Customizing Bosses

To configure your boss, click on its spawning egg in /boss menu > Bosses. You can also left-click while holding a Boss Spawner Egg. Right-clicking spawns the Boss instead.

Some requested settings

No AI / Gravity / Baby / other flags

Toggle these in Settings > Custom Settings. The menu only lists the settings that apply to your Boss's mob type, so a Slime shows Slime Size while a Creeper shows Powered.

The display name itself is Settings > Alias. Custom Settings only holds Custom Name Visible, which decides whether that name is always on screen.

Warning

Old Minecraft versions (especially 1.8.8) lack majority of these settings due to missing APIs.

Making Boss invulnerable

Use Custom Settings from the menu above to toggle Invulnerable. If your Minecraft version does not offer it, you must change the Boss's health to a very high value.

Health Bar

A health bar is shown as an action bar when you damage a Boss. Configure it in settings.yml under Fighting.Health_Bar:

Health_Bar:
  Enabled: true
  Format: "&4{damage} dmg &8| &7{boss_alias}"
  Prefix: "&8["
  Suffix: "&8]"
  Color:
    Remaining: DARK_RED
    Total: GRAY
    Dead: BLACK

Available variables: {damage}, {boss_name}, {boss_alias}, {world}, {x}, {y}, {z}, {player}. The color settings control the health bar segments: Remaining for current health, Total for max health, and Dead when the hit kills the Boss.

Citizens Retargeting

Bosses running on the Citizens backend can look for a new target every so often instead of chasing the first player forever. Enable it in settings.yml under Fighting.Citizens_Retarget:

Citizens_Retarget:
  Enabled: true
  Delay: "30 seconds"

Prevent Health Regeneration

To stop all Bosses from regenerating health from any source, set Health.Prevent_Regeneration to true in settings.yml.

Disable Player Cheats During Combat

The Fighting.Disable_Cheats list controls what player abilities are disabled when fighting a Boss. Default: [FLIGHT, GOD_MODE, INVISIBILITY].

Boss Bar

Each Boss can display a Boss Bar above all nearby players showing its name and remaining health. Toggle it per-boss in Boss menu > Settings > Custom Settings > Boss Bar. It needs Minecraft 1.9 or newer.

Configure the global Boss Bar appearance in settings.yml under Fighting.Boss_Bar:

Boss_Bar:
  Color: RED
  Style: PROGRESS
  Format: "{boss_alias} &8- &c{health}&7/&c{max_health}"
  Radius: 50

Color accepts PINK, BLUE, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, PURPLE and WHITE. Style accepts PROGRESS, NOTCHED_6, NOTCHED_10, NOTCHED_12 and NOTCHED_20. Format accepts {boss_alias}, {boss_name}, {health}, {max_health} and {health_percent}.

The Boss Bar appears when the Boss spawns, updates on damage, and automatically tracks nearby players within the configured radius. It is removed when the Boss dies or despawns.

Projectile Immune

You can make a Boss immune to all projectile damage (arrows, tridents, snowballs, etc.) by enabling Projectile Immunity in Boss menu > Settings > Custom Settings. This forces players to engage in melee combat only.

Mannequin Support

On servers that have them, MANNEQUIN is offered as a base mob type. Mannequin Bosses take damage and die but never move or attack, so their AI & Behavior menu is empty. Armor stands are no longer offered as a base type.

AI and Behavior

Open Boss menu > Settings > AI & Behavior to replace the mob's vanilla brain. The bottom of that menu prints which backend the Boss runs on:

Backend	When you get it
Native (Paper Goal API)	Paper 1.15 or newer, the default for ordinary Bosses
Citizens (Player NPC)	Player Bosses, which need Citizens installed
Citizens (legacy opt-in)	Non-Player Bosses with the old Citizens setting still on, and only on servers below 1.15 or without the Paper Goal API
Static (no AI)	Mannequin Bosses
Vanilla (no boss AI)	Servers older than 1.15 or without the Paper Goal API

Setting	Default	What it does
Enable Custom Targeting?	Disabled	Master switch. While off, the mob keeps its vanilla behavior and the three settings below do nothing
Follow Target?	Disabled	The Boss walks toward the entities you selected
Attack Target?	Disabled	The Boss attacks them once in reach
Target Entities	none	Which entity types the Boss hunts. Leave this empty and Follow and Attack stay dormant
Target Radius	24 blocks	How far the Boss looks for those entities, 4 to 40
Enable Allow Wandering?	Disabled	The Boss patrols around its spawn point instead of standing still
Wander Radius	18 blocks	How far it wanders, 4 to 40

Player Bosses add a Skin and a Speed button, and Citizens-backed Bosses add Sounds for custom death, hurt and ambient sounds.

Tip

Turning Custom Targeting on and leaving Target Entities empty is the usual reason a Boss stands still. Pick at least Player in the Target Entities menu.

Death Commands and Rewards

Player_Commands (Ranked Rewards)

Common Misconception

Player_Commands is NOT a list of commands to run for the killer. It is a ranked reward system based on damage dealt to the Boss.

Each entry in the Player_Commands list corresponds to a damage rank:

• 1st command → runs for the #1 top damager
• 2nd command → runs for the #2 top damager
• 3rd command → runs for the #3 top damager

If only one player dealt damage, only the first command will execute.

Player_Commands:
  - crate give item {killer} legendary 1
  - crate give item {killer} rare 1
  - crate give item {killer} common 1

To run multiple commands for the killer, use Boss menu > Settings > Commands > Commands On Death instead. You can add as many death commands as you want, and they all execute for the killer.

Health Trigger Commands

Health-triggered commands fire when a Boss crosses a health threshold during combat. If a single massive hit crosses multiple thresholds (e.g., Boss drops from 80% to 20% in one hit), only the lowest crossed threshold's command fires. Space your thresholds further apart or use Bosses with higher health for reliable multi-threshold triggers.

Target Commands

Run commands when a Boss starts targeting a player. Configure them in Boss menu > Settings > Commands > Commands On Target. Use {player} in the command to reference the targeted player. These fire once per target acquisition, so rapid re-targeting of the same player will not spam the commands.

Naming Rules

Underscores Not Allowed in Names

Important

Boss names and spawn rule names must not contain underscores (_). Underscores break PlaceholderAPI placeholder parsing because the placeholder system splits on _ to determine which variable to resolve.

For example, a Boss named Vindicator_Johnny would break the placeholder %boss_Vindicator_Johnny_respawn_MyRule% because the system can't tell where the name ends and the variable starts.

Use camelCase instead: VindicatorJohnny. Boss names take letters and digits only, 3 to 24 characters, so no spaces either. Spawn rule names do allow spaces.

If you already have Bosses with underscores, they will continue to work for everything except PlaceholderAPI placeholders. Rename them by editing the boss YAML file (change the filename and find-replace inside the file).