Not fussed either way about Dynmap - it's nice to get an overhead view, but probably less interesting in the early game than later.
As above, my preference would be no health regen, and death counter, but that doesn't need mods - it appears to be just these server commands:
/gamerule naturalRegeneration false
/scoreboard objectives add Deaths deathCount
/scoreboard objectives setdisplay Deaths list
EDITED: 12 Nov 2013 21:04 by BOUGHTONP