Philosopher's Touch

Philosopher's Touch

Everything you break turns into something else. Legend says the philosopher's stone could turn lead into gold. With this mod, every block you break starts a transmutation: the ground around it turns into another block, a swarm of mobs is summoned, sometimes a boss. Gold… or TNT. What comes out is picked from a pool, and you decide how wild it gets.

▶ Watch the presentation on YouTube

One mod, several ways to play

Pick a preset with /transmute preset <name>. It sets chance, pool, sizes, bosses and mutations in one go:

Preset	What it feels like
challenge (default)	Every broken block transmutes into something from the whole game: the "breaking a block infects the world" challenge.
lucky	1 block in 20 turns into a small patch of ores or precious blocks, or summons friendly mobs: a Lucky-Block-style bonus for a normal survival world.
chaos	TNT, lava, creepers, lightning, Withers, and transmutations that keep changing into other blocks on the way.
nether	The Nether spreads into your world, one block at a time.
monsters	Hostile hordes summoned on every block, with bosses.

Presets are just lines in the world config: change them or write your own (chance, pool, size, mobs, bosses, mutation). /transmute status tells you which preset is active, or custom once you tweak a setting.

Everything in one window

/transmute editor opens a window in the style of the creative inventory:

• Settings tab: turn transmutations on or off, pick a preset (with its description) or the active pool, slide the chance and mutations, type the transmutation and swarm sizes, allow bosses, progressive difficulty, quarantine radius, and buttons to stop the running transmutations, remove the summoned mobs or reset everything. Changes apply at once and the tab follows what other operators change.
• Blocks and Mobs tabs to write your own pools: everything in the game, modded content included, with search (@modname filters by mod), a mod filter and scrolling. Click to add or remove, right click to change the weight (×1 to ×10), switch the Mobs tab to boss mode to fill the boss list. New, Duplicate, Delete / Reset, Use, Save.
• Everything is checked by the server (operators only) and saved in the world.

No window on your side? Everything also works with commands, and the help is clickable: click a command or a value and it is put in your chat box, ready to edit.

What a transmutation can be

• Spreading blocks: the ground around the broken block turns into another block, in an organic patch that crawls over the surface and through caves (up to 1,200 blocks by default). Breaking a transmuted block starts a new one.
• Summonings: 6 to 30 mobs arrive in waves in a widening circle; some are bosses (Withers, Wardens, Ravagers).
• Mutations (optional): a transmutation can switch to another block on the way.
• A boss bar shows the progress of the nearest transmutation, and the action bar tells what you got.
• Quarantine: a brewing stand protects the 16 blocks around it. Nothing transmutes there, and transmutations stop at its edge: a safe base in a world that changes under your feet (radius and block configurable).

Six built-in pools: Random (the whole game), Kaboom! (explosive), Jackpot (treasure), Hell on Earth (Nether), End Invasion (End) and Monster Party. In the Nether and the End, the random pool switches to the matching theme automatically (configurable).

Commands

All commands need operator rights (or "Allow Cheats" in singleplayer). Chances are in percent.

Command	Effect
/transmute	short help; /transmute help settings, pools, actions for each group
/transmute status	current settings and running transmutations
/transmute on / off	enable / disable
/transmute preset [name]	list / apply a preset
/transmute editor [pool]	open the window
/transmute settings	every setting with its value (click one to change it)
/transmute settings chance <0-100>	chance that a broken block starts a transmutation
/transmute settings size <blocks> / swarm <min> <max>	transmutation and swarm sizes
/transmute settings bosses on/off	allow boss summonings
/transmute settings mutation <0-100>	chance that a transmutation changes block on the way
/transmute settings difficulty on/off	chance and sizes grow with the in-game days
/transmute settings quarantine <0-64>	quarantine radius around each brewing stand (0 = off)
/transmute pool	list the pools
/transmute pool use <pool>	choose the active pool
/transmute pool info / create / add / remove / weight / rename / chance / delete / reset	edit pools without the window
/transmute pool dimension <dimension> <pool/random>	pool used in a dimension
/transmute stop / despawn	stop all transmutations / remove the summoned mobs
/transmute reset	settings back to the defaults (asks to confirm)
/transmute start random/block/mob	start a transmutation by hand

Config and modpacks

• One config per world: saves/<world>/serverconfig/philosopherstouch-server.toml (lag limits, speed, immune blocks, presets, progressive difficulty, quarantine, boss bar…). Changes from commands are saved there; edits are picked up live. Modpacks can ship defaults in defaultconfigs/philosopherstouch-server.toml.
• Pools are JSON files, the same format everywhere: add or replace pools with a datapack (data/philosopherstouch/pools/<id>.json); pools made in game are saved in the world folder.

{ "name": "Kaboom!", "mob_chance": 0.45, "boss_chance": 0.04,
  "blocks": ["minecraft:tnt*6", "minecraft:lava*2"],
  "mobs": ["minecraft:creeper*4", "minecraft:lightning_bolt*2"],
  "bosses": ["minecraft:wither"] }

Safe by default

• Chests, furnaces, beds and every block entity are never replaced; bedrock, obsidian (portals, End pillars), end portal frames and portals are immune; torches, rails and plants are left alone.
• Transmutations never load or generate chunks. Lag caps: 12 transmutations at once, 200 blocks per tick, 300 summoned mobs alive, automatic slowdown when the server lags. Progressive difficulty is capped too.
• Protected areas: if a protection mod cancels the block break, nothing happens.

Compatibility

• Minecraft 1.20.1, Forge 47 or newer.
• Server side for the game itself: on a server (or the host of a co-op world) the mod is enough; players without the mod can join and do everything with commands. Players who install it too get the editor window and the texts in their language (English and French included).
• Works with modded blocks and mobs (pools, editor, random pool with includeModdedBlocks / includeModdedMobs).
• Not related to the Philosopher's Stone items of other mods: no EMC, no items, nothing to craft.

Credits

Made by NOETHER. All Rights Reserved: you can play it, show it in videos and include it in modpacks that download it from this page, but please do not re-upload it anywhere else.

Not an official Minecraft product; not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft.