Minecraft: Here Is How To Summon Multiple Entities

Entities in Minecraft are defined as any object that is dynamic and spawned within the Minecraft world. Essentially, this means that everything you see in Minecraft is an entity that includes blocks and mobs of all kinds. Though entities are mobs in your Minecraft worlds, and even though we more commonly get rid of them, sometimes we need a lot of them for farms and other things of the sort, so how do you summon multiple entities in Minecraft?

The /summon command

The problem many players have with the summon command is that it can’t summon multiple entities at once, even though it would seem like a logical thing to be able to do. Instead, you can only use it to summon one entity at a time. Sure, you can copy the command and spam it till you meet your entity-spawning needs, but the whole point of commands is to make doing things easier.

Pasting it ten times isn’t a problem, but what happens if you want to summon a hundred entities for whatever reason that might be? Players had to get creative, and so they came up with a bunch of solutions on how to spawn multiple entities at once.

If you want to use the summon command in your world, it’s likely one of the simplest ones to use. Open your command window and type in /summon mob. The mob part should be replaced with the name of the mob you’d like to spawn. For example, if I wanted to summon a skeleton, I would type in /summon skeleton.

Other commands for spawning multiple entities

If spawning multiple entities with the command I gave is just too much copy-pasting for you or doesn’t suit you, you can summon multiple entities either by using command blocks or the execute command so let’s explore how you can use both to get the same results.

The execute command

The execute command might sound like you’ll kill instead of summoning an entity when you use it, but it’s quite the opposite. It will execute another command but allow you to change the executor. You can even use it to execute it on its own.

The command used to summon multiple entities with this command is /execute as @e[limit=16] run summon (entity name) ~ ~ ~. It works as long as there are 16 entities in your world at a time. If you don’t have enough entities for it to work, you can summon a few pigs, for example first and then do the command.

The ”run” within the command is used to execute another command, so it’s logical that you’ll need to use it if you want to summon entities. You can change the entity you’re summoning by changing the last part in the brackets for the name. That way, if you wanted to spawn a zombie, for example, you could simply type in the command /execute as @e[limit=16] run summon zombie ~ ~ ~.

Command blocks

Another way to summon multiple entities is to use command blocks. Command blocks are a special type of block in Minecraft that execute commands for you. You can’t find them in your regular survival world unless you use cheats. There are a total of 3 different command blocks, each with its own separate function.

The first is an impulse command block, the default command block type. It will only execute a command once when activated. You can easily recognize this command block since it’s orange-colored. The following command block is colored green, and it’s called a chain command block. It will execute whenever it is triggered.

Last but not least, we have the repeating command block that executes every game tick as long as it’s activated. It’s purple-colored, and you might assume that this is the command block you need to summon multiple entities I’m sure it’s possible to execute it that way, but for this article, we’ll use the impulse command block, so to summon multiple entities with command blocks, follow these steps:

1. Place an impulse command block in your world and put a button on it.
2. Open up its interface, and type in this command /setblock ~ ~-2 ~ minecraft:redstone_block
3. Then, it’s time to use the repeating command block. Place it next to where the redstone block will be placed. (If you used the above command, it’d be 2 blocks below the impulse command block.
4. Place the summon command into the repeating command block. If you need a refresher it’ll look something like this /summon skeleton
5. Set up redstone repeaters on the opposite side of the repeating command block. Keep in mind that the command block will summon 20 mobs every second so maybe wait a bit before pushing the button and placing the redstone block just yet.
6. At the end of the repeaters, place another repeating command block, enter its interface, and type in the command /setblock x y z minecraft:air. Replace the XYZ coordinates with the coordinates of the redstone block, and you finally have a system that summons multiple mobs.
7. If you want the change the mob type you’re spawning, go into the first repeating command block and change the summon command with another mob/entity.

The benefits of spawning multiple entities

It’s most likely that people will want to use the command to perhaps make a mob switch which will help you eliminate all hostile mobs in an area provided you follow some other steps. The first and most obvious answer to this question would be that you’d want the mobs for your mob farms.

One other thing I can think of that might put these commands to good use is if you want to have a harder time playing your world since it appears that hardcore mode has become too easy for many. Like I said at the beginning of this article, you can also consider a block an entity, so if you’d like to check out the commands for summoning multiple block entities, I’ll discuss this next.

Spawning block entities without mods

Most people use the WorldEdit mod to quickly fill an area with multiple blocks, but you don’t have to use it to succeed. The command limits you to spawning blocks in a straight line and from point A to point B, but if you’re not planning to use it for anything more advanced than simply making building a little faster, you’ll make good use of it.

The command is /fill X Y Z X Y Z minecraft:crimson_planks. Of course, you’ll change the crimson planks with whatever block entity you want to summon. The first XYZ coordinates should be the first corner of where you want to summon the blocks, and the second should be the farthest corner of where you want to place the blocks.

I made the platform in the picture above using the commands. It still takes a while to fill, but all I did was copy-paste the command and keep changing one of the coordinates, making it higher every time I wanted to spawn the next row of blocks. Of course, whether you’ll change the coordinate to higher or lower depends on the position of your build, so to make sure, switch your position to the next row, open up the debug screen, or enable coordinates if you’re a bedrock edition player and notice the change from your starting coordinates.

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