This mod completely changes the combat and gear progression of minecraft, for better or worse, depending on your preferences, so i'll lay it out nice and clear what this mod does so you can make sure you want it or not.
First, the intent. The intent is to make Loot (mob drops) the primary way to obtain gear and to provide satisfying highly randomized loot drops and an in-depth player stat system that allows you to specialize and min max your character.
Secondary intent is to provide long term progression.
Now, how does this mod do this?
All living things are given levels. The level is determined by distance from spawn. This means if you want to explore further, you'll want to level up so you can beat the tougher mobs!
Minecraft doesn't allow more than 1000 something health so this mod stores the health value, this means mods that show mob health aren't useful, that's why i remodeled vazkii's Neat (health bar) mod to show actual health values and some useful mob traits (like a mob that does bonus lightning damage).
Adding to that, this mod completely overrides most health and damage mechanics. This means if you get health from other sources besides this mod, it will be for nothing. Same with damage and armor. Only weapons and armors from this mod provide useful benefits. Though some vanilla things are still useful, like fire resistance enhacements.
To get any loot from my mod, you must deal the finishing blow to the mob, this is because i don't think a level 50 player slaughtering lvl 1 mobs should be rewarded.
Mobs recieve waaaay less enviromental damage, this is to prevent lvl 1 players cheezing lvl 50 mobs. It's still possible but you probably don't want to do it, after all level 50 gear is not usable until you're level 50
Player attacks require energy, spells require mana. Learn to kite mobs and not waste mana.
Now let's get on to features, if you're here, you probably are fine with the drawbacks and want to play it!
Hugely complicated gear system, all gears have primary stats and secondary stats, some have prefixes and suffixes! Primary stats give the most important things, like basic attack damage, elemental damage or health. Secondary stats, suffixes and prefixes usually multiply those primary stats or give new ones.
Currently 8 gear slots (feet, legs, chest, head, 2 rings, necklace, bracelet) - supported by baubles mod
Many many stats, you have health, mana, energy, hp regen, mana regen, energy regen, fire damage, bonus water damage, critical hit, critical damage, lifesteal, life on hit, dodge.. Then you have traits, stats that you can only use 1 of, like Frost Atronach that multiplies all your frost damage by 15% or Lucky that multiplies your crit chance and so on.
Spells! Fire bolts, Thunder Explosions, Instant heals.. You have a way to fight back against those op mobs!
In depth crafting system, kinda like Path of Exile, you have nearly 10 rare items that can be used to modify your gear. Anything from re-rolling a suffix or leveling the item. You are able to beat the randomness with smart usage of crafting items.
And blocks which i call stations!
Salvage station, throw gear or spells (from my mod) in this, this block destroys them and gives you resources and sometimes even rare currency!
Repair station, the only way to repair the gear items, use my mod's ores to fuel the station.
Modify station, combine a piece of gear with a currency item in this block and it will change the item.
Gear crafting station, sacrifice a piece of gear and some fuel (my mod's ores) to create a new piece of gear. This is a resource sink that allows rich players to pour resources into trying to get better gear.