Custom fishing loot

This guide shows how to make a fishing rod that catches your own loot. The player fishes normally: the bobber bites, they reel in, and the item that flies to them is your item instead of the fish.

It uses the activator PLAYER_FISH_FISH and the entity command CHANGE_INTO_ITEM.

How it works

In PLAYER_FISH_FISH, the player is the one who fishes and the target entity is the caught item. Everything you write in entityCommands runs on that item. CHANGE_INTO_ITEM replaces it before it reaches the player, so:

• the reel-in animation is the vanilla one
• the item goes in the inventory like any catch

1. A rod that always catches the same item

name: '&bMagic rod'
material: FISHING_ROD
activators:
  activator0:
    option: PLAYER_FISH_FISH
    entityCommands:
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:my_custom_fish amount:1

my_custom_fish is the id of another ExecutableItem. You can also give a vanilla item:

    entityCommands:
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:DIAMOND amount:3

2. A random loot table

Put several CHANGE_INTO_ITEM between RANDOM_RUN and RANDOM_END: one line is picked for each catch.

activators:
  activator0:
    option: PLAYER_FISH_FISH
    entityCommands:
    - RANDOM_RUN selectionCount:1
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:COD amount:1
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:COD amount:1
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:DIAMOND amount:3
    - CHANGE_INTO_ITEM item:EI:my_custom_fish amount:1
    - RANDOM_END

Here the player has 2 chances out of 4 to get a cod, 1 out of 4 to get 3 diamonds and 1 out of 4 to get the custom fish. Repeat a line to make it more frequent.

Good to know

• item accepts a material or the id of an ExecutableItem. If both exist with the same name, the ExecutableItem is used. EI:my_id accepts only an ExecutableItem.
• The ExecutableItem is built for the player who fishes (owner, placeholders of the item).
• If item is wrong (typo, item not loaded), the catch is not changed and a message is printed in the console.
• You do not need DELAYTICK: the caught item already exists when the activator runs.
• To make the rod catch faster while you test, add the enchantment LURE to it.
• The other settings of the activator (cooldown, conditions...) work as usual.

Before this command

The old method was a vanilla command after one tick:

    entityCommands:
    - DELAYTICK 1
    - data merge entity %entity_uuid% {Item:{...}}

It still works, but you had to copy the full item data by hand, the format changes between Minecraft versions, and the name, the glow or the variables of an ExecutableItem were not applied. CHANGE_INTO_ITEM builds the real ExecutableItem.