🛡️ Nanonaitor's Defenders

Nanonaitor's Defenders adds offensive off-hand shield-weapons inspired by RuneScape's Defenders.

Defenders are "offensive shields" for melee, holding it on the off-hand (shield hand) gives melee bonuses to attack and attack speed. Each material tier has a special effect too. Comes with exclusive enchantments. You can continue attacking or mining while guarding, making Defenders an aggressive alternative to conventional shields.

Available for:

• Minecraft Forge 1.12.2
• Minecraft Forge 1.20.1
• Minecraft Forge 26.1.2

Download the file matching your Minecraft version.

⚔️ Core Mechanics

• Equip a Defender in your off hand and hold right-click to guard (aka Shield).
• The first 1 second of guarding is the default parry window.
• Parry activation is instant by default but can be delayed through the config.
• Parries block damage, knock back the attacker, and apply Slowness III and Vulnerable for 2 seconds.
• Vulnerable causes the affected enemy to receive 100% increased melee damage from the player who parried it.
• After the parry window ends, continuing to guard reduces melee damage by 30%.
• Parrying and guarding use up durability.
• Players can attack and mine while guarding.
• Guarding reduces movement speed by 50%.
• Defenders provide flat melee-damage and attack-speed bonuses while equipped in the off hand.
• Defenders can be used as main-hand weapons but cannot guard from the main hand.
• Defender guards cannot be disabled by ordinary axe-style shield-breaking attacks.
• By default, Defenders do not block ranged, magic, explosive, environmental, or armor-bypassing damage. These categories can be enabled individually in the config.
• Parry potion effects can be disabled, replaced, or expanded through the config.

🛡️ Defender Materials

Defenders are primarily off-hand weapons but can also be used as main-hand weapons with a standard 1.8 attack speed.

The off-hand attack-speed value is added as a flat bonus to the main-hand weapon's attack speed.

Copper and Netherite Defenders are available in supported modern versions. Optional materials appear only when their corresponding mods and integrations are available.

In supported modern versions, upgrade a Diamond Defender using a:

• Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template
• Diamond Defender
• Netherite Ingot

All material combat statistics can be edited through readable per-material entries in the configuration file.

✨ Defender Enchantments

All Defender-exclusive enchantments can be applied together. They are not mutually exclusive.

Reflexes version note

• On Minecraft 1.12.2, Reflexes adds 0.2 seconds per level.
• On current 1.20.1 and 26.1.2 builds, Reflexes adds 0.1 seconds per level.
• The value can be changed through the configuration file.

Enchantment compatibility

• Unbreaking is supported and reduces durability consumption.
• Mending is supported.
• Compatible Advanced Mending enchantments are supported when installed.
• Compatible sword enchantments can be applied to Defenders.
• Defender-exclusive enchantments can coexist on the same item.
• Enchantment descriptions appear on enchanted books without unnecessarily repeating on applied Defender tooltips.
• Enabled Defender enchantment books appear in the Defenders creative tab.
• Individual Defender enchantments and their effects can be enabled, disabled, or adjusted through the config.

🗡️ Special Material Effects

Silver

Silver Defenders provide:

• +2 main-hand damage against undead.
• 1 retaliation damage against undead attackers when parried.

Steel

Steel Defenders provide:

• +5% sustained guarding damage reduction.
• 2 retaliation damage against Nether mobs and elementals when parried.

Myrmex

Desert and Jungle Myrmex Defenders provide:

• +4 main-hand damage against non-arthropods.
• A separate +4 bonus against Death Worms where supported.

Myrmex Stinger variants additionally apply:

• Poison III for 10 seconds from main-hand attacks and parries.

Dragon-Blooded

• Flamed: Ignites enemies and deals bonus damage against ice dragons.
• Iced: Freezes enemies, applies Slowness and Mining Fatigue, and deals bonus damage against fire dragons.
• Electric: Produces lightning effects and deals bonus damage against fire and ice dragons.

These effects activate from both main-hand attacks and parries where the appropriate Ice and Fire integration is available.

