result by PenalBuffalo.
3. Use Restart on the Console tab.
4. Run lm info in the Console. It prints a short about message with the maintainers.

The files

LevelledMobs writes five files into plugins/LevelledMobs: rules.yml, settings.yml, messages.yml, customdrops.yml and externalplugins.yml. The project says about 85 percent of the system runs from rules.yml, so that is the one to learn.

Out of the box, the default rule in rules.yml uses these presets:

• challenge-silver for difficulty. The commented lines offer challenge-vanilla, challenge-bronze, challenge-gold, challenge-platinum and challenge-formula.
• lvlstrategy-weighted-random and lvlstrategy-distance-from-origin to pick levels. The distance preset measures from the world spawn, with buffer-distance: 250 and ringed-tiers: 750.
• lvlmodifier-player-variable and lvlmodifier-custom-formula as modifiers, and nametag-using-numbers for the nametag.
• minLevel: 1 and maxLevel: 50 under settings.

To change the difficulty, comment one challenge- line out and uncomment another. Stop the server, edit in File Manager, start it again, or save and run lm reload in the Console. Then run lm rules force-all so mobs that are already loaded take the new rules.

Limit it to some worlds

In the default rule, conditions has worlds: ['*']. The project's FAQ shows how to exclude one:

worlds:
  excluded-list: ['player_farms']

Use included-list instead to allow only the worlds you name. The same idea works for entities.

Handy commands

• lm reload reloads the config files.
• lm rules show-all console writes every preset and rule to the console.
• lm summon and lm spawner create build mobs and spawners with fixed levels. The here form uses your own position, so run that one in the game.

Common problems

• The config will not load. The project calls this the YAML mistake: a spacing or syntax error in a file such as rules.yml. See Find and fix YAML and JSON config errors.
• The console fills with messages about a drop table. A rule uses use-droptable-id with a name that is not in customdrops.yml. Fix the name or disable the rule.
• A mob keeps changing level. The player-variable modifier re-levels a mob when a different player meets it. The preserve-entity setting sets how long a level stays fixed.
• Wanting fewer mobs. LevelledMobs does not change spawn rates, and its FAQ says it never will.