SelectiveMobGrief

SelectiveMobGrief

Stop unwanted block destruction while keeping useful mob behaviours working.

SelectiveMobGrief gives server owners independent control over Creeper block damage and Enderman block pickup and placement, without disabling Minecraft’s mob-griefing gamerule globally.

Creepers still explode. Villagers still collect food. Sheep still eat grass. Your dirt blocks stop mysteriously relocating themselves.

Features

• Creeper block protection: prevent normal and charged Creepers from destroying blocks while preserving their explosions, entity damage and knockback.
• Enderman block protection: prevent Endermen from picking up or placing blocks, including Endermen already carrying a block.
• Independent settings: enable or disable either protection separately.
• Useful mob behaviours preserved: villager item pickup and sheep grazing are left alone.
• Simple configuration: two settings that apply across all worlds.
• No extra plugins required: runs directly on Paper.

Unrelated mob behaviours and other explosion sources, such as ordinary TNT, are not intercepted.

Requirements

• Paper 26.2
• Java 25

Installation

1. Stop your server.
2. Place the SelectiveMobGrief .jar file in your server’s plugins folder.
3. Start the server. The default configuration will be generated automatically.
4. Keep the mob-griefing gamerule enabled in each world where you want normal mob behaviours:

/gamerule minecraft:mob_griefing true

The gamerule must remain enabled for the intended setup. SelectiveMobGrief selectively blocks the configured Creeper and Enderman actions; it does not change gamerules or restore behaviours disabled by other server settings.

Configuration

Edit plugins/SelectiveMobGrief/config.yml:

# Allow Creepers to destroy blocks?
creeper-block-damage: false

# Allow Endermen to pick up and place blocks?
enderman-block-griefing: false

• false prevents that kind of block griefing.
• true allows normal behaviour, subject to gamerules and other plugins.

Both protections are active by default. Settings apply to every world.

Fully restart the server after editing the configuration. No JAR rebuild is needed.

Both settings are required and must contain boolean values. An invalid configuration disables the plugin and prints a console error; protection remains inactive until the file is corrected and the server restarted.

Commands and permissions

There are no plugin commands or permission nodes. Protection runs automatically and applies regardless of player operator status.

Compatibility and scope

SelectiveMobGrief respects events already cancelled by other plugins. Enabling a behaviour in its configuration does not override another protection plugin or a disabled gamerule.

Creeper protection covers block damage. Entities such as item frames, paintings and dropped items remain subject to normal entity damage. Indirect explosions from other sources are outside the plugin’s scope.

Reporting issues

Please include your Paper build, Java version, configuration, relevant console errors and steps to reproduce the problem. If you use other protection plugins, include those too.