🧬 Living and Sentient Evolution

With compatible Scape and Run: Parasites content installed:

• Living Defenders gain evolution points from parasite kills.
• Progress uses the compatible srpkills point system.
• Living Defenders automatically evolve into Sentient Defenders at the configured threshold.
• Requiring parasite kills is enabled by default but can be changed.
• Evolution progress display can be enabled or disabled.

Evolution preserves:

• Enchantments
• Custom names
• Lore
• NBT data
• Relative durability

Living Defender parries apply:

• Immalleable I for 5 seconds.

Sentient Defender parries apply:

• Immalleable I for 5 seconds.
• Viral I for 5 seconds.

📈 Optional Skill Requirements

When a compatible skill or level-requirement mod such as Reskillable is detected, Defenders can require levels before they can be used.

The system is configurable:

• Enable or disable skill requirements globally.
• Choose which skills are checked.
• Supported configurable skills include Attack, Defense, and Magic.
• Assign separate requirements to every Defender material.
• Set a requirement to 0 to disable it for that material.
• Requirements do nothing when the compatible skill mod is absent.

Default requirements follow comparable weapon and armor tiers. Stone, Living, and Sentient Defenders do not have level requirements by default. Gold Defenders use their configured Magic requirement where applicable.

🧩 Optional Compatibility

Compatibility is detected automatically. Missing optional mods will not prevent Defenders from loading.

Version-appropriate integrations include:

• Ice and Fire: Dragons
• Defiled Lands / Defiled Lands: Reborn
• Spartan Weaponry and compatible material providers
• Scape and Run: Parasites and compatible SRP ports
• Reskillable and compatible level-requirement systems
• So Many Enchantments
• Enchantment Descriptions
• Better Survival
• Everything Nunchaku
• Forgotten Nunchakus

Better Survival and Everything Nunchaku attacks remain continuous while guarding on 1.12.2. Forgotten Nunchakus receives equivalent compatibility on supported modern versions.

When Spartan Weaponry is installed, compatible Defenders use Spartan handles and Witherbone handles where appropriate.

Wood, Stone, Gold, Iron, and Diamond require only Forge. Supported modern versions also include standard Copper and Netherite Defenders. Other material integrations activate only when their source mods are installed.

⚙️ Configuration

The generated configuration file contains comments explaining each option and can be edited directly by players and modpack authors.

Configurable systems include:

Parrying and guarding

• Parry activation delay
• Parry window
• Parry recovery time
• Guarded melee-damage reduction
• Maximum damage reduction
• Parry knockback
• Guard movement penalty
• Vulnerable damage multiplier
• Parry sound volume
• Attacking and mining while guarding

Parry effects

• Enable or disable parry potion effects
• Add or remove potion effects
• Configure effect IDs, levels, and durations
• Change the default Slowness and Vulnerable effects

Example format:

minecraft:slowness,3,40

This applies Slowness III for 40 ticks.

Damage categories

Defender interaction can be configured separately for:

• Direct melee
• Projectiles
• Magic
• Explosions
• Fire and lava
• Fall damage
• Drowning
• Environmental damage
• Armor-bypassing damage
• Indirect attackers

Weapon statistics

Material statistics use one readable entry per material:

material=mainHandDamage,offhandDamage,offhandAttackSpeed

Example:

iron=4.5,2.0,0.1

Additional options

• Main-hand attack speed
• Durability costs
• Material-specific traits
• Enchantment availability and strength
• Additional allowed enchantments
• Continuous attacks while guarding
• Optional mod integrations
• Skill requirements
• Living Defender evolution requirements

📦 Requirements

Minecraft 1.12.2

• Mod Loader: Forge 14.23.5.2860
• Java: Java 8

Minecraft 1.20.1

• Mod Loader: Forge 47.4.18 or a compatible Forge 47 release
• Java: Java 17

Minecraft 26.1.2

• Mod Loader: Forge 64.0.12 or a compatible Forge 64 release
• Java: Java 25

Required dependencies: None beyond the matching Forge version.

Optional integrations activate only when their corresponding mods are installed.

💙 Special Thanks

Thank you to Mariette, N, SG_Erebus, Hehelma0, bouncebot and Nischi for testing Nanonaitor's Defenders and providing valuable feedback.