Pillager

A pillager is an illager armed with a crossbow. Pillagers patrol the Overworld, guard their outposts, and participate in raids, sometimes spawning on ravagers in later waves of a raid. They are the weakest and most common of the illagers.

Patrols
$$, the number of pillagers spawning in each patrol depends on the local difficulty, with one spawning as a patrol captain. Patrols occur after 5$$ in-game days, any time and independently of structures, which means they still spawn in worlds without generated structures. A patrol spawns 24 to 48 blocks away from a random player, on the highest solid block. The individual pillagers of a patrol can spawn only at block light level greater than 8, regardless of sky light.

$$, each patrol spawns 2 to 5 pillagers. One of these pillagers is a patrol captain. After 5$1/2$ in-game days, patrols appear 24 to 48 blocks away from the player, at a light level of 7 and below on Easy or any light level on Normal and Hard difficulty.

Patrols seek villages, wander around the world, and attack nearby players, adult villagers, iron golems, and wandering traders.

Outposts
Pillagers continually spawn in a 72×54×72 block volume centered on the top floor. They may spawn on any valid opaque block as long as the block light level is 8 or lower. There can be unlimited pillagers that spawn in outposts naturally, limited only by the natural spawning rules.

$$, pillagers continually spawn at or below a particular location in the outpost, choosing the highest opaque block with a non-solid block on top and spawning on the northwest corner. A maximum of 8 pillagers spawn naturally in an outpost.

Some pillagers here spawn as outpost captains.

Raids
In a raid, pillagers are more common in the earlier waves, and decrease in number as the waves progress, except during bonus waves. Despite this, they still constitute the majority of raiders in total. The pillager is also the most common raiding mob in a raid. One pillager spawns riding a ravager in the fifth wave. $1/2$, one of the ravagers is ridden by a pillager instead of a vindicator on the seventh wave.

Pillagers have the largest chance of being the raid captain in the first wave, but in the second wave and onwards, vindicators have a greater chance than pillagers of being the raid captain.

Java Edition
In Java Edition, a pillager spawned by a player using a spawn egg or command can be a captain, meaning it has an ominous banner sticking out of its head.

Behavior
Pillagers are hostile toward players, iron golems, wandering traders, and villagers, but not toward baby villagers. They attack by shooting arrows from their crossbows every 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, and pursue their targets for up to 64 blocks or 16 blocks. Because of their fast walking pace, they are extremely difficult to shake off.

Pillagers move slowly around when idle and loading crossbows in Java Edition. In Bedrock Edition, pillagers move from one place to another as fast as when they're provoked, although they stop and look around, pointing their crossbows along. Pillagers point their crossbows at any player or mob they are looking at, whether their crossbows are loaded or unloaded.



Patrols spawn as a group of 1 to 5 pillagers in Java Edition or 2–5 illagers in Bedrock Edition, one of which is the patrol captain. The patrol captain wears an ominous banner, known as the  illager banner in Bedrock and Education Editions, on its head. The other illagers follow the captain around. If pillagers are part of a patrol, they do not attack immediately. The patrol members' heads turn to follow the player or of the villager-like mob who attracted their attention. If the player or villager-like mob attacks or approaches within 10 blocks of the patrol members, then this provokes them into loading their crossbows and attacking. This is intended behavior.

If raiding pillagers kill all the villagers in a village, they celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing. $$, pillagers wave their arms while holding their crossbows in their main hand when cheering. Unarmed pillagers also cheer.

When a player is in creative mode or applied with the invisibility effect, getting near a pillager still causes it to take notice and stare at the player. If a pillager notices a target while staring at the player, the pillager stops staring and attacks the target. If a player with the invisibility effect attacks a pillager, the pillager still retaliates.

In Bedrock Edition, a pillager that accidentally shoots a vindicator or evoker causes it to retaliate and attack the pillager. In Java Edition, pillagers do not retaliate on vindicators or evokers that attack them.

Java Edition
When a pillager finds a target, it chases the target first, then it locks the target in its attack range and loads its crossbow.

Pillagers, unlike evokers or vindicators, attack on sight, not regarding distance, although attacking a pillager, vindicator, or evoker far away causes the attacked illager and the same type of illagers around the attacked illager to attack the player, regardless of distance.

Pillagers never retaliate against other pillagers or illagers. They always seek an assailant regardless of distance, unlike most other mobs.

A pillager's crossbow eventually breaks with repeated use, unlike weapons wielded by other mobs. Unarmed pillagers are passive toward the player, iron golems, and villagers, but they still frighten villagers, and iron golems are still hostile toward them. This also includes pillagers that don't have a crossbow, which means any pillagers with a sword or any weapon other than a crossbow are still passive. An unarmed pillager walks at random similar to passive mobs, but always faces any player in its field of view or any mob that attacks it.

Unlike other illagers, pillagers always aid other pillagers attacked by other mobs like zombified piglins or other neutral mobs.

Pillagers can use their crossbow in their off-hand, but the loading animation still uses the main-hand loading.

Non-raider pillagers are not attracted to ominous banners.

