Piglin Bartering — What You Get and What Actually Matters

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TL;DR: Wear at least one piece of gold armor, stand near Piglins, and hand one a gold ingot. After it examines the ingot for 6 seconds (8 on Bedrock) it tosses you a random item. Every barter costs one ingot. The big prizes are Soul Speed gear (roughly 1 trade in 94 for the book, 1 in 59 for the boots) and ender pearls. Bartering is the only renewable way to get Soul Speed, and pearls average about 16 ingots each.

Bartering is the one place in the game where you can see a loot table working in front of you. Every ingot is a dice roll, and this guide tells you what is on the dice.

The loot table (Java Edition)

Every barter picks one item from a table with a total weight of 469, so each item's chance is its weight divided by 469. Here it is, grouped by how often you will see it:

The prizes

  • Enchanted book with Soul Speed: about 1.1% per barter (5 in 469). The level is random.
  • Iron boots with Soul Speed: about 1.7% per barter. Random level, and you can wear them right away, if you grab them fast: a Piglin will sometimes pick its own boots back up and put them on.
  • Potion or splash potion of Fire Resistance: about 1.7% each, so roughly 3.4% for either. If you need fire resistance often, brewing it is a steadier plan than hoping for a barter.
  • Ender pearls: about 2.1% per barter, and you get 2 to 4 at a time. Averaged out, that is about one pearl for every 16 ingots.

The in-between items

  • Iron nuggets: about 2.1% per barter, 10 to 36 at a time. They are not "very common", but a stack of them adds up to real iron.
  • Water bottle and dried ghast: about 2.1% each. The dried ghast is a newer block that joined the table in Java 1.21.6.
  • String (3 to 9) and nether quartz (5 to 12): about 4.3% each.

The common items (about 8.5% each)

  • Obsidian (1) and fire charge (1)
  • Crying obsidian (1 to 3), leather (2 to 4)
  • Soul sand (2 to 8) and nether brick (2 to 8)
  • Spectral arrows (6 to 12, Java only; Bedrock gives regular arrows)
  • Gravel (8 to 16) and blackstone (8 to 16)

Piglins are the only renewable source of Soul Speed, crying obsidian, soul sand, quartz, and a few other Nether materials. That is why players farm them. A few bastion chests can also hold Soul Speed items, but those are one-time finds, not a farm.

How to barter

  1. Wear at least one gold armor piece. Any piece counts. Without it, Piglins will attack you.
  2. Stand near Piglins. A bastion remnant is the classic spot, and Piglins Explained covers where else they live.
  3. Hold gold ingots and use one while looking at a Piglin. Piglins also pick up ingots dropped near them. Trade with adult Piglins only: babies take your ingot and keep it.
  4. The Piglin examines the ingot for 6 seconds (Java), then tosses an item your way. Several Piglins can examine ingots at the same time, so a group trades much faster than one Piglin.
  5. Do not hit a Piglin while it is examining an ingot. It confiscates the ingot and the barter never finishes.

How much gold to bring

Because every barter is an independent dice roll, the numbers look like this:

  • A Soul Speed book: the average is about 94 ingots, but averages hide luck. With 64 ingots your chance of at least one book is only about 50%, a coin flip. With 128 it is about 75%.
  • A Soul Speed book or Soul Speed boots: the average drops to about 36 ingots, and 64 ingots gives you roughly an 83% chance of at least one of the two.
  • Ender pearls: about 4 pearls per 64 ingots on average, with a lot of swing either way.

One stack of 64 gold ingots is a good first trip, but do not treat it as a promise. You can hit a streak of luck or a long dry spell with the same 64 ingots.

Where to barter, and who to avoid

A bastion remnant has the most Piglins in one place. Watch out for Piglin Brutes: they do not barter, they ignore gold armor completely, and they attack on sight. See What's Inside a Bastion before you go looking around.

Gold armor stops Piglins from attacking you for not wearing gold, but opening a chest or breaking a gold block near them still makes them angry. Barter first, loot second.

Only barter in the Nether. A Piglin that spends 15 seconds in the Overworld or the End turns into a Zombified Piglin.

Common mistakes

  • Not wearing gold armor. One piece is enough, and gold boots count.
  • Hitting a Piglin mid-barter. It confiscates the ingot and will not trade again until it picks up another item. (The one exception: if you defeat it in a single hit, it drops your ingot.)
  • Bartering outside the Nether. Piglins zombify after 15 seconds.
  • Bartering only for obsidian. Obsidian shows up about 8.5% of the time, one block at a time, so it is not an efficient way to get it.
  • Expecting a guarantee. A 1% prize can take far more than one stack of gold.

A closing thought

Bartering is one of the first places kids can see how probability works: the same ingot, the same Piglin, a different result every time, and the odds written right there in the table. You cannot "play better" to get Soul Speed faster. You can only decide how many ingots you are willing to spend.

Pair this with Soul Speed Boots and The Complete Nether Guide, and when you are ready to see how far the road goes, walk the world.

Send corrections to [email protected].

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