Enchanting Table

An enchanting table is a block used to spend experience and lapis lazuli to enchant tools, weapons, armor and books. Enchanting tables draw power from bookshelves placed around them, improving applied enchantments at the expense of level requirement.

Breaking
In Java Edition, an enchanting table requires a pickaxe to be mined, in which case it drops itself. If mined without a pickaxe, then the mining is slower and it drops nothing. In Bedrock Edition, a pickaxe is not required.

Usage
An item can be enchanted by using an enchanting table and placing the item in the input slots and 1–3 Lapis Lazuli in its dedicated Slot. Upon placing the item, three (pseudo)randomized options appear on the right of the GUI. The glyphs here do not affect the enchantment, but hovering over a presented enchantment shows one enchantment to be applied (on mobile devices, the player can tap an enchantment before putting in the Lapis Lazuli or hold the enchantment before release). The only choices available have a level requirement equal to or below the player's current level and a Lapis Lazuli requirement equal to or below the number of lapis lazuli placed in the table. Each option imbues the item with a randomized set of enchantments that are dependent on the number of experience levels required (e.g. a level 10 enchantment can give a pickaxe the "Efficiency II" enchantment); the actual level cost and the number of Lapis Lazuli required have no effect.

Although the player must have at least the level requirement to get an enchantment, the number of levels that the player is charged is the same as the Lapis Lazuli requirement. For example, if the third enchantment listed is a level 30-50 enchantment, the player must have at least 30 levels, pays only 3 levels and 3 Lapis Lazuli.

The level requirement influences the quantity, type, and level of enchantments instilled in the item, with a higher experience level generally resulting in more and/or higher-level enchantments. Nevertheless, there is a significant random factor, and even a level 30 enchantment (the maximum) doesn't guarantee more than one enchantment, or even that enchantments are "maximum strength" — a level 30 enchantment can still yield Fortune II or Efficiency III alone, for example.

To increase the enchantment level, bookshelves should be placed next to the enchanting table while keeping one block of air between them. Placing any block between the enchantment table and the bookshelves - even a transparent one like a torch - prevents the table from connecting with the shelves. To gain access to the previously mentioned level 30 enchantments, a total of 15 bookshelves need to be placed around the enchanting table. See the enchantment mechanics page for more detailed information on this.

Enchanting a book produces an enchanted book, which does nothing on its own, but effectively "saves" the enchantment for later application to another item with an anvil.

The enchanting table is $$ blocks high.

If an enchanting table is placed on ice, the player slides on it as though it is an ice block, just like with slabs.

Despite comprising largely of obsidian, they are not immune to destruction by the ender dragon.

Enchanting


The enchanting table's main purpose is to enchant items. The table can enchant all tools, armor and gear except shears, flint and steel, carrot on a stick, warped fungus on a stick, shield, carved pumpkin, mob head, lead, compass, recovery compass, and horse armor; all of these (excluding leads and horse armor) can instead be enchanted using an anvil and an appropriate enchanted book.

When a bookshelf is placed next to an enchanting table (with one block of air in between) it increases the maximum enchantment level. There must be 15 bookshelves around the enchanting table in order to obtain the maximum enchantment level of 30. See enchantment mechanics for more specific details.

Light source
Enchanting tables emit a light level of 7.

Standard Galactic Alphabet
The arcane glyphs that float from bookshelves to the enchanting table and the cryptic runes in the enchanting table's interface are written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet, which is a simple alphabet substitution cipher used in the Commander Keen series of computer games.



The arcane glyphs cannot be seen if "particles" in the video settings is set to "minimal".

The cryptic runes seen in the interface are randomly constructed from the following list of words:


 * the
 * elder
 * scrolls
 * klaatu
 * berata
 * niktu
 * xyzzy
 * bless
 * curse
 * light
 * darkness
 * fire
 * air
 * earth
 * water
 * hot
 * dry
 * cold
 * wet
 * ignite
 * snuff
 * embiggen
 * twist
 * shorten
 * stretch
 * fiddle
 * destroy
 * imbue
 * galvanize
 * enchant
 * free
 * limited
 * range
 * of
 * towards
 * inside
 * sphere
 * cube
 * self
 * other
 * ball
 * mental
 * physical
 * grow
 * shrink
 * demon
 * elemental
 * spirit
 * animal
 * creature
 * beast
 * humanoid
 * undead
 * fresh
 * stale
 * phnglui
 * mglwnafh
 * cthulhu
 * rlyeh
 * wgahnagl
 * fhtagn
 * baguette

Three to five words are chosen from the list and appended to each other, then displayed in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. Although sometimes the words chosen accidentally refer to mobs like Blazes and Elder Guardians, the words chosen are random and purely cosmetic; they have no relation to the enchantments to be applied to the item and are not saved on the enchanted item (meaning they say nothing about the spell's identity), and they are displayed only in the enchanting table. Only the cost and one of the enchantments are known.

Custom name
By default, the GUI of an enchanting table is labeled "Enchant", but this name can be customized by naming the enchanting table in an anvil before placing it or by changing the  tag using the  command.

Note Blocks
Enchanting tables can be placed under note blocks to produce "bass drum" sounds.

Piston interactivity
Enchanting tables cannot be pushed by pistons. They also cannot be pushed nor pulled by sticky pistons.

Unique




ID




Block data
An enchanting table has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Block entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Block entity format.

Trivia



 * The enchanting table actually produces the particles emitted from the bookshelves. These particles originate inside the enchanting 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.
 * Enchanting tables are mostly made of obsidian, and thus have a blast resistance of 1,200 and cannot be destroyed by TNT, although they can still be mined by any pickaxes.
 * Enchanting tables are midway between slabs and full blocks height-wise, so they could be potentially used as a TNT cannon's range-amplifier instead of slabs or trapdoors.
 * The enchanting table always opens its book toward the player, even when the player is invisible.
 * On the enchantment screen, captions in the Standard Galactic Alphabet includes several in-jokes:
 * On October 1, 2011, Notch tweeted an image of the enchantment screen, with enchantments. 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".
 * 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 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.
 * 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.
 * The word "embiggen" is a fictional word coined by The Simpsons quote: "A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man".
 * The words "phnglui mglwnafh cthulhu rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn" are a quote from H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu." Said quote is a prayer in the Cthulhu mythos. The complete and correct quote is "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", which translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
 * Of the list of words that the enchanting table uses, none of the words contain the letters "J" or "Q". Although they are not used in the words, they do have a symbol attached to them, and can be seen moving from the bookshelf and the table.