Minecraft wiki entry for Pillager, associated text: Alongside crossbows, pillagers were taken from Minecraft Dungeons, even though they were added in the base game first.[7]
Pillagers were added to Village and Pillage as a means to give villagers a "true" adversary in order to balance the new village mechanics.[8]
In Java Edition, an unarmed pillager walks at random similar to passive mobs, but always faces any player in its field of view or any mob that attacks it, as this is a typical 'retaliation' characteristic of most hostile mobs, including pillagers.
Pillagers point their crossbows at any player or mob they are looking at, whether their crossbows are loaded or unloaded.
The command: /summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {} summons a passive pillager that does not attack.‌[Java Edition only]
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 because they thought this design looked better.
In Bedrock Edition, a running pillager uses the player's running animation rather than that of other illagers.
Summoning an unarmed pillager in Java Edition that is invulnerable (/summon pillager ~ ~ ~ {Invulnerable:1b}) does not cause villagers to run away from the pillager.
Typing /summon pillager ~ ~ ~ minecraft:calm in Bedrock Edition does not cause the summoned pillager to attack players.
A pillager has a 1⁄16,000 chance of dropping a crossbow enchanted with two Piercing I enchantments, a 1⁄409,000 chance of dropping one with Piercing I and Multishot, and a 1⁄3,500,000 chance of dropping one with Piercing I, Multishot, Unbreaking III, and Quick Charge I. These probabilities were calculated with pillagers spawned from patrols or outposts, because pillagers spawned from higher levels of raids have an increased chance of dropping enchanted crossbows. Also with maximum local difficulty, as this affects the chance of a dropped crossbow being enchanted.