Enchanting



Enchanting is a mechanic that augments armor, tools, weapons and books with one or more of a variety of "enchantments" that improve an item's existing abilities or imbue them with additional abilities.

Enchanting methods
There are four methods of enchanting items:
 * Via an enchantment table in exchange for experience points.
 * Via an anvil: Combining duplicate items with different existing enchantments into a single item that has the enchantments of both. This also costs experience points.
 * Via an anvil: Combining an enchanted book with an item, which also costs experience points.
 * Via a Priest Villager in exchange for emeralds.

Items can also be enchanted using the  command for OPs on a multiplayer server, which allows enchantments unavailable via normal enchanting. In Creative Mode, items can be enchanted via an anvil and enchanted books, with no experience required. Enchanted books are available in the Creative Mode inventory, but only the highest level for each enchantment.

Enchantment table
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 equal or below the player's current level can be chosen. Each option will imbue the item with a randomized set of enchantments that are dependent on the number of experience levels spent.

The level cost influences the quantity, type, and level of enchantments instilled in the item, with a higher experience level generally resulting in more enchantments and more potent forms of those enchantments. Nevertheless, 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 Fortune II or Efficiency III alone, for example.

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

Strategy
Since the experience tables were changed in version 1.3, there are some subtleties to choosing the level for your enchantments, having to do with the experience costs for gaining levels:
 * The first 16 levels are the cheapest, and each level costs the same. In this range you can do low-level enchantments in between gaining experience from various activities, keeping your level below 17 for efficiency.
 * Above 16, levels get progressively more expensive: the experience points needed to take you from level 30 to 31 would take you from level 0 to level 5, or for that matter from 10 to 15. So if you're much above level 16, you generally want to make a big enchantment, gathering as much experience as you can without going above level 30, then using it all in a single shot.  (Even a level 27 or so enchantment is still pretty good.)
 * If you don't have anything in particular you want to enchant, try a book!
 * Note that in time the anvil will be competing for your levels. It has similar logic, but can use a maximum of 39 levels instead of 30.

Anvil Combinations
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 (for example, an iron pickaxe and a diamond pickaxe cannot be combined), 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 the player has enough experience levels, red if they 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&mdash;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&mdash;if a job would cost more, it will be refused (though it might be do-able in steps: rename, repair, then combine enchantments).

Enchanted books
Enchanted books can be made by using an enchanting table to enchant a book. (They can also be found in generated chests, or purchased with emeralds from a villager librarian.)  The book will only receive one enchantment which is random.

Enchanted books are used on an anvil to add enchantments to items. They can apply some enchantments to items which can't be enchanted on a table, or which could not normally get that enchantment, e.g., Unbreaking on a sword, Silk Touch on shears, Thorns on boots. (In creative mode, books can enchant any item with any enchantment, such as a Silk Touch Stick.)

The experience costs for using books are considerably less than for combining items with similar enchantments, since the books themselves cost levels to create. However, it's still an extra cost, and enchanting items directly has a chance to get multiple enchantments. The big advantage of books is that they can be stockpiled for use on an item of choice, and allow for controlled combinations. For example, a Silk Touch book could be used on shears, sword, axe, pickaxe, or shovel, and you can decide which at your leisure -- perhaps something that already has Unbreaking? An Unbreaking book might be used to preserve your Looting sword, Fortune pick, or Thorns armor.

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.

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.
 * Name:The enchantment's name will appear under the item's name when the player hovers the mouse over the item along with its level.
 * Max Level: The maximum level that can be received legitimately. Higher levels are possible with third-party software, like NBT structure editors.
 * Primary Items: The items that can receive the enchantment legitimately in Survival mode, by any of the four possible enchanting methods. Items of any material can be enchanted (some more easily than others).
 * Secondary Items: Items which cannot receive the enchantment from an enchanting table, but can from an Enchanted Book.
 * Effect:A description of the capability improved or added by the enchantment.

in  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.
 * Notes
 * On October 1, 2011, Notch tweeted an image of the enchantment screen, with enchantments written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. 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.
 * 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 on higher difficulties.
 * 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 up to 4 tears.