Amethyst Tools

About

Its core purpose is to lessen the pressure to rush for diamond tools. Amethyst tools have enough durability to act as long-term tools, unlike iron. It also rewards exploration in the early game by giving a solid tool upgrade for finding a geode.

Its stats fit between iron and diamond, with some careful tuning to give it a unique identity as a material. To fit best with vanilla, it has a minimalist design using only vanilla materials. Less impactful additions, such as armor, are purposely left out to avoid unnecessary bloat to the game.

Mechanics

• Crafted using amethyst clusters
• Breaking a budding amethyst block with any pickaxe now drops 0-1 amethyst cluster (affected by fortune)
• Amethyst tools have the mining level of iron, so they can't mine obsidian
• Increased enchantability compared to most other tool materials

Recipes:

Stats

Q&A

• Why craft using Amethyst Clusters instead of Amethyst Shards?

At the time of creation, other amethyst mods used shards or their own custom amethyst material, but I felt shards were too cheap and plentiful to justify near-diamond performance. I also wanted to avoid adding new materials to the game unless it was absolutely necessary. Once I allowed Amethyst Clusters to also be dropped by destroying Budding Amethyst blocks, I found them to be well-balanced and accessible enough for the value of the tools.

A datapack to use shards instead is available separately with Better Amethyst Tool Crafting by Forest

• Why limit it to only tools?

I prefer clean, vanilla-like gameplay, so I only want to add things that have a clear positive impact on the vanilla game experience. Unnecessary additions add up - cluttering the game, introducing new imbalances, and putting more strain on Minecraft's already limited storage/inventory/UI. Imo, tools were all that were necessary to fill the progression gap in vanilla.

License