A lot of things in this mod are configurable, which is fantastic, but I've found one that's been bothering me and I can't change. It would be nice to have an option in the config file, or a gamerule, to disable the thorns effects of the full spruce leaf piles when you walk through them.

This is mostly because I'm just tired of my minecolonies workers from constantly dying in them, but also because I'm sure some other people want the leaf piles just as decoration, and may want to disable the damage from them. Right now the only solution is to completely disable spruce leaf piles in the config, which feels like cutting out a big nice thing just because of an unwanted side effect.

I don't know if only the spruce ones do this or if other leaf piles do too, but a config could reasonably be for all leaf-pile-thorns-effects or by specific leaf pile.

use leggins and boots

use leggins and boots

That doesn't really fix the issue, for 3 reasons.

1. I always wear leggings and boots yet still commonly take damage from leaf piles. Maybe it depends on the type of armor being worn, but point is that doesn't always help.
2. Many other things in the mod are configurable, I don't see why this is a case of "just do this thing to avoid it" when it could be configurable as well for people who really don't like it.
3. For my issue specifically, other than guards, minecolonists won't wear armor as far as I'm aware. So I can't give them leggings and boots to protect them from the leaves.

I'm experiencing the same and I didn't know it was specific to spruce until seeing your post. I tried to change the config spawn_entity_from_decay = 0.0 but that didn't help. Maybe I used the config wrong, but I can definitely agree with you that a config option for disabling damage would be nice. We've had so many foresters die in the forest that it's an inside joke at this point.

Commenting because I would also like to see this feature! Currently getting around it by disabling slowness for ALL leaf piles, which somehow also stops the damage from spruce leaf piles. This issue might actually be a bug?

It's extremely disorienting for someone new to this mod to cut down a tree and suddenly take damage, walking out of it with 3-4 hearts less. And it's only specific to 1 certain type of tree, adding to the confusion. Spruce leaf piles don't remotely look dangerous or even similar to sweet berry bushes.

I too have had an issue using this mod with a Minecolonies modpack and would like to see a true/ false setting for spruce leaf pile damage and/ or a true/ false setting for leaf piles in general.