NPC drops

Most enemies drop items as their loot when they are killed. The drops can include coins, equipments, materials, power-ups like Hearts, etc.

Chance of obtaining a drop

To determine the chance for at least one specific item to drop for a given number of enemies with the same chance of dropping said item, use the equation:

Drop chance from a given number of enemies
[math]\displaystyle{ 1-(1-\mathit{drop\ chance})^{\mathit{number\ of\ enemies}} }[/math]

• Example: What is the chance of obtaining a Rod of Discord after defeating 300 Chaos Elementals? Its drop chance is 0.002 (1/500 (0.2%)).

[math]\displaystyle{ 1-(1-0.002)^{300} = 0.45151799156631 \approx 0.452 }[/math], which means the chance is about 45.2%.

To find how many enemies are needed to obtain a certain "goal" chance it has dropped at least once, use:

The number of enemies to get a "goal" chance
[math]\displaystyle{ \left\lceil\log_{(1-\mathit{drop\ chance})}(1-\mathit{goal\ chance})\right\rceil }[/math]

• Example: How many Chaos Elementals have to be defeated to have a chance of 90% (0.9) of obtaining a Rod of Discord? Its drop chance is 0.002 (1/500 (0.2%)).

[math]\displaystyle{ \left\lceil\log_{(1-0.002)}(1-0.9)\right\rceil = \left\lceil\frac{\ln{(1-0.9)}}{\ln{(1-0.002)}}\right\rceil=\lceil1150.1408698021\rceil = 1151 }[/math], which means 1151 Chaos Elementals have to be defeated.

• Note that all chances are in decimal (e.g. 0.7 = 70%)
• [math]\displaystyle{ \lceil\ \rceil }[/math] means rounding up (e.g. [math]\displaystyle{ \lceil5.1\rceil=6 }[/math])

Item drops

For a list of all dropped items, see List of drops.

Some items are dropped by all enemies (except enemies spawned by statues, Old One's Army enemies, Lunar Events enemies, and Meteor Heads) under certain conditions. Those can be found below.

Item	Condition	Chance
Soul of Light	During Hardmode in the Underground Hallow.	1/5 (20%) / 9/25 (36%)
Soul of Night	During Hardmode in the Underground Corruption/Crimson.	1/5 (20%) / 9/25 (36%)
Jungle Key	(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) During Hardmode in the Jungle and Underground Jungle.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Corruption Key	(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) During Hardmode in the Corruption and Underground Corruption.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Crimson Key	(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) During Hardmode in the Crimson and Underground Crimson.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Hallowed Key	(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) During Hardmode in the Hallow and Underground Hallow.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Frozen Key	(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) During Hardmode in the Snow and Ice biomes.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Desert Key(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	During Hardmode in the Desert and Underground Desert.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Jungle Key Mold(Old-gen console and 3DS versions)	During Hardmode in the Jungle and Underground Jungle.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Corruption Key Mold(Old-gen console and 3DS versions)	During Hardmode in the Corruption and Underground Corruption.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Crimson Key Mold(Old-gen console and 3DS versions)	During Hardmode in the Crimson and Underground Crimson.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Hallowed Key Mold(Old-gen console and 3DS versions)	During Hardmode in the Hallow and Underground Hallow.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Frozen Key Mold(Old-gen console and 3DS versions)	During Hardmode in the Snow and Ice biomes.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Pirate Map	During Hardmode in an Ocean biome.	1/100 (1%)
Living Fire Block(Desktop, Console, Old-gen console and Mobile versions)(20–50)	During Hardmode in The Underworld.	1/50 (2%)
Mechanical Eye	During Hardmode, before defeating The Twins.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Mechanical Worm	During Hardmode, before defeating The Destroyer.	1/2500 (0.04%)
Mechanical Skull	During Hardmode, before defeating Skeletron Prime.	1/2500 (0.04%)
KO Cannon	(Old-gen console and 3DS versions) During a Blood Moon in Hardmode.	1/1000 (0.1%)
Present	During Christmas.	1/13 (7.69%)
Goodie Bag	During Halloween.	1/80 (1.25%)
Bloody Machete	During Halloween, from enemies with <20 defense, <40 damage and <5 SC loot.	1/2000 (0.05%)
Bladed Glove	During Halloween, from enemies with <20 defense, <40 damage and <5 SC loot.	1/2000 (0.05%)
Cascade(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	Before Hardmode, after defeating Skeletron, in the Underworld.	1/400 (0.25%)
Amarok(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	During Hardmode in the Snow biome.	1/300 (0.33%)
Yelets(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	After defeating any mechanical boss, in the Jungle.	1/200 (0.5%)
Kraken(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	From any enemy inside the Hardmode Dungeon.	1/400 (0.25%)
Hel-Fire(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)	During Hardmode in the bottom half of the Cavern layer or the Underworld.	1/400 (0.25%)
Star(1–2)	When player is below maximum mana.	13/24 (54.17%)
Heart	When player is below maximum health.	1/12 (8.33%)

