Changes to Hostile Mobs
Better than Wolves adds several new and unique behaviours to mobs in order to make them more challenging and/or interesting.
Contents
Overworld
Common
Creepers
Spawn conditions: They remain unaltered, spawning on any opaque block at a light level below 7.
Drops: Nitre, and occasionaly Creeper Oyster and creeper heads. The conditions for dropping music discs remains unchanged.
Arcane Scroll: Blast Protection
While maintaining their silent and deadly behavior and their fear of cats, creepers now have an additional weakness. A player equipped with shears is able to snip a creepers' oysters rendering him harmless. The creeper still folows the player but is unable to explode or do any damage. This is marked by a texture change most noticeable at the eyes, and also while walking they occasionally make a sound similar to taking damage.
Skeletons
Spawn conditions: They remain unaltered, spawning on any opaque block at a light level below 7.
Drops: Bones, Rotted Arrows, Skulls, Bow of variable durability that may come enchanted
Arcane Scroll: Projectile Protection
Skeleton behavior remains largely the same, while noting that the change Mojang made to make them tougher at close range was undone. Also skeletons are no longer damaged by cacti and the arrows they shoot shatter on impact to not leave the player wondering why he/she cannot pick them up.
Zombies
Spawn conditions: Zombies have identical spawn conditions to creepers and skeletons. BTW makes one notable change to the vanilla system in that it disallows sieges to spawn zombies in lit up areas, whereas in vanilla even a perfectly lit village could still get zombies.
Drops: Rotten Flesh, Zombies sometimes spawn with iron tools, weapons and armor, and in Better than Wolves they will always drop the items they are seen with, making it worthwhile to take a risk if you see a zombie with an iron shovel for example. Also they rarely drop heads.
Arcane Scroll: Smite
Zombies have a rather important change to their behavior: they will actively seek out and kill any animals (i.e. cows, sheep, and pigs) that they see, eating their flesh indicated by a burp sound. This together with Hardcore Hunger means that the player will have a significantly harder time staying alive in the early game. It also adds value to protecting animals as they do not respawn as in vanilla. Being attracted to animals can be used in the players' advantage when building a mobtrap by getting the zombies to actively go towards the kill room instead of relying on random movement or expensive redstone mechanisms.
Spiders
Spawn conditions: BTW makes no changes to spider spawning requiring a 2x2 dark area in which to spawn.
Drops: String, Spider Eyes semi-rarely.
Arcane Scroll: Bane of Arthropods
The main difference to spiders are their taste for chickens and their ability to shoot web placing cobweb block at the targets' location trapping the player or the chicken. This makes fighting they more difficult if caught without a blade.
Squid
Arcane Scroll: Respiration
Spawn conditions: Better than Wolves restricts squid spawning to large bodies of water (~3x3x3). It is to be noted that source blocks are not required for spawning allowing the player to make a squid farm out of almost any surface pool.
Drops: Ink Sack, Mysterious Gland (semi-rare)
The squid makes a jump form the passive useless and largely ignored mob in vanilla to a danger to be reckoned with. Squid prefer darkness and will stay in the deeper part of the water during the day, however at night they will venture out. The player should be wary of going near the water at night as squid have the ability to throw a player standing on the shore into the water where it will promptly latch onto the head obstructing vision and causing damage. It is also not recommended to travel by boat at night as squid can break them, however by day it is safe as squid stay at depth.
Biome Specific
Cave Spiders
Spawn conditions: Cave spiders can only spawn from mob spawners.
Drops: String, Venom Gland (semi rare)
Arcane Scroll: Bane of Arthropods
Cave spiders are a smaller variant of the spider found in abandoned mineshafts. They can pass through a 1 block wide gap and have the ability to poison the player.
Jungle Spiders
Spawn conditions: Jungle biome, on two block thick leaves.
Drops: String, Venom Gland (semi rare)
Arcane Scroll: None
The jungle spider, a unique mob added by BTW is a green variant of the cave spider, exhibiting similar behavior to it. This mob makes jungles the most dangerous biome to be in, having the ability to spawn on leaves means that it can surprise the player from above and also that jungles are very hard to secure. The poisoning ability is also deadly to an unprepared adventurer.
Slimes
Spawn conditions: In swamps at low light levels and between 50 and 70 height(depending on moon phase- most at full moon and never on a new moon) and in slime chuncks (any light level) below level 40 but only on natural blocks like stone and dirt (optional)
Drops: Slimeball
Arcane Scroll: Protection
Slimes have their damage greatly increased, and small slimes now do damage, also BTW adds the condition that slimes can only spawn on natural blocks in slime chuncks, so that it is possible to prevent their spawning.
