How Much Health Can You Have in Terraria?

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One of the first lessons you learn when playing video games is to keep your health from reaching 0. In games like Super Mario Bros., this means not letting Mario take a hit while he’s small. In RPGs, you can usually see every character’s exact HP total. When a character gets low, you heal them so they can continue to attack enemies and protect you from a “Game Over” screen.

Terraria health bar
A maxed out Terraria health bar

Terraria operates very similarly. Your current health is displayed in the upper right corner of your screen, and doing all that you can to prevent it from hitting 0 while exploring can be extremely important, depending on your character’s difficulty level.

For Classic characters, dying means getting warped away from where you were exploring and losing a sizable percentage of your money. Mediumcore and Hardcore characters also drop all their items upon death. Hardcore characters have the most to lose from a death, however, as they die permanently instead of respawning after a few seconds.

Since you only start with 100 Health on a new Terraria character, this makes the prospect of raising one’s health total extremely attractive, regardless of the difficulty you’re playing, as having more health naturally means it is harder to kill and/or inconvenience you.

So how does one raise their health? How much health can you get? Let’s take a closer look.

What is the Most Health You Can Have in Terraria?

A Terraria character playing in the base game without mods can reach a maximum of 600 health. This is done by consuming 15 Life Crystals (+20 max health each), 20 Life Fruits (+5 max health each), then drinking a Lifeforce Potion (+20% maximum health for 5 or 8 minutes).

Terraria Life Crystals and Jungle Fruits
Mmmmm, rocks and random fruit I picked up off the ground. The breakfast of champions.

While it sounds like a lot of work to go and gather this many items, each is actually very accessible by simply exploring and playing the game. You will need to use these items in a specific order to get the full benefits from them, however, so let’s go through how to find each item in the order you’ll be able to use them.

How to Get Life Crystals in Terraria

Terraria Life Crystal

Life Crystals can be found as naturally occurring objects within the Underground layer of your Terraria world or on any lower layer. When you come across one, simply hit it with your pickaxe, and you’ll be able to add it to your inventory so you can consume it.

While gaining 20 maximum health is the most obvious benefit a Life Crystal offers (up to a total of 400), it can also be used to craft a couple items:

  • The Heart Lantern (takes 1 Life Crystal and 4 Chains): A light source that heals nearby players for 1 health per second
  • The Panic Necklace (takes 1 Life Crystal and 1 Band of Starpower): An accessory that boosts your speed by 50% for 5 seconds whenever you take damage from any source other than fire blocks

Increasing your maximum health is also a condition that must be met (possibly in addition to others) for certain events to occur in your Terraria world. Here is a quick list of events that require specific health totals:

  • The Nurse NPC can start spawning when your maximum health exceeds 100.
  • Blood Moons can start appearing when your maximum health exceeds 120.
  • Slime Rains can happen once your maximum health exceeds 140. (Also usually requires you to have at least 8 defense in multiplayer)
  • The Eye of Cthulhu can spawn once you reach 200 health. (Also requires you to have at least 10 defense in multiplayer, and at least 4 town NPCs must be present)
  • The Goblin Army can attack once you reach 200 health. (Also requires you to be standing near the world’s spawn point and for one Shadow Orb or Crimson Heart to have been destroyed)
  • The Old Man at the Dungeon will stop deeming you unworthy once you reach 300 health.
  • You are allowed to consume Life Fruits at 400 health.

How to Get Life Fruits in Terraria

Terraria Life Fruit

In current versions of Terraria, Life Fruits can be found growing in Jungle Grass under the Surface once you’ve entered Hardmode and defeated at least 1 mechanical boss (Skeletron Prime, The Twins, or The Destroyer). If you’re playing on a Windows phone or a 3DS, you are able to find these prior to defeating a mechanical boss, but they’re considerably rarer.

After you find one, any weapon that allows you to cut down plants so you can pick them up will work on a Life Fruit. Once in your inventory, you can then consume it, and 1 of your hearts will change from a red color to a gold color, increasing your maximum HP by 5 up to a total of 500.

How to Get Lifeforce Potions in Terraria

You can get Lifeforce potions a couple different ways in Terraria. The first way is to open Shadow Chests or Lihzahrd Chests, which have a chance to drop 1-2 each. If you want to pick them up in bulk, however, you will need to craft them yourself.

Fortunately, the crafting requirements are not demanding at all per potion. Simply take these ingredients to a Placed Bottle or Alchemy Table:

  • 1 Bottled Water
  • 1 Prismite (caught by fishing in the Hallow biome)
  • 1 Moonglow
  • 1 Shiverthorn
  • 1 Waterleaf

Who knew that all those plants you picked up on your travels would turn out to be so useful!

Lifeforce potions will last for 8 minutes apiece in current versions of Terraria, up from 5 in older releases. While not required for most elements of the game, adding 20% to your maximum HP (bringing you up to 600 if you’ve maxed out your Life Fruits) can give you a nice buffer if you’re exploring a particularly hazardous area of Hardmode or when trying to solo bosses.

Now that you’ve maxed out your health, go forth and test your mettle against the toughest foes in the game!

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