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A pillager is an illager[1] equipped with a crossbow.

Spawning

Patrols

5 pillagers spawn in patrols. Patrols spawn naturally after 512 in-game days. They spawn only at night independently of structures, i.e. they still spawn in a world without generated structures.

In Bedrock Edition, patrols spawn 2 to 5 mobs; on easy and normal difficulties, all are pillagers, on hard difficulty 80% are pillagers and 20% are vindicators, spawning 24 to 48 blocks away from the player. On easy difficulty, they spawn at light levels from 0 to 7, while in normal and hard difficulties they spawn in any light level after 512 in-game days.

Outposts

Pillagers naturally spawn and respawn in outposts. They spawn in a 72×54×72 block area centered on the top floor (with the chest). Only pillagers and passive mobs may spawn in that area.

Pillagers may spawn on any valid opaque block as long as the sky light level is above 8, and the block light level is below 8, but can also spawn on grass or sand blocks regardless of block light level.

In Bedrock Edition, pillagers 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.

Raids

Pillagers spawn as part of raids, as the most common mobs in one.

Behavior

A pillager is armed with a crossbow and shoots arrows at players, iron golems, snow golems, wandering traders and villagers. They shoot an arrow each 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, following an enemy within 64 blocks. Pillagers never attack one another; even if one is shot by another pillager, it does not start dueling.

Pillagers use melee attacks when underwater.‌[Bedrock Edition only]

If raiding pillagers kill all the villagers in a village, the pillagers celebrate their victory cheering.

Their crossbows will eventually break unlike other mobs (like skeletons). They will keep shooting arrows until their crossbows break. When pillagers are unarmed in Java Edition, they are passive to everyone. This is extremely useful for creating iron farms that scare villagers using line of sight.

Passive pillagers

Passive pillagers can be obtained in survival using a few methods:

  • Stacking snow layers six-high between a trapped pillager and player/villager so the pillager's line of sight meets the player/villager but the arrows get stuck in the snow.
  • Using a shield so the pillager's arrows are deflected
  • Sitting in a boat with a pillager and facing any cardinal direction, as seen in the following video:

Drops

  • A crossbow loaded or unloaded, which has an 8.5% chance to be dropped; this rate increases by 1% per level of Looting.
    • It has a random durability.
    • A pillager has a 0 to 10% chance of having a crossbow enchanted at level 5 to 19, both depending on regional difficulty.
  • 5 and an additional 1–3 per naturally-spawned equipment when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
  • 1 Illager Banner Ominous banner, if the pillager is a raid captain. The raid captain spawns with an ominous banner above its head and always drops the banner when defeated.
  • 0–2 arrows, dropping more with the presence of Looting, up to 5. ‌[Bedrock Edition only]

Pillagers spawned by raids drop:

The following additional items drop from pillagers spawned by raids depending on difficulty (there is a 65% chance on easy and normal or an 80% chance on hard):

Notes:

  • Iron equipment drops from raids always has a 50% chance of being enchanted with a random enchantment level from 5 to 19. A pillager may also have enchantments on books and armor that cannot be normally obtained, such as blast protection and fire protection on the same pair of boots.
  • Iron equipment is always damaged, having from 30 to 90% of the full durability.
  • These drops are affected by the Looting enchantment.
  • Emeralds are both a regular raid drop and an additional drop.
  • Enchanted books have a level 30 enchantment and also can be a treasure enchantment.

Bad Omen

If the player kills a pillager wearing a banner on its head, the player receives the Bad Omen status effect. These pillagers are patrol or outpost captains.

Patrols spawn a single captain, while outposts can spawn 1-3 captains at a time. These captains give the Bad Omen effect at level I, whereas illager captains in raids do not give Bad Omen. The effect lasts for 100 minutes (5 days in-game) and stacks to a maximum of level 6 (without using commands), but can be removed by drinking milk.

The higher the Bad Omen effect, the higher chance of the crossbows of the pillagers being enchanted.‌[JE only]

Sounds

The following sounds section uses an outdated format and should be redone using {{Sound table}}. 
You can help by converting the contents of this section into a sound table template.
Examples can be seen at Bee#Sounds and Ladder#Sounds.
The wikicode should be laid out neatly as in these examples for improved readability.
Remember to include a foot parameter so the table appears in the correct place. Do NOT convert the table using Visual Editor.
Sound Subtitle Namespaced ID Subtitle ID Source Pitch Volume Attenuation distance
Pillager murmurs entity.pillager.ambient subtitles.entity.pillager.ambient ? ? 1 10 [verify]
Pillager cheers entity.pillager.celebrate subtitles.entity.pillager.celebrate ? ? 1 16
Pillager dies entity.pillager.death subtitles.entity.pillager.death ? ? 1 16
Pillager hurts entity.pillager.hurt subtitles.entity.pillager.hurt ? ? 1 16

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Pillagers have entity data associated with them that contains various properties of the mob.

