Set up the LifeSteal SMP plugin

The LifeSteal SMP plugin adds a survival twist: killing a player takes a heart from them and gives it to you, and a player who runs out of hearts is eliminated. This guide covers the plugin published on SpigotMC by IkeVoodoo, which its Spigot page calls a fan-made recreation of LifeSteal SMP's plugin. It installs by hand, because the Plugins tab does not search SpigotMC.

Checked against LifeSteal SMP Plugin 3.1.0 and Helix 0.0.6, both Spigot releases from December 2024, October 2026. Their Spigot pages list Minecraft 1.21 as the newest version tested.

What you need

• LifeSteal SMP Plugin from its SpigotMC page.
• Helix, a plugin and modding API. The Spigot page says Requires Helix to function!. Get it from its own page.
• A Paper or Purpur server, which shows a Plugins tab.

Other lifesteal plugins appear when you search the store. A Bukkit and CurseForge listing with the same name as this plugin exists too, but its newest file is version 1.5.1.2 from July 2021 for Minecraft 1.17, so do not use it.

Install both plugins

1. Download both .jar files from their SpigotMC pages in your browser.
2. Open the File Manager and go into the plugins folder. If it is missing, start the server once to create it.
3. Click Upload and add both jars. They are small enough for the browser upload.
4. Open the Console tab and click Start.

On this first start, LifeSteal asks Helix to move it into Helix's own plugin folder. Helix logs The plugin has been moved, and the server will now shutdown. and stops the server. That is expected. Click Start again. If Helix prints the same move message again, its log names the jar and tells you to move it by hand into Helix/plugins inside the plugins folder, so the full path is plugins/Helix/plugins. Its log prints the path in lowercase, but the folder is named Helix. Do that in the File Manager and start again.

If the console shows Lifesteal requires Helix, please download it, Helix is missing from plugins. Upload it and start again.

Try it out

Make yourself an operator in the Players tab: open Operators and click Make operator. Join the server and run /lsrecipe to see how hearts are crafted. The table lists each command with the permission it uses.

An eliminated player is kicked and cannot rejoin until they are revived or their ban time ends. The banTime option in eliminations.yml sets how long: infinite for a permanent ban, or a time such as 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds.

Change the rules

The plugin makes config.yml, heart.yml, beacon.yml, eliminations.yml and commands.yml. LifeSteal only runs from inside the Helix folder, so in the File Manager look under plugins/Helix to find them. Stop the server before you edit.

• general.defaultHearts starts at 10.0. One heart is 1.0.
• general.minimumHearts starts at 0.0 and general.maximumHearts at -1.0, which switches the cap off.
• general.eliminatePlayers starts as true.
• combat.heartLoss.heartLossMode starts as PLAYERS_ONLY. The other values are NEVER, ENVIRONMENT_ONLY and ALWAYS.
• combat.heartLoss.playerHeartLoss starts at 1.0.

Run /lsreload or restart to apply a change. The command names and permissions themselves live in commands.yml.

If something goes wrong

The Installed list reads only the jars directly in the plugins folder, so LifeSteal does not appear there once Helix has moved it. Read the Console for errors instead. Fix mod and plugin errors explains the common messages.