Creeper

The Creeper is a green, near-silent, ambush/kamikaze mob that was first introduced in Survival Test version. Upon getting close enough to the player, it will let out a loud hissing sound and detonate after 1.5 seconds. Rarely creepers do have an idle sound; it sounds similar to a dying creeper (not exploding/people often mistake this for a spider). They do not catch fire when in direct sunlight, unlike Zombies and Skeletons which means that after a night there can still be dangers of running into a creeper in full sunlight. This won't happen when you go to sleep in the beginning of night because creepers need darkness to spawn.

Creepers possess a reputation among players, mostly because they can destroy player-made shelters and structures. In addition, their dangerous nature and strange appearance has made them a widely-recognisable icon for Minecraft.

Behavior
A creeper's path-finding algorithm seems to be a little more complex than most other hostile mobs. They will avoid directly approaching the player whenever possible, and seem to prefer standing in an alcove or around a corner from the front door of a fort or staircase. They likely determine this position by calculating where the player goes most often, and find a hiding spot nearby. The creeper will then rush in and ambush the player the next time they can find a path. Creepers are also capable of climbing ladders and swimming up waterfalls, although only when the pathfinding runs them right into one.

Although creepers cannot see through walls like spiders, many players mistake them to be able to see through walls. Because of their traffic-map like ability, they appear to path near your base, or wherever you are the most. Consequently, they are hard to avoid, and mostly blow up what you work on the most first.

Multiple creepers targeting one area will choose different hiding spots as the closest ones fill up, so ambushes with 2 - 5 creepers hiding in different places will often occur. If the player is just barely out of the creeper's sight (about 3 blocks) and shoots the creeper with an arrow, the creeper will notice the player and charge at him/her.

Creepers make a foot stepping noise while walking on blocks like dirt and grass, but are otherwise silent unless they fall or are damaged.

As of the beta 1.5 update, a creeper that has been struck by lightning will have a blue aura around it, becoming a charged/electrified creeper. A charged creeper will have a much more powerful explosion. They cannot be spawned naturally, though it's possible that a charged creeper can wander it's way down from the surface into a deep labyrinth which the player is in and destroy them. This makes setting up walls/no passing zones with Soul Sand or death traps before unlit areas a more desired preemptive so the player can continue focusing on their projects with less to fear from charged creepers in caves than on the surface.

There is an oddity with a creeper if the player manages to block a creeper behind a Soul Sand one-way entrance. The player can approach up to two blocks without the creeper hissing, but if the player suddenly goes into sneak position, the creeper will hiss and initialize his count-down timer. This shows that creepers currently countdown farther away if the player is at a lower elevation, and will only countdown if much closer to the player while they are at a higher elevation. This is probably because players can outrun explosions at a higher altitude and be shielded from the blast thanks to the floor.

A creeper's detonation can be halted if the player moves out of its blast radius. It will stop hissing, and gradually reset its timer at the same rate that it counts down (for example, if it has been counting down for 1 second, it will take 1 second to "cool down"). A bug may also halt the creeper, without resetting the timer, by closing a door when its "counting down", this will make the creeper (if the door was closed as it inflated) to not return to its normal shape, or remain white, but this has only been seen in multiplayer. Killing a creeper before the countdown starts or finishes will not cause the creeper to detonate.

A creeper will still blow up with a wall one block thick between you, though the creeper must be able to see you to detonate. This can often happen when homes are surrounded by short walls that creepers can jump high enough to look over.

If a glass wall or window one block thick exists between the a creeper and the player, the creeper's detonation sequence will not be triggered. Glass walls around entrances will reveal the creepers' nasty habit of hiding in ambush around corners, the disadvantage of this is that glass is not very durable should the creeper explode.

Strategy
Due to the stealthy nature of creepers, the player must remain vigilant at all times, but especially when exploring caves and in forest biomes. Underground, creepers can spawn at any time, and at the surface, creepers will spawn at night or in dark shadowed locations (Light level 7 or less). When confronting a creeper, the safest way to fight one is from a distance, using a bow and a stock of arrows. It takes five arrows to kill a creeper, but it is perfectly reasonable to use arrows to weaken creepers in preparation for a finishing strike with a sword.

Like all other mobs, creepers can be lit on fire.

A creeper's explosion is 1/4 less powerful than TNT, with an explosive power of 3.

For close combat, players can take advantage of the creeper's count-down cancellation by hitting the creeper, retreating and hitting it again until it is defeated. The player can also get close enough to a creeper from above to hit it with a melee weapon without the detonation sequence being activated.

