Custom swords without Forge server

[Haman]

Hello.

I found that some servers can add custom swords into the game (not replace default ones) without a Forge server.

They are using a client-side only mod or a resource pack.

How this possible?

Version: latest 1.16.3 Forge

[Haman]

Like these:

[Alpvax]

It is also possible to use NBT tags to create swords which have custom attributemodifiers and models in order to have more than the usual sword types.

It can be done with any item, but you cannot add new functionality and behind the scenes they are still the vanilla sword item.

See https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Model#Item_predicates for more info on custom models (uses an NBT tag to select which model override to use).