Guide 1: Surviving Your First Week

This pack is harder than vanilla in specific, predictable ways. Here’s what kills new players and how to get established fast.

Night one is not vanilla night one

Born in Chaos fills the dark with new undead — including things like the Nightmare Stalker that hunt you instead of wandering — and Enderman Overhaul and Creeper Overhaul variants behave differently per biome. The first nights will kill overconfident vanilla veterans.

  • Do NOT plan to fight through night one in the open. Dig in, wall up, or bed-skip.
  • Beds matter more than vanilla: Better Days makes sleep worthwhile, and on a server night skips when enough players sleep.
  • Blood moons happen (Enhanced Celestials) — the sky turns red, spawns multiply, and staying indoors is a strategy, not cowardice.

Trees fall on you now

Dynamic Trees replaces vanilla trees: they grow from saplings branch by branch, and when you chop the trunk the whole tree creaks and falls (it can damage you — stand clear). Chop at the base with an axe and collect everything from the fallen tree. No more floating leaf pillars.

Plant with the season in mind

Serene Seasons gives the world a calendar (check the clock UI / calendar item). Crops have fertile seasons — plant out-of-season and they simply won’t grow. Early game:

  • Check what’s in season before committing seeds (JEI shows fertile seasons on seed tooltips).
  • Wheat, carrots, potatoes are forgiving; exotic crops are pickier.
  • Later, Greenhouse Glass (from Serene Seasons) placed above crops makes them think it’s always their season — that’s the endgame fix.

Dying is survivable

Tombstone puts everything you drop into a grave and gives you a grave key. Walk back (or use the key’s teleport once you’ve got the levels) and right-click the grave — everything returns, often with a small buff. Your Xaero minimap also auto-drops a death waypoint. Death is an inconvenience, not a wipe.

First-priority crafts (in rough order)

  1. A Sophisticated Backpack — inventory is the real early-game boss in a pack with this many items. Upgrade it later (pickup, magnet, stack upgrades) instead of replacing it.
  2. A bed and a base wall — see “night one” above.
  3. A Waystone — villages and structures contain waystones you can activate for free; craft your own at base and you’ve got a teleport network from day one. Activate every waystone you pass, always.
  4. Farmer’s Delight cutting board + cooking pot — better food = real buffs (see Guide 2).
  5. A Mega Torch (Torchmaster) — one block that stops all hostile spawns in a big radius around your base. This is how you make home safe without torch-spamming every surface.

The first three days, concretely

Day 1: Punch wood (stand clear when it falls), make tools, and find shelter before dusk — a dirt box beats a Nightmare Stalker encounter. Kill sheep on sight; sleep through night one, no heroics.

Day 2: Find or start a farm — check what’s in season first. Head toward the nearest village: activate its waystone, trade for food, note the guards keeping it safe. Craft your backpack today if you have the leather.

Day 3: Secure a real base site (near water if you’re eyeing Create later). Get a cutting board and cooking pot running for buffed food, place a bed, and start the iron stockpile — your first Mega Torch and waystone are both close now.

By the end of the week you want: walls, waystone, farm, backpack, cooked meals, and iron gear with first enchants. That’s the launchpad for every path below.

Things nobody tells you

  • Loot chests are per-player (Lootr — the blue/sparkly chests). Your friend looting a dungeon before you does NOT empty it for you. Open everything.
  • JEI is your wiki: press R on any item for its recipe, U for what it’s used in. With 284 mods, this is how you learn everything.
  • Carry On: sneak + right-click with an empty hand picks up chests (contents included) and small mobs. Moving base is painless.
  • Quark adds sort buttons to chest UIs; Mouse Tweaks lets you scroll-wheel items between inventories one at a time.
  • AppleSkin shows exactly how much hunger/saturation food restores — hover any food item.
  • Your tools break into nothing? Craft the Uncrafting/Disenchanting tables later to recycle gear instead.

Where to go from here

Once you’re fed, housed, and have a waystone: pick a direction. Tech players → Guide 3 (Create) or Guide 4 (Mekanism). Magic players → Guide 5 (Iron’s Spells). Fighters → Guide 7 (the boss ladder). Explorers → Guide 8. And gear up through Apotheosis loot (Guide 6) before fighting anything with a boss bar.

Sources & further reading

In-game JEI (R/U on any item) is always your first stop. Beyond that, primary sources for this guide’s mods: