Patrol

A patrol (officially a pillager patrol) is a rare, naturally-spawning group of pillagers, led by a patrol captain.

Spawning

Patrols spawn as a group of 1-5 pillagers in Java Edition or 2-5 pillagers in Bedrock Edition, one of which is a raid captain (in this case called a “patrol captain” to avoid confusion). The patrol captain wears an ominous banner, and the other pillagers follow the captain around.

In Java Edition, patrols never spawn if /gamerule doPatrolSpawning is set to false. In Bedrock Edition the equivalent is /mobevent pillager_patrols_event false.

Conditions

Patrols spawn naturally after the world age reaches 100 minutes (5 in-game days), then after a delay of 10–11 minutes, an attempt is made to spawn a patrol with 20% chance of success. After an attempt is made, the delay is reset.

Patrols can spawn both above ground and underground in any Overworld biome except mushroom fields and deep dark, although patrols may wander through these biomes after spawning.

Patrollers do not spawn in Peaceful difficulty.

Java Edition

Patrols can spawn on any non-fluid block with a motion-blocking material, with the exception of leaves. They can spawn on blocks with a block light level of 8 or lower. If a player is within a 5 by 5 by 5 subchunk cube around a village, patrols do not spawn.

The game picks a random location 24–48 blocks along each of the X and Z axis away from the player to try to spawn the patrol's captain. If a pillager cannot spawn at the chosen position, it gives up and does not spawn anything. If the captain can spawn, the game tries to spawn the value of localDifficulty (rounded up) more pillagers, with each pillager spawning within a 4-block radius square around the previous pillager.

Bedrock Edition

In Bedrock Edition, patrols spawn around 24–48 blocks away from the player (or more than 48 blocks away if the player is in a village). Additionally, patrols can spawn in biomes where common monsters cannot spawn such as:

• River
• Frozen River
• Snowy Plains
• Snowy Mountains
• Legacy Frozen Ocean

Patrols spawn on solid blocks at light level 0–7.

Summoning using commands

Java Edition

Players can summon patrol captains and patrol members via command using NBT.

Summon patrol captain:

/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {PatrolLeader:1b}

Summon patrol member:

/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {Patrolling:1b}

Bedrock Edition

Players can summon patrol captains and patrol members via command using spawn event.

Summon patrol captain:

/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:promote_to_patrol_captain

Summon patrol member:

/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:spawn_as_patrol_follower

Summon unused vindicator patrol captain:

/summon vindicator ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:promote_to_patrol_captain

Behavior

Patrols wander around and attack nearby players, adult villagers, wandering traders, snow golems‌, and iron golems. The patrol members' heads turn to follow a player or villager-like mob who looks at them or attracts their attention. A player or villager-like mob who approaches within 10 blocks of the patrol provokes them into loading their crossbows and attacking, and pursuing if the player flees. The pursuit lasts until either of the parties dies or gets far enough away.

In Java Edition, any illagers, ravagers or witches that did not spawn with the patrol can join the patrol if sufficiently near a patrol captain. Evokers and illusioners who join a patrol wander around but do not seek out targets like other members in the patrol. They still do cast spells to attack mobs, however. Witches that join the patrol assume the patrol's behavior.^[1]

If a "Johnny" vindicator joins a patrol, all patrol members assume the Johnny vindicator's aggressive behavior, attacking any non-illager mob, which includes witches and ravagers (which are not illagers in Java Edition), except baby villagers and ghasts. This can lead to the patrol attacking their own ravager and witch patrol members if any are present.

In Bedrock Edition, when one of the patrol members is attacked, it alerts nearby patrol members within 10 blocks to attack the same target as a swarm. The attacker can be any mob and doesn't need to be a player, and the distance between attacker and patrol can be up to 64 blocks away from alerted patrol members. This means that a llama who accidentally spits on a patrol member can provoke all of the members of the patrol at once. Vindicator patrol members target and attack the player without prior provocation.

A patrol spawned by a player might not function properly; instead, causing some of the patrol members to wander around. One of the ways to fix this is to reduce the size of the patrol to around 5 members. Another way is to make the captain move, as the rest of the patrol members can move along with it and follow it around. Witches might not function properly in a patrol because they are not an illager.

Just like normal pillagers, when a patrol pillager's arrow hits another pillager, the hit pillager does not retaliate.

The patrol captain always drops an ominous banner and ominous bottle upon death.

Ominous Bottles

When a patrol captain is killed by a player or tamed wolf, it drops 1 ominous bottle of a random level (level I-V). This drop is unaffected by Looting.

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Patrol", "Pillager patrol", or "Illager patrol" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• The idea of pillagers appearing in patrols was decided based on wanting pillagers to not be "hidden away," giving the player a sense of life in the world outside of their personal area.^[2]
• In Bedrock Edition, it is possible for patrols to spawn directly inside villages.
• Although vindicator patroller and captain no longer spawn in both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition, the vindicator captain still can be still found in the game data pack and summoned via command.

Gallery

Renders

• 
  Render of a patrol.

Screenshots

• 
  A patrol captain riding a ravager (before 18w46a).
• 
  A patrol looking at a nitwit villager secretly at night.

See also

• Vindicator
• Raid

References

Navigation

v t e Gameplay
General mechanics	Add-ons Attribute Commands Distance Effect Potency Explosion Game rules Interaction range Inventory Creative inventory Saved Hotbars Generated loot Hitbox Multiplayer Server Server list Realms Splitscreen Oxidation Rarity Legacy Redstone circuits Conductivity Renewability Renewable Non-renewable Rotation Snowlogging South-east rule Spawn protection Tiers Waterlogging
Survival	Achievements Advancements Archaeology Armor materials Bartering Breaking Instant mining Breeding Brewing Cooking Crafting 2×2 grid Recipe book Dual wield Difficulty Durability Enchanting Experience Farming Fishing Health Healing Hunger Item repair Mob spawning Ominous Event Ominous Trial Raid Raid captain Smelting Smithing World Spawn Taming Trading Workstations Zombie siege
Combat	Blocking Damage Attack cooldown Critical hit Knockback Sprint-knockback Drops Monster infighting Geared mobs
Environment	Biomes Daylight cycle Dimensions Seeds Structures Weather World generation More
Movement	Crawling Flying Gliding Jumping Lying Riding Sitting Sneaking Sprinting Swimming Walking
User interface	Action bar Bossbar Chat Death messages Game mode switcher Heads-up display Narrator Locator bar Scoreboard Toasts Tutorial hints Tooltip
Visuals	Color Block colors Item colors Effect colors Miscellaneous colors Emotes Enchantment glint Error Light Resource pack Screen effects Skins Character Skin pack Third-person view Vibrant Visuals
Outdated	Sword blocking Materials Update Suppression