Enchanting

Enchantment table interface. Top: Without item. Bottom: With item and possible enchantments. The last enchantment is unavailable due to the lack of XP, and the first enchantment is currently selected.

Enchanting is a mechanic which adds enchantments to armor, tools, and weapons, improving current capabilities or adding new ones.

[edit] Enchanting Methods

There are four methods of enchanting items: By placing the item into an enchantment table, by using an anvil to combine enchanted items with each other, using an anvil to combine any item with an enchanted book, and by paying emeralds to a villager priest to enchant them. Items can also be enchanted using the /enchant command for OPs on a multiplayer server, which allows enchantments unavailable in normal enchanting.

[edit] Enchantment table

See also: Enchantment Mechanics

An item can be enchanted by first right-clicking on an enchantment table, which will display a GUI with one item slot. Upon placing the item in the item slot, three randomized options will appear on the right of the GUI. The names here are meaningless, and the only real choice is how many experience levels to spend. Only choices with a cost below, or equal to, the player's current level can be taken. Each option will imbue the item with a randomized set of enchantments which are dependent on the number of experience levels spent.

The level cost influences the amount, type, and level of enchantments gained on the item, with a higher experience level generally^[1] resulting in more enchantments and more potent forms of said enchantments. However, there is a heavy random factor, and even a level 30 enchantment (the maximum) doesn't guarantee more than one enchantment, nor even that enchantments will be "maximum strength"—a level 30 enchantment can still yield things such as Fortune II or Efficiency III alone.

Enchanting a book will produce an enchanted book, which follows the same rules, except that it will never have more than one enchantment.

It's worth noting that the experience curve kicks in above level 16, and punishes making small enchantments (or anvil work) when your level is above 16 (you will be "wasting" your more expensive levels). In particular, getting to level 32 to do two level 16 enchants in a row, costs more than half again as many experience points as it would to do two separate enchants from level 16. This also means that higher enchantments are disproportionately expensive: Doing level 16 enchants every time you reach that level, will let you enchant three times as many items as waiting for level 30 enchants.

[edit] Anvil Combinations

Main article: Anvil mechanics

An anvil can be used to combine the enchantments of two items, sacrificing one of them and repairing the other. The items must be of the same type (e.g. Iron Pickaxe + Diamond Pickaxe will not work), and there are limits to what enchantments can be combined and how much work can be done in one operation.

To combine items, the player places the target item in the first slot of an anvil, and the sacrifice item in the second slot. If the combination is allowed, the resulting enchanted item will appear in the anvil's output slot and an experience level cost appears below (green if you have enough experience levels, red if you don't). To complete the enchanting, the player removes the enchanted item from the anvil's output slot, and their experience level is reduced accordingly.

The cost in levels depends on the enchantments, with highly enchanted items costing more. If the target item is also being repaired, that costs more—often much more for diamond items. The target item can also be renamed, at additional cost. There is also an accumulating surcharge for prior work done on the anvil, which is limited by renaming the item. In survival mode, there is a limit of 40 levels for any work performed on the anvil—if a job would cost more, it will be refused (though it might be do-able in steps: rename, repair, then combine enchantments).

[edit] Enchanted books

Enchanted books can be found in generated chests, can be purchased with emeralds from a villager librarian, or can be made by using an enchanting table. They are used to add enchantments to items, including some items which can't be enchanted on a table. This is done on an anvil similarly to combining items, but with the book in place of the sacrifice item.

The experience costs for using books are considerably less than for combining items with similar enchantments. This is appropriate, since the books themselves cost levels to create. However, enchanted items cost both levels and materials, and have a chance to get multiple enchantments. Therefore, creating an enchanted item by only using books is generally a large waste of experience. There will be no repair done on the target, though renaming is an option.

Some enchanted books can give enchantments to items that could not get them from an enchantment table (e.g., Unbreaking on a sword, Silk Touch on shears, Thorns on boots). In creative mode, books can be used to enchant any item.

[edit] Villager priest

A villager priest may offer to trade enchanting for emeralds. The offers will be very specific, a certain enchantment for a specific item (for example, Projectile Protection IV and Thorns I for an iron chestplate). To enchant an item, the player places it and the requested emeralds in the priest's trading slots and moves the resulting enchanted item to their inventory.

Unlike enchanting by enchantment table or enchanted book, enchanting by village priest has no experience level cost.

