Enchantment Table Calculator

How the three offers are actually calculated

When you put an item on the table, the game draws one random number and derives all three offers from it. With b bookshelves in range (capped at 15), it rolls a base value of 1 + a random 0–7 + half your bookshelf count + another random 0–b. The top slot shows a third of that base, the middle shows two thirds plus one, and the bottom shows the base or double your bookshelf count, whichever is larger.

That last clause is why 15 bookshelves always shows exactly 30 in the bottom slot: double 15 is 30, and the base can never exceed 30, so the maximum always wins. It is the only slot in the game with a guaranteed value.

The number you see is a requirement, not a price. You must have at least that many levels to click the slot, but enchanting only ever costs you 1, 2 or 3 levels — one for the top slot, two for the middle, three for the bottom — plus the same number of lapis lazuli. Reaching level 30 is the expensive part; spending it is not.

The 15-bookshelf layout

Bookshelves count when they sit in the outer ring of a 5×5 area centred on the table, either at the same height as the table or one block above it. That is 32 valid positions, but the game stops counting at 15.

The block between a shelf and the table must be air. A torch, a slab, a carpet, a sign, even a single button in that gap switches the shelf off. This is the single most common reason a table that looks correct only offers level 24 or 27.

B B B B B
B . . . B
B . T . B     B  bookshelf
B . . . B     T  enchanting table
B B _ B B     .  must stay air
              _  your way in

Enchantability: why gold rolls better than diamond

Every material carries a hidden enchantability value that feeds into the power roll twice. Higher enchantability means a higher effective power for the same level cost, which means better enchantments and more of them per offer.

Golden gear is the outlier: golden armour has the highest enchantability in the game at 25, more than double diamond. The gap is not cosmetic. At 15 bookshelves and level 30, a golden pickaxe rolls Fortune III about 31% of the time against roughly 19% for diamond, and averages two enchantments per offer instead of 1.9. That is why people enchant golden pickaxes they will never mine with, then move the result onto diamond with an anvil. Stone is the opposite extreme at 5, and books, bows, crossbows, tridents and fishing rods all sit at 1.

What a table will never give you

Seven enchantments are flagged as treasure, which means the table cannot roll them at any bookshelf count: Mending, Frost Walker, Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, Wind Burst, Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing. No amount of rerolling will produce them. They come from villager trades, fishing, chest loot, piglin bartering or ominous vaults, and then go onto your gear through an anvil.

There is one more that no table can produce despite not being treasure: Quick Charge III. Its minimum power requirement is 52, but the enchantment is capped at 50, so the window is empty. A crossbow can only reach Quick Charge III through an anvil.

Rerolling, and why the offers never change

Each player has a hidden enchantment seed. It fixes all three offers, and it only changes when you actually spend an enchantment. Walking away, breaking the table, relogging or swapping the item does nothing — put the same item back and you will see the same three results.

So the way to reroll is to spend the top slot on something disposable. One level and one lapis on a stone shovel or a stack of books rerolls the seed, and your real item gets a fresh set of three offers. Repeat until the bottom slot shows what you want.

Because the offers are fixed per seed, the percentages this calculator shows are per-offer odds across many rerolls, not the odds of the specific three results sitting in front of you right now.

Books, and when they are worth it

A book can roll any non-treasure enchantment in the game, which makes it tempting for fishing after one specific result. But the table deliberately handicaps books: after rolling an offer, if it produced more than one enchantment, the game deletes one at random before showing it to you.

That plus a book with an enchantability of 1 means books give you fewer enchantments per offer than the item itself would. Enchant a book when you want a clean single enchantment to combine later, or when the item is too valuable to gamble on directly. Enchant the item when you just want the best result now.