Ancient Knight

Ancient Knight
Mod	Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks
Type	Hostile
Health	60 ♥×30
Attack damage	10
Speed	0.19
Follow range	25
Knockback resist.	0.8
Size	0.85 × 2.3 blocks
XP dropped	25
Category	Monster
ID	irons_spellbooks:citadel_keeper

The Ancient Knight is a hostile melee mob added by Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks. It has 60 health (30 hearts) and fights with a sword, closing in with swings and lunges. Ancient Knights are placed in the Ancient Battleground and Citadel structures, and they are also created by breaking an Armor Pile block and summoned by the Echo of Tyros boss. Their health and strong knockback resistance make them a sustained melee fight rather than a quick kill, and they are a real threat to a player who meets them in one of the horror structures.

Spawning

Ancient Knights have no natural spawn entries in any biome, so they do not appear in the open world on their own. They are placed in the Ancient Battleground and Citadel structures, and they can also be created in three other ways.

Structures

Knights placed in the Ancient Battleground and Citadel structures are ordinary, non-summoned knights. They drop their loot and experience when killed by a player.

Armor Pile

Breaking an Armor Pile block spawns one Ancient Knight at the block's position, with a burst of soul particles and an escape sound. The knight is spawned by the block and not by a boss, so it is a normal, non-summoned knight.

Echo of Tyros

The Echo of Tyros boss summons Ancient Knights during its fight:

• When its spawn sequence finishes, it spawns two knights, one on each side of itself.
• While it is aggressive, it checks every 12 seconds (240 ticks) and spawns one more knight if fewer than its limit are within 50 blocks horizontally and 20 blocks vertically of the boss. The limit is 2 knights, plus an increase that grows with the boss's player scale, plus 1 more if the boss is in its ominous variant.
• Summoned knights rise from the ground over 25 ticks and cannot move during the rise.
• Summoned knights drop no loot and no experience. They are killed when the Echo of Tyros dies or despawns.
• When the Echo of Tyros is in soul mode, the knights it summons carry a Legionnaire Flamberge instead of a Keeper Flamberge.

Spawn egg

The Ancient Knight Spawn Egg (Ancient Knight Spawn Egg) spawns a knight when used. It stacks to 64.

Does not spawn naturally in any biome (see Obtaining/Spawning text).

Behavior

The Ancient Knight is a hostile mob with 60 health, 10 attack damage, 0 armor, 0.8 knockback resistance, a movement speed of 0.19 and a follow range of 25 blocks. It has a 3.5-block entity interaction range and a 1-block step height. Its hitbox is 0.85 blocks wide and 2.3 blocks tall. It awards 25 experience when killed. It is fire immune and immune to fall damage, and it does not cast spells.

Targeting

The knight targets the nearest player within its follow range. It retaliates against any mob that hurts it, and it attacks the nearest mob that is not in the infernal allies tag. Infernal allies are treated as friendly and are not attacked.

Melee attacks

The knight attacks at melee range. It chooses one of six attacks, and each attack has a fixed animation length and hit frames:

The knight waits 10 to 30 ticks between attacks. When the target is closer than 1.5 times melee range, it never lunges and chooses among the other five attacks. When the target is farther than 2.5 times melee range, it lunges with a 25% chance. Otherwise each attack is equally likely. Hits are only dealt when the knight has line of sight to the target.

The lunge carries the knight toward its target with a strong forward push. Its final hit lands only when the target is within 0.45 times melee range, and that hit knocks the target back away from where the knight started the lunge.

Each hit deals the knight's attack damage of 10. After a single-hit swing connects, the knight has a 75% chance to chain another attack immediately, and it always chains when the target is blocking.

Movement

When the knight is outside melee range it moves toward its target at 1.3 times its normal movement speed. Otherwise it wanders randomly and avoids water while strolling. It turns quickly to face its target so that its swings line up with its animations.

Damage resistance

• Projectile damage is multiplied by 0.75, so arrows and similar projectiles deal 25% less damage.
• Fire damage has no effect, because the knight is fire immune.
• Fall damage has no effect.
• If it is stuck inside a suffocating block during its first 10 ticks, it breaks the blocks around it.

Drops

An Ancient Knight killed by a player drops:

• Cinder Essence, which always drops.
• Netherite Scrap with a 12.5% chance.

These drops require a player kill. Summoned knights from the Echo of Tyros never drop loot or experience.

Item	Amount	Conditions
Cinder Essence		killed_by_player
Netherite Scrap		12.5% chance, killed_by_player

Tips

• Ranged attacks are a reasonable option, although projectiles deal 25% less damage to the knight.
• The lunge is chosen 25% of the time when the target is more than 2.5 times melee range away, and it is one of the six possible attacks at other distances. It is never chosen within 1.5 times melee range.
• A shield does not prevent the combo. The knight always chains its next attack when the target is blocking.
• Fire and falling do nothing to the knight, so fire-based and fall-based tactics are wasted.
• Its 0.8 knockback resistance makes it hard to push back, so plan for a long melee fight and bring healing.
• In the Echo of Tyros fight, the knights are cleared when the boss dies or despawns, so killing the boss ends the summons at once. Summoned knights give no drops or experience.
• Breaking an Armor Pile places a knight at the block's position, so be ready for a fight before breaking one.