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In , there's an achievement called "Sleep with the Fishes":

Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different)
Sleep with the Fishes Spend a day underwater. Spend 20 minutes underwater without any air.

To earn it, I took advantage of how magma blocks work:

When a water source is directly above a magma block, a whirlpool bubble column is created, going downward from the highest source block. Anything encountering the bubble column is pulled down, including items, boats, players, and mobs.

A player can restore breath by entering a magma block's bubble column.

However, there is a very specific component to making this plan work:

Magma blocks damage most living entities standing on top of them, even if underwater... The player can avoid all damage by sneaking, using a potion of fire resistance, or by wearing Frost Walker boots.

So, in order to not take damage, I had to find a magma block, under water, and sneak over it, for 20 minutes:

Screenshot of sneaking over a magma block under water.


This made me wonder though, are there any other blocks that change behavior due to the state of the player? Let's define the state of the player, in the context of this post, to contain things such as:

  • Sneaking, swimming, jumping, running, etc.
  • Currently equipped armor/left hand slot.
  • Currently held item/block.
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  • I can only think of soul sand and powdered snow... but those change behavior depending on what you wear, not of your status (crouching, flying, swimming..), so I guess they don't qualify
    – AJPerez
    Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 12:13
  • @AJPerez thank you for your contribution! I actually thought on it quite a bit, and I'd like to include that in the definition of player state, in the context of this question. I've updated my question to reflect that change.
    – Taco
    Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 16:27

2 Answers 2

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+50

So here's what I got:

soul sand, soul soil, magma block, powdered snow, scaffold, slime block, water, chest, latter, bed

I had to fire up the old for a few of these, but I found the rules are the same for and :

Block(s) Effect
Soul Sand and Soul Soil These blocks will change behavior drastically when the player is wearing boots enchanted with any level of the Soul Speed enchantment. When these requirements are met, they will speed the player up, rather than slow them down (for Soul Sand).
Slime Block and Bed Both of these blocks will normally make a player bounce when falling onto them, but if the player is crouched whist falling onto one of them, it will behave as a normal block and administer the same amount of fall damage as usual.
Scaffold The Scaffold will allow a player to walk on top of it, but if the player crouches they will start to descend.
Powder Snow If a player is equipped with Leather Boots, they will not fall into the Powder Snow but rather walk on top of it.
Ladders and other climbable blocks Ladders will normally move players down if they are not pressing the Jump key, but if a player crouches it will allow them to ascend the Ladder, but not descend.
Interactive blocks (Chest) Any block that the player can interact with, such as: Chest, Crafting Table, Furnace, etc., will only allow a player to use it if they are not crouched. Otherwise it will act as a normal block and allow placing of other blocks on it.
Water Water has quite a few, but some of the main ones are first, the Depth Strider enchantment, allowing a player to move quickly underwater. And second, crouching makes a player sink faster.
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  • I didn't know any of these, but the most surprising IMO is the fact that a bed behaves like a slime block! Awesome answer!
    – Taco
    Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 20:31
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    Yeah np, beds actually don't do as good as slime blocks, but they are still fun to bounce on :)
    – c1uq92
    Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 20:35
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Slime blocks also change their behavior: if you fall onto a slime block, you will bounce up... unless you were crouching, in which case it will act as a regular block, and you will take fall damage instead of bouncing back up.

That's the only other block I can think of, that changes behavior depending on what the player does. There are a few that behave differently depending on what the player is wearing:

  • Soul sand slows down the player walking on it... unless they wear Soul Speed enchanted boots, in which case they move faster instead.

  • If the player walks over a powdered snow block, they'll fall inside and start freezing. The only way to walk over it without falling inside is wearing leather boots.

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