Enchanting Table Calculator - Exact Odds

Enchanting table odds at level 30

At 15 bookshelves the bottom slot is always level 30, but what it gives you is random. A diamond pickaxe gets Efficiency IV 68.9% of the time and Fortune III 19.4%; a gold pickaxe gets Fortune III 30.5%. These tables are the top results for the most enchanted items, computed from the Java 26.3 game code.

Each figure is the chance that enchantment ends up on the item. They add up to more than 100% because one roll can give several enchantments.

Bookshelves and slot levels

The table counts bookshelves placed one block away with air (or grass, snow layers or water) in between, up to 15. It then rolls a base number, 1 to 8 plus half the shelves plus 0 to the shelf count, and sets the three slots from it: the top slot shows a third of it, the middle two thirds plus one, and the bottom the larger of the base and twice the shelves. A slot whose level comes out below its slot number is greyed out.

Making and maxing the table

The table takes 1 book, 2 diamonds and 4 obsidian: the book in the top middle, a diamond either side of an obsidian in the middle row, and obsidian along the bottom. Obsidian only drops for a diamond or netherite pickaxe, so you need one of those first.

Level 30 needs 15 bookshelves, each made from 3 books and 6 planks of any wood. A full setup is 45 books and 90 planks, and the books take 135 paper (135 sugar cane) and 45 leather. Once the shelves are up, the bottom slot shows 30 every time.

Which material enchants best

Every item has an enchantability value. The table adds 1 plus two random numbers from 0 to a quarter of it to the slot level, then shifts the result up or down by as much as 15%, and that is the level the enchantments are picked at. Higher enchantability means higher picks and more extra enchantments.

Bows, crossbows, tridents, fishing rods and books all have enchantability 1, and the mace and turtle shell have 15 and 9.

How the table picks enchantments

1. Every enchantment has a cost window for each of its levels. At the rolled level, each one the item can take is offered at the highest level whose window fits; Sharpness V, for example, needs a rolled level of 45 or more.

2. One is picked by weight. Common enchantments like Protection, Sharpness, Efficiency and Power weigh 10; rare ones like Silk Touch and Thorns weigh 1.

3. Another pick follows with a chance of (level + 1) in 50, skipping anything that conflicts with what is already on, then the level halves and it tries again. That is why high levels give more enchantments.

4. Treasure enchantments never come from the table: Curse of Binding, Frost Walker, Mending, Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, Curse of Vanishing, Wind Burst. A book that rolls more than one enchantment loses one at random.

Why a slot's level and its enchantments move together

The table rolls all three slot levels from one number, your enchantment seed. It then rolls the top slot's enchantments from that same seed, the middle slot's from seed + 1 and the bottom slot's from seed + 2. Java's random number generator turns neighbouring seeds into nearly the same opening numbers, so for every slot, two draws in its enchantment roll line up with the two draws that set its level.

On iron, wood and netherite tools it's easy to see: the top slot's enchantability bonus is read off the very same random number as part of its level, so a high top-slot level comes with a high bonus. Treat the two as separate rolls and some results come out several points wrong. With 15 shelves, an iron pickaxe's top slot gives Unbreaking I 32.9% of the time, not 39.4%, and a stone axe's gives Efficiency II 13.1% rather than 8.1%. Every figure on this page accounts for it. We checked the maths against the game's own routine, run on two million seeds for each of 240 item and shelf combinations.

Bedrock Edition rolls differently

Bedrock uses the same costs and bookshelf formula but its own selection code, read here from the 1.26.52 server. A book keeps every enchantment it rolls, so a level-30 Bedrock book ends up with a single enchantment 37.5% of the time against 79.1% on Java. Axes can roll Sharpness, Smite and Bane of Arthropods straight from the table (an iron axe gets Sharpness 40.2% of the time at level 30), a diamond helmet gets Thorns 9.7% of the time, and Loyalty is weighted twice as heavily, so a level-30 trident gets it 64.7% of the time instead of 51.9%.

The rest is in how the roll runs. One base number sets all three slot levels, so no slot is ever greyed out. The level spread uses one random number instead of two, and there is no upper cost limit, so an enchantment always comes at the highest level its minimum cost allows. Extra picks come out of the same pool without putting anything back, a pick that clashes with one already on the item is simply lost, and the level shrinks to four fifths each time instead of half. We checked the Bedrock numbers against 4.6 million rolls on a 1.26.52 server, covering every item.