Witches
Spawn conditions: 1-3 in/near witch huts (one time) and rarely in swamp biomes between 50 and 70 elevation.
Drops: Glass Bottles, Sticks, and Witch Warts (semi rare)
Arcane Scroll: Aqua Affinity
Witches have had their gunpowder, redstone, and glowstone drops removed, with the addition of the witch wart drop, used in potions. 1-3 witches spawn (one time) near witch huts on chunck generation, remaining in the world until killed (they are persistent). They also spawn rarely within swamps (non-persistent, can despawn)
Wolves
Spawn conditions: Forests and Taiga
Drops: Wolfchops
Arcane Scroll: None
Wolves have received the most significant overhaul of all the mobs. While untamed, they will now occasionally become hungry, starting to hunt animals for food and turning hostile towards the player, in this state they may be fed meat (just throw it on the ground towards the wolf) to turn them passive again. They can only be tamed when passive, it is done in the same way as vanilla: by feeding them bones. At night wolves tend to howl, being heard a long distance away. Tamed wolves behave identically to vanilla, with a few exceptions: they produce Dung, but only some time after being fed, and after producing dung they need to be fed again. For dung production wolves must have an empty space in every direction, and also a (preferably) dark room. For more information see Dung. Tamed wolves will also howl if they hear their wild companions howling. Feeding a sitting wolf by hand will aid in dung production, while if it is standing it will increase its health or put it into love mode if health is full. Be careful to not feed the wolves wolfchops as that will turn them hostile.
The Beast
If a wolf (tamed or wild) is fed rotten flesh, it will turn into the beast, a wolf with red eyes and black fur. there is no way of reversing this transformation.
The Nether
Common
Zombie Pigmen
Spawn conditions: On Netherrack.
Drops: Rotten Flesh, Golden Nugget (only in the nether), Golden Sword.
Arcane Scroll: Fire Protection
Zombie pigmen, like zombies have been changed to always drop what they are carrying. They will also spawn more rarely with a golden sword. This in addition to the golden nugget drop makes them to primary source of gold in the late game by constructing a nether mob farm.
Magma Cubes
Spawn conditions: On Netherrack
Drops: Magma Cream
Arcane Scroll: Fire Aspect
No changes were made to magma cubes, except to their spawn conditions, their drop is used in brewing
Ghasts
Spawn conditions: Any area with at least 4x4x4 empty space, with a solid block at the bottom
Drops: Ghast tear, nitre
Arcane Scroll: Punch
Ghasts maintain their vanilla behavior, with improvements made on their accuracy. Also their spawn rate has been drastically increased to provide the player with a serious challenge in the nether. Ghasts will not fire on the player immediately after entering the nether, leaving the player with a small "grace" period to get their bearings.
Nether Fortress
Nether fortresses have been expanded to include most of the area around the structure itself, instead of the arbitrary vanilla rules, that only included a small portion of it. It is now possible to find a nether fortress by throwing a soul sand pile. The particles will point in the direction of the fortress.
Skeletons
Spawn conditions: Nether Fortress, in light level 7 or less.
Drops: Bones, Bow
Arcane Scroll: Infinity
Skeletons in the nether fire infinity arrows and do not drop arrows. They also drop a different arcane scroll than their overworld brothers.
Wither Skeletons
Spawn conditions: Nether Fortress, in light level 7 or less.
Drops: Bones, Wither Skeleton Skull
Arcane Scroll: None
Wither Skeletons are 3 blocks high, being blocked by 2 high entrances. They drop the Wither Skeleton Skull with a 2.5% chance, an item required to progress. The battle axe increases the skull drop, however given that Wither Skeleton Skull are needed in order to get the battle axe, it is recommended to use saw + chopping block (found in jungle temples pre-anvil) traps to farm Wither Skeleton Skulls.
Blazes
Spawn conditions: In Nether Fortresses or from spawners, at light level 11 or less.
Drops: Blaze Rods
Arcane Scroll: Flame
Blazes represent one of the requirements for the Hibachi and renewable tools. They can be found around nether fortresses, most commonly around spawners and can be a significant challenge to the unprepared player.
The End
Endermen
Spawn conditions: Overworld/End at light level 7 or less.
Drops: Ender Pearls
Arcane Scroll: Silk Touch
Endermen are 3 block high mobs that spawn passive and turn aggressive when looked at or hit. they have very high damage, kiling the player in 3 hits on normal. When one is provoked, all endermen become aggressive. They are also damaged by water. BTW changes them to only being able to pick up blocks from the edges, becoming a force of erosion, rather than destruction.
Silverfish
Spawn conditions:
Drops: Clay (only in The End)
Arcane Scroll: Efficiency (only in The End)
