ForgeTax draw tickets are the weighted roll units that determine what happens when you hammer a heated blade at the anvil. Every strike draws from an active outcome pool made up of Success, Great Success, Hold, Damage, and Break tickets, which players can skew, convert, or reset by feeding finished blades into the relic machine and purchasing shop items.
Official developer updates and game data from Steam build 25755699 detail how each ticket modifier functions, how outcomes shift across upgrades, and which relics permanently alter ticket counts across a run.
How Draw Tickets Function at the Anvil
In ForgeTax, hammering a blade does not rely on a static dice roll. Instead, each potential result—Success, Great Success, Hold, Damage, or Break—holds a designated quantity of tickets in a draw pool. Relics, merchant consumables, and sword break effects actively inject or subtract tickets from this pool.
According to developer balance notes, certain relics award permanent ticket increases that persist for the remainder of a contract run, even if the relic itself is later discarded. However, all accumulated run tickets reset upon starting a new run. Furthermore, the developer overhaul clearly separated draw tickets from percentage-based Break chance reductions (such as Black Knot's flat percentage drop or Dragonscale Tongs' 25% reduction at +6), ensuring that ticket pools and flat mitigation operate as independent layers of probability.
Relics That Add or Convert Success Tickets
Success tickets raise the likelihood of advancing a sword's enhancement level without triggering a critical surge or incurring penalties. Several relics either grant raw Success tickets or convert unfavorable tickets into Success:
| Relic | Ticket Effect | Condition / Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Bent Nail | +4 Success tickets | Passive (always active) |
| Royal Spike | +6 Success tickets | Passive (always active) |
| Worn Whetstone | Convert 2 Hold tickets into Success tickets | Passive (continuous conversion) |
| Blunt Mallet | Convert 1 Damage ticket into a Success ticket | Passive (continuous conversion) |
| Bronze Cog | +1 Success ticket added to current sword | Triggers on each Success strike |
| Closed Third Eye | +4 Success tickets on the next strike | Triggers immediately after a Hold |
| Hungry Molar | +4 Success tickets for the lifetime of the next sword | Triggers when a +4 or higher sword breaks |
Relics That Increase Great Success Tickets
Great Success outcomes multiply sword value by 2.5× (adjusted from 3× in the Relic & Balance Overhaul) and can yield multiple enhancement tiers when paired with specific relics. Building Great tickets shifts the pool toward rapid value spikes:
| Relic | Ticket Effect | Condition / Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Lucky Coal | +1 Great ticket | Passive (always active) |
| Golden Nail | +2 Great tickets | Passive (available from day 3) |
| Oracle Die | +4 Great tickets | Passive (always active) |
| Perfect Mana Core | +6 Great tickets | Active only during Frenzy windows |
| Butterfingers | +5 Great tickets, +3 Break tickets | Passive trade-off (increases risk and reward) |
| Obsidian Eye | Convert 2 Success tickets into Great tickets | Activates once a sword reaches +8 or higher |
| King's Empty Cup | +1 Great ticket added to current sword | Triggers on each Hold result |
| Blind Die | +3 Great tickets on the next strike | Triggers after any Damage or Hold |
| Mourning Knot | +1 Great ticket permanently for the run | Triggers on each failed dragon tribute |
| Grudge Nail | Bank one-use Great tickets equal to broken level | Triggers whenever a sword breaks |
Hold, Damage, and Break Ticket Modifiers
Manipulating non-advancing tickets allows smiths to absorb failures or deliberately trigger negative-outcome synergies, such as charging Frenzy through Damage or gaining bonus levels via consecutive Holds:
- Patient Weight: Grants +3 Hold tickets unconditionally.
- Sealing Stone: Adds +2 Hold tickets, granting +1 enhancement level for every 2 consecutive Holds rolled.
- Eternal Seed: Adds +6 Hold tickets, granting +40 G base value per Hold result.
- Thorn Weight: Increases sword value by 10% while converting 2 Hold tickets into Damage tickets.
- Abyssal Pearl: Adds +3 Damage tickets, while preventing the first 2 Damages per sword from dropping its enhancement level.
- Iron Hoop: Flatly removes 2 Break tickets from the outcome pool, reducing outright blade loss.
- Sickle and Hammer: Overrides standard ticket weight distribution by setting every single outcome's base ticket count to exactly 5.
- Ossuary King's Scabbard: When a sword at +7 or higher breaks, permanently grants 1 ticket of that sword's previous result for the remainder of the run.
Consumable Items That Modify Strike Tickets
Beyond passive relics, the ghost merchant supplies single-use items that adjust ticket calculations directly at the anvil:
- Red Chalk: Arranged on the anvil item row, this consumable doubles all Great tickets for the immediate next strike.
- Powder Pouch: Rewrites the pool for the next normal strike, converting all Success and Great results into Great, while converting every other ticket category into Break.
Ticket Mechanics and Run Rules
Official patch notes outline key functional rules governing ticket management:
- Inheritance and Stacking: Bonus tickets that apply per sword reset when moving to a new blade, whereas tickets marked "for this run" (such as those from Mourning Knot or Ossuary King's Scabbard) persist between days and survive relic swaps.
- Frenzy Interplay: While Frenzy prevents sword breakage entirely during its active duration, Great tickets remain active. Equipping items like Perfect Mana Core (+6 Great tickets during Frenzy) enables rapid level scaling without exposing the forge to Butterfingers' added Break tickets.
- Outcome Independence: Converting a ticket changes the drawn event before any secondary item triggers occur. For instance, converting Damage to Success via Blunt Mallet prevents damage-taken relics from registering that hit.
Sources
- GraveYardDev Official Steam Announcements: "Relic & Balance Overhaul", "Hotfix — Startup Fixes and Recovery Relic Improvements", and "New Relics and the Funerary Sword Update".
- ForgeTax Official Steam Store & Community Hub (App ID: 5245810).
- ForgeTax Fan Database and Code Extraction (forgetax.tools, Steam build 25755699).
