Drops

Drops are items which appear when mobs and some other entities die. There are 5 basic types of drops: common drops, uncommon drops, rare drops, equipped items, and experience orbs.

Common drops
Common drops may occur whenever a mob dies, and appear at the location of the mob at the moment it receives the killing damage. Most mobs have particular items which 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” (same rules as for experience orbs).

For each of these items, there is a random (uniform) distribution of numbers of that item it will drop; this is called the item's drop range. 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 ⅓ chance of no leather being dropped.

If a mob is a baby animal, it will not drop any common drops when killed.

Looting
When mobs are killed with the Looting enchantment, the effect on their drops depends on the drop. There are three known behaviors:


 * The drop rate is calculated as if for two separate drops, one with the regular drop range, and one with an additional drop range from 0 to the level of Looting used, for example 0–3 for Looting Ⅲ. For example, killing a cow with a Looting Ⅲ sword makes it drop 0–2 + 0–3 leather and 1–3 + 0–3 raw beef. The distribution is not uniform but rather the sum of the two uniform distributions (this is similar to how throwing two dice gives a sum near 7 more often).
 * Each level of the Looting enchantment increases the upper end of the drop range by 1. For example, killing a blaze with a Looting Ⅲ sword makes it drop 0–4 blaze rods.
 * The enchantment does not affect the drop rate. For example, a killed sheep will always drop exactly 1 block of wool.

Uncommon drops
Uncommon drops are similar to common drops, appearing at the location the entity dies. However, an uncommon drop only ever consists of a single item, which has a low chance of dropping. The exact chance depends on the drop. For example, a spider has a ⅓ chance of dropping a spider eye upon death.

The Looting enchantment increases the chance of an uncommon drop by making another attempt at dropping the item if the original attempt failed. The success chance of this second attempt is ½ for Looting I, ⅔ for Looting II, and ¾ for Looting III.

Rare drops
Rare drops occur in addition to the common drops. Unlike most common drops, they only occur if the monster is killed by a player. Most rare drops can also be obtained by other means. Rare drops are always a single item, not multiples.

Rare drops have a 2.5% chance of occurring when a monster dies. Using a weapon with the Looting enchantment increases the chance by 1 percentage point per level (up to a total of 5.5% with Looting III).

Equipped items


When killed by a player, 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 and jack o'lanterns, which have a 0% chance. The Looting enchantment increases this chance by 1% per level (up to 11.5% with Looting Ⅲ, and 3% for pumpkins and jack o'lanterns). This means it is possible for a monster to drop more than one piece of equipment upon death.

There are also some equipped items which 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 only the case for hostile mobs, not for villagers.
 * When a witch dies while it drinks a potion, it will drop the potion.
 * Horses, donkeys, mules, and pigs drop any items equipped to them by players, like saddles.

Experience Orbs
Experience Orbs only drop 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.

Experience Orbs are similar to items but not the same. Unlike other drops, 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. "Silk Touch" column indicates if the block can be collected using the Silk Touch enchantment.

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 stand, chest, dispenser, dropper, flower pot, furnace, hopper, jukebox, trapped chest and beacon) 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.
 * Due to Zombies and Skeletons rarely spawning with random armor, and having a 5% chance of dropping one article of said worn armor on death, it is finally possible to legitimately acquire chainmail armor without trading with villagers.
 * While skeletons will drop bows of differing enchantments, the most common seems to be "Power I."