Coin drops

Most enemies will typically drop a few stacks of coins after dying. Enemies that drop a large number of coins have a higher chance of dropping multiple stacks.

The total amount of money dropped is calculated using a "base value", which depends on the enemy, and in Expert Mode, the "base value" is multiplied by 2.5 and weak enemies receive an additional multiplier to it in Hardmode and after Plantera has been defeated depending on their Classic Mode stats. A Skeleton, for example, has a "base value" on Classic Mode of 1 SC, and on Expert Mode, 2 SC50 CC in pre-Hardmode, 2 SC in Hardmode, and 4 SC after Plantera has been defeated.

The exact amount of money dropped is this calculated as follows:

• Multiply the money dropped by 80–175%
• 1/2 (50%) chance of increasing by 5–10%
• 1/4 (25%) chance of increasing by 10–20%
• 1/8 (12.5%) chance of increasing by 15–30%
• 1/16 (6.25%) chance of increasing by 20–40%
• 1/32 (3.13%) chance of increasing by 25–50%
• 1/64 (1.56%) chance of increasing by 50–100%
• If the enemy has Midas debuff, increase the money dropped by 10–50%.
• During Blood Moon, increase the money dropped by 0–100%.

These increases are not mutually exclusive, are multiplicative, and an enemy may have its money increased several times. It is possible to get all increases at once, as each one is rolled individually. The average amount dropped, therefore, is 147% of the "base" value, or 287% if the enemy is afflicted with Midas and during Blood Moon. It is possible to get it increased even more by the Lucky Coin.

Double loot

Old-gen console versions of the game give players a chance to have double the loot drop from any enemy. The exact chance of this happening is 1/1000 (0.1%)^Verify. Players can easily see the effect when farming for more common loot such as souls or gel. It can be extremely useful if farming for rare items, like the Rod of Discord or Sniper Rifle, as two can be obtained from one kill. However, this obviously requires a lot of luck, for example, given that there is a 0.2% chance of dropping a Rod of Discord, then the chance of getting two at once is 0.0002%, or 1 in 500,000.

Notes

• Most item drops are thematically keyed to the enemy that drops them. Some enemies will drop (a version of) their own weapon or magical attack; some drop an accessory which protects against the same debuff(s) they inflict. This last case particularly includes the many components of the Ankh Charm. Bosses and mini-bosses (notably Biome Mimics) often have a guaranteed drop, or guarantee one item from a list.
• Note that if there are too many dropped items existing in the world, items that remain dropped for the longest amount of time will start despawning. See Items § Despawning for details.

History

 Desktop version

• Desktop 1.3.0.1: Biome Key Molds are no longer dropped, Biome Keys drop instead.

• Desktop 1.2.1: Halloween drops introduced & Biome Key drops replaced by Biome Key Molds.

• Desktop 1.2: KO Cannon, Summon & Biome Key drops introduced.

• Desktop 1.1.1: Christmas drops introduced.

• Desktop 1.0.5: Enemy coin drops have been adjusted.