The priest does not technically enchant the item, but rather exchanges it for a new one with the enchantment (even if the old one is damaged). This means that priest-enchanted gear can be effectively "repaired" by buying the enchantment again on the same item, which is usually much cheaper than any other kind of repair. However, any other enchantments will be lost; a priest cannot augment an already-enchanted item.

Priests can enchant iron and diamond swords, pickaxes, axes and chestplates. There are several sets of enchantments for each of these, but a particular priest will only offer one option for each.

[edit] Enchantments

The table below describes the enchantments that are possible for the player to acquire legitimately in Survival mode. Other combinations are possible in Creative mode or with cheats, mods, or third-party software.

EID

Effect Identification Number, an internal code used in the software.

Items

The items that can receive the enchantment legitimately in Survival mode, by any of the three possible enchanting methods. Items of any material can be enchanted (some more easily than others).

Name

The enchantment's name will appear under the item's name when the player hovers the mouse over the item.

Effect

A general description of the capability improved or added by the enchantment.

Max

The maximum level that can be received legitimately. Higher levels are possible with third-party software.

Notes

Additional details about the enchantment.

EID	Items	Name	Effect	Max	Notes
[edit] Armor
Protection enchantments stack, up to an upper limit cap. See Armor for details.
0		Protection [note 1]	Reduces damage from all sources except The Void, Hunger and the /kill command	IV	See Armor.
1		Fire Protection [note 1]	Protection against fire damage; extinguishes fire faster	IV	See Armor.
2		Feather Falling	Protection against fall damage	IV	See Armor. Feather Falling also reduces the fall damage from Ender Pearl teleportations.
3		Blast Protection [note 1]	Protection against explosion damage; reduces explosion recoil	IV	See Armor.
4		Projectile Protection [note 1]	Protection against damage from projectile entities (i.e., arrows and ghast/blaze fireballs)	IV	See Armor.
5		Respiration	Decreases the rate of air loss underwater; increases time between damage while suffocating and drowning. (snapshot 13w16a+: increased visibility underwater)	III	Underwater breathing time +15 seconds per level; time between suffocation damage +1 second per level. (As of snapshot 13w16a (1.6), it also increases visibility underwater)
6		Aqua Affinity	Increases underwater mining rate	I	Breaking blocks underwater is allowed at regular speed, though the player can not be floating to achieve the full effect.
7	[note 2] [note 2] [note 2]	Thorns	Chance of dealing damage to mobs or players attacking the wearer: 1 ()-4 (); Extra wear on the armor	III	Chance of damage is 15% per level.
34	[note 2] [note 2] [note 2] [note 2]	Unbreaking	Increases durability	III	(60 + 40/(Level+1))% chance a use reduces durability. On average, armor lasts 25%/36%/43% longer.
[edit] Weapons
16	[note 2]	Sharpness [note 3]	Extra damage	V [note 4]	Adds 1 () to 2 () (0.5 to 1.25 hearts) per level, randomly to every hit, rounded down to half hearts damage. (as of version 1.5.1).
17	[note 2]	Smite [note 3]	Extra damage to zombies, zombie pigmen, withers, skeletons and Wither Skeletons	V	1 () to 4 () extra damage per level randomly for every hit. (Still available in 1.5.1 check for further patches)
18	[note 2]	Bane of Arthropods[note 3]	Extra damage to spiders, cave spiders and silverfish	V	1 () to 4 () extra damage per level randomly for every hit.
19		Knockback	Increases knockback	II	More knockback at level II. Does combine slightly with knockback caused by attacking while sprinting.
20		Fire Aspect [note 5]	Lights the target on fire	II	Each level adds four burn ticks, with level one doing 3. (4L-1 where L is the level) Dropped meat will be cooked.
21		Looting	Mobs have a chance to drop more loot	III	+1 to max loot drop per level. This also increases the chance of getting a rare drop.
34	[note 2]	Unbreaking	Increases durability	III	(100/(Level+1))% chance a use reduces durability. On average, lifetime is (Level+1) times as long.
[edit] Tools
32	[note 2]	Efficiency	Faster resource gathering while in use	V [note 4]	+30% mining speed over the previous level: I=130%, II=169%, III=220%, IV=286%, V=371%. The speed increase applies to all blocks that when mined, will drop an item. Using the wrong tool will not provide as much of a speed boostVerify.
33	[note 2]	Silk Touch [note 6]	Mined blocks will drop their block form instead of any other block or item as long as their mining requirements are met.	I	Allows collection of normally unobtainable blocks.[note 7]
34	[note 2] [note 2] [note 2] [note 2] [note 2]	Unbreaking	Increases durability	III	(100/(Level+1))% chance a use reduces durability. On average lifetime is (Level+1) times as long.
35		Fortune [note 6]	Increases the drop rate of items from blocks	III	For coal, diamond, emerald, quartz and lapis lazuli, level I gives a 33% chance to multiply drops by 2 (averaging 33% increase), level II gives a 25% chance each to multiply drops by 2 or 3 (averaging 75% increase), and level III gives a 20% chance each to multiply drops by 2, 3 or 4 (averaging 120% increase). For redstone, carrots, glowstone, melons, nether wart, tall grass, and wheat (seeds only), each level increases the drop maximum by +1 (+2 for tall grass, maximum 4 for glowstone and 9 for melons). For gravel, the drop rate of flint is increased to 14% at level I, 25% at level II, and 100% at level III.
[edit] Bows
34	[note 2]	Unbreaking	Increases durability	III	(100/(Level+1))% chance a use reduces durability. On average lifetime is (Level+1) times as long.
48		Power	Extra damage	V [note 4]	I=150%, II=175%, III=200%, IV=225%, V=250% damage. A fully drawn Power IV bow will kill most mobs with a single shot (10-11 hearts damage).
49		Punch	Increases knockback	II	Mobs and players are knocked back farther.
50		Flame [note 5]	Sets arrows, mobs, and players on fire	I	Sets arrows on fire when shot, and players and mobs when hit. Applies after initial damage like Fire Aspect. Applied fire also ignites TNT, making it useful if you want to blow something up from a distance. Animals that drop meat (excluding zombies) drop cooked instead of raw meat when killed this way. However, fire from arrows does not spread and does not produce light.
51		Infinity	Shooting consumes no arrows	I	Firing requires at least one arrow in inventory, but does not use it up. Fired arrows cannot be retrieved, except in creative mode.

