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For the mob in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Pillager.
See also: Raid captain

Pillagers are illagers armed with crossbows that patrol the Overworld, guard their outposts and participate in raids.

Spawning

Patrols

In Java Edition, the number of pillagers spawning in each patrol depends on the local difficulty, with one spawning as a patrol captain. Patrols occur after 512 in-game days, any time and independently of structures, which means they still spawn in a world without generated structures. A patrol will spawn 24 to 48 blocks away from a random player, on the highest solid block. The individual pillagers of a patrol can only spawn at block light level 7 or lower, regardless of sky light.

In Bedrock Edition, each patrol spawns 2 to 5 pillagers on Easy and Normal difficulty, whereas on Hard difficulty, 80% of illagers spawned are pillagers and 20% are vindicators. One of these illagers is a patrol captain. After 512 in-game days, patrols appear 24 to 48 blocks away from the player, at a light level of 7 and below on Easy or any light level on Normal and Hard difficulty.

Outposts

Main article: Pillager Outpost

Pillagers continually spawn in a 72×54×72 block volume centered on the top floor. They may spawn on any valid opaque block as long as the sky light level is 11 or lower, and the block light level is 8 or lower, 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

In a raid, pillagers are more common in the earlier waves, and decrease in number as the waves progress. Despite this, they still constitute the majority of raiders in total. The pillager is also the most common raiding mob in a raid. One pillager spawns riding a ravager in the fifth wave. In Bedrock Edition, one of the ravagers is ridden by a pillager instead of a vindicator on the seventh wave.

Java Edition

In Java Edition, a pillager spawned by the player using a spawn egg or command can be a illager captain, meaning they have the Ominous banner sticking out of their back.

Behavior

Pillagers are hostile toward players, iron golems, wandering traders and villagers. In Bedrock Edition, pillagers are also hostile toward snow golems, but not toward baby villagers. They attack by shooting arrows from their crossbows every 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, and pursue their targets for up to 64 blocks. Taking into account their fast walking pace, they are extremely difficult to shake off. Pillagers never retaliate against other pillagers or illagers. They always seek an assailant regardless of distance, unlike most other mobs. In Bedrock Edition, a pillager that accidently shoots a vindicator makes it retaliate, as this never happens in Java Edition. The pillager does not retaliate on the vindicator that attacks it, even when attacked.

If raiding pillagers kill all the villagers in a village, they celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing. In Bedrock Edition, pillagers wave their arms while holding their crossbow in their main hand when cheering.

In Java Edition, a pillager's crossbow eventually breaks with repeated use, unlike weapons wielded by other mobs.[1] Unarmed pillagers In Java Edition are passive, but still frighten villagers, and iron golems are hostile toward them. Unarmed pillagers in Bedrock Edition still uses melee attacks to attack the player and other mobs.

In Bedrock Edition, pillagers use melee attacks while underwater.

A pillager stares at the player and points its crossbow towards the player when the player is in creative mode.

A pillager stares at the player and points its crossbow towards the player when the player is in creative mode.

When a player is in creative mode, any players that goes near the pillager or looks at the pillager makes the pillager stare and point its crossbow at the player. Pillagers that don't have a crossbow stares at the player instead. When a pillager sees a target while staring at the player, the pillager goes to kill its target instead of staring at the player.

Drops

In Bedrock Edition, pillagers spawned in raids drop:

In Bedrock Edition, raiding pillagers also have a 65% chance on Easy and Normal, or 80% chance on Hard difficulty, to drop these:

Notes:

  • Iron equipment drops have a 50% chance to be enchanted at level 5-19. Said equipment may also have enchantment combinations that cannot be normally obtained, such as Blast Protection and Fire Protection on the same pair of boots.
  • Iron equipment drops are always of 30 to 90% durability.
  • These drops are affected by the Looting enchantment.
  • Enchanted books have level 30 enchantments, which can also be treasure enchantments.

Bad Omen

If the player kills a pillager captain, which wears an Illager Banner ominous banner (or Illager banner ‌[Bedrock Edition only]) on its head, they receive the Bad Omen status effect. The effect lasts for 100 minutes (5 in-game days) and can be removed by drinking milk. When a player afflicted with Bad Omen enters a village, a raid commences in that village, bringing about waves of illagers that seek and try to eliminate all villagers in the village.

Each patrol spawn one captain, while outposts can continually spawn pillager captains, both of which beset the player with one level of Bad Omen upon death. Note that raid captains do not inflict Bad Omen when defeated in a raid. In Java Edition, killing multiple captains in succession raises the Bad Omen level to a maximum of V, increasing the chance of pillagers and vindicators in the resulting raid wielding enchanted weapons. As long as the Bad Omen level is higher than I, the resulting raid includes an additional wave with a raider composition identical to that of the last wave.

Sounds

SoundSubtitlesSourceDescriptionResource locationTranslation keyVolumePitchAttenuation
distance
Pillager murmurs??entity.pillager.ambientsubtitles.entity.pillager.ambient1.0?10[verify]
Pillager cheers??entity.pillager.celebratesubtitles.entity.pillager.celebrate1.0?16
Pillager dies??entity.pillager.deathsubtitles.entity.pillager.death1.0?16
Pillager hurts??entity.pillager.hurtsubtitles.entity.pillager.hurt1.0?16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

NameIdentifierEntity tags (JE)Translation key
Pillagerpillagerraidersentity.minecraft.pillager

Bedrock Edition:

NameIdentifierNumeric ID Translation key
Pillagerpillager114entity.pillager.name

Entity data

See also: Chunk format

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

  • 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

Achievements

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
Monster HunterAttack 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.15GBronze

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-rawVoluntary Exile
Kill a raid captain.
Maybe consider staying away from villages for the time being...
AdventureKill an entity in the #raiders entity tag wearing an ominous banner.
This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
adventure/voluntary_exile
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 section 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.
  • Renders of unarmed pillagers before and after 20w29a (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 JE1 BE1.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 raiding pillagers killed all the villagers in the village or the beds were destroyed, pillagers celebrate their victory by laughing and jumping.
19w14aPillagers no longer open doors during raids.
1.14.4pre4Pillager JE2 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.
1.16.220w29aThe attack animation of unarmed pillagers has been changed.
Bedrock Edition
1.9.0beta 1.9.0.0File:Pillager JE1 BE1.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 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.
releaseLooting now increases the crossbow drop chance for pillagers by 1% per level, rather than 12%, to bring parity with Java Edition.
1.16.0beta 1.16.0.51Pillagers no longer load their crossbows after spawning, and now load their crossbows only when they find their target.
The unloaded crossbow pose of pillagers has been changed to Pillager (unarmed) Revision 2, the same pose as a piglin with a crossbow.
Pillagers now pick up illager banners within 3 distances from it.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90File:Pillager JE1 BE1.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

  • The Pillager was added to Village and Pillage as a means to give the villagers a "true" adversary in order to balance the new village mechanics.[2]
  • In Java Edition, an unarmed pillager walks at random similarly to passive mobs, but always faces any player in its field of view.
  • In Bedrock Edition, due to a bug, unarmed pillagers can still shoot arrows rapidly, about 1 every 0.75 second.
  • 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).
  • They are the only illagers that do not fold their arms.
  • An original design of the pillager appeared like a pirate wearing an orange vest. However, Mojang Studios' mob designers changed the mob's design to look more like brigandine armor.
  • In Bedrock Edition, Pillagers run animation runs differently than other illagers because of the mob that was modeled as a player.
  • Pillagers have the highest chance of being the raid's head coach.

Gallery

In other media

References

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