Minecraft: Here’s the Probability of a Villager Baby Becoming a Nitwit

Villagers in Minecraft come in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are helpful and allow you to trade with them but not nitwits. As the name implies, nitwits are silly and foolish villagers with no direction in life. In your Minecraft world, you want as few of them in your villages as possible, but how likely are they to spawn, and what’s the probabilčity of a villager baby becoming a nitwit?

Nitwits are special villagers

Nitwits are villagers in Minecraft that weren’t a feature in the game until the 2016 update. Developers decided to add nitwits into the game after realizing that there was a bug in the game that prevented some villagers from ever having a profession. Initially, nitwits were supposed to be called idiots, but developers then thought nitwit sounded better. I agree because it encapsulates the feel of Minecraft perfectly, idiot feels out of place.

Nitwits can’t be traded with, as we’ve already established, and they always wear green robes to separate them from the rest of the herd. Some players might find this description confusing since, as we all know, villagers have different outfits depending on the biome they’re in, so if you’re still confused, here’s a photo of all nitwits in different biomes.

Besides being unable to trade, nitwits are also the definition of lazy in Minecraft. They go to sleep later than any other villager (2000 game ticks, to be exact, or about 1 minute and 40 seconds). They also get up later than everyone else, which is 2000 in-game ticks. This is another way to identify a nitwit and just how many nitwits you have in your village.

You don’t want nitwits in your village unless you’re trying to make some villager farm. Breeding two nitwit villagers will actually make it so that there’s a higher chance that a baby villager will spawn that will eventually become a nitwit.

Why do villagers turn into nitwits?

There are three ways a villager can become a nitwit, but one differs between Bedrock and Java Edition of Minecraft. Nitwits can exist naturally in a village or become a nitwit once a baby villager reaches adulthood. As mentioned before, there’s a 10% chance that a baby villager will turn into a nitwit once it becomes an adult.

Baby villagers will become fully grown adults after 20 minutes, so you could perhaps wait it out to see if a baby villager will become a nitwit. Another reason why a villager might turn into a nitwit is by curing zombie villagers.

Villagers have a chance of becoming zombie villagers if they’re killed by a zombie. Zombie villagers can also spawn naturally. You can cure these villagers with potions of weakness by feeding them golden apples, after which they’ll turn to what they were before they were killed or what they spawned as.

Just like you can tell the difference between villagers of different professions, you can tell the difference between zombie villagers and what they’ll become once you cure them. The same rule applies to identifying zombie villager nitwits. Once a zombie villager is cured, if it was a nitwit before it was transformed into a zombie or spawned as a nitwit, it will remain a nitwit.

This is true for Java Edition Minecraft, but in Bedrock Edition, there is a way to cure nitwits and prevent them from being in your village. You will have to take the long route to make it happen, but if it fits your playstyle and you’re merciful, it’s worth giving it a shot. In Bedrock Edition, a nitwit will become an unemployed villager looking to get a profession once they’re cured as a zombie villager.

Can you tell if a baby villager is a nitwit?

In all Editions of Minecraft, you can never tell whether or not a baby villager will become a nitwit. Baby villagers all look the same and are designed to wander around the village, playing tag with each other and entering other villagers’ homes of their own volition. You can’t interact with them and will have to wait it out to see if one becomes a nitwit.

The only way to tell if a baby villager will become a nitwit is to cross paths with a baby zombie villager. That way, you’ll immediately be able to tell whether or not the baby villager will become a nitwit once you cure them. Remember, a green robe is what you’re looking for. This is the only way to encounter baby nitwits in the game.

What happens if you cure a nitwit?

When you cure a nitwit zombie villager, it’ll remain a nitwit in Java Edition. Since nitwits can’t be traded, curing them is practically useless. Cured villagers will give you discounts on trades, and since nitwits can’t be traded with, you gain nothing from trying to cure them. You might want to cure them in front of other villagers, though, since curing them will spread minor positive gossip around the village, making the trades other villagers offer slightly cheaper.

On the other hand, in Bedrock Edition, curing a nitwit zombie villager or baby nitwit zombie villager will make it so that the nitwit is cured of its nitwitedness and is now unemployed and can acquire a profession. This is the only way, apart from killing nitwits, to get rid of them in your village. I don’t recommend killing them since gossip spreads quickly around a village and will cause other villagers to give you more expensive trades.

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