DuelClub

PvP-club style duels inside a server people are already playing survival on.

/duel <player> <kit> sends a challenge. They click accept. Both players are pulled into a private arena, handed a fixed loadout, given a five second countdown, and put back exactly where they were standing when it ends.

No client mod. No arena building. No second server.

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No setup required

The arena world generates itself the first time the plugin loads. Drop the jar in plugins/, restart, done.

Arenas are built lazily as they're needed, 512 blocks apart, on stone platforms ringed by invisible barrier walls. Eight run at once by default.

It does not touch survival

This is the part that matters if you're adding duels to a world people care about.

• Nobody dies. The killing blow is intercepted and cancelled. No death screen, no dropped items, no lost XP, no death message.
• Everything is restored. Inventory, armor, offhand, potion effects, health, max-health attribute, hunger, saturation, XP, gamemode, flight and exact position are snapshotted on entry and put back on exit.
• Crash safe. Snapshots are written to disk when a duel starts. If the server is killed mid-duel, players are restored automatically the next time they log in.
• Disconnect safe. Logging out mid-duel restores your survival inventory before your player data is written, and hands your opponent the win.
• Arenas repair themselves. Build kits can place blocks; every one is reverted when the arena frees up. Players can only break what they placed, and leftover items, arrows and thrown potions are swept.
• Sealed off. Teleports and ender pearls out of the arena are blocked, non-duellists take no damage in the arena world, explosions can't break arena blocks, and commands are limited to a configurable allowlist mid-duel.

Kits

NoDebuff · Debuff · Gapple · Sword · Axe · Classic · Boxing · Build UHC

All of them are plain config. Change the loadouts, add your own, or delete the ones you don't want, then /duel admin reload.

Per-kit rules: block building, natural regen, hunger drain, max health, and a boxing mode where damage is nullified and first to N hits wins.

kits:
  mykit:
    display: "My Kit"
    natural-regen: false
    armor:
      helmet: {material: DIAMOND_HELMET, enchants: {protection: 2}, unbreakable: true}
    items:
      - {slot: 0, material: DIAMOND_SWORD, enchants: {sharpness: 1}, unbreakable: true}
    fill: {material: SPLASH_POTION, potion: strong_healing, splash: true}

Items support slot, amount, name, lore, enchants, potion, splash, unbreakable and flags, plus a fill block that copies one item into every empty slot — that's how NoDebuff gets its 34 pots.

Commands

Command	What it does
/duel <player> <kit>	Challenge someone
/duel <player>	Same, with a clickable kit picker
/duel accept [player]	Accept a challenge
/duel deny [player]	Decline (no argument declines all)
/duel cancel	Withdraw your outstanding challenges
/duel forfeit	Give up the duel you're in
/duel kits	List the game modes
/duel stats [player]	Win / loss / draw record
/spectate <player>	Watch a live duel
/spectate leave	Stop watching
/duel admin reload|arenas|stop <player>	Operators only

Aliases: /d, /duels, /spec

Permission	Default
duelclub.duel	everyone
duelclub.spectate	everyone
duelclub.admin	operators

During the duel

A live action bar shows your opponent's remaining hearts and your current combo. Combos break when you get hit or when a swing misses.

When it ends, both players get a summary with hit counts, best combo and duration. Win/loss/draw records persist and are readable with /duel stats.

Configuration

settings:
  arena-world: duelclub_arenas
  arena-count: 8        # concurrent duels
  request-timeout: 60   # seconds a challenge stays valid
  countdown: 5          # frozen seconds before FIGHT
  time-limit: 300       # 0 disables; on timeout most hits wins
  end-delay: 4          # seconds in-arena after the result

Requirements

Paper 1.21.11 or a fork of it. Java 21 or newer. No dependencies, no client mod, nothing shaded.

Known limitations

Stated up front so nobody is surprised:

• Only tested against 1.21.11. It may run on nearby 1.21.x builds, but that is untested.
• Not Folia compatible.
• Untested alongside other plugins that hook the same events — region protection, teleport managers and world managers are the likely friction points.
• No queue or matchmaking. Duels are direct challenges only.
• Combos reset on any arm swing that doesn't land, so on the Build UHC kit mining breaks your combo.
• Arenas are a fixed generated platform. Custom or per-kit arena layouts are not supported yet.

License

MIT.