Minecraft Strategy Guide (Xbox 360)

There seems a lot of confusion when it comes to constructing mob grinders. I am going to list a few of the ways you can build these handy devices and explain the mechanics behind them.

A mob grinder is basically a way of collecting the drops from monsters without actually engaging in combat with them. These ‘machines’ function constantly, so they continue to reap your rewards while you are out mining, or doing whatever.

The spawning of monsters works in two ways:

• With a monster spawner you will have to be within 16 blocks of it in order for monsters to spawn within a 7 block radius.
• Normally monsters only spawn further than 24 blocks away from any player and instantly despawn if it’s further than 128 blocks away.

A mob grinder is made up of two necessary parts (one optional). They are the spawning room and the killing mechanism, transportation being the optional. The spawning room is always the same, a dark room in which monsters can spawn inside, it’s always best to have some sort of transportation in the room in order to get the monsters to the killing mechanism faster. The killing mechanism can be a variety of things. Either: Drowning, lava trap, fall damage or cacti. I will explain drowning and the lava trap ones as they are the one’s I feel are the easiest to construct.