Cobblemon True Pickup

The Pickup ability, the way it actually works in the mainline games — plus a flexible loot system for it and Honey Gather.

Cobblemon's built-in Pickup only triggers from items used during battle. In the mainline games, though, Pickup's real claim to fame is simpler: walk around with a Pickup Pokémon as your lead party member, and every so often it'll just… find something. No battling required. This mod adds that as the default behavior, with an optional battle-triggered bonus on top.

Why this exists

Anyone who's farmed Rare Candies by biking around Hoenn with a lead Zigzagoon knows Pickup is really a walking-simulator minigame. This mod brings that back as the default trigger, while still letting you layer in battle-based pickups for Pickup, Honey Gather, or any other ability you want to wire up loot for.

Inspired by Tim's Cobblemon Pickup

Credit where it's due: Tim's Cobblemon Pickup got here first, and its approach shaped a lot of this mod's design. To describe it accurately: it's a lightweight side mod that reproduces Pickup's out-of-battle item effect, generalized so that any ability with an associated loot table can trigger it — Pickup and Honey Gather are supported by default. After a party wins a battle, each eligible party member gets a chance to receive an item in its held-item slot, provided it isn't already holding one.

This mod exists alongside that idea rather than in spite of it:

• Tim's mod hasn't been updated for Cobblemon 1.7.3.
• I wanted walking to be the default trigger, matching mainline's actual behavior, with the battle-triggered version available as an optional layer instead of the only option.
• I opted for config-folder-based loot tables instead of datapacks, since that's more approachable for server owners who don't want to learn datapack structure just to tweak drop weights.

If a battle-triggered-only setup with datapack-based tables is exactly what you want, Tim's mod (once updated) is worth a look — the underlying idea is the same, just packaged differently. This mod is built to sit alongside it or serve as a 1.7.3-compatible alternative, depending on what you're after.

Features

• Walking Pickup (the default) — your lead party Pokémon has a chance to find an item every so often as you walk around, exactly like mainline. No battling needed.
• Optional post-battle trigger — want a chance at loot after winning a fight too? Flip on enableBattlePickup and every eligible Pokémon that participated (or just your lead, your choice) gets a roll.
• Any ability with a loot table can trigger — not hardcoded to Pickup. Honey Gather is supported out of the box, and adding another ability is as simple as dropping in a new loot table file, no code changes required.
• Optional "must be out of its Poké Ball" rule — restrict the walking trigger to only fire while the Pokémon is actively following/riding alongside you, rather than just sitting in its ball in the party.
• Fully configurable odds — base chance, steps required between rolls, and optional level-scaling (higher level = slightly better odds, with a configurable cap) for the walking and battle triggers independently.
• Rarity-tiered loot pools — each ability's loot table is split into named tiers (generic, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary by default) instead of one long flat list, so tuning drop rates is a matter of adjusting a handful of tier weights rather than juggling dozens of entries.
• Config-folder based, not datapack-based — every loot table lives in config/truepickup/loot_tables/, plain JSON files generated with sane defaults on first launch. No datapack knowledge needed to customize.
• Lightweight — server-side logic only, no client mod required.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1
• Fabric Loader
• Fabric API
• Fabric Language Kotlin
• Cobblemon 1.7.3

Configuration

Settings live in config/truepickup.toml, generated with sane defaults on first launch — no manual setup required to get going. Loot tables live in config/truepickup/loot_tables/, one file per ability (pickup.json, honeygather.json), each editable without touching any code or datapacks.

A work in progress

This mod is actively being developed alongside Cobblemon's own version updates. Feedback, bug reports, and loot table suggestions are welcome — this is meant to be a community-tunable mechanic, not a fixed one.

Not affiliated with Tim or the original Cobblemon Pickup mod — inspired by its loot-table-per-ability approach, built as a 1.7.3-era alternative with walking as the default trigger.