Enchanting Table

The Enchantment Table is a block. Enchanting works in three stages and the effects are based on the spell you choose, but a random loot element is included as well. Each spell costs the player experience levels but in return allows the player to enchant armor and tools so that they will be more powerful and/or last longer. Enchanted items have more of a glossy look.

The Table will enchant swords, bow, shovels, pickaxes, and axes made of wood, stone, iron, gold, and diamond, as well as all armor. The hoe, shears, fishing rod and flint and steel cannot be enchanted.

If the table is surrounded by Bookshelves, with one block of air in between, various particles shaped like the glyphs from the enchantment interface float from the bookshelves into the book part of the table only when the player is nearby. Having Bookshelves near an enchantment table will increase the potency of enchantments.



Crafting
Crafting an enchantment table requires 4 blocks of Obsidian, 2 Diamonds, and 1 Book arranged as shown above. This can mean that an Enchantment table is one of the more costly items to craft as the standard means of obtaining Obsidian involves using a diamond pickaxe which requires three pieces of diamond in and of itself. Though Obsidian can occasionally be found in Village chests, this is the standard method of obtaining it.

History
Notch first tweeted about the Enchantment Table on September 30th 2011.

In 1.9 Pre-Release 3 through 5 the Enchantment Table can be destroyed with a single punch, but only drops as a block if it is harvested with a Pickaxe, due to a bug. This is now fixed in Minecraft 1.0.0 (the full version).

In 1.0.0 the Enchantment Table drops the block only when mined by a pickaxe.

In 1.1.0, bows can also now be enchanted.

In 1.2.3 the enchantment glyphs show up.

Enchantments
Enchantment names are randomly constructed from a long list of words. Three to five words are chosen from the list and appended to each other, creating the enchantment name. Any name can be chosen for any item. Note that the names are not actually saved with the item, they are only displayed in the Enchantment Table interface, albeit with the Standard Galactic Alphabet. The words in the Standard Galactic Alphabet have nothing to do with the enchantment.



All enchantments have a level associated with them, from I to V. The code supports displaying levels up to X, and for some enchantments will continue to boost the power of the enchantment indefinitely if the level is increased with an external editor. This has been confirmed to work on both single player and multiplayer.

Enchantments as shown in the table have an associated level, but this is actually the cost, in terms of skill points or levels, to apply this enchantment. The actual enchantment given is randomly selected based on the cost, where a higher cost equates to more powerful enchantments.

A normal table can only enchant up to a cost of 5, but surrounding the table with bookshelves will increase the power up to a maximum of 50 (as of 1.9pre4).

Weapons with enchantments may have particle effects when they are used to attack, depending on the enchantment.

Trivia

 * You need 270 Sugar cane (about 4 stacks) and 180 Wooden planks (nearly 3 stacks) to build up a good amount bookshelves around the Enchantment Table.
 * According to the first image that Notch posted of the Enchantment Table, they were originally crafted with Cobblestone instead of Obsidian.
 * Notch commented on Reddit "Oh, it's more magical than that! It automatically opens up and turns towards players who get close to it. When nobody is around, the book is closed and spins slowly."
 * Notch comments on other book animations. "Yes, the pages flip randomly every now and then."
 * On October 1st 2011, Notch tweeted an image of the enchantment screen, with enchantments written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. The first enchantment translates onto "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". The Standard Galactic Alphabet or SGA was originally created by Tom Hall for use in the Commander Keen series of computer games.
 * Although the bottom texture would at first glance appear to be the obsidian texture, it is in fact slightly different.
 * Clicking on an item in the enchantment slot, with an identical item or any stack of two or more items allows you to quickly cycle through available spells without the item being removed from the enchantment slot. This keeps you from having to click twice.


 * A convenient way to block the effect of nearby bookshelves to obtain low-level enchantments is to place torches between the bookshelves and the enchantment table. Any other block will also work.
 * Enchantments were disabled in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 3's SMP. If a player attempted to enchant an item, it appeared enchanted for the client, but updated with the un-enchanted status once the player logged out and then back in again.
 * On a Beta 1.9 pre-release 3 server, if an enchantment table was broken and replaced with another Tile Entity block, the enchantment table's book would continue to be rendered on the client, and activating it would crash the client.
 * Breaking the Enchantment Table without using a pickaxe will not yield a block.
 * By replacing the alternate.png with a copy of the font.png renamed to match the original file, you can read the enchantments in English.
 * When crouching on the Enchantment Table, you can walk off its edge.
 * The Enchantment Table actually produces the particles emitted from the bookshelves. These particles originate inside the Enchantment table and are relocated to the bookshelf almost immediately, but travel slow enough to be briefly visible. The particle that enters and leaves the bookshelf is always the same "letter", but the ones traveling into the bookshelves are black.
 * Enchantment tables are mostly made of obsidian, and thus have a blast resistance of 6,000 and cannot be destroyed by TNT.
 * Strangely, even though it's made of Obsidian, it doesn't require a Diamond Pickaxe to mine. In fact, it can be mined with a simple wooden pickaxe.
 * Any enchantments before 1.9pre4 would show up as Feather Falling I.
 * If a redstone torch is placed next to the enchantment table, it goes to its off-state, looking burnt-out
 * Enchantment Tables cannot be moved by pistons.