  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all mobs
    • Tags common to all mobs spawnable in raids
    •  Inventory: Each compound tag in this list is an item in the pillager's inventory, up to a maximum of 5 slots. Items in two or more slots that can be stacked together are automatically be condensed into one slot. Pillagers don't change their inventory automatically or drop items from it upon death. The inventory is currently unused.[more information needed]
      • An item in the inventory, excluding the Slot tag.
        • Tags common to all items

Advancements

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
Advancement-plain-rawAdventure
Adventure, exploration and combat Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.adventure/root
Advancement-plain-rawMonster Hunter
Kill any hostile monster AdventureKill one of these 34 mobs: Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.adventure/kill_a_mob
Advancement-fancy-rawMonsters Hunted
Kill one of every hostile monster Monster HunterKill each of these 34 mobs: Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.adventure/kill_all_mobs
Advancement-plain-rawWho's the Pillager Now?
Give a Pillager a taste of their own medicine Ol' BetsyKill a pillager with a crossbow.adventure/whos_the_pillager_now

History

Missing Model JE3
This page would benefit from the addition of more images. 
Please remove this notice once you've added suitable images to the article.
The specific instructions are:
  • Pillagers before Bedrock Edition Beta 1.9.0.2.
  • Render of targeting pillager with no crossbow (MC-158735).
March 27, 2017Jeb replies to a Reddit post suggesting to add pillagers, saying that they were already planned to be added in the future.
September 29, 2018Pillagers are announced at MINECON Earth 2018.
Java Edition
1.1418w43aFile:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers.
18w45aPillagers can now spawn naturally during illager patrols.
18w46aThe pillager's AI has been improved.
Pillagers no longer drop emeralds.
18w47aPillagers now spawn as part of raids.
Pillagers now spawn around pillager outposts.
18w47bPillagers now spawn less often around pillager outposts.
Pillagers no longer cross their arms when not equipped with a crossbow, which has changed the poses from Pillager (unarmed) Revision 1 to Pillager (unarmed) Revision 2.
19w09aPillagers can now use tipped arrows and fireworks in their offhand when shooting their crossbow.
19w13aPillagers can now open doors during raids.
Pillager celebrating If all villagers are killed during a raid, pillagers now laugh and wave their arms in the air.
19w14aPillagers no longer open doors during raids.
1.14.4pre4Pillager The pillager's arm texture has been changed.
1.1519w39aPillager (unarmed) Revision 3 Pillagers no longer have arms when they're not armed with a crossbow.
19w45aPillager (unarmed) Revision 4 Both of the arms of pillagers now display correctly even if the pillager does not have an armed crossbow.
Bedrock Edition
1.9.0beta 1.9.0.0File:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers.
Pillagers do not have sounds or animations.
beta 1.9.0.2Pillagers now have the crossbow animations and reloading sounds.
beta 1.9.0.3The crossbow held in the pillager's hand is now larger.
1.10.0beta 1.10.0.3Pillagers now have their own sounds.
Pillagers are no longer available only through Experimental Gameplay.
Pillagers now spawn around pillager outposts.
1.11.0beta 1.11.0.1Pillagers now spawn as part of illager patrols and during raids.
Pillagers can now spawn as a raid captain.
Pillagers no longer attack baby villagers.
Pillagers can now ride ravagers.
beta 1.11.0.4Pillagers in raids may now drop special items when killed.
1.13.0beta 1.13.0.9Pillager celebrating BE If all villagers are killed during a raid, pillagers now laugh and wave their arms in the air.
releaseLooting now increases the crossbow drop chance for pillagers by 1% per level, rather than 12%, to be like in Java.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
1.16.0beta 1.16.0.51Pillagers now pick up illager banners.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90File:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers.
Pillagers are available only in creative mode.
1.91Pillagers now spawn in raids, illager patrols and around pillager outposts.
Pillagers can now spawn as a raid captain.
Pillagers can now ride ravagers.

Issues

Issues relating to "Pillager" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • In Java Edition, a pillager's crossbow eventually breaks if the pillager shoots at the player repeatedly, leaving the pillager with no method of attacking.[2] This causes its behavior to change as well; it walks at random similarly to passive mobs, but always faces any player in its field of view. The pillager also always holds its arm up, similar to an attacking vindicator.
    • No other mob runs out of durability on their weapon. For example, a skeleton or illusioner could shoot arrows forever, as their bow does not lose durability.
  • You can make a Pillager passive by typing command: /summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {} in which it will not attack anything.

Gallery

In other media

References

  1. "Minecraft Snapshot 18w43b § Pillager" – Minecraft.net, October 24, 2018
  2. MC-163960
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