Alternatively, due to their straight-forward path finding, the player can dig three-block-deep pits to lure the creeper into and then strike from above. While two blocks may seem sufficient, there is a risk of having the creeper "boosted" up out of the pit when struck. This strategy has one major drawback in that it is quite possible the player will fall into their own pit while running backwards and become hoisted upon their own petard.

As with TNT, all loose drops in the explosion radius will be destroyed - something to consider if the player is killed. Also like TNT, a certain percentage of blocks destroyed by the creeper will survive the blast and can be picked up. It is not unheard of for players to use this fact to get stone tools before bothering to make wooden ones by luring a creeper to open stone.

In terms of environmental damage, the harder the material caught in an explosion, the less damaging the explosion will be. Secure homes should be built with multiple layers of highly explosion-resistant materials.

Another alternative is to use a diamond sword and strike them twice, one right after the other. Mobs, like the player, have a 0.5 second buffer zone from being hit to being able to strike again. This is not recommended if there is multiple creepers in close proximity, though this works wonders in caves should a creeper suddenly fall down behind you. Remember, keys 1-9 correspond to using the item in that inventory slot so be ready to switch the moment you hear them hissing. If you are cornered with a diamond sword, this is the easiest way to deal with them. Run at them and keep tapping the attack button until they die. This technique also works with an Iron sword, though harder.

Charged Creepers
(aka Electrified Creepers) are the latest of monsters that players need to be on the lookout for should a lightning storm brew. If during a storm lightning strikes a Creeper, it will become electrified. This is an extremely rare occurrence. The explosion from an electrified creeper does increase damage and has increased range. They are easy to differentiate from normal creepers by the blue glow surrounding them.

Electrified creepers can cause huge amounts of damage. The player's shelter is only truly safe from them when using Obsidian as a construction material. Due to the increased blast radius, it is extremely hard to cancel a charged explosion, as they will continue to swell up. Charged Creepers are extremely rare because lightning needs to strike within 3-4 blocks of the creeper.

Music Discs
If a creeper is killed by a skeleton's arrow, it will drop a Music Disc. How the creeper gets hurt before does not matter, as long as the final blow is made by a skeleton. The easiest way to achieve this is to hit a creeper with four arrows, and have a skeleton shoot it after. However, if the creeper is hit but not killed, and near the skeleton, it will attack the skeleton by exploding, and therefore will not drop a disc.

Besides from a creeper, the only way to acquire a music disc is from a dungeon.

History


In Survival Test, the creeper's default look was a darker shade of green and flashed to a lighter green upon being hit. It behaved much like a zombie, except its attack dealt only two hearts worth of damage rather than three of the zombie, or the more recent 8+. After taking some damage, it would flash, indicating that it was about to detonate. Upon being killed, it caused a 4x4x4 spherical explosion, leaving a small crater, destroying plenty of blocks and hurting any players if they were in the way. However, this did not destroy stone, so it was not possible to blow up the map. Before they saw the player their heads would "droop" down.

The creeper was worth 250 points when killed. This was later decreased to 200 points.

Drops
Survival Test:
 * No dropped items
 * 200 points

Alpha and Beta:
 * 0-3 units of Gunpowder
 * 1 Music Disc (when killed by a skeleton)

Creepers and Pop Culture
Creepers are probably Minecraft's most iconic mob. They are referenced in several of the items available at the Minecraft merch depot. Many users on the forums overuse the creeper emoticon, and around 60% of Minecraft pictures you ever see will reference the creeper.

Trivia

 * Creepers are capable of climbing ladders even though they have no arms.
 * The creeper design is based on a failed attempt to make a pig model, hence the four legs.
 * Notch has described creepers as "being crunchy, like dry leaves".
 * The Minecraft profile picture on Facebook is that of a Creeper's face.
 * Like all explosions, if a creeper detonates whilst surrounded/in water, its explosion has no effect on blocks, but will still cause damage to players and other mobs.
 * It is entirely possible to detonate a creeper without taking damage.
 * Creepers were given a new taking damage sound after the Halloween Update.
 * Creepers swell up and skew in size before exploding.
 * Creepers are the only mob that Wolves won't attack once they are tame.
 * As of Beta 1.4, the 'A' in 'Minecraft' on the launcher shows a Creeper face.
 * Creepers currently have a bug that occurs in both SSP and SMP where if they see you and were close enough to start their fuse, then before they defuse lose sight of you, they will hold their fuse until they see you again. And in most cases they will hide behind a corner, and when they light their fuse they ALWAYS move to their right. So they will stay behind that corner until you come close enough for them to see you again, by then it is too late to get away.
 * There is a bug in SSP in which creepers sometimes use the sounds of other mobs, which can cause confusion in players. Cause unknown.

Creeper Creeper