[edit] Notes

1. ↑ ^{a b c d}
   Protection, Fire Protection, Blast Protection and Projectile Protection are mutually exclusive.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s}
   Anvil and appropriate enchanted book required.
3. ↑ ^{a b c}
   Sharpness, Smite and Bane of Arthropods excluding each other.
4. ↑ ^{a b c}
   Anvil required for level V on bow, diamond weapon or tool.
5. ↑ ^{a b}
   Fire Aspect and flame enchantments are virtually useless on all Nether mobs, apart from normal skeletons, because nether mobs are immune to fire and lava .
6. ↑ ^{a b}
   Silk Touch and Fortune excluding each other.
7. ↑
   Items which can be obtained legitimately only through use of Silk Touch: grass block, coal ore, lapis lazuli ore, cobweb, diamond ore, redstone ore, ice, mycelium, powered redstone lamps, emerald ore, huge mushroom blocks. Silk Touch does not work on: cake, carrots, cocoa pod, dead bush, fire, double slabs, farmland, melon and pumpkin stems, monster spawner, nether wart, potatoes, snow, tall grass, wheat, sugar cane.

[edit] History

[edit] Bugs

• If you quit after enchanting an item, but before taking it off the enchantment table, you may lose the item.
• When mining a block such as stone with a silk touch tool, the very last use that will break the tool will drop cobblestone instead of stone.
• Sometimes, a tool with Unbreaking can be "re-used," and can repair itself by tossing the tool out after breaking. This has been observed to happen up to 4 times with an Iron Pickaxe with Unbreaking I.

[edit] Trivia

• Repairing an enchanted weapon/tool by crafting will remove the enchantment on it. This happens with any enchantment on any tool.^[2] If you wish to keep the enchantment on an item, repair it with an Anvil.

Enchantments shown enchantment.level.127 are unchanged in the language pack of Minecraft

