A pillager is a hostile mob that spawns regularly in raids, patrols, and in pillager outposts.
Spawning
Patrols
5 pillagers spawn in patrols. Patrols spawn naturally after 51⁄2 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 51⁄2 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 the most common mob within raids. They come in every wave and are difficult to deal with on mass. Lining them up makes them kill each other with arrows.
Behavior
A pillager is armed with a crossbow and shoots arrows at players, iron golems, snow golems, wandering traders, and villagers. A pillager shoots an arrow every 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, pursuing an enemy within 64 blocks. Pillagers never attack one another; even if one is shot by another pillager, it does not start dueling.
If raiding pillagers kill all villagers in a village, the pillagers celebrate their victory by cheering.
In Java Edition, a pillager's crossbow eventually breaks with repeated use, unlike weapons wielded by other mobs.[1] A pillager continues to shoot arrows until their crossbow breaks. An unarmed pillager in Java Edition is passive to everyone, but still frightens villagers. Since it takes 326 arrows to break a crossbow that is unenchanted or only has Piercing or Quick Charge and a pillager fires every 3 seconds it would take 16 minutes and 3 seconds to break a pillager’s crossbow. Each level of unbreaking multiplies the amount of arrows by level+1, and multishot divides the time by 3 (it still shoots the same number of arrows but uses more per shot).
In Bedrock Edition, pillagers use melee attacks when underwater.
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
Ominous banner[JE only]/Illager banner[BE only], 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:
- 0–1 Emerald
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):
- 0–1 Emerald (10⁄39 or 25.6%)
- 2–3 Emerald (5⁄39 or 12.8%)
- 4–5 Emerald (2⁄39 or 5.1%)
- 1 Enchanted Book (2⁄39 or 5.1%)
- 1 Iron Pickaxe (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Axe (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Shovel (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Sword (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Helmet (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Chestplate (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Leggings (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
- 1 Iron Boots (5⁄78 or 6.4%)
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
{{Sound table}}.
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
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
- An item in the inventory, excluding the Slot tag.
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Monster Hunter | Attack and destroy a monster. | Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider. | 15G | Bronze | ||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Adventure | Adventure, exploration and combat | — | Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity. | adventure/root
|
![]() | Monster Hunter | Kill any hostile monster | Adventure | Kill one of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_a_mob
|
![]() | Monsters Hunted | Kill one of every hostile monster | Monster Hunter | Kill each of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_all_mobs
|
![]() | Who's the Pillager Now? | Give a Pillager a taste of their own medicine | Ol' Betsy | Kill a pillager with a crossbow. | adventure/whos_the_pillager_now
|
History
The specific instructions are:
| March 27, 2017 | Jeb replies to a Reddit post suggesting to add pillagers, saying that they were already planned to be added in the future. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 29, 2018 | Pillagers are announced at MINECON Earth 2018. | ||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | File:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers. | |||
| 18w45a | Pillagers can now spawn naturally during illager patrols. | ||||
| 18w46a | The pillager's AI has been improved. | ||||
| Pillagers no longer drop emeralds. | |||||
| 18w47a | Pillagers now spawn as part of raids. | ||||
| Pillagers now spawn around pillager outposts. | |||||
| 18w47b | Pillagers 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 | |||||
| 19w09a | Pillagers can now use tipped arrows and fireworks in their offhand when shooting their crossbow. | ||||
| 19w13a | Pillagers can now open doors during raids. | ||||
| 19w14a | Pillagers no longer open doors during raids. | ||||
| 1.14.4 | pre4 | ||||
| 1.15 | 19w39a | ||||
| 19w45a | |||||
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.16.2 | 20w29a | The attack animation of unarmed pillagers has been changed. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.9.0 | beta 1.9.0.0 | File:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers. | |||
| Pillagers do not have sounds or animations. | |||||
| beta 1.9.0.2 | Pillagers now have the crossbow animations and reloading sounds. | ||||
| beta 1.9.0.3 | The crossbow held in the pillager's hand is now larger. | ||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | Pillagers now have their own sounds. | |||
| Pillagers are no longer available only through Experimental Gameplay. | |||||
| Pillagers now spawn around pillager outposts. | |||||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.1 | Pillagers 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 1.11.0.4 | Pillagers in raids may now drop special items when killed. | ||||
| 1.13.0 | beta 1.13.0.9 | If raiding pillagers killed all the villagers in the village or the beds were destroyed, pillagers celebrate their victory by laughing and raising their arms in the air. | |||
| release | Looting now increases the crossbow drop chance for pillagers by 1% per level, rather than 12%, to bring parity with Java Edition. | ||||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.16.0.51 | Pillagers no longer load their crossbows after spawning, and now only load their crossbows when they find their target. | |||
| The unloaded crossbow pose of pillagers has been changed to | |||||
| Pillagers now pick up illager banners within 3 distances from it. | |||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| 1.90 | File:Pillager Revision 1.png Added pillagers. | ||||
| Pillagers are available only in creative mode. | |||||
| 1.91 | Pillagers 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, an unarmed pillager 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.
- The command:
/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {}summons a passive pillager that does not attack anything. - In the Buzzy Bees trailer, a hidden pillager can be seen watching over the villagers.
- In the same trailer, a pillager comically flees from the bees.
- Pillagers are the first mobs to wield a crossbow, the second being Piglins.
- Pillagers are slightly taller than their other illagers and other villager like mobs. (Excluding Witches, who have a hat).
- This could most likely be a bug.
- They are the only illager to not fold their arms.
- The pillager's head looks like the evoker's head.
Gallery
A pillager from Minecraft Dungeons.
- Pillager Variant 1 (Dungeons).png
A gold armored pillager from Minecraft Dungeons.
- Pillager Variant 2 (Dungeons).png
A diamond armored pillager from Minecraft Dungeons.
A pillager armed with a crossbow, shown at MINECON Earth 2018.
A pillager outpost inside of a desert temple with pillagers inside and outside of the temple.
A pillager riding a ravager.
In other media
A Mojang artwork.
A group of pillagers and illagers shown in the Village & Pillage artwork.













