Forged in Blocks

With this datapack — copper, iron, golden and diamond equipment is forged from blocks, not ingots.

Forged in Blocks is a datapack that rethinks early-game progression in Minecraft, making equipment crafting more deliberate and meaningful.

Instead of crafting armor, weapons, and tools from ingots, their recipes now require metal blocks. Equipment is no longer an instant upgrade — it becomes the result of a significant investment of resources.

What changes

• Armor, tools, weapons, and shields made of copper, iron, gold, and diamond are now crafted from blocks instead of ingots.
• Early-game progression is slowed in a natural, organic way.
• Leather armor and alternative early equipment remain useful for longer.
• Anvils and item repair gain real importance.
• The Mending enchantment becomes far more valuable.

Design philosophy

Forged in Blocks is not about making the game harder for the sake of difficulty.
Its goal is to restore weight and meaning to player decisions:

• Good equipment should be forged, not assembled from a handful of ingots.

The datapack fits perfectly into vanilla-plus modpacks, hardcore survival worlds, and any setup where resource management and thoughtful progression matter.

Compatibility

• Does not add new items.
• Works by overriding vanilla crafting recipes.
• May conflict with other datapacks or mods that modify the same recipes (priority is determined by load order).

In case you'd like to use mod instead of datapack - here it is - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/forged-in-blocks