Why Fortune III Averages 2.2, Not 4

Verified: Java 26.3 · 2026-10-10 · Java model; Bedrock not covered

This guide reads Fortune straight out of the loot tables Java 26.3 ships with, works through the four rules they use, and names the four blocks on which its two sources disagree. The short version: Fortune III multiplies an ore's drop by 1 to 4, and it averages 2.2 because 1 comes up twice as often as anything else. The Fortune calculator applies all of it to any block and level.

Where the numbers come from

The Java server download from Mojang carries the game's own data pack, and in it a loot table for every block: what the block drops, how many, and what the enchantment on the tool does to the count. In 26.3, 51 block tables name Fortune. The arithmetic behind each Fortune rule sits in the game code in the same download, and this guide follows that code rather than a description of it.

Every block was then checked against a second source, the fortune calculator on crafty.gg, read the same day. For 17 blocks the two agree on the starting count, the rule and any cap, and those are the 17 the calculator offers. For four they disagree, and a section near the end says how. On Fortune itself they agree: it goes on a pickaxe, axe, shovel or hoe, it tops out at level III, and it cannot share a tool with Silk Touch, as the game's enchantment file and the Fortune entry on crafty.gg both say.

Rule one: the ore multiplier

Coal, iron, copper, gold, lapis lazuli, diamond, emerald and Nether quartz ore, and amethyst clusters, share the rule the files call ore_drops. At Fortune level L the game draws a whole number from 0 to L + 1, takes 1 off it, treats anything below zero as zero and adds the 1 back. So a draw of 0 or 1 multiplies the drop by 1, and a draw of 2, 3 or 4 multiplies it by that number. At Fortune III there are five equally likely draws and four results, and ×1 owns two of the draws.

The average multiplier works out to 1/(L + 2) + (L + 1)/2: 1.333 at Fortune I, 1.75 at II and 2.2 at III, a 120% gain where an even spread of 1 to 4 would have given 2.5. Because the whole roll is multiplied, ores that start with more gain more. Copper ore rolls 2 to 5 raw copper and averages 7.7 at Fortune III, with a best case of 20; lapis lazuli ore rolls 4 to 9 and averages 14.3, up to 36; an amethyst cluster's 4 shards average 8.8, up to 16. Where those ores sit in the world is the ore distribution calculator's job.

Rule two: the flat bonus

Redstone ore, glowstone, melons and fully grown Nether wart use the rule the files call uniform_bonus_count: Fortune adds a whole number from 0 to its level on top of the normal roll. That is worth half an item per level and no more. Redstone ore's 4 or 5 dust averages 4.5 without Fortune and 6 at Fortune III, a 33.3% gain where diamonds get 120%, and Nether wart goes from 3 to 4.5.

Two of the four have a cap. Glowstone rolls 2 to 4 dust and never drops more than 4, so Fortune mostly pushes rolls into the cap: at Fortune III, 75% of glowstone blocks give the full 4, yet the average rises only from 3 to 3.667. Melons roll 3 to 7 slices under a cap of 9, which only bites at Fortune III, where a 7 plus a bonus of 3 would be 10; the average is 6.45 instead of the 6.5 it would otherwise be.

Rule three: extra seeds

Fully grown wheat and beetroots drop the crop itself, always exactly one, and seeds from a second roll: one seed, plus one more for each of 3 + L tries that succeeds with chance 0.5714286, a hair above 4/7. That is a binomial count. It averages 2.714 seeds without Fortune and 4.429 at Fortune III, about 0.571 more per level, and the most a crop can give at Fortune III is 7 seeds.

Rule four: a better chance

Gravel and gilded blackstone do not drop more; they drop at all more often. Gravel gives flint with chance 10% without Fortune, 14.3% at Fortune I, 25% at II and 100% at III, and otherwise drops itself. Gilded blackstone uses the same four chances for 2 to 5 gold nuggets, so it averages 0.35 nuggets a block without Fortune and 3.5 at Fortune III, ten times as many.

A whole vein, exactly

Each block rolls on its own, so a vein's total is the sum of its blocks, and the calculator adds their odds exactly instead of simulating them. Eight diamond ore at Fortune III average 8 × 2.2 = 17.6 diamonds, anywhere from 8 to 32, with a standard deviation of 3.298. The chance of at least 16 is 73%; of at least 20, 28.1%; and of all eight rolling ×1, leaving the 8 diamonds you would have had without Fortune, 0.4 to the eighth power, about 1 in 1,526.

Where the two sources disagree

Nether gold ore. The 26.3 table rolls 2 to 6 gold nuggets and multiplies them with the ore rule; crafty.gg's calculator adds the flat bonus instead. At Fortune III the two readings average 8.8 and 5.5 nuggets a block.

Sea lantern. The reverse: the table adds the flat bonus to 2 or 3 prismarine crystals under a cap of 5, and crafty.gg multiplies them. The cap hides most of the gap, 3.875 crystals against 3.9 at Fortune III, but the rules are different.

Carrots and potatoes. Both sources say Fortune adds the seeds-style roll, 3 + L tries at 0.5714286, worth 0.571 a level. They differ on the base: the table also drops one carrot or potato from a pool of its own, every time, which crafty.gg's figures do not count, so the two totals differ by one.

All four stay out of the calculator until two sources agree on them.

What else Fortune touches

The 26.3 files also give Fortune a part in the drops of leaves (saplings, sticks and apples), short grass and ferns (wheat seeds), sweet berry bushes, twisting and weeping vines, and the creaking heart. crafty.gg's calculator does not cover them, and with one source they are left out too. At the other end, stone, sugar cane, cactus and ancient debris have no Fortune term at all, which both sources agree on.

Silk Touch, deepslate and Bedrock

On every ore here, Silk Touch is the first branch of the table: a Silk Touch tool gets the ore block itself and Fortune never runs. The files give every deepslate ore the same table as its stone twin; crafty.gg says so for diamond and coal, so those are the two this guide vouches for. Bedrock Edition is not covered. Mojang's Bedrock sample packs, checked the same day, hold 99 block loot tables and none of them is for an ore, a crop, gravel, glowstone or a melon, and crafty.gg's figures are for Java.

Sources, read 2026-10-10: the block loot tables (51 name Fortune), fortune.json, the mining exclusive set and the mining_loot item tag in the vanilla data pack of the Java 26.3 server download from Mojang, and the ApplyBonusCount, BonusLevelTableCondition and LimitCount code in the same download; the crafty.gg fortune calculator and its Fortune entry; Mojang's bedrock-samples repository on GitHub. The game version was checked the same day against Mojang's launcher manifest and its release changelogs: Java 26.3 is the current release.