Does Fortune Affect Bookshelves in Minecraft?

No, the Fortune enchantment does absolutely nothing to bookshelves or the number of books dropped when broken in Minecraft. No matter what level of Fortune you have on your axe, pickaxe, or shovel, bookshelves will always only drop 3 books apiece when mined. Their book drop rate is completely fixed and unaffected by Fortune.

So What Does Fortune Do?

The Fortune enchantment is highly useful, but bookshelves simply aren‘t impacted by it. Instead, Fortune increases the item drop rates and quantities for certain natural blocks when they are mined or dug up in Minecraft.

Here‘s a quick overview of what types of blocks Fortune does boost:

• Ores like coal, diamonds, emeralds, and lapis lazuli
• Iron, gold, copper, nether gold, and ancient debris
• Nether quartz, glowstone, redstone, and amethyst

As you can see, Fortune makes mining significantly more lucrative for many materials, especially rarer drops like diamonds. However, other blocks like metal blocks, clay, dirt, and yes – bookshelves – are completely unaffected.

Here‘s a handy data table summarizing Fortune‘s effects on item drop rates, according to official Minecraft testing:

As you can see, high-tier Fortune can more than quadruple some drop rates! But sadly no such luck for our humbler bookshelf friends.

Why Books & Bookshelves Matter

Now just because Fortune doesn‘t impact bookshelves doesn‘t make them any less vital! Books and bookshelves play a major role in gameplay progression and base decoration:

• High-Tier Enchantments – Bookshelves dramatically increase your enchanting table‘s power, letting you imbue diamond gear with incredible abilities unlocked only through the magic of books!

• Trading – Librarian villagers will trade you Treasure enchantment books like Fortune, Silk Touch, and Mending in exchange for book and emerald payments.

• Looting Power – Pair a Looting III sword with bookshelves to get the most out of mob drops!

• Potions – Craft an alchemy station from books and obsidian to brew powerful potion effects and remedies.

• Decoration – Bookshelves make for awesome storage room and library wall decor. Flex those book-stacking skills!

So while Fortune doesn‘t make your shelves overflowing with books, they are still integral for enhancing gameplay through enchantments, trading, brewing, and aesthetically showing off your literary tastes!

Getting Fortune the Smart Way

Alright, so now that you know Fortune won‘t magically make your books reproduce like rabbits, how do you get this sweet, sweet enchantment at higher tiers? Here are my best tips:

• When using an Enchanting Table, wait until your experience level hits the 30s to start rolling for Fortune III. I‘ve had best results around Level 38.

• For Villager Trading, repeatedly break and replace the job site block for a Librarian until he offers up a perfect Fortune III trade! It might take a few tries.

• Alternately, combine multiple lower-tier Fortune books at an Anvil to get Fortune II or III.

My last tip? Make sure you have a steady supply of books by farming cows for leather and setting up an automatic sugar cane farm to keep crafting those book shelves! Having a Librarian with renewable Emerald trades helps too.

Now let‘s get to enchanting! Which brings me to my next set of tips…

Ideal Items for Fortune Enchanting

Alright, so Fortune doesn‘t work on books – but which items should you ideally enchant with it for maximum effectiveness?

• Pickaxes are the #1 tool to take Fortune. Bring one on all your mining trips to exponentially increase those shiny ore yields!

• A Shovel enchanted with Fortune III will get you tons of bonus flint and clay blocks.

• Some players even put Fortune on Hoes to juice up their farming yields. More seeds, potatoes, and crops means more trading power and food!

Weapons, on the other hand? Not so much. Fortune only works on tool-based blocks, so don‘t bother putting it on swords, bows, or the like!

For armor, the Thorns enchantment offers some reflection defense similar to weapon Looting capabilities. But overall, sticks to pads and picks for Fortune purposes.

Now let‘s talk more about why bookshelves are uniquely unaffected by Fortune…

Understanding Bookshelf + Item Drop Mechanics

When you really think about it, having an item as farmable and spammable as books being infinitely duplicated by Fortune mechanics would be pretty broken!

By having bookshelves always drop a fixed 3 books 100% of the time, it encourages a healthy gameplay balance:

• Players are incentivized to mine cows and sugar cane to mass produce books and shelves. This creates enjoyable farming gameplay loops.

• On the other hand, prices for buying enchanted books or trading for Emeralds provides built-in resource sinks.

• With book copying/stacking being manual, spamming huge libraries feels more rewarding. No cheap instant book machines here!

Of course, bookshelves aren‘t the only blocks with fixed yields immune to Fortune:

• Spawners always cough up 1 per break. Don‘t want players instantly jailing 50 creepers!

• Clay and Snow layers drop in preconfigured quantities (4 and 1-8 respectively).

So in summary, while Fortune can seem overpowered on some yields, certain blocks have intrinsic drops capped for gameplay balance. This thoughtful game design philosophy helps make building, trading, and progressing fun!

On the flip side, Looting enchantments give our sword-swinging combat some random pinata-style excitement…

Looting – Fortune‘s Deadly Counterpart

Alright, no Fortune weapon smashing for bookshelves here. But what about Looting?

In short, the Looting enchantment provides a chance at boosted mob drops when delivering killing blows with swords and other weapons. Somewhat similar to Fortune, but directly applicable for combat and looting creature drops.

I always enchant my trusty diamond sword with Looting III! Why?

• Increased chances for rare / uncommon materials like Ender Pearls and Witch‘s Brewing items

• Challenge mode mob slayer farms become much more profitable

• Boosted drop rates for mob offerings like bones, gunpowder, string, and more

Now, Looting unfortunately doesn‘t increase XP gains like the PC-only mod EnchantmentLootBonus. But paired with a full Enchanting Table boost, Smite V, and other nasty effects, your enemies will be felling like delicious pinatas before you know it!

Just remember bookshelves don‘t play a role here either. No extra flying books from cow massacres! But those sugary calves will feed our unquenchable thirst for leather-bound tomes…

So in summary when it comes to wooling books via Enchantments:

• Fortune = Block Harvesting/Mining Boost
• Looting = Mob Drop Rate Boosts

And neither seem to sway the trusty bookshelf!

Parting Wisdom

As we wrap up this deep dive analysis into the inner magical workings of Minecraft‘s Fortune and Looting systems, I leave you with this key takeaway…

Sadly, no amount of enchanting luck, pickaxe whacking, or wishful thinking will coerce bookshelves to cough up more than their signature 3 book drops. Their paper loot production remains stoically fixed.

But Fortune still empowers our pickaxes and shovel with wondrous mineral multiplying might – and Looting slices through hordes of foes with pinata-splitting sharpness!

So while bookshelves may not directly feed a Fortune or Looting bonus book-crafting loop, they do play a subtle role in empowering our enchanting potential at the arcane Enchanting Table.

And for that alone, I say the bookshelf rightly deserves a place of honor in our virtual libraries and Minecraft basements for ages to come!

Now get out there, sharpen those Fortune and Looting weapons, and may all your mines, mob hunts, and farming sprees reap profitable rewards! Just don‘t get too greedy trying to multiply those bookshelves! 🙂