Drops

Drops are items that appear when mobs and some other entities die or when most kinds of blocks are broken.

Common drops
Common drops may appear at the location of a mob at the moment it receives fatal damage. Most mobs have particular items that they may drop when killed. Some common drops, such as leather, don't always drop, but have a large chance (at least 50%, depending on the drop range) to do so. Some common drops, such as blaze rods, don't drop at all if the mob was not killed by the player.

Each of these items has a drop range, which is a random uniform distribution of numbers of items that will drop. For example, a cow will drop 0–2 leather items and 1–3 raw beef items. Since the range for leather includes 0, there is a $1/3$ chance of no leather being dropped.

If a baby animal dies, it will not drop any common drops.

Looting
Some common and uncommon drops are affected by the Looting enchantment. At most, a number of additional items equal to enchantment level will be dropped.

More specifically, the game generates a fractional number ranging from 0 to the Looting level, which is then rounded to the nearest integer. This causes the numbers in the middle of drop range to occur twice as often. The probabilities are as follows:

Stray's tipped arrow is a special case: while Looting can attempt to increase arrow drop amount, the final number of dropped arrows is capped at 1. So, Looting effectively increases arrow dropping odds, up to $1/2$ with Looting III.

Uncommon drops
Uncommon drops normally consist of a single item that has less than 50% chance of dropping. Technically, they're just common drops that have a negative drop range minimum. For example, a spider's eye has a drop range of -1–1, so there's a $1/2$ chance of dropping one eye and $1/4$ chance to drop either zero or "negative one", i.e. nothing. They otherwise behave just like common drops.

The Looting enchantment technically works just like it does for common drops, however, if "negative" number of items would drop before Looting bonus, it is subtracted from the bonus instead of being added to it, potentially bringing it down to zero.

Rare drops
Rare drops normally appear if the monster is killed by a player, although some rare drops can also be obtained by other means. Rare drops are always a single item, but may appear in conjunction with other common drops. A drop is considered rare if they are accompanied by the  condition in the mob's loot table.

Rare drops typically have a 2.5% chance of dropping, plus 1 percentage point per level of Looting on the weapon used (up to a maximum of 5.5% with Looting III). The exception to this is that a rabbit drops a rabbit's foot with a 10% chance, plus 3 percentage points per level of Looting (to a maximum of 19% with Looting III).

Note that in case of multiple rare drops (guardian and zombie types) the 2.5% chance is split between them, instead of being rolled for each item.

Shulker shell is technically also a rare drop, only ever dropping in singles from shulkers, although they don't require a player kill, have a not-so-rare 50% base chance, and increase by 6.25% per Looting level.

Equipped items


When killed by a player (or a tamed wolf), a monster can drop equipment and armor that it spawned with. Each piece of equipment the monster was spawned with is dropped with an 8.5% chance, except pumpkins, jack o'lanterns, and vex's iron sword, which have a 0% chance. This value is determined by the mob's  and   tags. The Looting enchantment increases this chance by 1% per level (up to 11.5% with Looting III, and 3% for pumpkins, jack o'lanterns, and said sword). This means it is possible for a monster to drop more than one piece of equipment upon death.

There are also some equipped items that are guaranteed to drop:


 * All items the mob picked up after spawning are always dropped, even when it isn't killed by a player and even if it is a baby zombie.
 * This is the case only for hostile mobs, not for villagers.
 * When a witch dies while it drinks a potion, it always drop the potion or have an 8.5% chance to drop the potion they're drinking.
 * Horses, donkeys, mules, llamas and pigs drop any items equipped to them by players, like saddles or chests.

Experience Orbs
Experience orbs drop only if a mob dies less than three seconds after being attacked (melee, bow, snowballs, eggs, and potions causing instant damage) by a player or by a player's pet wolf, though not by a player-activated dispenser. Their total value will always be the specific amount of experience granted by killing that mob. They are also dropped from a thrown bottle o' enchanting. Collected experience accumulates into levels, which can be used for enchanting or repairing.

Unlike other drops, such as items, experience orbs appear at the location of the mob's corpse at the moment it disappears in a puff of smoke. Experience orbs will move towards nearby players.

Block drops
Most blocks drop themselves when broken. All special drops from blocks are listed below. "Obtainable with Silk Touch" column indicates if the block can be collected using the Silk Touch enchantment. See Silk Touch for more information.

Notes:
 * Blocks marked with "T" need to be broken with a specific tool to drop anything (including experience). The Silk Touch enchantment doesn't remove this requirement.
 * Where noted, Fortune can increase the number of dropped items or multiply it. Increase simply gives 0-lvl extra items. Multiplication happen with the following chances:
 * Fortune I: 33% * 2 (33% more on average)
 * Fortune II: 25% * 2, 25% * 3 (75% more on average)
 * Fortune III: 20% * 2, 20% * 3, 20% * 4 (120% more on average)
 * Container blocks (brewing stands, chests, dispensers, droppers, flower pots, furnaces, hoppers, jukeboxes, trapped chests and beacons) drop themselves when broken along with their content.
 * All blocks not listed in the table above drop themselves when broken. Fortune doesn't affect their drop.

Trivia

 * Dropped weapons, tools, and armor from mobs will have at least 25 durability remaining, which is also the most common. Less-damaged items are increasingly rare.
 * Except for gold swords and tools, items will always have at least 26 points of damage taken.