Health

Health is the character's life count, represented by a meter of heart icons at the top-right of the screen. Each red heart shown represents 20 health, and each gold heart represents 25 health.

Taking damage causes health to drop, signified by the meter fading from right to left. Health regenerates when the character stops taking damage, and occurs at ever-increasing rates the longer the character avoids further damage, with a further rate boost if the character stands still. Regeneration can also be boosted using various equipable items, potions, and placed furniture items that cause area-effect buffs (Heart Lantern, Campfire).

New characters begin with 5 red hearts, or 100 health. Health capacity can be increased using Life Crystals, which add a single red heart each to the health meter permanently, increasing health capacity by 20 each. This can be done until the health meter reaches 20 red hearts (400 health).

Later in the game, the character can use Life Fruit to increase the capacity of their hearts by 5 health each, signified by permanently turning the color of each heart gold. With 15 Life Crystals and 20 Life Fruits used, a character can reach 20 gold hearts, which equals 500 health capacity. A further temporary boost to 600 health capacity can be achieved using a Lifeforce Potion.

On the, Hearts will decrease in size and fade away if they are "empty". On the, hearts will lose pieces of themselves to reveal a darkened "empty" heart. Each red piece represents 5 health, and each gold piece represents 1 1/4 health. The gold hearts are also on a separate layer than the red hearts.
 * On the, hearts are also larger prior to getting over 10 hearts.

Taking damage
Damage occurs from attacks, environmental hazards, falling, drowning, or by debuffs. Taking damage causes a brief period of invulnerability while the character visually "flashes". When a character's life reaches 0 and all hearts are completely faded, death occurs.


 * Enemies, such as Slimes, Zombies and Skeletons typically deal damage by touching the character. Other more powerful enemies like Fire Imps or Harpies can also damage the character via projectiles. Damage from enemies typically inflicts knockback on the character in addition, sending them flying through the air away from the source of the damage.


 * Environment objects can cause damage, such as Spikes and thorns that grow in Corruption and Jungle areas, which hurt the character when touched. Hellstone and Meteorite blocks also deal damage via Burning debuff, and Lava causes a high rate of damage via the On Fire! debuff.


 * Fall damage occurs from falling more than 25 tiles (50 feet) onto blocks, and causes more damage the further the fall. A single fall from an extreme height can kill a character.


 * Drowning occurs when the character's Breath meter is depleted from remaining under water or other liquids for too long.

For a complete list of things that can reduce health, see causes of death.

Preventing damage
Main articles: Defense and Armor

By wearing armor and equipping certain accessories, characters can increase their defense which decreases damage taken. In addition to simply decreasing damage, some items can mitigate or eliminate certain forms of damage. All accessories can have modifiers that grant up to 4 defense in addition to their other bonuses and functions.

Preventing Drowning
These items are specifically for the purpose of avoiding getting stuck and drowning in water/other liquids.

Lava safety
These accessories are specifically for the purpose of mitigating or negating the effects of falling into lava.

Restoring health
Lost health can be regained in many ways. If the character has access to a Nurse then they can ask her to heal them to full by paying her a fee based on how much damage has been taken. There are also several items that can be used to heal the character. The character will automatically start regenerating health after a short period if no damage has been taken, and it will do it faster while standing still.

Healing
Most items which heal the player also grant the Potion Sickness debuff for 60 seconds(45 with the Philosopher's Stone or Charm of Myths). While under the effects of this debuff, the player cannot consume other items which grant the debuff.

Increasing Regeneration
The following items and buffs increase the player's natural life regeneration. Most increase it by a static amount per second, therefore allowing the player to regenerate health even while being attacked or moving.

Also see the Health Regeneration page for the mechanism of the natural healing rate.

Life Draining
The following items heal the player by an amount based on the damage dealt to enemies.