Typical drops from a Skeleton: Experience Orbs, an Arrow, and Bones.
Drops are items which appear when mobs and some other entities die. There are three basic types of drops: normal drops, rare drops, and Experience Orbs. Only normal drops appear when a mob is killed other than by the player.
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. Each mob has particular items which it may drop when killed. Some normal drops only appear when mobs are killed by the player, but they are still much more common than rare drops.
For each of these items, there is a random (uniform) distribution of numbers of that item it will drop; for example, a Cow will drop 0-2 Leather items and 1-3 Raw Beef items. Since the range includes 0, it is possible for no leather to be dropped. If the mob is killed with a weapon with the Looting enchantment, then the upper limit of the range is increased by the level number of the enchantment.
If a mob is a baby animal, it will not drop anything when killed.
- Note: The term "common drops" was chosen by the authors of this article. It is not known to be an official term.
Rare drops
A bow received from a rare drop with Power I
Rare drops occur in addition to the common drops. Unlike most common drops, they only occur if the monster is killed by a player, similar to Experience Orbs. All rare drops can also be obtained by other means; there are no items which are exclusively available through rare drops. Rare drops are always a single item, not multiples.
Rare drops have a 2.5% chance of occurring when a monster dies, and a 20% chance of being enchanted rare drops. Using a weapon with the Looting enchantment increases the chance of a rare drop by 0.5% per level, and also increases the chance of enchanted weapons (up to 50% with Looting III). All types of non-enchanted rare drops are equally likely.
When items are enchanted, the enchantment is chosen in the same way as using an Enchantment Table with a cost of 5 levels. It is possible to get multiple enchantments. This means that the following enchantments may occur on Golden Swords:
- Sharpness I–III
- Smite I–IV
- Bane of Arthropods I–IV
- Knockback I–II
- Fire Aspect I–II
- Looting I–II
and the following enchantments may occur on Bows:
- Power I
Experience Orbs
Experience Orbs only drop if a mob dies less than five seconds after being attacked (melee, bow, snowballs, eggs) by a player. Their total value will always be the specific amount of experience granted by killing that mob.
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.
Table of drops
| Mob | Exp | Common drops | Rare drops | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animals | ||||
| Chicken | 1–3 |
0–2 Feather |
None | Cooked if on fire. Meat unaffected by looting. Also drops Chicken Egg every 5-10 minutes. |
| Cow | 1–3 | None | Cooked if on fire. Gives Milk when right-clicked with a bucket. | |
| Mooshroom | 1–3 | None | Cooked if on fire. Shearing drops 5 Red Mushroom, converting it to a normal cow which cannot re-become a Mooshroom. Gives Milk when right-clicked with a bucket. Gives Mushroom Stew when right-clicked with a bowl. | |
| Ocelot | 1–3 | None | None | |
| Pig | 1–3 |
0–2 Raw Porkchop or 0–2 Cooked Porkchop |
None | Cooked if on fire. |
| Sheep | 1–3 | 1 Wool if not sheared | None | Not affected by Looting. Shearing drops 1-3 Wool. Wool is colored if the sheep was spawned colored or dyed. |
| Squid | 1–3 | 1–3 Ink Sac | None | |
| Wolf | 1–3 | None | None | |
| Golems | ||||
| Iron Golem | 0 |
0–2 Rose |
None | Not affected by Looting. |
| Snow Golem | 0 | 0–15 Snowball | None | Not affected by Looting. |
| Monsters | ||||
| Blaze | 10 | 0–1 Blaze Rod if killed by player | None | |
| Cave Spider | 5 |
0–2 String |
None | Eye is an uncommon drop (33% chance) Looting doesn't affect number of eyes dropped, but increases probability of a drop. |
| Creeper | 5 | 0–2 Gunpowder 1 Music Disc if killed by skeleton |
None | |
| Ender Dragon | 20,000 | None | None | Creates a portal including removable blocks: 4 Torch |
| Enderman | 5 | 0–1 Ender Pearl | None | |
| Ghast | 5 |
0–1 Ghast Tear |
None | |
| Magma Cube | 1, 2, or 4 | 0–1 Magma Cream if size > 1 | None | Uncommon drop (25% chance). |
| Silverfish | 5 | None | None | |
| Skeleton | 5 | Bow | Bow may be enchanted. | |
| Slime | 1, 2, or 4 | 0–2 Slimeball if size = 1 | None | |
| Spider | 5 |
0–2 String |
None | Eye is an uncommon drop (33% chance) Looting doesn't affect number of eyes dropped, but increases probability of a drop. |
| Zombie | 5 | 0–2 Rotten Flesh | Iron Ingot |
|
| Zombie Pigman | 5 | 0–1 Rotten Flesh 0–1 Gold Nugget |
Gold Ingot |
Golden Sword may be enchanted. |
| Non-Mob Entities | ||||
| Boat | - |
3 Wooden Planks |
None | |
| Minecart | - | 1 Minecart | None | |
| Minecart with Chest | - | None | Also drops all of its contents. | |
| Minecart with Furnace | - | None | ||
| Painting | - | 1 Painting | None | |
History
Experience Orbs were added in Minecraft Beta 1.8 (the Adventure Update). This was also the first version in which some mobs dropped more than one kind of item.
Rare drops were added in Minecraft 1.2.
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