• When an enchanted weapon deals bonus damage to a mob, blue particles fly off of that mob, similar to getting a critical hit.
• There are NBT tags for the level/player.dat file. This means that with an external program you can enchant unenchantable items and enchant items beyond their maximum level. For example, you could enchant a Cookie with a Looting X and Sharpness VII.
  • It is possible to enchant non tools in creative mode using an anvil and enchanting books.
• The Looting enchantment does not process on Wool, Spider Eye, Raw Chicken, and Cooked Chicken.
• Similarly, using console commands to place the Fortune enchantment on Shears will not cause more wool to drop from Sheep when used.
• Items that are enchanted will receive a glowing aura around them. Editing glint.png in .minecraft\bin\minecraft.jar\misc can change the glow accordingly. On past versions of Minecraft and only on certain graphics cards, enchanted items would cause the hotbar to become semi-transparent whilst they were the selected item.
• On October 1, 2011, Notch tweeted an image of the enchantment screen, with enchantments written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet.^[3] The first enchantment translates into "Well Played Internets You Are Good", the second translated into "These Names Will Be Random And Confusing", and the third translates to "Each Spell Costs Experience Levels". For more information on the Standard Galactic Alphabet see the Commander Keen Wikipedia page.^[4]
• Three of the possible words for enchantments are "the elder scrolls," likely a joke at Bethesda, creator of "The Elder Scrolls" series and whose parent company, Zenimax, attempted to sue Mojang for the name of their upcoming game Scrolls.
• The words "klaatu berata niktu" are a (misspelled) reference to "Klaatu barada nikto", a phrase that originates from the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still and has been since used as a reference in many other movies, cartoons and games, more popularly in Army of Darkness, Star Wars Episode VI, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(1987) and Duck Tales. Similarly, "Xyzzy" is a magic spell in the game "Colossal Cave Adventure" and has been used in several other games as an Easter Egg or cheat code.
• "Embiggen" is a fictitious word from The Simpsons, from a quote attributed to Springfield's founder, Jebidiah Springfield: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man".
• All tools, swords and armor enchanted before 1.9 Prerelease 4 will only have Feather Falling I as their enchantment.
• The Silk Touch enchantment is possible on all levels of enchantment when enchanting a golden pickaxe, although extremely rare on enchantments below level 20.
• Shears with the Silk Touch enchantment can harvest cobwebs.
• Enchanted items still pulsate while you pause the game.
• Along with torches, any snow on top of a block next to the enchantment table will decrease the enchantment levels.
• In 1.2 and later Zombies, Zombie Pigmen and Skeletons are able to drop rare items, this includes enchanted weaponry.
• It's not possible to get more than 4 glowstone dust from a glowstone block using the fortune enchantment.
• Before 1.4.4, if a pig, chicken, or cow was killed instantly using a bow with the Flame enchantment, it would drop cooked food. However, if one was killed instantly using a sword with the Fire Aspect enchantment, it would not drop cooked food. This is because the sword applied the damage first, and then the enchantment, but the arrows apply the enchantment first.
• You can only enchant an item one time, but it is possible to get 2 or more enchantments on an item when first enchanting it.
• It is not possible to get a Feather Falling IV and a Protection IV enchantment on any kind of boots without the use of an anvil, but it is possible to get a Fire/ Blast/ Projectile Protection IV and Feather Falling IV enchantment
• The Enderdragon does not take extra damage from the Sharpness, Smite, or Bane of Arthropods sword enchantments, but does take extra damage from the Power bow enchantment.
• It seems the Xbox version of Minecraft has a different looking enchantment effect. It is more pixelated, and is white instead of purple.
• If you kill a Ghast by reflecting its fireball with a Looting III sword, the Looting effect does make the Ghast able to drop 3 tears.

[edit] Gallery

• 

  A sword with 4 enchantments on it.

• 

  A diamond pickaxe with multiple high level enchantments, right after enchantment.

• 

  Enchantment Table enchanting window.

• 

  Enchanting window without (top) and with (bottom) an item to enchant placed in it.

• 

  Place bookshelves in this shape around an enchantment table to get the highest level enchantments.

• 

  A golden pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment from level 20.

• 

  A very powerful enchanted bow. Max powered enchantments. Only through an Anvil, a dungeon chest or a rare drop, is it possible to receive Power V.

[edit] See also

• Enchantment Mechanics
• Brewing
• Crafting
• Smelting

[edit] References

1. ↑
   http://github.com/Zazcallabah/mce/downloads Exception: At high levels --above 12 for gold, above 22-23 for iron and diamond -- boots have a reduced chance of receiving multiple enchantments.
2. ↑
   https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/123733323817295872
3. ↑
   https://twitter.com/notch/status/120207632228298753
4. ↑
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen#Standard_Galactic_Alphabet

[edit] External links

• Minecraft Enchantment Guide - Various enchantment calculation tools
• Minecraft Enchantments Stats - Statistics about Minecraft Enchantments
• Minecraft Enchantment Calculator