NOTE: This plugin is not mine, it is a plugin downloaded from bukkit and updated for more recent versions since it had no more maintenance since version 1.7.2 .
• Original plugin: https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/drop-protect
• Author: https://dev.bukkit.org/members/_ForgeUser12941548/projects

Source Code
DropProtect is open-source. You can view the source code on GitHub!

Don't want your players losing their entire inventory on death? DropProtect protects your equipment and hotbar slots, while allowing the inner inventory to drop as normal. You may configure it to reduce the number of protected hotbar slots or add additional protected inner inventory slots to suit your server.

Personally, I find the default of 9 (all armor + 9 hotbar slots) to be the sweet spot between losing it all and having no penalty on death. Still penalize them for dying, but don't make them rage if they get a lag spike and fall into lava with their enchanted diamond set.

Example (with the default setting of 9 protected slots)

Spoiler: Inventory before death.

Spoiler: Inventory after death.

And here's what we've left behind:

Spoiler: Drops

Simple Drop-in Installation
Place the DropProtect.jar file into your /server/plugins folder. Start the server.

Run /dropprotect to make sure it's installed correctly.

Commands
/dropprotect will display which slots are protected. It looks like:


Configuration
After running the server once with DropProtect installed, the config file /server/plugins/DropProtect/config.yml will be created.

You may change the protected-slots setting to your liking. There are some examples inside the file. You can run /reload or restart the server to apply the config change.

Permissions
As of v0.4, you can assign a different number of protected slots based on permissions that a player has.

This is what your /server/plugins/DropProtect/config.yml file can look like:

Code (Text):

protected-slots: 3 # default if no permissions match
permissions:
- dropprotect.diamond: 8
- dropprotect.platinum: 7
- dropprotect.gold: 6
- dropprotect.silver: 5
- dropprotect.bronze: 4

Put them in the highest-first order since it matches from the top. Once it finds a match, that's the value it uses.

Also, those dropprotect.xxx names are just an example. You can call it whatever you like, and the dropprotect prefix is optional. You will need a system in place to assign these permissions to your players, but this is outside the scope of the plugin.

Fan Videos

• German: DropProtect Installation and Example (YouTube)