Bedrock Edition
Pillagers use the outdated attacking AI in Bedrock Edition, which has been fixed in Java Edition. They also have broken arm textures, which has been confirmed as a bug.

When a pillager finds a target, it loads its crossbow first, chases the target and attacks upon in range. Pillagers are not hostile to players before their crossbows are loaded, so sometimes they don't look at players or run away while loading their crossbows.

A dispenser can equip a pillager with armor. However, armor isn't rendered on pillagers.

If a player summons a pillager without a crossbow by spawn event command, it still shoots arrows to attack targets, like other arrow-shooting ranged mobs. This is due to the fact that in the pillager.json and ranged piglin.json files, the  have both   and , so if a pillager does not have a crossbow, the "charge_held_item" behavior cannot trigger and it continuously shoots arrows due to the "ranged_attack" behavior.

Pillagers use a melee attack while underwater, unlike pillagers in Java Edition that maintain using crossbows underwater, although the shot arrows travel slower underwater and sink after a short distance.

Pillagers load their crossbows upon spawning, or if their crossbows are unloaded. This allows them to have their crossbows ready for attacking their next potential target.

Pillagers cannot use their crossbows in their off-hand, as mobs cannot use weapons in their off-hand, just like players.

Pillagers can pick up and equip illager banners within 3 blocks.

Pillager crossbows with Multishot or Piercing don't have these enchantments' effects; this bug is fixed in Java Edition.

Drops

 * 0–1 (8.5% chance, loaded or unloaded, depending on the crossbow's state when the pillager dies) when killed by a player or tamed wolf; drop chance increases by 1% per level of Looting. The crossbow is of a random durability and has up to a 10% chance of being enchanted at level 5-19, depending on regional difficulty.
 * and an additional per naturally-spawned equipment when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * 1 Illager Banner.png ominous banner/illager banner, if spawned as a captain.
 * 0–2 s . Each level of Looting increases the maximum number of arrows dropped, up to 5.

$$, raiding pillagers have a 65% chance on Easy and Normal, or 80% chance on Hard difficulty, to drop these:
 * 0–1 ($$ or 25.6%)
 * 2–3 ($$ or 12.8%)
 * 4–5 ($10/39$ or 5.1%)
 * 1 ($20/78$ or 5.1%)
 * 1 ($5/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($10/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($2/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($4/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($2/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($4/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($5/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($5/78$ or 6.4%)

Pillagers do not drop extra raid loot in Java Edition. Instead, they drop their normal loot. They also do not drop emeralds upon death in Java Edition.

Notes:
 * Iron equipment drops have a 50% chance to be enchanted at level 5-19. Said equipment may also have enchantment combinations that cannot be normally obtained, such as Blast Protection and Fire Protection on the same pair of boots.
 * Iron equipment drops are always of 30 to 90% durability.
 * These drops are affected by the Looting enchantment.
 * Enchanted books have level 30 enchantments, which can also be treasure enchantments.

Bad Omen
If a player kills a pillager captain (a pillager wearing an ominous banner /illager banner on its head), they receive the Bad Omen status effect. The effect lasts for 100 minutes (5 in-game days) and can be removed by drinking milk. When a player afflicted with Bad Omen enters a village, a raid commences in that village, bringing about waves of illagers that seek and try to eliminate all villagers in the village.

Each patrol spawns one pillager captain. While outposts can continually spawn pillager captains, each captain inflicts the player who killed it with one level of Bad Omen upon death. Raid captains do not inflict Bad Omen when defeated in a raid. $5/78$, killing multiple captains in succession raises the Bad Omen level to a maximum of V, increasing the chance of pillagers and vindicators in the resulting raid wielding enchanted weapons. As long as the Bad Omen level is higher than I, the resulting raid includes an additional wave with a raider composition identical to that of the last wave.

Sounds
Pillagers use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.



ID




Entity data
Pillagers have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Trivia

 * Alongside crossbows, pillagers were taken from Minecraft Dungeons, even though they were added in the base game first.
 * Pillagers were added to Village and Pillage as a means to give villagers a "true" adversary in order to balance the new village mechanics.
 * The command:  summons a passive pillager that does not attack.
 * An original design of the pillager appeared like a pirate wearing an orange vest. However, Mojang Studios' mob designers changed the mob's design to look more like brigandine armor because they thought this design looked better.
 * $5/78$, a running pillager uses the player's running animation rather than that of other illagers.
 * Summoning an unarmed pillager in Java Edition that is invulnerable does not cause villagers to run away from the pillager.
 * Typing  in Bedrock Edition does not cause the summoned pillager to attack players.
 * A pillager has a $5/78$ chance of dropping a crossbow enchanted with two Piercing I enchantments, a $5/78$ chance of dropping one with Piercing I and Multishot, and a $5/78$ chance of dropping one with Piercing I, Multishot, Unbreaking III, and Quick Charge I. These probabilities were calculated with pillagers spawned from patrols or outposts, because pillagers spawned from higher levels of raids have an increased chance of dropping enchanted crossbows. Also with maximum local difficulty, as this affects the chance of a dropped crossbow being enchanted.