How to Install mcMMO: RPG Skills for Your Minecraft Server

What mcMMO Adds

mcMMO tracks a separate experience pool for each of its skills, independent of Minecraft's default XP system. Mining levels up by breaking ore and stone; Swords by fighting with swords; Fishing by catching fish; Acrobatics by taking fall damage or dodging hits. Every skill has a passive tier that applies automatically and an active ability tied to right-clicking while holding the relevant tool. The Mining skill's active ability, Super Breaker, temporarily triples break speed and grants a chance for double drops. Swords' active, Serrated Strikes, bleeds nearby enemies for bonus damage over time. Fishing's Master Angler passive increases your bite rate, while the separate Treasure Hunter sub-skill adds a chance to reel in treasure items. Players check their stats with /mcstats or inspect a specific skill with commands like /mining or /swords. The depth of the system means players always have something to work toward even after hundreds of hours on the server.

Download and Install

Download mcMMO from Hangar (hangar.papermc.io/mcMMO/mcMMO) or the official mcMMO website. The plugin supports Paper and Spigot for Minecraft 1.16 through the current version. Drop the jar into your server's plugins/ directory and restart the server. mcMMO generates its configuration files under plugins/mcMMO/ on first run and stores player data in flat files by default. If you are running a larger server, switching to MySQL is recommended: open plugins/mcMMO/config.yml, find the MySQL section, set Enabled to true, and fill in your MySQL credentials. This change is best made before any player data is recorded, as mcMMO does not automatically migrate data between backends. For a general plugin installation walkthrough, see our guide on how to install Minecraft plugins.

Configuring Skill Cap and Leveling Rates

The two most important configuration values are the skill level cap and the XP multiplier. In config.yml, the StartingLevel option under the General leveling section sets where new players begin, and the per-skill XP curves are defined in experience.yml. By default both the per-skill Level_Cap and the overall Power_Level_Cap are set to 0, which means no limit at all. If you prefer a defined ceiling, set a per-skill cap such as 1000 (or a higher number like 5000 for long-term progression that veteran players can chase for months). The experience multiplier in experience.yml scales all skill XP gain by a factor; setting it to 2.0 doubles experience gain across the board. Adjust this based on your server's average session length. If players log in for an hour at a time, a higher multiplier keeps progression feeling meaningful. If you have dedicated players who grind for six hours a day, a lower multiplier prevents the skill system from maxing out in the first week.

Party System and Cooperative Play

mcMMO includes a built-in party system that encourages group play. Players create or join parties with /party create [name] and /party join [name]. Party members within a configurable range share a percentage of the XP they earn, so a miner in the party passively levels up a fighter's Mining skill just by working nearby. Parties also enable the Share mode for item drops, which splits loot between party members rather than letting it go to whoever picks it up first. This is particularly useful on SMP servers where contested resource areas can cause friction. Party members can use party-specific chat with /p [message], keeping coordination separate from global chat. The party leader can also enable PvP within the party for friendly training, which is useful for players who want to level combat skills without attacking strangers. Party size limits and XP share distances are configurable in config.yml under the Party section.

mcMMO and LuckPerms Permissions

mcMMO uses a permission-based system to control which skills and abilities players can access. The default behavior grants all skills to all players, which is usually what you want. However, if you want to restrict specific abilities for non-donor ranks, LuckPerms lets you deny individual permissions per group. The permission pattern follows mcmmo.skills.[skillname] for skill access and mcmmo.ability.[skillname].[abilityname] for individual active abilities. To prevent default players from using the Skull Splitter ability (the Axes active), deny the permission mcmmo.ability.axes.skullsplitter on the default group and grant it on your donor rank. The /lp group [groupname] permission set mcmmo.ability.axes.skullsplitter false command applies the denial. For a full walkthrough of setting up LuckPerms groups and permissions, see our guide on how to set up LuckPerms.

Good Companion Plugins

mcMMO works well alongside several other plugins. Vault with an economy plugin like EssentialsX Economy lets you reward players with in-game currency at skill level milestones, creating a tangible incentive to keep grinding beyond the satisfaction of seeing numbers go up. You can configure reward commands that run when a player reaches a specific skill level using EssentialsX's command scheduling or a dedicated rewards plugin. Jobs Reborn is another strong companion: it tracks players' primary professions (Miner, Builder, Hunter, etc.) and pays them currency for related actions, while mcMMO adds the passive skill bonuses on top of the same activities. The two plugins stack naturally because they track different systems on the same underlying actions. For PvP-focused servers, the Axes and Swords skill bonuses are significant enough that mcMMO effectively becomes a progression layer over your PvP system, rewarding experienced fighters with measurable advantages that newer players can see and work toward reaching themselves. Because NetSkyway gives you unrestricted plugin access over SFTP and the panel, you can run mcMMO alongside any of these companion plugins without an approval step or a curated plugin list.